Skating on Thin Ice: Seattle Sockeyes (Game On in Seattle Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

now?”
    Ethan sighed and stood. He held the door open for her and she gladly exited from the locker room. As soon as they were in the hallway, she turned on him. “What the fuck did you think you were doing?”
    “I told you. I’m evaluating the team and its operations.” His calm voice infuriated her even more, and she did have a bit of her father’s temper.
    “And that includes invading the sacred sanctuary of the coach’s post-game speech?”
    “It especially means that. I wanted to see how coaches and players handled the loss. How a team handles losing is more important than how they handle winning. Do they mope, do they get fired up, do they hang their heads in defeat, or do they immediately look to the next game and what they can do better?”
    “They handled the loss fine, but they didn’t handle you fine.”
    “They’ll get used to me.” Ethan stared over her head, focusing on the GM and other staff members standing in the hallway with a few sports reporters.
    “They don’t need to. You’re a temporary fixture around here.”
    His head snapped back around to her. Something flashed briefly across his face. Had it been guilt? Had she read too much into it? Could someone as bold and self-centered as Ethan even feel guilt? And if he did, what did he have to feel guilty about? Lauren’s stomach tightened with dread, dread of the unknown.
    The man had secrets, and she didn’t know if he was the team’s savior or the team’s destroyer. “Look, I know you’re not a hockey guy—”
    “Which you remind me of every chance you get.”
    “Because you’re an arrogant, stubborn—“ Lauren stopped and shoved her knuckles in her mouth. She wanted—needed—to keep this job. A job this high up in a pro organization was damn near impossible for a man to get, let alone a woman, and she was sure as hell doing a bang-up job of fucking it up.
    “Go on, I’m a big boy. I can take it.” Ethan leaned back against the concrete block wall of the hallway. He crossed his arms over his chest.
    Lauren stared at her feet, closed her eyes for a moment, then raised her head. “That was out of line. I shouldn’t have said that.”
    He shrugged one shoulder, regarding her with half-lidded eyes. “Sure you should of. Are you afraid you’ll be fired for voicing your opinion and sticking up for your team?” He straightened and leaned in close to her, his face near hers, his pure male scent invading her senses and destroying her ability to think clearly.
    “Something like that.” Lauren nodded, backing a few feet away from him because his male presence was every bit as powerful as that of any of the professional athletes she worked with on a daily basis. Actually, it was more dangerous because she wasn’t attracted to any of them. Not like this. She hadn’t felt this magnetic pull since Max.
    Instead of following her, he adopted a casual pose, crossing one ankle over the other and leaning an elbow on a nearby cabinet. “Lauren, I’ll never hold honesty against you. I value that above all else and so do the people in the ownership group.”
    Lauren studied him, unable to assess the level of bullshit he might be feeding her, if it was bullshit at all. “I don’t know you.”
    “You will. We’ll be spending every waking hour together. You’ll learn to trust me. I only want what’s best for this team and the ownership group.”
    Lauren didn’t completely buy what he was selling. He hadn’t earned her trust or her allegiance. He wasn’t being totally straight with her, and she knew it. Only fools put their trust in a man who didn’t speak the truth, but only a portion of it. “Fine, if you mean what you say, you’ll listen to me next time and stay out of the locker room.”
    Ethan opened his mouth to argue then snapped it shut, as if he’d decided to concede that point to her. He chuckled and grinned, a completely disarming grin which left her wondering who was the real Ethan, the hard-nosed, hard-charging