Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

COREY

" I know this might be hard for you to understand, but I want this to be easy for you, Cor."

The familiar pang of anxiety and the panic accompanied the worry. I somehow needed to figure out what I had done wrong ramped up at my now ex-husband's words.

That was the problem, wasn't it? Easy. It had seemed so easy to be in love, then get married. The hockey player and her coach. The dream team. Until the dream fell apart. A mirage neither of us acknowledged existed until, one day, I woke up, unable to breathe. Stifled. Trapped.

With a man who unwittingly fed into every insecurity I had. From the first time I stepped onto the ice because my father, Gerry Alexander, had been one of the all-time legends of the game and I desperately wanted him to notice me. Two brothers who followed in his footsteps from the moment they could hold a plastic hockey stick, but I was the girl. And while he gave me attention when he could, the first time I watched as he took Ethan out onto the ice…the way his eyes lit up.

I wanted him to look at me that way. Like I was his entire world.

So I worked every day. Before school. After school. Weekends. While my friends were having playdates or when I got older, going to the movies and hanging out, I was on the ice, training. Endless drills with Ethan and when he got older, my baby brother, Theo, just hoped Dad would see how much I loved the game. He'd come home from a road trip and somehow found the energy to still slap the puck around with us before the sun set.

But when I started playing, the standards and pressure amped up. Not only was I a girl, sometimes playing on an all-boys team, but I was Gerry Alexander's daughter. Ethan loved the game, but Theo had all the talent.

Me? I had to work harder and be smarter. When I watched tape with Dad, he'd let me sit on the couch next to him, sneaking gummy worms, and tell me all about how to find another player's weakness and use your strengths against them.

And so I did. He never pressured me, at least not directly. But it was there. A self-fulfilling prophecy that somehow I'd let him down.

Let someone down.

If not my dad, then my team, or my school, or coaches.

My husband.

The disappointment after we took Worlds, but then, in the first period of the Gold Medal Game at the Olympics, it happened.

I didn't see the other player coming, and all I heard was the sound of muscle and ligaments tearing as my knee gave out. The pain was so intense, I nearly blacked out. Yet another disappointment.

Did I still get my medal? Yep. But did I contribute to the game? Not at all. I spent the rest of the game and the next day in the hospital.

And when he told me I'd never play again, a piece of me broke. And that piece was also the part of me he loved. Maybe the only part.

I knew I wasn't the best player on the ice. Everyone thought I was, but in reality, I saw things differently than anyone else because of those years spent watching tape and hearing my dad analyze every slap shot, hip-check, and defensive line.

But none of it mattered once I couldn't play anymore.

Jackson got offered the head coach position for the Thunder while I was still in the hospital. Knee still healing, we moved to St. Louis. Suddenly, the days of being together on the ice and endless hours of practice were gone. He spent hours at the rink, and I worked my ass off at therapy.

The silence grew. I pretended to be the coach's happy little wife, attending all the events and games. Supportive and smiling while I screamed inside. Grieved for the life I thought I had. But it was all lies. A perfectly constructed facade meant to fool the public, and, though I hated to admit it, fool myself more.

The smile became harder and harder to fake. Conversations died. Before the Games, our sex life had been mediocre at best because that was all I knew. After?

Graveyard.

Our marriage. My career. Along with any feelings I thought existed.

The stress of coaching in the NHL after success at the Olympics became a palpable thing everywhere we went.

We had nothing to talk about, and the distance between us became a tangible thing that had somehow always been there. A living, breathing part of our marriage. Too big to ignore.

At least we both agreed on that. God knows he hadn't touched me in over a year. The injury healed, but I couldn't play at a competitive level anymore. The bright side? I found out how much I loved the sport, not just because I played, but because of all those memories of being with my dad.

He might be Gerry Alexander, legendary hockey player, to the rest of the world. But when he dropped everything and flew to St. Louis when I told him about the divorce, he was just my dad. The guy who let me sit on his lap when I was little and taught me all about hockey, and why he loved it. The person who stayed outside and laughed with me when I whiffed and missed the puck in the waning light of day.

And took me on a weekend trip to Chicago the next day. Because when I was little, it had been my favorite place to go with him during an off-weekend.

Who took me to Giordano's and told me about the Seattle Revenge expansion team being approved, took me to Shedd Aquarium, then offered me a job with the organization.

Which I refused at first, until he said I'd have to interview, but not with him. And by interview, he meant going scouting with the team's new GM.

Both men knew me as Corey Alexander, former USA Hockey player, daughter of Gerry Alexander, and the wife of the coach of the St. Louis Thunder. When I met them at the first college skate, they glanced at each other, skeptical until I shared my thoughts on each prospective player.

And now?

Dream job activated. It wasn't smooth sailing by any means, but I snorted, returning to the present. "It's never easy, Jackson. We both know that. I'm fine with the situation..."

My people-pleasing ways fell to the wayside the second I signed the divorce papers. As if the load I hadn't known I'd been carrying was gone. The air lighter and my heart no longer burdened with the idea I'd disappointed him. Because I couldn't see myself having a family with Jackson. The thought crippled me so much that I avoided being alone with him for the last two months of our marriage.

Thanks to Emmaline Rossetti. The sports psychologist dad insisted I visit regularly.

The things I now realized were coping mechanisms slowly slid to the wayside.

As did my dry spell. Well, at least the orgasm dry spell. Toys were much better than a man any day. Especially if they cared more about getting off than getting me off.

And Emmie? We still talked every week. At this point, she was more friend than therapist. She knew more about me from therapy and those phone calls than Jackson ever had. And I'd known him since I was eighteen.

In the end, we broke. Not evenly, or even close. He wanted to go to couple's therapy and hadn't seen any of the signs I was dying inside. Fake smiles, demure kisses. Pretending. Until I couldn't anymore.

Jackson sighed. "You were always stubborn, Cor."

I snorted. "Stubborn, or right?"

See, I teased just as much as the next person. Until he said, "Corey, is this what's best? For you? The team?"

And there it was. The ‘handle Corey' tone I had obeyed until my dreams were stifled, and his words drowned me in a pit of never being good enough.

"It was so nice talking to you, Jackson. Please inform the head office of the Thunder that despite your best efforts, we will not be trading any of our prospects from our AHL team, especially Oliver Sutton."

"Cor-"

"Goodbye, Jackson."

Click.

Anger well up, threatening to bring the tears I always hid so well. The ones I always pretended didn't exist. When my teammates thought I only made my junior league team because of my name. When my best friend turned out to be a mean girl who only wanted to take me down in high school. When my parents divorced because my mom was tired of raising her kids alone while my dad followed his dream. Or when Jackson rode me harder than anyone at practice when I made the Olympic team, so no one would think he was favoring his new wife.

When the medical team took me off the ice on a stretcher on the day, that changed my life forever. When we moved to St. Louis.

And so many more.

All the tears I held in, and only let out when I couldn't take it anymore. Showers and tears. The hot water hid the puffy cheeks and red eyes.

"Asshole," I muttered. Even now, he thought he could steer my life in the direction he thought appropriate.

It was my fault, because I let him. Yet another person I didn't want to disappoint, so I made myself smaller.

But no longer.

I sighed and shoved my chair back. Time to watch the puck drop.