Free Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) by Jennifer Loring

me to save a team that shouldn’t exist. Whose fault is that?”
    “A lot of journalists would take this and run with it, but I won’t. Everyone will turn against you. As much as you probably deserve it.”
    “I appreciate your concern.” He offered a tiny, contemptuous smile.
    “God, you just keep doing this.” Stephanie left the couch and stood before one of the massive windows.
    “Doing what?”
    “Fucking with me.”
    He was behind her, a winger in a goalie’s body, towering over her. Cornering her. She tensed and, as he trailed his fingertips down her arm, hoped he didn’t notice the tremor shivering through her. “Oh Stefania, we’ve barely scratched the surface of how I can—” his breath on the back of her neck, tickling the hairs there, “—fuck with you.”
    Her cheeks were burning. “Joe is willing to look past what happened.”
    “Joe. So that’s his name.”
    His flat tone indicated he was not impressed. Stephanie faced him, though his melancholy made it difficult to hold his gaze. He let her slip out from between him and the window.
    “Are you staying with him because he’s safe? Was I right?”
    She gripped the edge of the breakfast bar. She couldn’t live with herself if she conceded she’d settled. “Alex, please. I…” She loved Joe. She must, or she had been lying to both of them the past five years.
    His hands on her waist; her pulse beat in her throat like a trapped hummingbird. “What are you afraid of?” he whispered.
    The words refused to come out, though she worked her mouth to form them. She needed to get Alex out of her system once and for all. Lay to rest whatever she had inflicted on him and he on her. But fear—of the bright and fiery pain of loving him, of the admission she had all along—reined her in before he carried her away. He was right. She craved safety, even if she did not love it. “I won’t have a job when you leave for your road trip. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be here after that.”
    “You’re selling yourself short with them. Being fired could be your opportunity for bigger things. I’m too easy a subject.” Alex kissed her forehead, and her lips quivered. “Either way, you’re going to be fine.”
    A knot of emotions tumbled around in her brain. Her unjustifiable anger at Joe for being average, living up to his name. Her fury at Alex for causing this chaos in the first place. Most of all, hatred for denying herself, for fearing uncertainty so much she would let herself walk away again. Unable to speak, she snatched her phone and marched to the door.
    “Stay for a drink. Please.”
    “Why? You said I break your heart every time you see me. And after what happened in the park—”
    “I can live with a broken heart. I can’t live with not seeing you. I did for too long.”
    Her knees trembled. She gnawed on a fingernail.
    “Sit.” A calculating smile spanned his lips. “What would you like to drink?”
    “Whatever you’re having is fine.”
    “Brave woman.”
    Stephanie claimed the armchair he had previously occupied. He placed a Long Island Iced Tea before her on the coffee table and sat on the couch. “You can sit over here, you know. I only bite if you ask.”
    With a tense laugh, she shifted to the couch, leaving a full cushion between them. She smoothed her black, cotton trousers. Her dried-out tongue appreciated the drink.
    “So what happens after you get married? Will I ever see you again?”
    “Of course you will. Hopefully—if you give me this interview—I’ll be covering the Earthquakes more often—ˮ
    “I mean like this. Alone.”
    “I shouldn’t even be here. Things tend to happen when we’re alone.” Stephanie fiddled with the engagement ring. “You’re not the boy I knew, Alex.”
    He clasped the glass between his palms and rotated it back and forth. “And I’m not what they think I am.”
    She took a deep gulp of the cocktail. Alex slid across the cushion, his large and powerful body breaching