Chapter Twenty-Five
What a terrible day, which was a total lie because she had the TIME OF HER FRICKEN' LIFE!
Okay, she needed to calm down. Isla had to shake her head a little, as though banishing whatever it was that was making her so happy and jittery, and then retype her text to Jane. She had to let her know all the details, even though Jane had probably watched the game on TV, and had also seen Isla and Arturo's steamy kiss.
Didn't matter. She needed to give her friend the play by play because she was too damned excited and there was no way she was going to calm down. At least not until her fingers texted all the excitement out of her. Jane had to know every last bit of information, what had happened during the game, and after.
Her team won. The first period, The Rogues scored two goals, but then The Capitals got one in, and the next period, they got in another. Third period ended and it went to overtime. They skated around the ice for a bit while Isla bit her nails and clenched her neck and butt, watching as the puck was taken right out of the stick from the captain of The Capitals. The stars had aligned. The Rogue's capital had a clear path, no one in his way, and the Capitals struggled to catch up, to stop him, but he took his shot, and the goalie couldn't stop him.
The entire stadium erupted in cheers.
Some people got to their feet to leave immediately after, hardly bothering to stay and watch the team embrace. Yeah, Isla knew that feeling of wanting to get out before the parking lot got bottle necked with traffic, but she was staying. She cheered and threw her arms around Arturo's neck and even kissed him.
His body tensed, as though her actions had shocked him, but that didn't throw off Isla. She was too excited and she was going to hug and kiss someone, and he was the closest one to her since he'd paid for the other seats to be empty.
Then she was back to cheering, yelling with the rest of the stadium and riding her high of excitement.
Isla was actually panting for breath when she stopped. The horns were still blaring and the lights still flashed as the teams shook hands and prepared to leave the ice.
Isla felt like a kid as she watched them. She almost didn't realize she was standing up with her hands on the glass, watching them get off the ice when she turned to look down at Arturo, who was still sitting in his seat, watching her.
He had an expression on his face that she'd never seen before, and definitely couldn't name.
She was a jewellery designer, not a writer or a face expression...person...whatever! Writer. She'd call it that. She didn't have the vocab to describe that thoughtful expression because she was too excited on the winning goal, and she hadn't made it her living to think about the way people looked.
"What's wrong?" she asked, looking down at herself. With her luck, one of her breasts might've popped out of her dress, nipple exposed as she leapt up from her seat.
No. Everything looked to be in working order.
Arturo just smiled at her. He smiled and shook his head before getting to his feet. "Nothing. Come on. I promised you would meet the team."
The reminder of his promise made her forget about that look he'd been giving her. She looped her arm through his and let him lead her to the door.
"Wasn't about to let you take me away after you promised me something as amazing as meeting the team."
It was insanely crowded when she and Arturo made it to the door. There were a lot of people trying to get to their cars, but for the first time ever, Isla didn't have to worry about that, because by the time she finished with the team, a lot of the crowd would be gone.
And the team was great. Isla met the other owner, and watched as he and Arturo shook hands like old friends. Well, the guy who owned the other half of the team shook Arturo's hand like a friend, but Arturo looked more like a polite business man. Or maybe she was just reading a little too much into that. He was smiling, and she had to remind herself that Arturo wasn't a normal guy. He was a billionaire businessman. That meant he had to stay pretty guarded around everyone. That soft smile on his face might be genuine happiness, hidden behind a mask of quasi indifference. She'd probably never know.
But then Isla proved herself to be a terrible date when she completely forgot about what Arturo might be hiding or protecting even here in a professional NHL locker room, because that was when Isla got to shake hands with members of the team, hug her favorites, which was most of them, and they even gave her a signed jersey.
She didn't care if the guys were all sweaty and tired, or if the room smelled like, well, a locker room, this was like all her dreams and every Christmas and Birthday she would ever have rolled into one. Isla was losing her damned mind.
She got to stay with them for nearly twenty minutes, asking questions and just being a fangirl. Considering how hard they'd worked, and how much they probably wanted to get out of their gear, that was a lot of time.
Arturo still practically had to drag her out of there, but Isla was clutching her new most favorite possession in the entire world to her chest with stars in her eyes.
"That was amazing! They were so great! Did you see that? Do you see this?" she held the jersey out to him as though he hadn't had something to do with giving it to her.
He pushed it away gently, though he was still looking at her like she was a slight lunatic. "I see it. Did your parents never take you to a game?"
"Not with seats like that," Isla said. "And we never got to meet the team, and I never got a signed jersey! This is a signed jersey! By the entire team! And I watched them all sign it!"
Yeah, she might've been losing it a little, but she couldn't help it, and at least Arturo didn't seem to mind. He didn't look like he was getting irritated with her. He also didn't look like he was trying to hide the fact that he was getting irritated with her either.
He was actually being insanely patient with her. "Did you have fun?"
He'd looked at her, and this time she could definitely see that he thought she was nuts. "Of course I did. Games like this are always fun."
That was true. "I hope the camera caught sight of you during that winning goal. I want to see if you were excited, or if you still had that barely interested look on your face."
Arturo shook his head. He seemed to be trying to hold back a chuckle. "I really doubt any of the cameras were looking at me."
That was true.
Isla abruptly stopped when she realized they were heading to the front doors. "I need to use the bathroom real quick."
That giant soda she'd drank was going right through her, and even though it wasn't remotely romantic, she didn't want to hold that during the ride back. That would be even less romantic.
Arturo stuck his hands in his pockets. "I'll wait here for you," he said, holding out his hand. "Want me to hold that?"
Her jersey. Seemed like a good idea to not take it into the bathroom, so she handed it to him.
Isla back tracked around the curved hall. All the snack stations were closed now, and it looked kind of strange that the place wasn't completely packed with people like it had been when they'd first come in. It wasn't empty, but seeing most of the lights off and everything closed was always a jolt.
At least the huge line up for the bathroom wasn't there anymore. That was a major plus. The lines to these in every single intermission were always huge, but Isla just walked in and did what needed to be done. That was also when she'd pulled out her phone to give Jane a text. There was a reply when she pulled up her messages.
I SAW U ON TV!!! Nice kiss ;)
Isla grinned and replied everything she could as fast as she could. She didn't want to be rude and keep Arturo and Sam waiting so long. Arturo gave her the most amazing night of her life, and she was totally willing to forgive his need to have her spend four weeks with him after this.
She promised to send Jane more texts later, but she had to get out of here.
It was after leaving the bathroom that Sebastian's voice called to her.
"Having fun, Miss King?"
Isla immediately came to a halt, turning to look back at him, and trying to hide the fact that he'd spooked her.
She said nothing. She was too shocked. She opened her mouth and tried to ask what he was doing here, but maybe that would've been too rude.
Sebastian smiled at her. He pushed himself off of the wall he'd been leaning against. Even with his blond hair gelled back and wearing that suit, he looked perfectly at home in a nearly empty arena. "You don't have to look at me like that. I'm not a monster out to get you."
Made sense, and even if this place was mostly empty, there were still others around somewhere. Security and whatnot. Another woman even made her way behind Isla and into the bathroom behind her.
Isla smiled at this renewed sense of safety. "I know. I just wasn't expecting you to be waiting for me outside of the women's bathroom."
Sebastian's eyes widened a little, and then he laughed softly and shook his head. "Yeah, that does send off the creep meter, doesn't it?"
By a lot.
"Not at all," Isla said, half laughing with him.
Sebastian kept right on smiling, but there was definitely something different about it. "Liar."
Oh. That's what. He could see through her bullshit.
Whatever. Isla was in a good mood and she was going to try and be polite. "What can I do for you? Arturo's down the hall."
Even as she said it, she didn't think Sebastian was at all interested in Arturo, or his other two brothers.
"I wanted to talk to you."
Fuck. She knew it.
"Okay, what about? And Arturo is waiting for me, so I can't stay long."
"This won't take up much of your time," he said. "It's actually about the reason why Arturo brought you here."
That shocked her. "To see the game," she said, still a little bubbly with pleasure over it. "And to meet the team."
"Sure, if that was a nice side effect, then I'm happy for you," Sebastian said. "But you can't tell me that' what you actually think."
Isla was starting to get impatient, and she didn't bother to try and stop the smile from sliding off of her face. "What's this about?"
"He kissed you when he knew the camera was watching. He wanted the whole world to see that."
Isla felt the heat rising in her cheeks. "That...that was just a coincidence. He couldn't have known the camera was going to look at us, and he just got playful when it did."
Sebastian gave her a look, like she was the stupidest girl he'd ever seen in his life.
"You can't be that stupid," he said, and Isla nearly fell over at how in sync their thoughts just were. "My brother is the co-owner of the team, and a fucking billionaire. He made sure all the seats around you were empty."
"So we wouldn't feel crowded," Isla said.
"So there would be nothing else to focus on."
Isla didn't like where this was going. She was starting to wish she'd just walked away. Her legs itched to go and she even managed to turn, but she only got two steps.
"Don't you want to know what he's using you for?"
She stopped cold. She did want to know. She wanted to know so damned badly, and that need to know what was really going on with Arturo was a lot stronger than her need to get away from his annoying brother.
She made a small half turn, as though doing anything more than that would be letting him win. "What are you talking about?"
Sebastian grinned. "My father and your grandfather, your whole family, actually, hate each other. You think no one you know wasn't watching that game?"
Isla sucked in a sharp breath, and then nearly choked on it.
Oh God, that was true. Jane had seen it, and her family all loved Hockey. They might have a better memory of who Arturo was than she'd had. Her grandfather especially.
Would it be obvious to them? Would they know what she was doing? The worst way to describe it would basically be whoring herself out for money. The nice way to put it was...well, there wasn't a nice way of putting it.
Her parents, and her grandfather, were open minded enough when it came to certain things, but for their daughter and granddaughter to be fucking the enemy's son? The guy who had taken their livelihood from them, just to get it back?
Her grandfather was a proud man, and he might never accept Baciami Boutique back from Isla, if this was how she'd gotten it.
No, correction, he wouldn't accept it back.
She was so screwed. So utterly and totally screwed.
"You can't...you're lying," Isla said, because her only line of defense at this point was to let her emotions run away with her, to stop thinking with reason and just deny what Sebastian had said because it hurt her feelings.
He smiled at her, not a triumphant smile, or a sinister thing that came from the bad guys in movies like this, but it was kind of sad and pitying.
He pitied her!
"What's going on here?"
Isla snapped her head around. She almost gave herself whiplash, but she was both relieved and anxious at the sight of Arturo. He was thirty feet away, and looking between Isla and Sebastian, his eyes especially suspicious when he stared at his brother.
Sebastian just shrugged before leaning in just a little closer, but there was no way Arturo didn't hear what he'd said.
"Ask him yourself if you don't believe me," he said, and then he turned and walked away.
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Sorry for how late this was! It was supposed to be up yesterday :S But, yeah, end of the month deadlines are here. I'm roughly half finished the next chapter, and though I will try my best to get it out sooner than this one, it's very likely that the next chapter won't be up until a couple of days into July. Gotta get started on my Christmas story for that box set :)
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