Lucian didn’t break stride or look my way. But he knew I was there.
“Not now, Em.”
I hopped over a paver, my pace just shy of making me pant. “If not now, when?”
“How about never?”
“Yeah, that’s not going to work.”
He snorted with feeling. “You’re operating under the misconception that I owe you anything. I don’t.”
Definitely touchy.
“And I didn’t owe you anything when you asked about Dark Castle. But I told you how I felt anyway.”
“That’s on you.”
We rounded a corner, heading toward the tennis court. I had no idea where he was going; maybe he simply thought he could wear me out and pull away.
“You’re right.” I stopped on the trail, my arms falling to my sides as I caught my breath. To hell with it. I didn’t need to be chasing a man who didn’t want to be bothered.
Weirdly, as if compelled, Lucian came to a halt and half turned my way to glare at me from over his wide shoulder. His body remained tense and poised to take flight once more.
“We owe each other nothing,” I said, raising my voice enough to be clear over the ten feet that separated us. “But no one lives in a complete void. Your grandmother and Sal walk on eggshells around you.”
Oh, but that got him. Red suffused his neck, and he stalked back my way, coming within touching distance. “You know nothing about them. Or me.”
Yeah, that hurt. It shouldn’t have, but it did.
“I know enough. They worry about you. They love you.”
Lucian’s nostrils flared. “I mean it, Emma. I do not do well with guilt trips.”
“If you feel guilty, that’s on you.”
He turned his head and scowled. But he didn’t go.
That he was listening, despite his anger and despite the fact that I didn’t have any real right to lecture him, had me softening my tone. “All right, I’m nosy. A snoop. Fine. I admit it. But tell me you wouldn’t be asking questions if the tables were turned.”
Lucian’s jaw bunched, and I knew he was grinding his teeth. Stubborn ass.
“Who the hell are you?” I blurted out.
At that, he laughed, but it was without humor. “I’m Brick, remember? The sullen ex–star athlete, washed up and hiding away in the big house.”
“Fine. Be a dick.” I turned to go, when he spoke again, sharp and broken, like shards of glass.
“You were so close to the truth, Em.” Eyes of frosted sea glass met mine. “The world knows me as Luc Osmond. Oz, the great and powerful. One of the best hockey centers to dominate the ice, or so I was told.”
A glimmer of recognition flickered to life. Of his spectacular body clad in scant boxer briefs, his face smiling down at me while I drove through LA traffic. “You have a billboard.”
He winced. “Of all the things you had to remember . . .”
“It’s an impressive billboard.”
He didn’t take the bait and smile but merely shrugged, the tiniest lifting of one shoulder. God, how had I not recognized him? He had ads. Lots of them. His face had brooded at me in magazines, ads for watches, colognes. I was fairly certain I’d seen him play once by way of reading next to Greg while he watched a game.
“You played for Washington.”
“Yeah.”
But something happened. What had those guys said? Something about a bad hit.
“Were you hurt?”
He didn’t look injured. He moved like silk and steel.
Lucian huffed out a breath. A world of emotion inhabited that brief sound. A world of regret and despair. “You could say that.” He swallowed thickly, his throat working hard, and stared off again. The strong lines of his profile were strained. “Concussion syndrome. One too many knocks to the head.”
Blood drained from my head to pool at the base of my spine. It hadn’t been his health on the line; it had been his life. The thought of this proud, intelligent, loyal man no longer being here . . . it made my insides scream in horror and my arms ache to hold him.
Which was more than foolish. We were barely acquaintances. He didn’t want me poking around in his life.
“So here I am,” he went on in a dead voice. “Out of the game and fixing up my grandmother’s estate.” That blazing gaze swung my way, angry and hurt. It sliced through my tender skin. “Is that enough for you? Or do you want a rundown of my symptoms too?”