Chapter 16: Cold Comfort

Vance's POV

Outside, the wind howled like a wounded beast, driving sheets of ice against the glass with a sharp, rhythmic *clink-clink-clink*. Inside, the temperature immediately began its slow, merciless drop into the single digits.

Against my chest, Anastasia didn't move. Her small, fragile breath was soft and steady, warm against the exposed collar of my hoodie. Her long hair was scattered over my arm, smelling faintly of crisp winter air and sweet vanilla — a scent that had spent the last two months slowly eroding every single professional boundary I possessed.

I sat with my back jammed against the hard steel frame of my oak desk, my massive arms locked tightly around her waist, anchoring her against my torso under three thick layers of dark wool.

''Look at you, Sterling,'' I thought, my jaw clenching so hard a sharp pain radiated up into my temple. ''Thirty-five years old, head coach of a division-one collegiate program, shivering on the carpet like a delinquent high schooler.''

If the board walked through that locked door right now, they wouldn't ask for explanations. They wouldn't care that the residential wing was a concrete freezer, or that the roads were completely impassable. They would see a massive, scarred former professional holding a twenty-year-old walk-on transfer in the dark.

They would call it predatory, an abuse of authority. They would destroy her career before it even had a chance to breathe, and they would drag my name through the mud for a second time.

And yet, despite the absolute ruin hovering just outside the glass, I couldn't bring myself to loosen my grip on her.

"Vance?" her voice broke the heavy silence, quiet, gravelly with sleep, and entirely too close to my ear. She shifted slightly in my lap, turning her head until those piercing bluish-gray eyes caught the faint, silvery light of the snow reflected off the ceiling rafters. "Did the generator cut out?"

"Just the non-essentials," I rumbled, my voice rough from hours of disuse. I pulled the heavy wool blanket higher over her shoulder, tucking her neatly against my side. "The utility circuit is conserving power for the emergency lights in the corridor. Stay under the blanket, Anastasia. The room is going to drop fast."

She didn't panic. Instead, she reached out from beneath the wool, her cold, slender fingers finding my forearm where it rested over her ribs. Her thumb gently traced the heavy cord of the tendon beneath my skin, a soft, deliberate touch that sent an electric jolt straight up my spine.

"You're freezing," she whispered softly. "You gave me the thickest layer. Take half of it."

"I'm fine, Asya," I snapped, though there was no real bite behind the command. "My core temp takes a lot longer to drop than yours. I played three seasons in the minor leagues in northern Manitoba where the rink heaters were broken half the winter. This is nothing."

"Always the tough guy," she murmured, a faint, breathless smile tugging at her lips in the dark. She shifted again, leaning her head firmly back against my shoulder, her body relaxing into mine with a complete, terrifying level of trust that made my throat tighten. "You never talk about it, you know. Your playing days. You have the record plaques in the lobby from your collegiate years, but after that... it's like you just vanished from the ice until you showed up here as head coach."

I went completely still, my chest locking up. The darkness in the room suddenly felt heavier, thick with seventeen years of buried dirt and unspoken bitterness.

"There's nothing to talk about," I said flatly, staring straight ahead into the shadow of the doorway. "My playing days ended a long time ago."

"Vance," she said gently, her hand moving up to lightly cover mine, her fingers weaving through my calloused ones. "We're trapped in a blackout during a blizzard. We're sharing a single blanket to keep from getting hypothermia. I think you can drop the 'Coach Sterling' wall for ten minutes."

I let out a long, heavy breath, white mist blooming between us in the cold air. I looked down at her small hand wrapped in mine—so small, yet holding the exact kind of explosive, world-class talent I had once bled for.

"I was twenty-two," I began, the words tasting like copper and old iron on my tongue. "Top prospect in the Eastern conference. I had four NHL scouts sitting in the box at every single home game. I lived, breathed, and ate hockey. I thought if I just worked harder than everyone else, if I hit harder and skated faster, the sport would be fair. I thought talent and grit were the only currencies that mattered."

"What happened?" she asked softly, her gaze unblinking, holding mine with a fierce, quiet empathy.

"Politics happened," I growled, a bitter, dark chuckle escaping my throat. "Corruption. The draft was two weeks away. I was projected to go in the first round to Chicago. But the owner of a rival program — a man with deep pockets, massive corporate connections, and a son who played the exact same position I did — didn't like those odds."

I felt her fingers tighten around mine. "What did he do?"

"He made sure I didn't make the cut," I rasped, my jaw grinding. "It wasn't a clean open-ice hit. It was a calculated, back-alley press campaign. They leaked fabricated compliance violations to the athletic association. They bought off a corrupt regional official to freeze my eligibility right before the showcase draft. By the time my lawyers cleared my name three months later, the draft was over, my momentum was dead, and the league had moved on to the next fresh meat."

I fell silent, the memory of that suffocating, helpless rage flooding back into my veins like acid. I remembered sitting in a sterile hotel room, holding a phone that had stopped ringing, watching lesser players take the ice I had built my life around.

"I spent years hating this sport," I whispered, the confession coming out raw, gravelly, and stripped of all pride. "I hated the ice. I hated the lights. I hated the suits who sat in the executive boxes deciding whose dreams were worth keeping and whose were trash. I took this coaching job five years ago because I didn't know how to exist without the rink, but I promised myself I would never let another human being get close enough to pull the rug out from under me again."

"And then I showed up," she said quietly, her blue eyes shining in the dim shadows with an intensity that took my breath away.

I looked down at her, my hand rising slowly from her waist to gently cup her jawline. My thumb stroked her cheekbone, feeling the soft, velvet heat of her skin against my calloused palm.

"And then you walked onto my ice," I corrected softly, my voice dropping into a low, fierce whisper that trembled with restraint. "You walked in here with your arrogant stride, your broken ribs, and that absurdly perfect edge-work, and you made me care again. For seventeen years, I was just managing spreadsheets and running drills. But watching you skate, Asya... you gave me back the only thing I thought I’d lost forever."

"What’s that?" she whispered, leaning into my hand, her lips parting as her warm breath brushed against my thumb.

"The joy of it," I rasped, my dark eyes dipping to her mouth before locking back onto her gaze. "The absolute, terrifying magic of this game. You made me want to be on the ice again. And that frightens me more than any blizzard ever could."

She didn't say a word. She slowly shifted her weight, turning until she was kneeling on the blanket right in front of me, her knees framing my thighs. She reached up, her cool hands coming to rest gently on both sides of my face, forcing me to look straight at her.

"They took your dream away because they were afraid of you, Vance," she said, her voice ringing with a fierce, unshakeable conviction that cut straight through seventeen years of darkness. "They were weak, corrupt cowards who used money to buy what you earned with your blood. But I am not going to let them take this from us. Not Saraya, not the board, not anyone."

"Anastasia—"

"No, listen to me," she commanded softly, her fingers tangling into the dark hair at the back of my neck, pulling my face down until her forehead was resting against mine. "You protected me when I had nothing left. You gave me a home when my own blood turned their backs on me. I am yours, Vance. On the ice, off the ice—I don't care about the risk anymore."

A low, defeated groan escaped my throat—a sound of total, absolute surrender. Every argument, every rule, every wall of discipline I had built since my career was stolen from me crumbled into dust right there on the freezing office floor.

I wrapped my heavy arms around her waist, lifting her effortlessly into my chest and crushing her against me as my mouth claimed hers in the cold dark. The kiss was deep, desperate, and filled with a raw, fierce possessiveness that completely consumed us both.