Todos los capítulos de Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival: Capítulo 121 - Capítulo 130

I did not find out where we were going until we were standing at the gate, Dean holding both boarding passes and looking far too pleased with himself."Dean, you cannot just kidnap me onto a plane.""I absolutely can. I already did." He handed me back my passport, watching my face for the argument he already knew was coming. "You will see when we land.""I have a right to know where you are taking me.""You have a right to complain after we arrive." He grinned, steering me toward the boarding line before I could dig in further. "Then everything is going according to plan."I should have argued harder. Instead, I let him lead me, too drained from the past week to make one more decision. Somewhere over the ocean, with my head against his shoulder and his fingers loosely linked with mine, I fell asleep.When I woke, the plane was descending over water so blue it looked edited. Dean glanced down at me, brushing a strand of hair off my face. "Good morning.""Are we still alive?""Barely. T

The dress Dean had bought me on the island still carried a faint trace of salt air when I drew it from the garment bag. Emerald silk fell in one clean line from the shoulders, and paired with the sapphire earrings he had insisted on buying me on our last night there, it transformed my reflection so completely that I had to look twice.My copper hair was pinned into a sleek low bun, with a few loose strands softening the line of my face. When I stepped out of the bathroom, Dean stopped halfway through fastening his cufflink. His gaze moved over me slowly, openly, and I felt warmth gather beneath my skin.“You’re staring,” I said.“I’m allowed.”The simple answer made me smile, though the nerves I had been trying to ignore returned as soon as we left the room. We picked up Lucas and Charlotte on the way to the event, and for the first few minutes, no one said much. Dean kept checking the GPS, his hands steady on the wheel, but every time the venue appeared on the screen, his expression

“What did she mean?” I asked once we were back in the car, the parking structure shrinking behind us until it disappeared from view. “The part about your fates being sealed. What was she talking about, Dean?” He didn’t answer immediately. His hands remained steady on the wheel, his attention fixed on the road. When he finally glanced at me, I didn’t see the guarded expression he wore whenever he was keeping something from me. He looked genuinely confused. “I don’t know. I have no idea what she’s referring to.” “You’re sure?” I pressed. “Your father hasn’t mentioned anything? You haven’t overheard something?” “Iris, I promise you, I don’t understand it any more than you do.” His gaze returned to the road. “Sophie says a lot of things that aren’t true. I think you should ignore her.” I wanted that to be enough. I wanted Sophie to have thrown out the cruelest thing she could think of simply because she knew it would get under my skin, with nothing real behind it. That was easier to

Dean had asked me to join him at the charity event and the after-party Harold Whitfield’s foundation was hosting that weekend. I told him I was too tired, too far behind on my capstone, and too worn down by everything that had already happened between our families to spend another evening in a room full of people who had watched Sophie try to destroy my career. He understood. He didn’t argue or try to change my mind. He went with his father instead, because business had a way of claiming him whether he wanted it to or not. Ava and Ryan were there too, part of the hockey and sponsor crowd that always seemed to gather around events like that. I went to my father’s for the weekend instead. The distance helped. So did the thought of not having to watch Sophie move through the room in whatever new performance she had prepared. I found out about the photo the same way I found out about most things lately: through my phone, which lit up with three messages in quick succession while I sat

My father found me in the kitchen the next morning. The way he pulled out the chair across from me, careful and deliberate, told me before he spoke that whatever he had to say was not going to be minor. “I need to tell you something,” he said as he sat down, folding his hands on the table. “I was let go yesterday.” I lowered my mug. “What?” “Budget cuts. Position eliminated.” He said the words plainly, as if he were trying to hear them himself. “Twenty-two years, Iris. I started teaching there the year before you were born. Yesterday afternoon, they called me into the principal’s office and told me it was over. Effective immediately.” “That doesn’t make any sense. You’re tenured. You’ve never had a single complaint in over two decades.” “I know.” He rubbed his jaw, looking more tired than angry. “I asked the principal directly. I pushed for specifics, but he couldn’t give me anything useful. He kept repeating the same budget language, and it didn’t match anything I’d heard about