Like he was wearing a neon sign saying puck bunny, but it didn’t make sense. He was here to make amends, a little fatherly twelve-step program. That was the only reason she could even fathom for all of this. He was David Petrov. The hockey world revered him. He was a good man who’d made a mistake. That’s what he’d told the world and everyone had believed him—she’d believed him.

“Look, Shelly,” he said with enough emphasis on her name to broadcast that he was getting it wrong on purpose. “Walk me inside to my boys right now or I’ll work it so Alex breaks up with you.” His eyes narrowed. “Shit. It’s Ian, isn’t it? You’re not bright at all. That boy doesn’t have it. I told him when he was young, but he thought hard work would be enough. It isn’t. This league chews up and spits out players like him all the time. He’s not worth your time.”

And that’s what it took to snap her out of her shock that David the Great was a total and complete asshole. Not worth her time? Ian was worth that and so much more.

“How dare you,” she said, emotion pushing her voice up to the squeak ranges. “He’s your son.”

He snorted. “I’m in the Hall of Fame; he’ll be lucky to last another year. He’ll never be another me.”

Fury at this man’s absolute callousness toward Ian set her blood on fire and the words flew out. “Thank God, because that means instead of a narcissistic asshole, he’s a good man who holds babies when they’re fussy, who volunteers to drive down a snow-packed mountain rather than let someone with bald tires do it, and who thinks more about other people than himself. He’s a million times a better man than you could even imagine.”

By the time she was done, her face was hot, her chest was heaving, and her heart was going a million miles an hour, powered by adrenaline, love for a man she couldn’t have, and fury at the man who’d toss him aside.

“Nice speech,” David said, sounding bored. “Are you going to let me in or do I need to call up Jasper?”

She crossed her arms, never more confident in her life that things were going to go her way. “Go ahead.”