Chapter 2 Sloane CHAPTER ONE PART 2

I make it halfway inside before his hand catches the edge of the door above my shoulder, and my heart responds with one hard, traitorous beat. He's close enough that I catch the clean, expensive scent of whatever he's wearing and close enough that I can feel the warmth coming off him even though he isn't touching me, which makes every instinct in my body suddenly, annoyingly aware of exactly how much space he occupies behind me.

My gaze drops to his fingers against the wood before lifting deliberately to his face. "Move your hand."

Something in his expression changes instantly. He removes it without argument and takes a full step backward, giving me enough room that I can breathe normally again, and the immediate compliance surprises me more than it should.

"So," he says, sliding his hands into his pockets as though the last few seconds never happened, "you work for me now."

The laugh escapes before I can stop it. "Absolutely not."

"Pretty sure my name's on the roster."

"And mine isn't, which is convenient because I don't work for hockey players. I work for the organization, and unless someone has made a truly catastrophic mistake in the reporting structure, you don't appear anywhere above me."

His mouth twitches. "Same building."

"Different universe."

"Keep telling yourself that, Mercer."

I begin closing the door, determined to end this conversation before my first morning becomes entirely about him, but his voice stops me before I manage it.

"Sloane."

The teasing has disappeared completely, and when I look back, he's standing exactly where I left him, except something about his posture has changed. His shoulders aren't quite as relaxed, and the cocky smile has vanished, leaving behind a man who looks far more like the boy I used to know than I want him to.

For one strange second, neither of us says anything.

Then Beck draws in a slow breath. "I'm glad you're doing well."

The words land somewhere deep and inconvenient, somewhere I refuse to let him reach after everything that happened, so I do the only thing I know how to do around him and harden before he can see that he's affected me.

"You don't know anything about how I'm doing."

His jaw shifts slightly. "No, I guess I don't."

"Whose fault is that?"

The question hits exactly where I intended it to, and although part of me expects the familiar smirk or some infuriating comeback, neither comes. Instead, his expression closes until the man standing in front of me becomes the Beckett Hayes I remember from eight years ago, impossible to read and even harder to reach.

"Have a good first day, Sloane."

He turns away, and I know I should let him go because I have meetings to prepare for, people to impress, and an entire new job that deserves considerably more of my attention than the man walking away from me.

Instead, before common sense can catch up, I call after him.

"Does Luke know you're talking to me?"

Beck stops so abruptly that the tension is visible across his shoulders, and when he slowly looks back at me, the easy confidence from earlier has disappeared.

"Does Luke know you're here?"

The question catches me off guard. "Yes, of course he does."

A pause stretches between us, long enough for discomfort to begin crawling along my spine, and something unreadable passes across Beck's face.

"Interesting."

I frown. "What does that mean?"

He studies me for another second before whatever he almost says disappears behind the same wall he's always been so good at building. "Ask your brother."

Then he walks away.

I remain in the doorway long after he disappears around the corner, my coffee cooling between my fingers while my pulse beats far too quickly beneath my skin. This morning was supposed to be about a new office, a new position, and the career move I'd spent years earning, yet all I can think about is the way Beck's expression changed when I mentioned Luke.

My brother knew exactly where I'd accepted a job, and he knew exactly which team I would be working for. He certainly knew who their captain was because even people who couldn't identify a puck if one hit them in the face knew Beckett Hayes's name.

Yet when I told Luke I was moving to Chicago, he hadn't mentioned Beck once.

Not a warning, not a sarcastic comment, not even a casual reminder that the man he had spent eight years refusing to discuss would be working in the same building as me.

For the first time in almost a decade, a tiny crack appears in something I have never thought to question, and as I finally step into my office and close the door behind me, I realize I don't like the feeling at all.