Gloves Off: a marriage of convenience hockey romance (Vancouver Storm Book 4)

That afternoon, I sit in my office at the hospital, eyes narrowed as I stare out the window at the giant banner hanging from the nearby arena—a hundred-foot image of Alexei Volkov in his Storm uniform.

My arena office looks out onto a Storm billboard with the same image. The universe is laughing at me.

I flip both middle fingers at the banner. What a waste of a sharp jawline, strong nose, and thick, dark hair, just long enough to curl at the back of his neck. Long enough to twist your fingers in and give a sharp tug.

How unfair that the universe gave that set of broad, sculpted shoulders to him, made him that towering height.

Even his voice is a waste, with that low, rumbly timbre, free of a Russian accent but with slightly clipped consonants.

Volkov’s hot in a scary way, my friend Darcy said once. Dark, soulless eyes rimmed in thick lashes. Perpetual under-eye circles that are probably hereditary, but I like to dream that our arguments keep him up at night, frustrated and unable to sleep.

He’s bad boy hot. The kind of hot you shouldn’t want, but you do.

I mean, I don’t. Some people do. Volkov’s far too much of a dick for my liking.

Make shopping your full-time job so we can find a real doctor, he said. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since the Hawaii trip our friends made us go on this summer. A full week of ignoring each other, not even looking at each other.

“Two minutes.”

I jump out of my skin. Dr. Heather Joshi, the director of the athlete recovery program here at the hospital, leans on my doorframe with a knowing smile.

“That’s how long you’ve been staring at him.”

My face burns. “I was glaring. Because he’s a dick.”

She sits in the chair opposite me, nodding sagely. “Mmm. Yes. Right.”

“I hate him.” She knows this.

She taps her chin with a manicured fingernail. “Mhm. And that’s why you let him think you’re a spoiled little princess?”

Heather’s known me since I broke my ankle as a teenager and she was the physician overseeing my recovery and rehabilitation. Her passion, enthusiasm, and dedication to her work showed me that athlete injury recovery is my passion and purpose, and her flawless style showed me that you could be great at your job and look incredible doing it.

The athlete injury recovery program we designed together is one of my favorite things in the world, along with sparkly dresses, my two pet bunnies, and heels that make me feel powerful and hot.

I glance at her heels. “New?”

“Don’t try to distract me.”

“So I let him believe his assumptions. So what? He doesn’t get the privilege of knowing me.”

Despite what Volkov thinks, I did not grow up wealthy. I grew up with teenage parents scraping by. Yes, my last name is Greene, and yes, it’s those Greenes, but my wealthy, powerful grandfather cut my dad off when my mom got pregnant at seventeen. I went to public school, I worked my ass off to get scholarships to university, playing for The University of British Columbia’s Women’s Soccer team, and then I worked even harder in medical school. Everything I’ve achieved, I’ve earned.

I get a sick sense of satisfaction from letting him believe the worst of me, though.

Not all of us could afford private school.

God, Volkov’s such an asshole. So controlling and arrogant—like my ex, Liam. Like so many men in medicine. Like my grandfather, who left me an inheritance when he passed a few years ago, but with the caveat that I need to be married to inherit.

I’m not touching that money. I don’t need it, and I love the idea that he’s glowering up at me from hell, furious that he can’t control me.

Besides, after how Liam manipulated me, I would never get married. It’s too easy for men to use marriage as a tool to control women.

I refocus my attention on Heather. Under her lab coat, she’s wearing a tailored dress in striking fuchsia, her favorite color. It matches her lipstick, a stunning contrast to her brown skin.

“That is your color,” I say, like I always do when she wears it.

She smiles to herself. “I know.” Her expression sobers. “I met with the hospital board this morning, and I have bad news.”

Uh-oh. It’s the warning shot. They teach us this in medical school when we learn how to tell the patient’s family their loved one has passed.

“The program didn’t obtain the next round of funding,” she says.

I stop breathing. In research, funding is everything. It pays for our salaries, the lab and office space, equipment, everything.

A loss of funding is a death sentence. I feel sick. “So we’re done.”

She gives me a sad smile. “As of May, yes, the program is done.”

“We have until May, though.”

She shakes her head with an empathetic expression. No, your loved one is not coming back.

“If we don’t have funding by January, the hospital will book the space out to someone who does.” She sighs, and I can see she’s trying to be strong for me, but she’s pissed as hell. “It’s all money,” she says with a touch of bitterness.

I’m reeling, head spinning with questions and emotions. The program has grown to two hundred athletes. Our work is groundbreaking. We’re finding methods for injury recovery that will become the norm in sports and help athletes around the world.

On top of that, healthcare is publicly funded in Canada. Many of our participants wouldn’t be able to afford this level of care otherwise.

“But we—everything was going so well. Our last publication⁠—”

“I know. We’re doing incredible work.” She takes a deep breath. “The good news is, we both have long careers. Many private clinics need specialists.”

I don’t want to work at a private clinic that only caters to rich people, though.

“And you have the Storm,” she adds.

I’ll admit, I took the job on the team’s medical staff because it would lend credibility to the research program, and to my résumé as an athlete recovery specialist.

It didn’t hurt that Liam, now an orthopedic surgeon in Toronto, was a massive hockey fan. A job with a hockey team would be his dream. It felt good, taking his dream job, when he never believed in me to begin with.

I ended up loving it, though. I love working with athletes, keeping them healthy and overseeing their recovery so they can do their dream job.

Except Volkov. He can go to hell for telling Tate Ward I was incompetent. Fuck that guy.

Motivation rockets through me. “I’m not ready to give up,” I tell Heather. “So we raise the funds. We have the benefit coming up. We can get the media involved. I don’t need a salary⁠—”

“Georgia.” She puts her hand on mine. “We need ten million dollars. The benefit brings in a couple hundred thousand at most.” She gives me that sad smile of defeat. “It’s okay. This is how research goes.”noveldrama

Like a lightbulb, my mind flicks to my inheritance—for ten million dollars.

No. No way. Marriage is designed to benefit men, not women. How many women have I seen in medicine get married and then fade away to run the home and raise the kids while their husbands ascend higher and higher in their careers?

Years ago, when I learned that Liam, my now ex, unenrolled me from medical school, he proposed. If you stay here in Toronto, he had said, we can get married. No romance, no declaration of love. From how sullen and irritable he became when I shared my academic wins and accomplishments, I suspect he was threatened, but I was so stupidly love-drunk and desperate for his approval that I said yes. For one week, I considered deferring my dreams so I could basically be his unpaid assistant, attending events on his arm, quiet and small in the background.

I thank the universe every day that I didn’t marry that guy. Men like him don’t want a woman who can hold her own. They want to feel like the king, the top dog.

I’m going to come up with the money for the program, but I’m sure as hell not getting married.

Early that evening, before I need to be back at the arena for the Storm’s opening game, I stride across the soccer field in my leggings, windbreaker, and stylish sneakers—because you don’t need to be wearing heels to look hot—carrying a big box I know will make the girls scream with joy.

My absolute favorite part of the athlete recovery program? The Vancouver Devils, a team of incredible, hilarious, gritty teenage girls.

“Is that what we think it is?” one of the girls asks from where they’re waiting in a group, talking and laughing.

I give them a beaming smile. “You know it.”

I’m Dr. Greene at work, but here at soccer practice, I’m Coach Georgia. I’m still technically their doctor, but the goal of the team is for recovering athletes to maintain a team environment appropriate to their ability.

Being on a team has incredible benefits—support, friendship, structure, staying active, competitive, and happy—but when players return to their regular team, they often reinjure themselves because they’re competing with non-injured players. They push themselves too hard. Players who do nothing fall behind on their physio and often experience depression, because when their sport is everything to them, losing it can leave a gaping hole in their life.

Thus, I created sports teams with the program participants. I run the soccer team for teenaged girls and some of my fellow doctors run other teams.

I set the box down and give them a sly smile. “Are you ready to see your new uniforms?”

They cheer. I grin and pull out a red and black jersey.

“Power colors!” Tasha, a seventeen-year-old recovering from an ACL tear, pumps her fists in the air, making me laugh. “We’re going to look so hot.”

“Power colors,” I confirm.

We don’t play regular games, the girls just scrimmage against one another every week, but looking the part and feeling good is important. What we wear can boost our confidence when we need it.

“When you put this jersey on, I want you to remember what a bad bitch you are.”

A few of them catcall and I laugh, read out the name on the back of the jersey and toss it to the smiling player. I don’t think I’m supposed to say bitch around them, but whatever. They go to high school, they’ve heard much worse.

“I want you to remember that with hard work and passion, you can do anything.”

Another cheer. I toss another jersey.

“You are gritty, you are relentless, you are smart and fierce, and no one can hold you back from doing what you love.”

They cheer again, and once everyone has their jersey on, we warm up and do their prescribed physio exercises before they scrimmage. With their brand-new jerseys, the girls want to play hard, but I encourage them to slow down, take it easy, and focus on their technical skills.

This is why the program matters. A lot of these girls were on track to play for universities around the world on full scholarships. Some of them could go pro. They can still have those things, with proper recovery and attention.

If the program gets cut, the Vancouver Devils go with it. Motivation surges through me. Like hell I’m going to let that happen.

I’m going to find a way to save the program.