Curvy & Claimed by the Ex’s Hockey Rival

4

Seraphine

Don’t be ridiculous.

The harsh thought snapped me out of my trance.

Why would Alaric Branwell be looking at me?

The girl he had known eight years ago had been lean, confident, and celebrated. She was a national junior champion who moved across the ice without a second thought. The woman standing here today was nearly three hundred pounds, swallowed whole by an oversized coat, ducking her head like someone who wished she could melt into the floor.

There was no reason for him to recognize me. None at all.

Embarrassed that I had even paused, heat burned hot against my cheeks. I pulled my gaze away, dropped my chin, and started walking quickly toward the glass doors.

Just keep moving. Get outside.

Behind me, heavy, deliberate footsteps cut across the rubber mats.

"Seraphine."

The deep, steady voice rang out over the lobby, carrying a quiet authority that cut straight through the surrounding noise.

My breath caught. My boots froze against the floor.

Slowly, almost terrified of what I was doing, I turned around.

Alaric Branwell was walking directly toward me.

He had completely stepped away from the autograph table, leaving the crowd of fans behind him. His tall, broad-shouldered frame moved with an athlete’s calm grace, his dark athletic jacket zipped up to his chin. He didn't look hurried, but there was an unmistakable focus in his stride.

When he reached me, he stopped just an arm’s length away.

Up close, his presence was overwhelming. His storm-gray eyes were remarkably clear, taking in my face with an intensity that made my chest tighten.

"It’s been a long time," Alaric said calmly.

My voice lodged somewhere in my throat. I couldn't move.

He remembers me.

Around us, the crowd immediately took notice. The silence that followed his departure broke into a wave of confused murmurs. Phones shifted direction. People pressed forward, craning their necks to see who had pulled the Ice Assassin away from his own fans.

The whispers began.

"Wait, who is she?"

"Isn't that Magnus Walter’s wife?"

"Yeah, look at her, she was in the papers this morning."

"Wait, wasn't she that figure skater from years back? The national champion?"

Then came the cruelty.

"Damn," someone near the front muttered with a sneer. "Look at the size of her. She really let herself go."

A quiet laugh rippled through a small group nearby.

The sound sliced straight through me, opening up every raw wound Magnus had gouged into my pride over the last two days. I clenched my fists inside my coat pockets, digging my nails into my palms until it hurt. I tried to pretend I hadn't heard a single syllable. I tried to put up the wall I had spent years building.

I should have been used to strangers talking about my body by now. People had been commenting, judging, and whispering ever since the weight began to settle after my retirement.

I should have been immune to it.

I wasn't. It still stung like fresh ice against an open cut.

I lowered my eyes, my shoulders caving inward as I prepared to escape toward the doors.

Before I could take a step, Alaric’s expression changed.

The calm, collected demeanor of the league's top star vanished, replaced by a sudden, icy stillness. His jaw set hard, a muscle feathering along his cheek as he turned his head toward the crowd.

The laughter died instantly.

"Show some respect," Alaric said.

His voice wasn't loud, but the steel underneath it made the entire corridor fall dead silent. Several people stepped back, suddenly looking anywhere except into his eyes.

"You're standing in front of a national junior champion," Alaric continued, his tone cold and unyielding, carrying to every ear in the lobby. "One of the most talented figure skaters of her generation. She put in more hours, took more falls, and achieved more on the ice before she was twenty than most of you ever will in your entire lives."

He leveled a dark, warning glare at the group that had laughed, letting the silence hang until the embarrassment in the room was absolute.

"Don't forget who you're looking at."

Nobody dared to make a sound.

Beside him, I stood completely stunned.

For years, Magnus had made me feel like an embarrassment. He had hidden me away, mocked my body, and treated my existence as a shameful secret that ruined his brand.

Yet here, in the middle of a crowded arena lobby, his fiercest rival had just stepped between me and a crowd of strangers to remind them of who I used to be.

He had defended me without a second of hesitation.

And more than that, he had reminded me. He had reached back through eight years of misery, weight gain, and quiet grief, pulling the girl with the gold medals back to the surface.

A sudden, unfamiliar warmth settled deep in the middle of my chest. It felt like breathing fresh air after drowning in cold water for years. The burning behind my eyes threatened to spill over, but for the first time in as long as I could remember, it wasn't from shame.

I looked up at Alaric.

He had turned back toward me, the hard edge in his features softening as his eyes searched mine. There was something remarkably intense in the way he looked at me, steady, respectful, and entirely focused.

My lips parted, my voice barely a whisper above the quiet concourse.

"You really remember me?"

Alaric’s gaze didn't waver.

"Of course I do."

And somehow, those four simple words shook me to the core.