Curvy & Claimed by the Ex’s Hockey Rival

7

Seraphine

My fingers trembled as I stared down at the screen.

The text from Alaric wasn't a casual invitation or polite small talk. Beneath his name lay a question that made my breath catch in my throat:

‘The youth program at the North Valley training center is looking for a head coach for their competitive junior development track. It’s for kids ages six to twelve. I spoke with the director this morning. Would you consider taking the position?’

My first reaction wasn't excitement.

It was pure, suffocating fear.

A coach?

My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs as a cold prickle of panic washed over my skin. I had never taught a single student in my life. I had been an athlete—an isolated prodigy whose entire world was defined by personal edge work, private choreography, and relentless solo drills. And since the day my ankle gave out eight years ago, I had barely set foot inside an arena, let alone stepped onto a sheet of ice.

Standing in Magnus’s bedroom, with the sheer black lingerie still mocking me from the duvet, I looked down at myself.

At nearly three hundred pounds, swallowed by an oversized sweater, I couldn't imagine standing by the rink boards. I pictured the parents leaning over the glass, their eyes raking over my frame with the same disgust Magnus had shown at breakfast. I imagined their hushed, venomous whispers: Is that woman supposed to teach our children how to jump? How can someone who can’t control her own body teach discipline to anyone else?

Worse, I thought of Alaric putting his own reputation on the line to recommend me. If I failed, if I stumbled, if I became a laughingstock, I would drag him into the humiliation with me.

My thumbs moved rapidly across the keyboard, desperate to shut the offer down before hope could take root.

‘Thank you, Alaric, but I can’t. I really don’t think I’m capable of this anymore. I haven’t skated or worked in eight years. I don’t even trust my own body on the ice anymore. You should find someone who actually belongs out there.’

I hit send, exhaling a ragged breath. The finality of the words felt like a safety blanket, familiar and numb.

Three seconds later, the screen lit up with an incoming call.

Alaric Branwell.

My chest seized. I stared at the vibrating phone, every instinct urging me to let it ring out. But the steady, unwavering intensity of his gaze from the arena lobby flashed in my mind, compelling me forward.

With a trembling thumb, I swiped to answer and brought the phone to my ear.

"Hello?" My voice came out smaller than I intended.

"Seraphine." His baritone was deep, calm, and steady, cutting clean through the silence of the apartment. "Did you really think I reached out because I felt sorry for you?"

The blunt question caught me off guard. Heat rushed to my face. "I... Alaric, be realistic. Look at who I am now."

"I am being realistic," he replied, his tone firm, without an ounce of pity. "I didn't call the director because of what you look like today, and I didn't do it as a favor. I did it because I spent four years watching you train. I know your work ethic. I know your understanding of edge control, rotational physics, and how to build a routine from the ground up."

"That was eight years ago," I whispered, the ache in my throat threatening to choke me. "I was twenty. Everything has changed since then."

"Technique doesn't vanish, Seraphine," Alaric said. The certainty in his voice was like steel. "Discipline doesn't just evaporate because your body changed. The knowledge you have in your head is something ninety percent of the coaches in this state don't possess."

I gripped the phone tighter, leaning against the doorframe of Magnus's room, torn between his belief and my own crushing doubt. "I don't have the stamina. I don't have the strength. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't demonstrate half of what they need."

"The program doesn't start tomorrow," Alaric countered smoothly. "The trial period and the official intake don't begin for another two months. That gives you eight full weeks to prepare. Physically, mentally, whatever you need."

"Two months isn't enough to become who I was—"

"I’m not asking you to become the old Seraphine," he interrupted, his voice dropping an octave, softening just enough to reach the rawest part of my heart. "Nobody expects you to land a triple axel again. You don't have to prove anything to the past. You just have to give yourself a chance."

The words struck me like a physical impact.

Give yourself a chance.

For seven years, Magnus had drilled the exact opposite into my skull. Day after day, he had reminded me that I was weak, that I lacked discipline, that I was incapable of controlling my appetite, my weight, or my life. He had reduced my entire worth to an embarrassing number on a scale and convinced me that I was useless outside the walls of his penthouse.

Yet here was Alaric—a man who owed me nothing, a rival who had every reason to stay out of my life—standing on the other end of the line, offering absolute, unshakeable faith in what I had inside me.

The silence between us lengthened, heavy and electric.

"Think about it," Alaric said quietly, sensing the turmoil in my silence. "The ice is there whenever you’re ready."

"Thank you, Alaric," I managed to choke out.

"Don't thank me yet," he murmured. "Take care of yourself, Seraphine."

The line went dead.

I slowly lowered the phone, my breath trembling in the stillness of the hallway.

My eyes drifted from the dark glass screen back to the king-sized bed inside the master bedroom. The scrap of black lace still lay across the white duvet—a silent, cruel reminder of the marriage that had slowly hollowed me out, piece by piece. If I stayed on this path, my life was already decided: an unwanted shadow in Magnus’s home, waiting for the day he and Lukeman finally decided to discard me for the sake of his brand.

That room represented the life that was destroying me.

Then I looked back down at Alaric’s message.

A coaching job. Two months to train. A sheet of ice where nobody cared about Magnus Walter or the gossip columns. It was terrifying, uncertain, and completely out of my comfort zone.

But it was a doorway. The smallest, narrowest doorway back to who I was before everything fell apart.

I unlocked the screen, opened the chat, and brought up the keyboard.

My fingers shook so hard I could barely line up the letters. But I didn't stop.

I typed two words:

‘I’ll try.’

I hit send before fear could talk me out of it.

And as the message delivered, a strange, electric shiver ran down my spine. For the first time in eight years, I hadn't made a choice to please Magnus.

I had chosen something for myself.