Liam's expression darkened. "What did she say to you?"
"Nothing I haven't heard before."
"Libby—"
"She mentioned Anne," Libby said, watching his face carefully. "Said you two have been texting."
Something shifted in Liam's expression, closing off. "Anne and I have known each other since we were children. Our families are... connected."
"Connected," Libby repeated.
"It's complicated." He stayed by the door, the distance between them suddenly feeling vast. "Kate has ideas about what my life should look like. Who should be in it."
"And I'm not part of that picture."
Liam didn't deny it. "Kate can make things difficult when she doesn't get her way. I don't want you caught in the crossfire."
"I can handle myself."
"I know you can." His voice was quiet, almost resigned. "That doesn't mean you should have to."
They stood there, the weight of Kate's visit pressing down on them, making everything feel heavier, more complicated.
"We should get some sleep," Liam said finally. "Early flight tomorrow."
"Right. Back to Boston."
"Back to normal," he said, though something in his tone suggested normal was the last thing this would ever be.
He headed toward the bathroom. "I'm going to shower. You should... try to get some rest."
After the bathroom door closed, Libby returned to her game report, but her hands were shaking slightly. Kate's words echoed in her mind:You're not a love interest, dear. You're a rebellion. And rebellions, by nature, are temporary.
Maybe Kate was right. Maybe this was all just Liam playing a role, and she was foolish to think it could be anything more.
CHAPTER NINE
Three days.
Three days since Portland, since those quiet hours in her hotel room where she'd destroyed him at cards with gleeful efficiency. Since she'd worn those ridiculous penguin socks and made him laugh harder than he had in months. Since she'd insisted he get proper rest before the game, protective in a way that had nothing to do with their fake relationship and everything to do with actually caring.
That was the problem. It had been so easy. So natural. So comfortable in a way that made every interaction since feel forced and wrong.
Liam pushed through another sprint drill, his legs burning with familiar intensity, but his mind was elsewhere. Three days of careful distance. Three days of professional boundaries. Three days of an increasingly disconcerting wrongness beneath his skin he just couldn't shake.
From the ice, he could see Libby in her usual spot in the press section, laptop open, fingers flying across the keyboard. She was wearing that navy sweater that made her skin glow, the one she'd worn to their first official "date" for the cameras. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, a few strands escaping to frame herface. She absently tucked one behind her ear, and Liam missed a pass entirely.
"Earth to D'Arcy," Tommy Santangelo called out, smirking as he retrieved the puck. "That's the third pass you've blown this morning."
"Focus on your own game, Santangelo," Liam shot back, but there was no heat in it.
How could he focus when she was right there, close enough to see but too far to touch? He'd created this distance deliberately, methodically, the same way he approached everything in his life. It was the right thing to do—protecting her professional integrity, ensuring no one could question her access or her articles. He had half a mind to write Kate a thank you note for bringing him back to his senses in Portland.
The power dynamic was impossible. He was team captain. Her access to the team depended on his cooperation. The fake relationship had been his idea, something she couldn't really refuse without damaging her career before it truly began. He'd essentially trapped her in this performance, and now...
Now he couldn't stop cataloguing every detail about her. The way her eyes crinkled into little crescent moons when she smiled—not the polite professional smile, but the real one she'd given him over cards. The little curls that escaped at the base of her neck when she wore her hair up, catching the arena lights like a coil of spun silk. The way her teeth worried her bottom lip when she concentrated on her notes, and how it took everything in him not to reach across the distance and soothe that lip with his thumb. With his mouth.
Christ. He gripped his stick harder, forcing himself through another drill.
