Maggie. Perfect blazer, flawless blowout, phone in one manicured hand and a file tucked under her arm. Her eyesflick over him in one quick glance—sweats, pale skin, the faint bruise still yellowing along his temple—and her smile tightens, thin and businesslike.
“There you are,” she says. “We need to talk.”
The sight of her standing there, already halfway inside with her agenda, makes my blood boil.
Maverick rubs the back of his neck, already looking exhausted, his voice flat. “Maggie, not now?—”
But she’s already moving forward, heels clicking on his hardwood floor. “No, now. The press is circling like sharks, the team wants answers, and your sponsors are nervous. We need to get ahead of this before you’re branded as ‘the quarterback with a broken brain.’”
I notice how his shoulders stiffen and see the flicker of shame in his eyes.
And that’s it. That’s my breaking point.
“Get out.”
The words escape my mouth before I can stop them, sharp and furious. Maggie blinks, her perfect smile faltering as she turns toward me.
“Excuse me?”
I step between her and Maverick, arms crossed over my chest, my entire body a shield. “You heard me. He’s still healing. He doesn’t need you barging in here with scare tactics and press bullshit.”
“Amelia—” Maverick begins, but I cut him off, my eyes never leaving Maggie’s.
“You don’t own him,” I snap, voice rising. “You don’t get to walk into his home and reduce him to a headline. He’s a person. He’s the man I love. And right now, he needs peace, not you parading his injuries around like a PR crisis.”
Maggie’s mouth opens, indignation flashing in her eyes, but I step closer, my voice low and deadly. “So either youwalk out that door, or I’ll make sure every sponsor you’re worried about knows you’re exploiting a man who can barely stand on his own feet.”
Maggie’s eyes dart to Maverick, as if she’s expecting him to rein me in. But when I glance back, he’s simply staring at me, lips parted, with an unreadable look burning in his eyes.
She scoffs. “Oh, please. Pipe down. We both know this marriage is fake, sweetheart. You don’t get to play the doting wife now.”
My ears ring, my cheeks burn from anger, and I swear my fingernails nearly break skin where they dig into my palms. Fake. She said it like a weapon, like she’s been waiting to twist the knife.
My mouth opens, already full of enough venom to drop her right where she stands, but then she flicks her wrist, and my stomach plummets.
“Come on in.”
A man in a button-up shirt with a press badge steps across the threshold, his notepad already out and his recorder blinking red. His face is lit up with greedy excitement, as if Maverick lying half-dead on the field was the best thing that ever happened to him.
My chest lurches. “What the fu?—”
Maverick cuts me off with a laugh.
Not a happy one. A sharp, cracking sound echoes through the house, ragged and too loud in the silence that follows.
Maggie stills. The reporter hesitates mid-step.
And Maverick—my broken, stubborn, infuriating man—pushes himself up, shoulders squared despite looking pale as hell, sweat dotting his temple. His grin is wolfish, unhinged, and it makes my heart trip over itself.
“You’re late,” he says, the smirk tugging at his lips. Hetilts his head toward the reporter. “I already ripped the contract up.”
My jaw drops.
Maggie’s face drains of color. “You—what?”
“Yeah,” he says, shrugging, his eyes slicing toward her. “I tore that shit up. Because Amelia isn’t my PR stunt, she’s my wife.”
My wife, those words make me dizzy.
