“If Alycia doesn’t marry you on sight after this, I might.” Michele nods once, the corners of her mouth curving despite her effort to stay composed.
I let out a shaky laugh and shake my head. “Careful. Cole would have an issue with that.”
“Cole only has an issue when someoneelsetries to flirt with me.” Michele’s smile turns slow and wicked.
“Please. Cole would’ve been in here setting up the lighting if he weren’t at practice.”
“Either way, there is no way Alycia will do anything but promise to love you for the rest of her life after watching that,” Ramona adds, tilting her head with an assessing eye. “Even your brothers would’ve cried listening to that.”
Alise steps forward and squeezes my forearm. “Kyle… that wasn’t a PR message. It was a love letter you accidentally handed to the entire internet.”
A flush climbs up my neck, but I don’t look away. “All of it was for her.”
Pride, affection, and the fierce support that only comes from people who want to see you win forreasons that have nothing to do with hockey ripple through the room.
Ramona exhales. “Well, congratulations. You just became the gold standard for men.”
“Saint Kyle of the Timberwolves.” Michele pats my shoulder like she’s knighting me. “God help every man in Portland who has to compete with whatever the hell you just did.”
I shake my head, laughter catching on something rawer beneath it. “I’m not trying to compete with anyone.”
“No,” Ramona says softly, “you’re just trying to love her right.”
Even though fear is still thrumming at the edges of me, even though the world is about to light up like a minefield when we hit “Post,” the truth settles into my bones with unwavering certainty.
“I’m not trying. Ido.”
Three pairs of eyes soften at the same time as Michele holds my phone toward me. “Then it’s time to show her.”
My finger hovers over the button, heart pounding with something that feels like devotion sharpened into resolve. Somewhere across the city, she’s sitting in a room where people are preparing to use her as a shield. And she has no idea that in the next hour, the entire world is about to see exactly what she means to me.
That I’m about to stand in front of the wolves… for her.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alycia
My phone hasn’t stopped buzzing for an hour. The sound vibrates through the desk like a pulse I can’t regulate, threading itself into my bloodstream until I can’t tell where the noise ends and my panic begins. Notifications flip my screen awake again and again, like a swarm trying to claw its way inside my head. I flip it face down again, like that will somehow make the noise in my head quieter.
It doesn’t.
The open tabs on my computer feel like a confession laid out in pixels. My resignation email sits on one monitor, already addressed and scheduled to be sent to Janine. My drafted statement blinks open on the other, the cursor pulsing like a countdown I can’t outrun.
Just seeing my name typed at the top of the resignation makes something twist painfully under my ribs. I worked so hard for this second chance, pouring an entire year of my life into being someone no one could question, accuse, or replace.
I reread the first line of my statement, the words so neat and cold they barely feel like they belong to me.
The relationship between Kyle Hendrix and me began as a PR strategy and should have remained as such…I clamp my jaw hard, swallowing the bitterness rising like bile.
This statement protects him and stabilizes the front office, but it also sacrifices me. I know how to remove myself from the narrative when the story demands a villain. But it also erases everything terrifying and beautiful that happened between us when no one was looking.
I take full responsibility for allowing professional boundaries to blur…
The cursor blinks at the end of the paragraph. This is what they want: a neat little narrative they can point to and say,See? We handled it. She handled it.Everyone moves forward but me, the woman who folded herself into the space markedacceptable loss.
My finger trembles as I hover over the trackpad. Once I hit “Publish,” it’s over. The job, the team, and the career I clawed my way into with late nights and a spine that refused to bend in rooms full of men who mistook me for ornamental. No one will want to touch me again after this. My life as I know it will be over, but he walks away cleaner. And I can live with being the villain if it means he gets to stay the hero.
The phone buzzes again, harder this time, nearly vibrating off the edge. I snatch it without thinking, ready to flip on Do Not Disturb out of spite, and freeze.
