“Enough.”
Her eyes go toward the photographs on the table, and she pushes past me to pick them up. It takes her a second to connect the dots. “This is me.” She looks at me. “Is this happening because of us being in public together?”
“No, it—”
“Yes.” Sterling chooses that moment to butt in. “Grayson’s ex-wife is using these photographs to imply that he is bringing all sorts of women around their son. Given his playboy image in the media, she has a solid case.”
Miranda’s hands clench around the photos, and her eyes go from Sterling to my alpha. “What does he need from me? I heard you guys say he needed me for something.”
Coach looks at me for a moment and then diverts his gaze back to her, tucking his hands in his pockets. “We need you to act as his fiancée. If he wants to have a hope of keeping Ethan, he has to show he’s a good father—”
“He is a good father!” Miranda hisses.
“Not to the court, Miss Carver,” my alpha says calmly. “He’s single, the media has him portrayed as a playboy, he’s on every tabloid there is, and he hasn’t had a stable relationship since Vanessa left. He needs to show he’s stable.”
“And being engaged to me will prove that?” Miranda asks doubtfully.
“You’ve already been photographed with him.”
She’s silent for a moment and then glances at me. “If it helps him keep Ethan, I’ll do it.”
I’m immediately by her side, grabbing her upper arms and turning her around to face me. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, Miranda. The media exposure alone will—”
“I don’t care.” Her eyes narrow. “You’re a good father. Ethan loves you. If I can help you retain custody—”
“You don’t know Vanessa. She will tear your reputation to—”
“Is my reputation more important to you than Ethan?”
The question throws me off. I open my mouth. Close it. Nothing comes out because there is no answer that won’t sound like a lie.
Ethan is my son. Ethan is the line I will burn the world down to hold.
And she is the other line, the one I’m not allowed to name in this room, the one my wolf has been screaming at me to protect since the moment Sterling said her name out loud. I can’t choose between them. That’s the truth. And I can’t say that either.
The silence has her brows knitting together, and a strange emotion flits through her eyes before she turns her head away, pulling free from me. “Ethan needs you, and if I can help, I will. It’s not like I have anything else going on at the moment.”
I open my mouth, but Coach cuts me off. “She’s agreed to it. I don’t know why you’re so against it. If you have a problem with Miranda, you can just suck it up—”
“I don’t have a problem with her!” I snap. “But she should! Her entire life will be ripped open by the media. She’ll have no privacy. They’ll dig up everything, even things that are private, things she probably wants to stay buried.”
Miranda tightens her jaw. “I understand all that. I’m not an idiot, Grayson. But if you think I’m going to sit by while Ethan is taken from you, you don’t know me very well.”
My jaw moves, and she chooses that moment to turn to Sterling instead. “What do I need to do?”
Sterling slides his phone back into his jacket pocket. “You move in here for the next couple of months, till this whole thing tides over. Cancel your lease if you have one. If anyone digs deep, you two started living together a while ago, and that’s why you’ve been spending time outside together. Do all the things that a couple planning a life together would. Living together is the first milestone people expect.”
She nods slowly. “I can manage that.”
“You’ll be photographed with Grayson and Ethan in public,” Sterling continues. “Restaurants, parks, team events, charity functions. Anywhere Vanessa’s people might be looking. We announce the engagement in response to the articles that have already run, and we get ahead of the story before her side frames it for us.”
“All right.” She glances at me. “That’s it? That doesn’t sound very hard.”
Sterling’s lips twitch slightly. “That’s just the basics. You’ll go on dates with him. Be seen. Smile when you’re supposed to smile. You’ll have to get physically close with him in public because Vanessa’s people will be watching, and a fiancée who flinches from her partner is a fiancée a private investigator will pull apart inside a week. I don’t think I need to expand on what physical closeness should be, but in public, make sure you come off as a couple who is deeply in love.”
Miranda’s hand tightens on the photographs. She doesn’t answer right away. I watch her work through it. The dating, the cameras, the touching, all of it laid out by a man in a suit who’s never met her before today.
“All right.” Her voice is quieter than before, but it doesn’t shake. “I can do that.” She doesn’t look at me when she says it.
