AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Coach levels me with a look. Anger, I could take. Spite, I could take. But pure, unbridled disappointment… that hurts.
“Reese,” he says, addressing me by my first name uncharacteristically, “when was the last time you did anything that could be considered ‘keeping the team together’? Constantly arguing with Bastian? Letting your ego get in the way of treating your teammates with respect? Allowing your personal baggage to spill over into how the public views the team? That’s not leadership, Dalton. That’s selfishness.” Coach shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but it’s final. You’re out at the end of the season. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
46
OLIVIA
Reese’s good morning note lies in my lap. It’s like a security blanket right now for me. God knows I need it.
When the first notification came in, I was skeptical. Maybe it was just a misunderstanding. But then I started digging and there were dozens and dozens of articles just like the first one that dinged on my news app.
Reese Dalton, Secretly Married.
Hockey Star Hiding Pregnant Mistress From His Wife.
Dallas Playboy Athlete Juggling Wife And A Baby Mama.
All the headlines are filled with hurtful, degrading lies. I don’t know whether to cry or be angry. How can Holly be so cruel? How did she even find out that I was pregnant in the first place? Reese and I have been so careful…
My stomach churns and I know that it’s not just baby symptoms.
I’m sick with how fucked-up this whole situation is.
It’s hard to believe that such a vile woman gave birth to Violet. Vi is the sweetest little girl I know and, if I had to pick out her mother in a lineup of women just based on their personalities, Holly wouldn’t even come close. I’d choose Cinderella’s evil stepmother over her.
As I’m lying there, slowly slipping from sick to raging mad, the front door opens. I raise my head up over the edge of the couch and see Reese coming in.
He looks ragged. I know without asking he’s heard, too.
I sit up. I’m on high alert but I don’t say anything, not yet. He has to have a plan, something we can do, some move we can make. There has to be retribution after all this shit that Holly has done to us.
“Fuck.”
It’s the only thing that comes out of his mouth. He just stands there on the other side of the couch, running a hand through his hair again and again.
I hate seeing him like this. It’d be a stretch to call him defeated—I don’t think a man like Reese Dalton will ever truly admit he’s lost until there’s no more breath left in his lungs. But he’s hurting, badly.
And that means I’m hurting, too. On my own behalf, of course, and our baby’s, and Violet’s—but mostly, my heart hurts for him.
He’s my warrior. He’d do anything for me.
I want to do anything I can for him.
“… You saw the reports, right? The ones about Holly? The marriage? My pregnancy?—”
“Yeah, I saw them already, Olivia.”
I frown. “Okay. And…?”
“And what?”
I try to stamp down the fume that threatens to roil over into a full-blown fiery rage. “What do you mean, ‘And what?’ All that stuff is lies! You’re going to set the record straight, right? After everything we talked about, she can’t just get away with lying like this.”
Reese breathes in. It’s like he’s trying to hold everything inside himself together. “When shit like this happens, Olivia, it’s best to just let it blow over,” he says. “In a few weeks, people are gonna forget about it. They’re gonna stop talking about it?—”
“So you’re just okay with them saying all those awful things about me? About us?” I stand up and fold my arms over my chest. I want to shake him like a ragdoll until that familiar fire lights up in his eyes. Where is the Reese I know? Where is the Viking, the caveman, the never-quit brute?
“Of course I’m fucking not!” Reese snaps. “I hate the shit they’re saying. But even if I debunked it one by one in a literal court of law, it’s not like it’s going to make them stop saying shit! They just need to get bored.”
