He nodded, his eyes searching mine.“Okay.”He pressed one last, achingly gentle kiss to my lips.“Take all the time you need.I’m not going anywhere.”
He stepped back, giving me space.The cool air rushed between us.He looked at me for one long, final moment, then turned and walked down the alley, disappearing into the night.
I slumped against the wall, my legs weak, my lips tingling, my heart a wild, confused drum in my chest.
I didn’t know what to feel.I was still hurt.I was still scared.
But for the first time all night, I felt a fragile, tentative thread of hope.
Chapter 17
Iwas staring at theceiling, sleep an impossibility, my lips still humming with the ghost of Henry’s confession in the alley, when my phone erupted on the nightstand—not a buzz, but a sustained, screaming siren of notifications.
Shay: DUDE.
Felix:Charlie, don’t look at anything.Call us.
Team PR Group Chat:[13 new messages]
My Agent:PICK UP THE PHONE.
A cold dread, deeper than anything I’d felt on the ice, pooled in my stomach.With numb fingers, I opened the news alert at the top of the screen.
The image was grainy, taken from a distance with a long lens, but unmistakable.It was us, in the alley.The streetlamp casting its cinematic glow.Henry’s hands cradling my face.My own hands clutching his jacket, pulling him closer.Our lips locked in a kiss that looked less like a scandal and more like a heartbreak.
The headline burned in bold, black letters:
"PUCKERED UP: Billionaire Henry Emerson’s Secret Romance with Hockey’s Star Forward Exposed.Is Kira Out?Is Charlie Holt a Homewrecker or Was the Supermodel Just a Beard?"
I dropped the phone.It clattered on the hardwood, the screen still glowing, a tiny square of pure chaos in the dark.
The silence in my apartment was no longer peaceful.It was the silence before the storm.
It was over.And it was only just beginning.
