That gets her attention. The book lowers. “A what?”
“A press release.”
She blinks. “You mean, like an announcement?”
I nod. “Exactly.”
“Tothe public?”
“To the public. My team’s asking. They want to get ahead of the tabloids and rumors that you’re a gold digger.”
She gapes at me. “Can’t we just, I don’t know—not?”
“Babe, I’m a professional athlete who reappeared in the media married, from a wedding no one saw happen. You think silence is going to clear things up?”
The internet is going crazy, and the fewer details that are provided, the worse the lies get.
She crosses her arms and glares at me like I just suggested we live stream the birth. “You want to PR spin our relationship like it’s a scandal. Wejusttold your parents. We haven’t even had the chance to both sit down with mine yet.”
That’s today’s agenda—her parents. She’s been on the phone with her mom several times, but they have yet to officially have a chat with me. Her dad began blowing up her phone the second the news brokeafter Evy’s social media post, but we haven’t told them about the baby either. Only that we’re hitched ...
“I’m not trying tospinanything,” I tell her, palms out. “I just want the truth out there before someone with a YouTube channel decides you’re a gold-digging fame chaser with a secret Maverick McBride fan account.”
She gasps. “Do people think that?”
Uh.Yes.“Babe. They think all kinds of things.”
She lets out a groan and flops backward onto the couch, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead dramatically. “This is my nightmare. I didn’t sign up for any of this.”
I sit beside her, trying to ignore the fact that she’s still wearing my hoodie and I still want to kiss the panic right off her face.
“You did. You signed up when you fell asleep inmyhammock.”
“That wasn’t a contract.”
“That feels legally binding in some states.”
She cracks a smile, barely, but I can see the overwhelm swimming behind her eyes. In a perfect world we’d forget about the statement to the media, the team’s publicist, the chaos storm brewing online, and I’d just pull her into my lap and let her breathe.
But that’s not what we need right now.
Right now, we need control.Or at least the illusion of it.
I soften my voice. “Hey. I’ll wait, okay? Until after we talk to your parents. We’ll write it together. You’ve got to trust me—if we don’t say anything, the vultures will say it for us.”
“I don’t want to write it. At all. Why can’t we wait until I’m further along?”
Better now than never. “We won’t mention the baby. Just the relationship part.”
She huffs. “It’s so freaking dumb that this is anyone’s business. My life is no one’s business but mine.”
“I agree,” I say, because I do. “Unfortunately, itismine. And mine happens to come with a jersey and a media clause and a publicist who’s already drafted three statements without us.”
She stands up from the couch, pacing now, hands flying as she talks. “God, do you even hear yourself? You’re acting like we’re launching a new shoe line—not trying to figure out how to be in an actual relationship!”
“Iamtrying to figure it out,” I snap, standing too. “But I don’t have the luxury of doing it in secret.”
“Oh, so now it’smyfault you’re famous?”
