Page 93 of Slapshot Bride

Diane shakes her head.

“You won't enjoy the next six months.”

“As long as I’m on the team and playing, I’ll be fine.”

Both of them watch me for a minute. Then Diane speaks, and I hear her shields dropping, except her words punch me in the gut.

“And if anything else comes out… If there is anything about you I don't know…”

I hold her eyes.

“There is nothing coming out that I can't handle.”

She looks at me for a long second.

“Fine. Soft launch. My timeline. My messaging. You go where I tell you and you say what I tell you until this steadies.”

“Thank you.”

“Be careful, son.”

I nod at Coach.

A minute later, I’m out. Riley is on the chair. She stands up and I take her hand. We walk to the parking lot, wordlessly.

In the car, on the way home, we don’t talk.

Diane’s last words sit on my mind.

I think about Maya.

Every camera that is now pointed at me is a camera Maya is watching. Every headline is a headline that raises her price. I have known this since the article opened on my screen in the greenhouse, and I have been carrying it since.

I have made her more dangerous by choosing Riley.

I think about Mason.

I think about him at the bar, telling me to tell the woman the truth before it blew up on her.

If only he knew.

He doesn't know she's the Sinclair bride. He doesn't know I'm about to be the other man in a national story. He doesn't read sports coverage. He doesn't follow gossip. He doesn't live in any of the rooms this is going to move through. He won't know unless I tell him.

I will handle Maya first. Then I will tell him. Later. When it is handled.

For now, my one mission is to make sure my woman gets her life and freedom back.

No more living in fear.

18

RILEY

Team Cookout

Two weeks.

That is how long it has been since Preston showed up at the door and managed to spin my life for the worse. Two weeks since Easton drove me to Coach Brennan’s office. Two weeks of tabloid coverage, and after days of hiding, I’m finally ready to face the world.