Page 13 of Bliss

“Noah, you paid for this entire outfit, and I wasn’t gentle on that card you handed over while I was at the spa.”

“I loved getting the alerts every time you used it, Bliss.” Opening the case, he turned it to face me. “I’ve had this for a while. When I saw it, I thought of you and couldn’t resist buying it. I’ve just been waiting for the chance to give it to you.”

It was a pair of angel wings studded with black diamonds. Enthralled, I touched the large pendant. “How long is a while?” I whispered around the knot of emotion in my throat.

“Before I got the job offer in North Carolina.”

Seven years. He’d had that necklace for seven godsdamn years.

Closing my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath in an attempt to hold back the tears that threatened to spill. Swallowing with difficulty, I lifted my lashes. “Put it on me?”

Nodding, he moved behind me. I shifted my hair out of the way, and he clasped the chain into place. The wings rested at the base of my throat, spreading wide. I looked at myself in the foyer mirror, the light reflecting off the black diamonds beautifully. Behind me, Noah ducked his head so he was in the image with me.

“Do you like it?”

“Like is an understatement.”

Noah

Ted Hawkins was the stupid kind of rich—and maybe just stupid in general. He came from old money, and the only reason he was still a billionaire was because he had trustworthy people who invested for him. Except for the Titans. That, he handled himself, and since the team’s inception, he’d been making piss-poor choices.

I was going to cure him of that.

After the staffing changes, and cutting out the toxicity, we were already showing improvements and the preseason hadn’t even started yet. Forcing the team to attend the gala wasn’t the worst idea Ted had had, but as the night wore on, I realized it probably wasn’t his best one either.

From the moment I stepped onto the red carpet with Bliss at my side, the cameras hadn’t stopped flashing once. Many of the photographers knew who she was and called her by name, yelling for her to look their way for a shot. She kept a soft smile on her face, posing like she’d been walking red-carpet events her entire life, which she most likely had.

I stayed glued to her side, answering questions that were thrown at me on autopilot. How did I feel about the approaching season? What did I foresee as the team’s biggest hurdles? The one that got shouted at me the most was, were Bliss and I romantically involved?

Every question, I answered with full honesty. I was confident about the team’s chances for getting through to the finals, something they’d never done in any previous year. Not once. We were already ironing out the wrinkles that would get in our way of starting the season stronger than ever. And yes, Bliss Stevenson was my entire world.

That last answer got me a side-eye from the angel beside me, but she didn’t rebuke my response. Instead, she’d melted against me a little and gave me that smile that had the power to make my stomach flip.

We kept moving, the red carpet feeling like it was miles long with the volume of media covering the event. There were backdrops up for at least a hundred sponsors, some of them who supported the team as a whole, others that had individual contracts with my players. Red carpets were all about performing. Smile, pose, interview. Rinse and repeat.

Through it all, I didn’t let Bliss get more than a few inches from me. If my hand wasn’t holding hers, then it was at the small of her back or on her hip, never once giving anyone the chance to speculate that she was there with anyone but me. Especially when some of the players caught up to us.

Xaden was the first to approach us. Dressed in a gray-on-black tux and a pair of burgundy athletic shoes because the brand was one of his sponsors, he had his daughter Shaya with him. Shaya wore a strapless mini dress in the same shade as her father’s shoes. She was taller than average, given that her father was six-eleven, and she’d opted for a pair of white athletic shoes instead of heels.

She hugged Bliss as soon as she reached her, the two of them laughing and talking animatedly while the cameras continued to flash. Xaden gave me a fist bump, lifting his head in Bliss’s direction with approval on his face. “Excellent choice. She’s good people.”

Before I could tell him I’d known that a hell of a lot longer than he had, Evan joined us. He was alone, the blonde who had made a nuisance of herself at my welcoming party nowhere in sight. “Trying to start the party without me, I see.”

“Does this mean Caprice won’t be joining us?” Xaden asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.

“Didn’t feel like dealing with her bullshit tonight,” Evan said with a shrug.

“You two on a break or something, kid?” his captain asked, cutting straight to the point.

“We’re just friends,” he said firmly, his gaze traveling to the two women at my side. I didn’t miss the way those aquamarine eyes zeroed straight in on Shaya.

And then Bliss turned, saw her cousin, and muttered a curse. “Great. This night just turned into a total drag.”

“Please tell me she’s not with you, man,” Evan complained to his teammate. “I mean, seriously, do you know what you’re getting yourself into with this chick? Maybe check her for knives, just to be safe.”

“Bliss is my date,” I informed him, my tone going hard. “And I know exactly how lucky I am to be here with her.”

His eyes widened comically until they were practically popping out of his head. “You’re joking.”