Chapter 11
“How?” Felix echoed, his tone dripping with skepticism. “Shay, this is a terrible idea. This is how people get traded to minor league teams in Siberia.”
“No, no, hear me out,” Shay said, his eyes alight with chaotic inspiration. “The guy is all about control, right? He’s ice. He doesn’t do messy. So, we show him that Charlie is fine. That he’s moving on. That he’s having a great time without Mr. Billionaire Business Meeting.”
The spark flared into a full-blown, alcohol-soaked inferno. Yes. I wanted Henry to lose that infuriating control. I wanted him to feel a fraction of the messy, chaotic hurt I was feeling.
“He told me not to be dramatic,” I slurred, a new, dangerous energy coursing through me. “Let’s be dramatic.”
“That’s the spirit!” Shay cheered, grabbing his phone. “Okay, we need a photo. Something that looks... intimate. Fun. Like you’re not sitting here crying into a cheap beer.”
My drunken brain latched onto the most intimate, most dramatic thing it could conceive. I turned to Shay, the room swaying gently. “Kiss me.”
Shay froze, his phone halfway to camera mode. “What?”
“Kiss me,” I repeated, the words sounding both insane and perfectly logical. “Take a picture. Send it to him. Let him see that I’m... I’m not waiting around. That someone else wants me.”
Felix put his head in his hands. “I’m going to be cleaning locker rooms for the rest of my career.”
Shay, however, looked from my desperate, tear-streaked face to his phone, and a slow grin spread across his. He was always a sucker for a terrible plan. “You know what? Fuck it. For the team. But if any of this gets out, we tell everyone it was for a charity dare.”
Before I could second-guess it, Shay leaned in.
It wasn’t a real kiss; it was a stage kiss, closed-mouthed and slightly off-center, but he angled his phone and the camera flash went off.
In the picture, with the soft lighting and my drunk, flushed face, it would probably look a hell of a lot more real than it felt.
I pulled back, my heart hammering for a completely different reason now. Adrenaline had cut through the drunken haze. “Send it to me.”
My phone buzzed a second later. The photo loaded. We looked... cozy. Shay’s arm was around me, our faces close. It was perfect.
With trembling, fumbling fingers, I opened my text thread with Henry. The one filled with my green bubbles of anguish and his one, gray, dismissive response. I attached the photo. My thumb hovered over the send button. This was the point of no return. This was lighting the fuse on a bomb.
I hit send.
For a full minute, nothing happened. The three of us sat in silence, staring at my phone as if it were a venomous snake.
“Well?” Felix finally said. “Is Siberia nice this time of year?”
Then, my phone exploded.
It wasn’t a single buzz. It was a relentless, vibrating torrent. Message after message after message lit up the screen, one after the other, so fast I could barely read them.
Unknown Number: What is the meaning of this, Charlie?
Unknown Number: Are you drunk?
Unknown Number: Tell me this is a joke.
Unknown Number: Where are you?
Unknown Number: Answer me.
Unknown Number: Is that Shayy? I will have him traded tomorrow. I will bury him in the minors so deep he’ll need a map to find the sun.
Unknown Number: You are mine. Do you understand me? You do not get to do this.
Unknown Number: Tell me where you are. Now.
Shay’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “Holy. Shit. Is that him? He sounds... unhinged.”
I was frozen, equal parts terrified and exhilarated. This was the reaction I’d wanted. This was the loss of control. The raw, unfiltered possessiveness in his texts was a balm on my bruised heart. He cared. He was furious.
Before I could type a response, the phone lit up with an incoming call. His name—or rather, his number—blazed on the screen.
Shay flinched back as if the phone itself had burned him. "Don't. Don't answer it."
But I was already moving, my heart a trapped bird in my throat. I swiped to answer and held it to my ear. "Hello?"
The silence on the other end was heavier than any shout. I could feel his fury radiating through the line.
"Where are you?" Henry's voice was quiet. A razor blade wrapped in silk.
"My apartment," I whispered.
"Is he still there?"
"Who?" I breathed, the single word a final, reckless act of defiance.
"Don't," he hissed, the control snapping. "Don't play stupid with me. Is HE still there?"
I swallowed, my mouth dry. "Yes."
The line went dead.
The three of us stared at each other in the sudden, deafening silence. The reality of the situation came crashing down. We hadn’t just poked the bear; we’d lit a stick of dynamite in its mouth.
"I should... probably go," Shay said, scrambling to his feet. He looked genuinely spooked.
A sharp, authoritative knock—no, it was a single, thunderous boom—rattled my door on its hinges. It wasn't a request for entry. It was a demand.
Felix was already pulling on his jacket, his face pale. "We're dead. We're so dead."
Before any of us could move, the doorknob twisted and the door burst open.
Henry stood in the wreckage, silhouetted by the hallway light.
His suit jacket was gone, his tie loose, and his hair was disheveled as if he’d been running his hands through it.
His chest was heaving. His eyes, wild and dark, found mine across the room and pinned me in place.
He looked nothing like the controlled billionaire. He looked feral.
How did he get here so fast?
He pointed a finger, steady as a gun, at Shay and Felix. "Get out."
They didn’t need telling twice. They fled without a backward glance, leaving me alone with him. The door clicked shut.
He walked toward me, each step a measured threat on my dirty floor. The air crackled, thick with his anger and the scent of my spilled beer. He stopped a breath away, his gaze sweeping from my terrified eyes down to my lips, which still felt the ghost of Shay’s staged kiss.
"Explain," he commanded, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
The fear evaporated, burned away by the sheer, magnetic force of his presence. He was here. In my space. Because of me.
I lifted my chin, trying to mimic his own cool defiance, but my voice wavered. "You told me not to be dramatic. I was just following orders."
A muscle ticked in his jaw. His hand came up to cup the back of my neck, his grip firm, unyielding, a brand of ownership.
"Do not," he said, his voice dropping to a husky, possessive whisper that vibrated through my very bones, "ever let another man touch you like that again."
His other hand fisted in my hair, tilting my head back, forcing me to meet his stormy eyes. "The next time that man touches you," he whispered, the words a promise and a threat, "it will be the last thing he ever does as a professional athlete. I will end him. Do you understand me?"
I could only nod, my whole body trembling, caught between terror and dizzying, reckless triumph. He was jealous. He was furious. He cared.
A grim, satisfied smile touched his lips. "Good."
And then his mouth was on mine.