Chapter 17
I was staring at the ceiling, 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.
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.