Chapter 17 Father’s Line
L ena had always known where her father drew the line.
It was one of the first things she learned about being Evan Hart’s daughter.
Do not embarrass the program.
Do not distract the players.
Do not cry in public if Westbridge was hosting donors.
Do not ask questions during match strategy unless invited.
Do not date athletes.
Especially not tennis players.
Especially not the kind who carried anger like a second racket and made headlines with their hands.
Especially not Nico Reyes.
That line had always been clear.
Bright white.
Painted straight across her life like the baseline on Court One.
The problem was that Nico kept standing on the other side of it, looking at her like rules were things people made when they were afraid of wanting.
And Lena was starting to understand fear.
She had not spoken to him since the training room.
Not properly.
There had been one text from him after midnight.
I shouldn’t have said that.
She had stared at it for seven minutes.
Then replied:
No. You shouldn’t have.
His typing bubble had appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then nothing.
Which was probably for the best.
Space was healthy.
Distance was smart.
Distance kept people from almost kissing beside tennis courts, wearing hoodies that smelled like bad decisions, and caring too much about wrists attached to stubborn men who thought pain was a private language.
By the next afternoon, Lena had convinced herself she was emotionally stable.
Then her father summoned her to his office.
So that was over.
Coach Hart’s office sat at the end of the athletics hallway, tucked behind a glass door with WESTbrIDGE TENNIS etched in blue.
Lena had spent half her childhood in that room curled in a chair with homework while her father reviewed match footage.
Back then, it had smelled like coffee, new tennis balls, and the peppermint gum her mother used to keep in her purse.
Now it smelled like discipline.
Coffee.
Leather.
Paper.
A faint trace of court dust.
And the heavy silence of a man waiting to be disappointed.
Her father stood behind his desk when she entered, which meant this was not a conversation.
It was a judgment.
Lena shut the door behind her.
“You wanted to see me?”
He looked up from his phone.
A photo glowed on the screen.
Her and Nico in the training room doorway yesterday.
Not touching.
Not doing anything wrong.
But close.
Always too close.
The caption beneath it had come from the gossip account, because apparently whoever ran it had decided sleep was for people without surveillance hobbies.
Trouble with the love match? Sources say Lena Hart and Nico Reyes had a heated moment after wrist drama.
Wrist drama.
Lena wanted to throw the phone into the nearest lake.
Her father set it facedown on the desk.
“We need to talk.”
There it was.
Four words that never improved anyone’s afternoon.
Lena folded her hands in front of her. “About the post?”
“About your judgment.”
Straight to it, then.
Lovely.
“My judgment is fine.”
“No,” he said. “It is not.”
The words landed cleanly.
No raised voice.
No anger.
Just certainty.
That was her father’s sharpest weapon.
He did not sound cruel when he hurt her.
He sounded sure.
Lena lifted her chin. “If this is about me telling the trainer about Nico’s wrist, I made the right call.”
“This is not only about the wrist.”
“Then what is it about?”
“You and Nico.”
Her stomach tightened.
She wished it would stop doing that.
Wished his name did not move through her body like a secret trying to become a confession.
“There is no me and Nico,” she said.
Her father’s face did not change.
That was worse.
“Do not insult me by lying poorly.”
Lena laughed once, too lightly. “That’s new. Usually people say I’m excellent at lying with my face.”
He did not smile.
Neither did she, after a second.
Coach Hart came around the desk and leaned against the front edge, arms crossed. He looked tired. Not professionally tired. Not post-match tired.
Father tired.
The kind that made her chest ache before he even spoke.
“I see the way he looks at you.”
Lena’s throat closed.
She looked away toward the framed photographs on the wall. Westbridge championship teams. Her father shaking hands with donors. A picture of her at fifteen, smiling beside him in a blue dress at an awards banquet, looking like the kind of daughter who never caused trouble.
She hated that girl today.
She missed her too.
“Nico looks angry at everyone,” she said.
“Not at you.”
The words were quiet.
Too quiet.
Lena forced herself to look back. “This arrangement requires us to appear convincing.”
“Appear,” her father said. “Not become.”
She swallowed.
“There are boundaries for a reason.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Her hands curled at her sides. “Yes.”
“Because from where I stand, you are emotionally involved with a player whose future here is already unstable.”
Anger flashed hot and sudden.
“Nico’s future is unstable because people keep judging him without context.”
“Nico’s future is unstable because Nico keeps making choices that put it at risk.”
“He is under pressure.”
“So is every athlete in this program.”
“Not like him.”
Her father’s eyes sharpened.
Lena heard what she had said.
Not like him.
Too protective.
Too personal.
Too true.
She closed her mouth.
Her father’s disappointment shifted into something more painful.
Fear.
That made her angrier.
Because fear was how he made control look like love.
“Lena,” he said, softer now, “I know you want to help him.”
“There’s that word again.”
“What word?”
“Help.” She smiled, but it shook at the edges. “Everyone keeps saying I want to help him like I’m wandering around with a basket of emotional first aid and no common sense.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“Then say what you mean.”
He was silent for a beat.
Then, “I think he is becoming more important to you than the consequences.”
The room went still.
Lena felt the words pass through her and settle somewhere low.
Heavy.
Dangerous.
Because the safe answer was immediate.
No.
Of course not.
This is professional.
Temporary.
Controlled.
He is not important.
He is not.
He is not.
But Nico’s face rose in her mind.
Nico standing between her and cameras.
Nico laughing under court lights.
Nico saying, “You’re the girl everyone gets to hurt because she makes it easy to pretend they didn’t.”
Nico’s hand shaking after a backhand.
Nico’s mother on FaceTime calling her mija.
Nico looking at her mouth and saying, “Because I’d be lying.”
Lena said nothing.
Her father’s face tightened.
There it was.
The answer she had not given.
He turned away first, jaw working. “You cannot do this.”
That pulled her back. “Do what?”
“Let him make you reckless.”
The anger returned, cleaner this time.
“He is not making me anything.”
“You think that now.”
“No.” She stepped forward. “You don’t get to turn every choice I make into something a man did to me.”
Her father looked at her sharply.
Lena’s heart pounded, but she kept going.
“You do this every time I want something you didn’t approve first. Suddenly I’m distracted. Na?ve. Too close. Too young to understand the cost.”
“I have never called you na?ve.”
“You don’t have to. You make it sound nicer.”
Pain flickered across his face.
Good.
No.
Not good.
But maybe necessary.
He pushed off the desk. “This is not about controlling you.”
“Then stop.”
The words came out before she could soften them.
They stood between them, breathing.
Her father went very still.
Lena did too.
For a second, she wished she could take them back.
Not because they were untrue.
Because they were the kind of truth that changed the temperature of a room permanently.
“I am trying to protect you,” he said.
“I know.” Her voice broke slightly, and she hated that too. “But protection that only works when I obey is not protection. It is a cage with good intentions.”
His face changed.
A direct hit.
Lena felt no victory.
Only exhaustion.
Her phone buzzed in her purse.
She ignored it.
Then it buzzed again.
And again.
Her father looked toward the sound.
“Answer it.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“If it concerns the campaign, answer it.”
The irony almost made her laugh.
Now he wanted her involved.
She pulled out her phone.
Maya had texted three times.
Lena.
Check the gossip account.
Please don’t panic. But maybe panic efficiently.
Lena’s stomach dropped.
She opened the account.
A new post filled the screen.
Not a photo this time.
A screenshot of an anonymous submission.
Heard from someone close to the team that Nico’s wrist is worse than they’re saying. Wonder if Coach’s daughter is hiding it to keep her boyfriend eligible.
Lena’s blood went cold.
Her father took one look at her face and held out his hand.
She gave him the phone.
He read it.
The room changed.
Whatever father-daughter pain had filled the office sharpened into something professional and dangerous.
“Who knew about the wrist?” he asked.
Lena’s mouth went dry. “Staff. Trainer. You. Me. Nico. Maybe Jace.”
“And whoever saw the training room.”
Her mind raced.
Savannah.
Declan.
The anonymous account.
Someone in the department.
Someone close enough to know the injury mattered and cruel enough to use it.
Her father looked at her. “This is exactly what I was afraid of.”
Lena took the phone back.
“No,” she said, voice low. “This is exactly why hiding things makes them easier to weaponize.”
His eyes flashed. “Do not turn this into a lesson.”
“I’m not. I’m telling you the truth.”
The door opened behind her without a knock.
Nico stood there.
Of course he did.
Because every conversation about him seemed destined to happen with him walking into the worst possible sentence.
He looked from Lena to Coach Hart to the phone in her hand.
“What happened?”
Lena hesitated.
That was enough.
His face hardened. “Show me.”
“Nico—”
“Show me.”
She handed him the phone.
He read the post.
The color drained from his face first.
Then came the anger.
It moved through him silently, tightening everything until the air felt breakable.
Coach Hart’s voice was sharp. “Reyes.”
Nico did not look up.
His thumb moved over the screen, scrolling through comments.
If he’s hurt, why is he still playing?
Because Westbridge needs the championship.
Or because Lena’s covering for him.
Scholarship boy can’t afford to sit, huh?
Nico stopped on that one.
Lena saw it hit.
“Nico,” she said softly.
He looked at her.
And for the first time, she realized the worst part of being exposed was not that people saw you.
It was that they saw just enough to get it wrong.
His voice was quiet when he spoke.
“Who else knew?”
“We don’t know.”
His gaze moved to Coach Hart. “You telling people?”
Coach Hart’s expression turned lethal. “Watch yourself.”
“Nico,” Lena warned.
But he was already stepping forward, fury and fear moving too fast now.
“Because people don’t just guess this.”
“No one in this office leaked your injury,” Coach Hart said.
Nico laughed once, cold and humorless. “Right. Westbridge protects its players.”
Her father’s face hardened. “You are standing in my office accusing my staff because you are angry.”
“I’m angry because someone keeps knowing things they shouldn’t.”
“And whose behavior keeps making those things valuable?” Coach Hart snapped.
The room went silent.
Lena’s heart stopped.
Nico went still.
Not angry now.
Worse.
Wounded in that deep, silent place he tried so hard to armor.
Lena turned to her father. “Dad.”
Coach Hart looked like he regretted it.
But he did not apologize.
Not fast enough.
Nico handed Lena back her phone.
His face was closed.
Completely.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said.
Lena stepped toward him. “How?”
He did not answer.
That terrified her more than anything he could have said.
“Nico.”
He looked at her once.
There was something in his eyes she had not seen before.
Not just anger.
Decision.
Then he walked out.
Lena moved to follow, but her father caught her wrist.
Gently.
Still, she froze.
“Let him go,” he said.
She stared at his hand around her wrist.
Then up at him.
And in that moment, every line her father had ever drawn around her life became visible.
Do not embarrass the program.
Do not distract the players.
Do not date athletes.
Do not cross.
Do not want.
Do not choose him.
Lena pulled her wrist free.
Her father’s face changed.
“Lena.”
She stepped back.
“No,” she said, voice shaking now. “Not now.”
Then she ran after Nico.
The hallway was already empty.
Of course it was.
But her phone buzzed again.
Anonymous account.
One new message.
If Nico wants the truth buried, he should stop making it so easy to dig.