Chapter 14 #2
“No, I’m talking about protecting someone who doesn’t deserve to be dragged through the mud because of you.
” Cole leans forward, his tone sharper now.
“You think I don’t know how this is going to go?
I’ve watched stories like this play out in the press in real time.
It never ends well for anyone. If you don’t give the media something to focus on, they’ll keep tearing her apart.
You want to protect her? Give her a script. Let her own the story.”
Across the room, Beau’s expression says what I already know. This isn’t just a bad clip; it’s a wildfire. Pretending I don’t feel something for her won’t put it out.
“Whatever this is between you two,” Cooper says quietly, “it needs to get figured out. We’re not doing another press conference like that. Either you get on the same page, or one of you is going to have to go.”
The silence that follows feels suffocating. For a second, I am sure he means me. That I’ll be the one packed off somewhere else, traded before the ink dries. Then I see the look in his eyes and know what he is really thinking. He’s thinking about her.
“She didn’t do anything wrong,” I say, the words sharper than I mean.
“No,” Cooper agrees. “But she’s the easiest one to blame.”
The truth of it sits heavy in my chest. I stare at my brothers, trying to think over the noise in my head. Every part of me wants to shield her from all of this, but there’s no version of this story where she walks away without a bruise.
“We fake it,” Cole says, almost cheerful. “We lean in and make it look like a real relationship.”
Cooper’s brow furrows, but he doesn’t immediately shut it down. That’s how I know we’re in trouble. “If we go this route, we’ll need her to handle the rollout. She’ll decide what interviews go live, what language we use. It’s her department.”
“You’re actually asking her to sell this?” I let out a slow breath, trying to calm the pounding in my chest.
“No,” Cooper says. “I’m asking her to survive it.”
I drag my hand through my hair, trying to breathe around the knot in my throat.
The idea of her sitting at her desk, writing an official PR statement about us, crafting captions about something that’s already tearing me in half, makes me sick.
She’ll make it look perfect and smile while she does it, because that is the job.
Every fake headline will drive the wedge deeper between what’s pretend and what feels like the only real thing I’ve had in months.
“It buys time,” Beau says quietly, his hand landing on my shoulder. “And it gives the media something else to chew on.”
And that’s when it hits me: This isn’t a plan. It’s triage, and they’re all trying to stop the bleeding. The thought of pretending with her, of holding her hand and smiling for cameras when everything between us already feels too dangerous, makes me dizzy.
“You’ll thank me later when your little PR fairy still has her job.” Cole smirks, breaking the silence. “So, she handles the PR; you handle the swooning. It’s practically foolproof.”
“She’s not a fairy.”
“No, but she’s got you under a spell, anyway.”
I don’t answer because I can still feel her in my chest, warm and heavy and impossible to shake.
And pretending that’s not real will be the biggest lie of all.
Every instinct I have is screaming to move, to push back, to do anything except sit here and agree to turn what I feel for her into a storyline to be consumed.
I can still see the panic in her eyes, the way her fingers trembled on the clipboard before she forced them still.
I put that look there, and now they want to call it strategy, something clean, when all I can feel is the mess I made.
I glance down at my hands, flexing them until my knuckles ache. “You really think this will work?”
“It has to,” Cole says, shrugging. “You fake a relationship, the story changes. You become a romantic headline instead of a scandal. People stop digging because they think they already know everything.”
It sounds so simple when he says it. This is just another play. As if faking it won’t tear me apart one press conference at a time.
“You’re asking me to lie to the entire league. To the fans. To her.”
Cole doesn’t flinch. “No. I’m asking you to keep her safe.”
There it is. The one thing I can’t argue with.
Keeping her safe has already become the thing I can’t stop trying to do.
My chest tightens with something that feels too much like surrender.
I know he is right. I hate that he is right.
I’ll have to sit there and smile while she builds the lie we both have to live inside.
I look at him, and the frustration spills out before I can stop it. “You really think I can sit there and pretend this is fake when it’s not?”
Cooper’s eyes narrow. “Then you’d better learn fast.”
Beau’s gaze flicks toward the door, then back to me. “Or at least act like you can.”
Then the door opens and Alycia steps in, careful and composed, like she already knows we’ve been talking about her.
Watching her agree to something that’s supposed to protect us when every part of me already knows there’s nothing fake about the way I feel is the kind of thing that could break me if I’m not careful.