Chapter 15 #2
“I said no, Coach. I’m not dragging her into this.” My wolf goes restless under my skin. “There’s a difference between the cleanest play and the only play.”
“Then suggest a better one,” Sterling counters.
I don’t have one. He knows it. That’s why he brought up her name. That’s why Coach hasn’t said a word against it.
I push back from the table and turn toward the railing with both hands on the wood. The lawn rolls down to the tree line with mist in the low places. The wind is coming off the trees toward the porch, away from the house. The kitchen behind me sits in dead air.
She’s been through enough. More than enough. Now I’m supposed to ask her to step into the middle of a fight that isn’t hers, in a world she doesn’t know the rules of, against a woman who will tear her apart for sport.
“She’s already got her face in those photos,” I mutter at the railing. “I’m not turning her into a headline on top of it.”
“Grayson.”
“I mean it, Coach.”
The bird in the tree line starts up again. Same one. It’s been at it for the last twenty minutes, and I want to put a stone through it.
“Hear me out.” Sterling’s voice stays measured.
“You’ve been around this woman with your team for months.
They know her. She works for the hockey team.
It’s a natural assumption that the two of you are close.
We don’t have to tie this to your playboy reputation.
We don’t even have to push back against it.
We spin it as her changing you. The woman who got Grayson Wolfe to settle down. That story sells itself.”
I don’t answer immediately. He’s right, and I hate that he’s right.
“It works in the press,” I say finally. “Not in the pack.”
Coach lifts his head.
“They’ll know within a day,” I tell him. “They know what she is. We don’t marry humans, Coach. The pack will smell the lie on it before the announcement finishes circulating.”
“They won’t smell a lie if there isn’t one.”
I turn from the railing.
Coach has shifted forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. He drags a hand down his jaw and looks at the lawn for a beat before he looks back at me.
“I don’t like the idea of you getting so close to a human, but we don’t have much of an option, Grayson. But now that Vanessa has dragged this into a human courtroom, our options are limited.”
I don’t answer. My hands tighten on the railing behind me.
“We don’t marry humans,” he says quietly.
“But relationships happen. They’ve happened in this pack before.
As alpha, I can approve a human relationship under specific conditions.
The human has to be cleared. No ties to anything that puts us at risk.
A history that holds up.” He watches my face.
“Miranda fits the profile. She’s been around the team for a while now.
Ethan is attached to her. She has no family, no link that could become a problem. ”
“Coach.”
“I’m not telling you to marry her, Grayson.
I’m telling you that if you do this, I can handle the pack.
The Council won’t be pleased about a public relationship with a human, but they don’t have grounds to intervene.
Vanessa took us into human territory the second she filed in human court. We adapt or we lose.”
I stare at him.
He’s offering me cover, everything I would need to make this work and keep my son with me. If Coach knew who Miranda was to me, would he be singing the same tune?
My wolf turns slow circles inside me. It hasn’t settled since yesterday at the lake.
Now Sterling wants my ring on her finger.
The fated mate bond is going to grow stronger the longer we are together.
Walking away right now will be hard enough, but months later, with her scent in every room of my house, on my child? It will be next to impossible.
I press my palms harder into the railing until the wood creaks.
“There has to be someone else,” I mutter.
“There isn’t.”
“Sterling.”
“If you want to keep Ethan, you need Miranda’s help,” Sterling says grimly. “There is no other way. If you don’t ask her to do this for you, you will lose your son. And nobody knows what he will go through once he is away from your protection. Do you want to lose custody of him?”
“Custody?”
Miranda’s voice sounds from the doorway, and my head whips up.
She’s on the other side of the screen.
How long has she been there?
The wind is blowing the wrong way for me to have caught her scent. She must have come down the stairs barefoot. My wolf is turned so far inward on Sterling’s words that she got within ten feet of me unnoticed.
Miranda is standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the porch, one hand braced against the frame, the other curled at her side.
She’s still in my shirt from last night, hem falling past her thighs, legs bare beneath it.
Her hair is loose around her shoulders, tangled on one side from sleep.
The bruise that came up overnight on her collarbone is a dark smear above the open collar.
Her eyes find mine through the screen.
I cross the porch before I register moving. The screen door pushes open under my hand. My fingers close around her elbow because her legs won’t hold her much longer. I can see her weight has dropped onto the doorframe.
“What are you doing out of bed?”
“I heard voices.”
“I’m sorry we disturbed you. Go back to sleep.”
She ignores my request, her hand tightening on the frame. “Is it true?” Her eyes focus on me. “You’re about to lose custody of Ethan?”
I freeze. “What did you hear?”
“Enough.”
Her eyes go toward the photographs on the table, and she pushes past me to pick them up. It takes her a second to connect the dots. “This is me.” She looks at me. “Is this happening because of us being in public together?”
“No, it—”
“Yes.” Sterling chooses that moment to butt in. “Grayson’s ex-wife is using these photographs to imply that he is bringing all sorts of women around their son. Given his playboy image in the media, she has a solid case.”
Miranda’s hands clench around the photos, and her eyes go from Sterling to my alpha. “What does he need from me? I heard you guys say he needed me for something.”
Coach looks at me for a moment and then diverts his gaze back to her, tucking his hands in his pockets. “We need you to act as his fiancée. If he wants to have a hope of keeping Ethan, he has to show he’s a good father—”
“He is a good father!” Miranda hisses.
“Not to the court, Miss Carver,” my alpha says calmly. “He’s single, the media has him portrayed as a playboy, he’s on every tabloid there is, and he hasn’t had a stable relationship since Vanessa left. He needs to show he’s stable.”
“And being engaged to me will prove that?” Miranda asks doubtfully.
“You’ve already been photographed with him.”
She’s silent for a moment and then glances at me. “If it helps him keep Ethan, I’ll do it.”
I’m immediately by her side, grabbing her upper arms and turning her around to face me. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, Miranda. The media exposure alone will—”
“I don’t care.” Her eyes narrow. “You’re a good father. Ethan loves you. If I can help you retain custody—”
“You don’t know Vanessa. She will tear your reputation to—”
“Is my reputation more important to you than Ethan?”
The question throws me off. I open my mouth. Close it. Nothing comes out because there is no answer that won’t sound like a lie.
Ethan is my son. Ethan is the line I will burn the world down to hold.