CHAPTER 1 #3
The three years of silence we had called separation because admitting it was grief would have hurt too much.
Howard’s phone rang again.
He walked away to answer it.
I lowered my hand.
Lars caught my wrist before I could step back.
Not hard.
Never hard.
His thumb rested over my pulse.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m angry.”
“You shake when you’re frightened.”
“You don’t know me anymore.”
His gaze dropped briefly to the hollow of my throat.
To the faint outline of the chain beneath my blouse.
His eyes sharpened.
I pulled my wrist free.
“You need to go upstairs.”
“You need to come with me.”
“No.”
“Aaliyah.”
“I am not hiding in your penthouse while your team turns this into a fairy tale about the hockey star and his secret wife.”
His face changed at the word secret.
“That is not what you were.”
“What was I, then?”
He stared at me.
The answer took too long.
I laughed once, bitterly.
“That’s what I thought.”
I walked away before he could stop me.
By the time I reached the parking garage, there were photographers at every exit.
Someone shouted my name.
Then another.
Questions struck from all directions.
“How long were you sleeping with Halvorsen before you started covering hockey?”
“Did he arrange your interviews?”
“Were other players involved?”
“Did your editors know?”
“Are you pregnant?”
“Did Lars pay for your career?”
One man yelled, “How many players did you have to sleep with before one married you?”
The cameras surged closer.
Security did nothing.
A woman near the front shouted, “Was he ashamed to claim you?”
That one found bone.
I stopped.
For one dangerous second, I considered answering.
Then a black SUV screeched to a stop between me and the crowd.
The rear door opened.
Lars stepped out.
He had removed his jacket.
His sleeves were rolled to his forearms.
Blood still marked his mouth.
The crowd erupted.
He crossed the distance between us, placed one hand at the back of my neck, and guided me into the vehicle.
No hesitation.
No attempt to hide his face.
The cameras caught everything.
The door slammed behind us.
Inside, the noise became muffled.
Lars sat beside me, breathing hard.
I turned on him.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Getting you out.”
“You just made it worse.”
“It was already worse.”
“You cannot charge into every situation like it’s a fight.”
“Yes, I can.”
“No, Lars. You can’t.”
He looked through the tinted window at the photographers.
“Watch me.”
The SUV pulled away.
My phone continued vibrating in my hand.
He reached for it.
I moved it out of reach.
“Don’t.”
“You should not read those.”
“I need to know what’s happening.”
“You know what is happening.”
“No, I know what people are saying. I don’t know who leaked the photographs or why.”
His expression sharpened.
I thought of the anonymous files.
Derek Cole.
The medical records.
Lars’s signature.
I locked my phone before he could see the folder.
His gaze dropped to the movement.
“What are you hiding?”
I looked at the man I had married at twenty-one.
The man who still wore my ring.
The man whose career might already be standing at the center of the biggest investigation of my life.
“Nothing,” I said.
He knew I was lying.
I could see it in his face.
But he leaned back, jaw tight, and did not press.
Not yet.
The SUV stopped outside my apartment forty minutes later.
There were reporters clustered near the entrance.
Lars looked at them, then at me.
“You’re not staying here.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to decide.”
“I am not leaving you alone tonight.”
“We have lived separately for three years.”
“That does not mean I left you unprotected.”
I reached for the door handle.
He caught my arm.
“Aaliyah.”
“What?”
His eyes held mine.
For the first time that night, the anger slipped.
What remained beneath it was worse.
Fear.
“I called you eleven months ago,” he said.
My throat tightened.
“I remember.”
“You did not answer.”
“You were drunk.”
“I was bleeding.”
“You had just won a playoff game.”
“I called my wife.”
I looked away.
Outside, camera flashes burst against the glass.
My phone lit again.
Another unknown number.
This time, there was no attachment.
Only one sentence.
Ask your husband what happened to Derek Cole.
I locked the screen.
Lars watched me.
“Who is messaging you?”
“No one.”
His jaw flexed.
The old lie between us widened.
Then my phone rang.
Lars.
His name appeared across the screen even though he sat six inches away from me.
I frowned.
He looked down at his own phone.
It was still in his hand.
The call was from another number saved beneath his name.
The private line he had used in college.
The one almost no one knew existed.
I answered.
Static filled my ear.
Then a distorted voice said:
“Mrs. Halvorsen, your husband is not the man you think he is.”
The call disconnected.
I lowered the phone slowly.
Lars’s face went still.
“What did they say?”
I looked at him.
At the blood on his mouth.
At the ring on his hand.
At the man I loved enough to leave and hated enough to investigate.
“They called me Mrs. Halvorsen.”
His eyes darkened.
Outside, someone began pounding on the SUV window.
Inside, my husband reached for my hand.
This time, I let him take it.