Chapter Thirteen #3
“Because I do.”
Piper stepped closer.
“What if I want one thing that is not planned?”
Emmett’s breathing changed.
“What thing?”
She touched the front of his shirt.
His hands remained at his sides.
Waiting.
Always waiting.
Piper rose onto her toes.
“Your choice,” he whispered.
She shook her head.
“No. Mine.”
Then she kissed him.
There was nothing fake about the first second.
Or the second after it.
Emmett’s hand came to the side of her face, warm and careful, while his other settled against her waist. He kissed her as though he had imagined the moment too many times to rush it now.
Piper had expected intensity.
She had not expected tenderness.
That was what broke through every remaining defense.
No demand.
No proof.
No audience.
Just Emmett holding her like she had already given him enough.
She moved closer.
The kiss deepened.
His thumb brushed her cheek.
Piper forgot how to manage anything.
A door opened somewhere behind them.
Then closed again.
Quickly.
Tyler’s muffled voice came through the wall.
“I saw nothing, but what I saw was historic.”
Griffin replied, “Keep walking.”
Piper laughed against Emmett’s mouth.
He smiled.
A real one.
She felt it before she saw it.
They separated slowly.
Emmett rested his forehead against hers.
“Was that possibly?” he asked.
Piper tried to recover her breathing.
“That was one kiss.”
“Yes.”
“Do not become confident.”
“Too late.”
She stepped back before one kiss became a second and every interview plan disappeared.
Emmett watched her.
The warmth in his eyes remained.
Piper picked up the legal pad.
“We need to finish preparing.”
“Yes.”
“You cannot look at me like that during the interview.”
“Like what?”
“As if we were just kissing in Ava’s kitchen.”
“We were.”
“No one else knows.”
The back door opened.
Maren entered holding her laptop.
“Everyone knows.”
Piper closed her eyes.
Maren continued.
“Tyler walked directly into the guest house and announced that the fake relationship had suffered a major authenticity breach.”
Emmett looked pleased.
Piper pointed toward him.
“Do not.”
“I did not speak.”
“Internal again.”
Maren placed the laptop on the table.
“Daniel approved using the Graham recording if Graham consents.”
“Will he?” Piper asked.
“He already did.”
Emmett’s expression sharpened.
“Why?”
“Because he received this fifteen minutes ago.”
Maren turned the screen.
An email from Owen appeared.
You had one job. Keep Emmett useful and quiet. Since you failed, I will make sure every club knows you participated from the beginning.
A second attachment accompanied the message.
An invoice from Graham’s agency to North Shore Community Partners.
Fifty thousand dollars.
The description read:
Strategic consultation, athlete reputation campaign.
Piper looked at Emmett.
His face closed.
“He was paid,” she said.
Emmett stared at the invoice.
“He told us he rejected the plan.”
“Maybe the invoice is fake,” Maren said.
“Daniel is verifying it.”
Piper looked toward Emmett.
The timing was perfect.
Too perfect.
Owen wanted them to distrust Graham.
Perhaps because Graham had agreed to release the recording.
“Do not contact him,” Piper said.
Emmett looked at her.
“That was an order.”
“Yes.”
His mouth moved.
“Progress is not linear.”
Twenty minutes later, Daniel confirmed the invoice was real.
The payment had been made the morning of the livestream.
Graham had received fifty thousand dollars from Owen’s shell company hours before Emmett’s name appeared inside Piper’s envelope.
The photograph had not exposed only a meeting.
It exposed a transaction.
Emmett looked at the bank verification without speaking.
Piper stood beside him.
“You trusted him.”
“For four years.”
“I am sorry.”
“He knew what Owen planned.”
“Some of it.”
“Enough.”
Emmett’s voice held no anger now.
Only hurt.
Piper reached for his hand.
He took hers.
Maren’s phone rang.
The producer.
She answered, listened, then looked toward Piper.
“What?”
Maren lowered the phone.
“Owen has arrived at the studio early.”
“That is not surprising.”
“He brought guests.”
Piper’s stomach tightened.
“What guests?”
“The Arden family.”
The room went silent.
“He invited my former clients to the interview?”
Maren nodded.
“And two other couples who canceled events overnight.”
Piper looked at the evidence spread across the table.
Owen was not only coming to propose.
He was bringing the people whose trust he had destroyed.
He wanted them watching when she surrendered.
Maren continued.
“There is one more person.”
Piper already knew she would hate the answer.
“Who?”
Maren turned the phone so Piper could read the producer’s message.
Owen’s special guest is Graham Pierce.
Emmett’s hand tightened around hers.
The producer sent another update.
Graham says he has evidence Piper designed the entire campaign and paid him to recruit Emmett.
Piper stared at the screen.
The invoice was real.
The accusation was not.
Owen had not lost control of Graham.
He had purchased him.
And tonight, the man Emmett trusted for four years would sit beside Owen and help prove Piper had planned everything.