Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Annabelle
Mark is already sitting when I walk into the café, like he thinks being early earns him redemption points.
The place is stupidly cute. Exposed brick, hanging plants, baristas in beanies pulling espresso like they are creating art instead of caffeine. Sunlight spills through the big front windows and turns the whole room golden.
It does not touch me.
I am iced from the inside out.
He spots me and stands, that familiar movie-star smile sliding into place. It is charming. It is polished. It has talked a lot of people into a lot of bad decisions.
Today he is wearing a baseball cap, dark glasses and is approaching me from a corner in the back.
“Annabelle,” he says, stepping around the table like he might hug me.
I shift out of reach and drop my purse on the empty chair. “Sit. I don’t have a lot of time.”
An odd expression crosses his face, something like surprise, maybe irritation, before he smooths it over and sits back down. There is a latte in front of him and a second mug waiting across from it, steam curling up.
“I ordered your usual,” he says. “Almond milk, half...”
“No, thank you.” I push the mug to the side without sitting. “This isn’t a date.”
The woman at the next table glances over. Mark follows her eyes and gives her a practiced little grin, like he’s fine, just a guy having a difficult but necessary conversation with the one that got away. I can’t tell if she recognizes him, or us. I’m wearing a hat and a scarf to be discreet.
I finally sit, because my legs are trembling and I don’t need that added to the show.
“Why did you want to meet?” I ask, cutting straight through the small talk he is clearly dying to trot out.
He exhales like he’s been waiting for that cue. “Because things have gotten… out of hand. The song, the press. I thought we should talk privately before...”
“You thought we should talk before I ruin your tragic-lost-love storyline by telling the world you cheated,” I say.
His jaw flexes.
Bullseye.
“It’s not like that,” he says.
“Really?” I lean back, cross my arms. “Because you wrote a song about me, went on radio shows, and let every DJ spin it as some soul-baring confession about how you’re still in love with me. And you never once corrected them.”
“I am still in love with you,” he says quietly.
The words used to be everything I wanted. Now they just make my skin crawl.
“No,” I say. “You are in love with the version of me who stood next to you, smiled for photos, and pretended not to notice when you were texting other women at midnight.”
His gaze flickers downward, just for a heartbeat.
Got you.
“Belle,”
“DO NOT call me that.” My voice snaps sharp enough that the guy at the counter looks over. I do not care. “You lost the right to nickname me when you started sleeping with your backup singer.”
“She kissed me,” he says automatically.
“There was a bed involved,” I answer. “Pretty sure that part wasn’t an accident.”
He presses his lips together.
For a second, I see it, the real him, under the PR veneer. Petty. Defensive. Embarrassed I won’t play along.
“The song was an apology,” he says. “My way of trying to fix things.”
“No,” I say. “It was your way of keeping me attached to your brand. You could have apologized in private. Instead you wrote a chart-climbing banger about how you’re the poor tortured man who lost his fiancée, and then let the world fill in the blanks.”
He leans forward, palms up. “People want us back together. You’ve seen the comments.”
I choke out a laugh. “You mean the people who never met us and think our lives are one long music video? Sure. They’re thrilled. My favorite is the one that said ‘true love is real, Mark and Belle proved it.’ That one was fun to read, considering I found your texts.”
“Annabelle…”
“Let’s be clear,” I say. “We are not getting back together. We are not on a break. There is no second chance, no epic reunion, no hidden meaning in anything I’m doing. I am done.”
His expression falls in stages. Confusion. Hurt. Then something colder.
“So that’s it?” he says. “You throw away our history for… what? A rebound?”
My chest tightens. Bryce’s face flashes in my mind. His soft eyes. His magic fingers. The first time I saw him on the ice, a blur of power and precision and a little reckless joy.
He is not a rebound.
“You don’t get to talk about him,” I say.
He studies me, something calculating sparking beneath the hurt. “You’re really choosing him. That's pretty fast.”
“It's none of your business.” The words feel like steel in my mouth.
His gaze drops to my hands on the table. My fingers are tearing at a napkin. Tense. Cold.
He reaches across the table and grabs my hand.
From outside, I’m sure it looks tender. Like a plea. A man reaching for the love of his life.
Inside, it feels like a trap.
“Mark,” I warn.
He squeezes, leaning in, voice low and earnest. “I can’t accept that.
People make mistakes. We can come back from this.
We were supposed to get married. I fucked up and I'm so, so sorry. I fired her and I was just a jerk who got cold feet. It was stupid and I learned the hard way. We don’t just throw our love away. ”
“We don’t?” I jerk my hand back so sharply the mug on the side of the table rattles, tea sloshing over the rim. “Because I’m pretty sure you threw it away when you couldn’t keep it in your pants during soundcheck.”
There’s a murmur from a nearby table. The barista pretends not to stare.
Mark’s jaw tightens. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m being accurate,” I say. “Here’s how this goes. You stop talking about me in interviews. You stop hinting in your songs that we’re secretly still in love. You stop letting your publicist leak that we ‘might be working on things.’”
He opens his mouth.
I hold up a hand. “And if you don’t, I stop protecting your image and tell the world exactly why I left. Every last detail. With receipts.”
For the first time, real fear grazes across his face.
“Annabelle!”
“This was your one polite warning,” I say, standing. My chair scrapes. “Next round is not polite.”
I grab my purse.
He looks up at me, eyes searching. “You're really picking him over me?”
I consider him, the man I once thought I’d marry, who now feels like an inconvenience with a good stylist.
“I'm picking me over you.” I pause. “And yeah. I am picking Bryce, too.”
I turn and walk out before he can answer, my heart pounding and my hands shaking.
Outside, the cold air hits me like a slap. I suck in a breath, then another, trying to calm my nervous system down. That went about as badly as expected and still somehow worse.
I did the right thing. I know I did.
So why do I feel like I just kicked over a beehive?
I have the strangest sensation as I head down the sidewalk, like I’m being watched. I glance around. Just people, benches, shop windows reflecting the street back at me.
No one I know.
But the feeling doesn’t go away.
***
By the time I make it back to my office at the arena, the buzzing in my chest has migrated to my phone.
It won’t stop vibrating.
I drop into my chair, set my bag down, and finally check the screen.
Thirty-six notifications.
“Oh, good,” I mutter. “That’s never terrifying.”
I tap one at random.
It opens to a gossip account.
The post is a photo. Grainy, zoomed the hell in, but still painfully clear.
Me, sitting in the café. Mark’s hand over mine.
The caption screams: ANNABELLE HACKER HAVING COZY COFFEE WITH EX-FIANCé. SOURCES SAY THEY’VE BEEN TALKING AGAIN.
My stomach drops straight through the floor.
“No,” I whisper. “Come on.”
I scroll.
They always looked perfect together.
Omg they’re endgame I knew it.
So I guess the hockey guy was just a rebound lol.
I set my phone down because if I keep reading, I am going to either throw up or throw the phone.
I close my eyes.
Of course someone was filming. Of course they caught the split second where his hand was on mine and not the part where I ripped it away and verbally wrecked him.
I open my eyes and reach for my phone again, thumb hovering over Bryce’s name. I need to call him. I need to get ahead of this. Explain.
I don’t even get the chance.
My office door slams open so hard the frames on the wall rattle.
“Annabelle.”
My father strides in like a storm in an expensive suit. He is usually composed in that measured-executive way. Today his tie is slightly crooked and his eyes are murder.
This is not good.
“Do people knock anymore or…?” I start.
He shoves a tablet onto my desk. The screen is full of the same photo I just saw, plus a grainy video loop of Mark reaching for my hand.
“Are you trying to tank your father’s franchise?” he demands.
I blink. “Hi, Dad. Nice to see you too.”
He ignores that. “Do you understand how this looks? Bryce is our star. He is the face of the team right now with his own PR problems that you're supposed to fix. And you’re out having cozy coffee dates with your very famous, very messy ex.”
“It was not cozy,” I snap. “I was telling him to stop exploiting our breakup for clicks.”
“Sure,” Erwin says. “And I’m Santa Claus.”
I push back from my desk and stand. “You think I’m lying?”
“I think optics matter more than intentions,” he says. “Right now the internet thinks you’re running some love triangle between the guy who cheated on you and the guy we pay a lot of money to put pucks in nets.”
Guilt punches me in the stomach.
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” I say. “He wrote a song about me without warning. He keeps giving interviews. I’m trying to shut it down.”
“Then shut it down faster,” Erwin says. “Because sponsors are calling. The league is watching. The last thing we need is a narrative that the owner’s daughter is playing games with the franchise player.”
“That’s not what this is,” I say, but my voice sounds smaller.