The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife (Blair and Grayson) novel Chapter 176

Chapter 176

ROMAN-

I walked through the gates because Ethan said to come now.

No context. No joke. Just come to the house. I could sense that something was wrong without him saying it. I could feel it through the phone.

The house looked the same. The man waiting for me did not.

The second I got there, my best friend punched me straight in the face.

Shock came first. Then the hit.

I saw the sky. Felt the pain along my jaw.

Fuck. I knew something was wrong but I hadn’t expected him to punch me the second he saw me.

I staggered back a step and saw his expression-all of it at once. Rage. Hurt. Disgust.

The particular betrayal of a man who had thanked me on this same driveway for bringing his sister home, who had called me a great friend in a club parking lot while I stood there with her scent still in my car.

I knew. I knew that he knew about Olivia and me. It was all over his face. I wasn’t sure how he’d found out.

But he knew.

“How could you fucking betray me like that?” Ethan shouted, his voice tearing. “My sister, Roman? My fucking sister. There are a million girls for you to mess around with and you choose my sister?”

I could hear the disbelief and anger in his voice. I winced. This was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid all along. Ethan hating me for falling for his sister.

1-”

“Shut up!” He hit me again. My head snapped back.

Blood hit my tongue. “You are not the friend I thought you were. Best friends? Fuck no. I don’t deserve a friend like this. I never should have trusted you. I never would cross a line like this. Never once even looked at your sister inappropriately because I respected our friendship enough. I guess it was never that important to you.”

Years of friendship sat in the space between punches. Dinners. The track. Game nights. Him waving me toward her seats like I was celebrating with him. Him thanking me for a hotel I had only gone to because I could not stand another man near her. Every thank you I had taken like a thief.

It was all being thrown back at me again. I didn’t know how to make it better. How to fix things.

“Ethan, I was going to tell you-”

“When?” He laughed. “After the wedding? After you ruined her? And you’ve already ruined her. Haven’t you? This entire time I’ve been scared of her being alone with Luca when I should have been afraid of leaving her with fucking you! She was safer with the player. He was the one who kept his hands off her.

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The Mockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife

Imagine that?”

was going to tell you.”

“And you didn’t just kiss her.” His voice broke into a roar that travelled across the lawn. “You fucked around with her? My sister? What the fuck were you thinking? Look at your age. Look at hers.”

Twenty-seven and twenty-one. I had used that math against myself for months, had built fences out of it. had recited Ethan’s name like a reason that was supposed to keep my hands off her. I had still failed despite it all.

Hearing it from him made it sound like a crime I had committed on purpose instead of a fall I had been in since she was nineteen and I was already too far gone.

I ran a hand down my face. Blood smeared.

I hated seeing him like this. He had every right. I had sat at his table. I had looked him in the eye. I had put my mouth on her and then let him believe I had rescued her.

“And on top of that.” Ethan’s chest heaved. He looked like he might be sick. “You got my sister pregnant. Pregnant!”

I froze.

What?

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