The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife (Blair and Grayson) novel Chapter 228

Chapter 228

CHARLOTTE-

The suite was quiet.

Nothing like the track.

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I kept seeing his mouth near mine. The inch we had not crossed in front of everyone. The squeeze hand on my shoulder after the trophy. How he had looked for me over the cup like the win/did not count unless I was still standing.

of his/

Luca dropped his bag.

Damp hair. Tired eyes. Still in the heat of a Sunday that had started at the back of the grid and ended with champagne.

“You okay?” he asked again. “I’ve never seen you that scared. It worried me.”

I swallowed. “I’m better now that you’re here. Safe.”

“I’m sorry I made you worry in the first place.”

We looked at each other too long.

Then at each other’s mouths.

The space between the couch and the door shrank without either of us moving much. I could still feel his hands from the garage. The lift. The spin. The check of my face like I was the one who had hit something. Heat crawled up my neck. He watched it happen. His throat moved.

“The other night,” he said.

I blushed. “Yes?”

“I was thinking-”

We were moving closer without meaning to. My hip found the back of the couch. His hand landed there too, not quite touching me, close enough that I could smell him. Cologne. Champagne.

“Mmm?”

Then knocking.

Persistent knocking. The kind that would not go away unless you opened the door.

Luca groaned. “I’m going to kill Marco.”

He yanked the door open.

It was not Marco.

His parents stood there, both with pissed expressions on their faces.

14:37 Mon, Sep 28 UM.

The Mockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife

I froze.

They did not look like they had come for a celebration.

They looked like they had come to stir up trouble.

Luca went still.

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“You crashed,” his father said, walking in without waiting to be invited. “And then you got in a car again the next day.”

His mother followed. Eyes on him first. Then on me. Sharp. She took in the suite, the bag/how close we had been standing. She eyed it all.

Always judging.

“We warned you about this career,” she said. “You could have died. Do you understand that, or is the trophy more important than your life?”

Luca shut the door harder than he needed to. “I don’t have a scratch on me. You’re overreacting.”

“Overreacting.” His father laughed once. With no humor. “We watched you hit a wall. Then we watched you start last and play hero. That is not courage. That is addiction. Poor addiction.”

“It’s my job.”

“It is a job that buries people,” his mother said. “And you still went out. You smiled on a podium as if your life meant nothing.”

My hands had started shaking again. I hid them in my sleeves. The win from hours ago felt suddenly thin. A story they had not come to hear.

She turned to face me.

“Charlotte. Are you sure you checked everything on him properly before he went out? Saturday.”

Luca stepped in front of me so fast I felt the shift in the air.

His back became a wall. I could see the tension of his shoulders through the shirt, and the heat of him reached me even with an argument in the room.

“She had nothing to do with the accident,” he said. Voice flat. Dangerous. “Don’t put that on her. I turned in late. That’s on me. She does her job. Better than most people in that garage.”

His mother did not blink. “Someone is responsible for the details. She is always with you. She is always in the way of the car.”

“I am,” Luca said. “Not her. You want a name, use mine. You want a lecture, use me. Leave Charlotte out of it.”

I stood there with my mouth dry and my pulse racing.

I should have stayed behind him.

O

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14:37 Mon, Sep 20

The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife

I did not.

tepped out just enough that they could see my face.

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“I checked him,” I said, because silence would have felt like guilt. “Both days. Every strap. Radio. Visor. The same as always. Mistakes happen in a car. That is not the same thing as someone failing him.”

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