The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife (Blair and Grayson) novel Chapter 244

Chapter 244

-LUCA-

I made a mess.

I knew it the second the door shut in my face.

The sentence had come out wrong. This is why I never wanted to start this thing between us. I had meany am terrified of losing you. She had heard you were a mistake.

I wanted to find her.

Fix it.

Say it again the proper way, so she did not think I thought what we did was a mistake.

I was confused.

About a lot of things.

About my own feelings, the ones I did not want to accept because accepting them meant taking a risk. A step I was scared would end with us separated.

We had never fought like this when we were only friends. That was the part that kept replaying like a warning. Friendship had been safe. This was not. This had a slammed door and unanswered calls and a hole in my chest I did not have a name for yet.

I called her phone.

Five times since she left.

She did not answer.

Again.

Nothing.

I walked the hallway.

Empty.

I took the lift down and started hunting the hotel like a man who had lost something he could not replace.

Lobby. Gym. The café where Marco had stared at some random girl eating.

I bounced into my parents near the lifts.

My mother looked at my face and stopped walking.

“Why do you look like that?”

I ignored it.

09:54 Fri, Oct 21 •

The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife

“Have you seen Charlotte?”

my father said.

“Luca-” my mother started, already reading too much. “What happened? Did you two-”

Why were they still here?

Should they not have been heading home?

“Not now.”

“You look unwell,” my father said. “What happened? Talk to us.”

“It’s about Charlotte. Have you seen her or not?”

My mother reached for my arm.

I was already past them before she could finish.

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I did not have the patience for them. I needed to find Charlotte and explain myself properly. That I had said the wrong words. That I was scared. That I did not regret her. That I regretted the way I had talked when I was trying to keep her and had pushed her out the door instead.

Then I decided to go to the bar, because that was where I had found her the last time she was upset.

I paused the second I got out of the lift. That’s when I saw her.

Charlotte.

On a stool.

I froze when I realized she was not alone, and who was with her.

Marco’s arms were around her.

My own brother hugging her while I was not around.

Her face in his shoulder.

Him holding her.

Tight.

!

Like he was allowed.

Like I did not exist.

My chest hurt.

Shock first.

Then something uglier.

09:54 Fri, Oct 2)).

The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife

I had been right, hadn’t I?

She liked my brother.

It had always been Marco.

She had made it known she liked him even before any of this started. The way she laughed with him. I had felt sick watching it and told myself it was nothing.

Maybe it had never been about me at all.

Maybe all of this-the deal, the jealousy, the fight-had been to get Marco to finally notice her.

I stood in the doorway too long.

Staring.

Watching my life fall apart in front of me.

My brother and my best friend.

The girl I had been denying my true feelings for all along.

And now my brother had her in his arms like he planned on never letting go.

They looked like lovers.

That was the thought that stuck with me and would not leave.

Not a brother comforting a friend.

Not Marco being Marco.

Lovers who could not let go.

Fuck.

This hurt.

A waiter asked if I wanted a table.

I did not answer.

Marco’s hand was on her back.

Gentle.

I had just been convenient.

She had run to Marco the second we got into a fight over stupid pictures that did not mean a thing. Pictures I had already walked away from. Pictures I would have burned if it meant she picked up the phone.

My phone was still in my hand.

1

09:54 Fri, Oct 2)}·

The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife

Her name on the screen.

the calls she already missed.

A call still unanswered because she was busy hugging my brother.

Anger flashed.

Then heartbreak stood on top of it.

I could have walked over.

I could have said her name.

I did not.

If I went over there I would say something I could not take back. I would accuse them. I would make a scene. I would become the exact man I had been trying not to be since I first put my mouth on her.

I watched my brother hold the only person I had ever called my life, and I told myself the story that would let me leave without breaking the bar in half.

She chose him.

She had always been going to choose him.

I turned around before either of them looked up.

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