The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife (Blair and Grayson) novel Chapter 249

Chapter 249

-LUCA-

Marco finally broke his silence.

“You stupid ass.”

What the fuck?

I blinked. “What?”

“Charlotte doesn’t like me. I don’t like her. We see each other as siblings. Neither of us likes each other. Have you fucking seen the way she looks at you? Like you are her entire life? And you actually thought she was in love with your brother? How fucking blind can you be?”

I blinked again. The room felt wrong. Too bright. My mouth still tasted like blood.

“What are you talking about? I heard her admit myself that she liked you.”

He ran a hand through his hair. Frustrated. Older brother furious in a way I had not seen since I crashed a kart at sixteen and lied about whose fault it was.

“She most likely did that to mess with you. You were always around other women. She probably said it to see your reaction. I don’t think she thought you would immediately jump to the conclusion that the two of us liked each other.”

None of this was making sense.

I sat there with a split lip and a story I had built in ten seconds at a bar doorway, and he was taking it apart like it was nothing.

“Let me get this straight,” Marco said. “She entered a sex deal with you. One where she committed her body and heart to you. Only you. And you thought she did that because she had feelings for your older

brother? That she chose to sleep with you and only you because she wanted me?”

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The more he spoke, the colder my hands got.

My feet too.

Like the blood had decided to leave my body because of my own stupidity.

“Yeah-”

He sighed. A long, tired sound. “I cannot believe this. You saw us hugging earlier because she was crying over you. YOU. And your first thought was that we liked each other. So friends can’t simply hug anymore? No kissing. No inappropriate touching. Just an innocent hug.”

I froze.

Completely.

I saw it again. The bar. Her face in his shoulder. His hand on her back. I had stood in the doorway and

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written a whole life for them in the time it took a waiter to ask if I wanted a table.

She was crying Marco said, slower now, like I was concussed, “because you told her what the two of you did was a mistake. Because she didn’t think she could go back to just being friends. She said that for years she had to listen to you fuck other girls and it destroyed her. She finally had a part of you and she didn’t want to let go of it.”

That could not be true.

Charlotte hurting. All those years. And not saying a single word to me? We told each other everything.

I would have noticed.

I would have-

Would I?

I thought of her face in the morning after a night I had not come home alone. Quiet. Coffee already made. Schedule on the table. A joke that did not reach her eyes. I had called it Charlotte being Charlotte. The one person who did not want anything from me.

My stomach felt sick.

“No.” I said. “You’re mixing it up. She liked you. She said it. I remember her saying it.”

“And you remember every other sentence she has ever said to you?” Marco asked. “Or only the one that let you keep running from your feelings?”

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

Denial was easier than the picture he was drawing. If he was wrong, I had done the hard thing and protected her from me. If he was right, I had just watched her wipe blood off my mouth, say goodbye, and walk out of my life because I was too much of a coward to look at her.

Marco took a breath. Like he was deciding whether to break a promise

“She told me not to tell you about our conversation. But I can’t watch this mess happen and not do anything about it.” His voice dropped. “She told me she is in love with you She loves you, you tool You Not me. You. And you better fucking stop her before it’s too late and you never get her back Because I’m telling you this as a good brother. You will never find another woman like Charlotte”

Love?

She loved me?

She told my brother that she was in love with me and did not want to simply return to being just friends?

Love.

Years of it. While I brought strangers through the door she had to hear.

I stood up too fast. The room shook.

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The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wite

“She loves me?” I asked like a fool. “Not you. And she told you that?”

he told me that. Crying. In a bar. After you told her the line should never have been crossed.”

I shook my head once. A last try.

“She could have been upset. People say things when they’re upset.”

“Luca.” He did not raise his voice. That made it worse. “She has been in love with you for years. She watched you sleep around. She stayed. She asked for a deal so she would not lose you. And you handed her to her brother and promised you would never touch her again. That is not her wanting me That is you being terrified and choosing the worst possible story so you would not have to admit you love her back

It felt like a slap to the face.

Love her back.

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