The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife (Blair and Grayson) novel Chapter 276

Chapter 276

-LORETTA-

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I had turned over so many times the sheet had come loose at the corner and bunched under my hip like it was trying to escape me too.

I pulled it back. I kicked it off. I dragged it up to my chin and then threw it down again because the weight of it felt too heavy.

None of it helped. The clock on the table did not belong to me. The curtains did not belong to me. This was not my home.

Marco was either asleep or rolling around the way I was, and I hated that I wanted to know which.

I turned onto my back and stared at a ceiling I could barely see.

He had come to my house.

I had been in my room with no phone and a house full of people who would not look at me, and he had driven there anyway, with a wrist he was not supposed to use.

I kept seeing the look on my father’s face when I got into the car. The disappointment on my brother’s face.

I groaned.

Wife.

Marco had called me his wife in front of my entire family.

I rolled onto my side and faced the wall.

He was good at it. Too good. That performance had felt real, and it had done something to my stupid heart.

If I was not careful, I was going to fall for him.

The thought made me sit up so fast the sheet slid to the floor.

Fall for him? Loretta, are you mad?

I said it out loud to the dark. I could not even recognize my own voice.

You cannot fall for him. That man is completely off-limits. He is everywhere people look. His family already decided what you are, and your family will never forgive the sound of his name in their house. No matter what the contract says. No matter how good he is at his performance. You cannot fall for him.

I was trying hard to talk myself out of it, and the talking was not working.

If I fell for him I would lose them. All of them. I could not let that happen.

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9:38 Sat, Oct 10

The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife

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I loved them even when they drove me insane. Especially then. They were family.

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The only option was to survive the year and keep my distance. There was no other way that did not end with my mother crying into a tissue and refusing to meet my eyes.

I could survive their anger for a contract. I knew none of this was real. I had read the clauses. I had initialed the page that said we would not continue the arrangement after a year. Soon enough they would forget. The divorce would happen on schedule and the house would go quiet again and my foolish heart would have to catch up to what my hands had already signed.

I went to the window and pulled the curtain back a little.

Contract, I told the glass. He is worried about the contract. He called you his wife so they would believe it. He noticed you were cold because pretending he cared needed him to notice. It was all part of the act.

“Stop with the butterflies,” I scolded myself.

My heart skipped anyway. Traitor.

I let the curtain fall. I got back into the bed and pulled the sheet up to my chin and shut my eyes, and what came was not sleep.

I had never done anything like this before. Not once. I argued a lot. I got home late sometimes. Refused to marry the man my mother chose for me. But leaving the house with a man my family hated? That was a first.

Marco had shown up at our house, shouting my name and making a scene.

And then I’d seen his car and gotten in.

Damn it, I got in.

Then he had pulled out the driveway and my house had gotten smaller in the side mirror, and I had not told him to stop.

I had watched the gate. I had watched the look on my brother’s face and I’d let him take me away.

I had felt something in my chest tear and felt thrill at the same time, and I had hated myself for the thrill.

I had never chosen a man my family disliked and climbed into his car while they watched me do it. Yet, despite the risk, I’d never felt more alive or happier. I was scared-who wouldn’t be?-but I was also excited, hot all over, and filled with a million other feelings I wasn’t ready to accept.

I turned onto my other side. The sheet came loose again. I did not fix it.

“Why can’t you stop thinking about him?” I said into the pillow, and it came out closer to a scream than I

meant.

It was only our’ first night in his house. The year had not even started properly. There would be flights. There would be racing and cameras and his hand on my waist because people were watching. There would be mornings where I woke up and heard him in my bedroom and had to remember, every single time, that the ring was a prop.

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9:38 Sat, Oct 10

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