The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife (Blair and Grayson) novel Chapter 301

Chapter 301

~LORETTA~

The car stayed quiet for a long stretch after we left.

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Marco kept both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, jaw set in a way that told me he was still sorting through whatever he wanted to say.

Every time I closed my eyes I saw it again.

The look Caterina had given him. Then the things she’d said to me.

He broke the silence first.

“I don’t like talking about Caterina. I’d rather not do it right now.” He exhaled through his nose, slow. “But I want you to hear this clearly. She’s in the past. My mother is trying to force something that isn’t there. She doesn’t want me with you. She’s using old history to make that point. There isn’t anything left on my side. There hasn’t been for a long time. She was the one who ended things with me. I do not understand why she’s being this persistent.”

Relief moved through me so sharply it almost hurt, because I had been holding myself braced for something worse. He had said it out loud. She was past. That should have been enough.

It wasn’t.

I kept seeing them at the beach. The moment her fingers had touched him, his body had gone still. Not the kind of still that came from annoyance. The kind that came from memory. Long enough for me to notice. Long enough for the people standing near us to notice too. He had stepped back after. He had walked her away. But people didn’t freeze over nothing. My throat tightened around the thought. I turned my face toward the window so he wouldn’t see whatever emotion was showing on it.

By the time we reached the house the silence had stretched again. He pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. Neither of us moved. I could feel him looking at me. I kept my eyes on the dashboard.

Then he got out. I heard his door shut, then the soft click of mine opening. He didn’t reach for me.

He just stood there, one hand on the frame, waiting. I climbed out quietly.

“Do you have any questions?”

He was close. Close enough that I caught his scent. The same scent that wouldn’t leave me.

The same one that had made it impossible to think straight when his mouth was on me and his hands were learning every place that made me come apart.

I wanted more of it. I wanted him to stop standing there asking careful questions and put his hands on me again. I wanted the careful distance gone. My body still remembered the low sound he’d made against my mouth when I’d pulled him closer.

But he had been clear while I was drunk. He didn’t want any lines to be crossed and it was even written on the contract. I was not going to be the one who crossed them after that. My throat felt tight. I swallowed and shook my head.

“No. It’s fine.”

His eyes stayed on my face a second longer than necessary. Like he didn’t quite believe me. Like he was waiting for the real question, the one I wasn’t going to ask. I looked past his shoulder at the door instead. The house looked quiet. Safe. I told myself that was what I needed.

I was still trying to recover from the thought that everything he was doing for me was simply for the contract when headlights swept across the driveway behind us.

A car turned in. Marco’s shoulders dropped on a quiet, exhausted groan. The engine cut. A door opened. His mother.

My stomach tightened. The last thing I needed was another confrontation with her. I hated that she kept

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Chapter 301

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bringing Caterina up like the past was something she could force back into the present if she just pushed hard enough.

“Go inside,” he said. His voice had gone flat. “I’ll handle it.”

I nodded. My legs felt unsteady for a different reason now. I climbed the steps and pushed the door open.

I stepped into the entry and turned just enough to see him still standing at the bottom of the stairs, facing the driveway, one hand in his pocket.

His mother was walking toward him with her bag over her shoulder and her mouth already moving. Even from here I could hear the edge in her voice. Fast. Insistent. She didn’t wait for him to speak first.

He didn’t look back at me. I closed the door most of the way and stayed behind it, one hand on the edge, the other pressed flat against the wood.

Marco’s posture had gone rigid. His mother’s free hand was moving as she talked. I caught pieces.

“-you have lost your damn mind-”

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