The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife (Blair and Grayson) novel Chapter 305

Chapter 305

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Chapter 305

~LORETTA~.

Marco had barely touched his plate. The pasta sat where the cook had set it, the steam long gone.

He hadn’t said more than three words since we sat down. I had already watched the video of him calling me his wife so many times that I knew every word by heart.

He was so good at it that he had nearly made it seem true. I knew better. I knew the weight of the contract in the drawer upstairs and the careful distance he kept when the doors were closed.*

Still, watching him now, quiet across the table, I felt something twist in my chest that had nothing to do with the agreement.

“I can’t help but notice you’re not eating,” I said. “Is everything okay? Did your mother say something earlier?”

I had heard only fragments of their argument from the entry before I went upstairs. Enough to know she was angry about the recording. Not enough to understand why he had come inside looking like he’d received some very bad news.

Could it be about his injury? As far as I knew, it was improving.

He set his fork down. “She told me that she’s the reason Caterina broke up with me years ago.”

I went still. I had braced for something about the video, our families, the careful public story we were meant to protect. I had not braced for this.

His mother was claiming responsibility? That couldn’t be.

“How is your mother responsible? Wasn’t Caterina the one who broke up with you?”

“Caterina’s mother was sick. That’s what she told me.” His voice stayed flat. “She needed surgery and treatment they couldn’t afford. My mother offered to pay for all of it. The only condition was that Caterina ended things with me and never contacted me again. She agreed. She said the things that would make me hate her so I wouldn’t come looking. Then she disappeared. Until now.”

I stared at him.

Would his mother truly do something that awful?

“She forced her to choose between you and her mother’s life?” I asked, needing to hear it again.

“Yes.”

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She had not left because she wanted to. She was forced to make a decision. And he

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Chapter 305

was learning it now, years later

I couldn’t imagine the thoughts running through his mind.

I kept my hands folded in my lap so he wouldn’t see them shake.

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There were so many questions crowding my head. What does this mean? Are you going to see her? Are you going to try to fix what was taken from you? Are you going to look at her the way you used to and forget all about me?

I swallowed them all. I could not ask them.

I was falling for him. I knew it every time he looked at me.

Saying any of that out loud felt unimaginable while he was thinking about another

woman.

He pushed his chair back. The legs scraped once against the floor. “I have to see her. I’ Il be back later.”

See her? Now? At this hour?

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. He was already standing, already reaching for the jacket he had left over the back of the chair.

He didn’t look at me when he said it. He just turned and walked toward the door like the decision had already been made hours ago, like the only thing left was getting to

her.

I stayed where I was. My hands were cold against my knees.

I could have said something. I could have told him that the thought of him walking out to find her made my heart squeeze.

I could have asked him to wait until morning. I could have asked what he hoped to hear when he stood in front of her again.

But the words stayed locked within.

What right did I have? He had just learned that the woman he had hated for years had been forced to leave him. That he had carried that hatred for nothing. He had a right to hear the truth from her mouth.

I was the wife on paper-the one he had claimed in a video because the rumors needed killing, the one whose signature sat beside his on a contract with an end date. That did not give me the right to stand between him and the door.

The front door opened and closed. The house went quiet again. I looked at his untouched plate and then at my own hands.

The video was still on my phone in my pocket. I did not open it. I sat at the table with

the food going cold and tried to decide whether I was allowed to be afraid, or whether

this type of fear was something only real wives got to feel.

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