Chapter Text
By the time I got out of the shower, my wife was gone.
That was still a weird sentence.
My wife.
Fuck me.
I stood in the middle of the bathroom with a towel around my waist, hair dripping water down the back of my neck, and stared at my left hand like the ring might disappear if I glared hard enough.
It didn’t.
Gold band. Fourth finger. Legal disaster.
I tried to pull it off.
Nothing.
“Perfect,” I muttered.
My head pounded like someone had shoved a bass speaker into my skull, but the shower had at least cleared enough tequila fog for me to form complete thoughts again.
Unfortunately, all the thoughts were terrible.
I had gotten married in Vegas.
To a woman whose name I had learned from TMZ.
A woman who apparently had fourteen Grammys, green eyes, a filthy mouth, and a body my brain was being real unhelpful about remembering in high-definition.
I remembered almost nothing useful from last night. Not the license. Not the chapel. Not the part where I apparently thought lifelong commitment was a fun afterparty activity.
But I remembered her on her knees.
Yeah.
That memory had survived the blackout with crystal clarity, because my brain was an asshole. Her pretty mouth around my cock. Her hair in my hands. Those green eyes looking up at me like she knew exactly what she was doing and planned to ruin me with it.
I closed my eyes.
“Nope.”
Not the time.
My dick, because he was an idiot and had zero respect for crisis management, thought it might actually be the perfect time.
I got dressed fast before I could make eye contact with myself in the mirror and officially lose all respect for the man I had become.
Back in the room, the place looked like a bomb had gone off in a nightclub.
My shirt was on the floor. Her dress had been there earlier. My jacket was half off the chair. The bed looked like it had been used for a small-scale military conflict.
And on the carpet near the nightstand were three condom wrappers.
At least drunk Garrett had manners.
I scooped them up and tossed them in the trash.
Then I spotted something black and tiny near the foot of the bed.
Her thong.
I picked it up between two fingers, because apparently I was now the kind of husband who handled evidence.
It was mostly lace, if a strip of fabric that small could be called mostly anything.
For a second, a flash of last night hit me again. Her laughing against my mouth. Her hips under my hands. Me pushing that same thong down her thighs while she said something bossy and breathless that had made me laugh before I shut her up with my mouth.
Jesus Christ.
I dropped the thong onto the chair like it had burned me.
Then picked it up again because leaving my accidental wife’s underwear lying around felt like bad manners. I had no idea what the etiquette was for drunk Vegas marriages, but I was pretty sure it started with not making housekeeping deal with a pop star’s thong.
I placed it on top of her forgotten bra on the bed, then stopped.
No, wait. I had given her the bra.
So just the thong.
Great.
Excellent.
My life was going really well.
I straightened the comforter, tossed empty water bottles into the trash, and turned off the TV because TMZ was still running that one chapel photo on a loop.
Me kissing Hannah Wells at the altar.
I had seen myself kiss a lot of women. Paparazzi got me outside clubs, outside restaurants, outside Kendall’s apartment back when Kendall and I were on again and both of us were pretending on again had ever meant healthy.
But this photo was different.
I looked happy.
Not smug. Not drunk-horny, although I was sure that had been involved. Happy.
Like I had looked at some green-eyed singer I didn’t know and decided, Sure, this seems like forever.
The fuck had been in that tequila?
I grabbed the remote and changed the channel.
CNN.
My face was on CNN.
My marriage was on CNN.
I stood there, remote in hand, watching a serious-looking woman in a blazer say my name like I had invaded a country.
“Nope.”
I changed the channel again.
ESPN.
Also my face.
This time, they had my career highlights playing next to the chapel photo, because apparently my slap shot and my blackout wedding were now part of the same sports package.
“What the fuck?”
Who the hell did I marry?
I knew she was famous. Obviously. Even I had heard the name Hannah Wells. You couldn’t exist in America with a phone and not hear it. But there was famous, and then there was CNN interrupting actual news because I put a ring on a girl after too many drinks.
My phone rang again.
Mom.
I almost let it go to voicemail. Not because I didn’t love my mother. I loved my mother more than just about anyone on earth. But there were exactly zero conversations I wanted to have less than explaining to the woman who raised me that her only son had picked up a wife in Vegas like a souvenir shot glass.
Still, this was Mom.
I answered.
“Before you say anything,” I started, “I am alive.”
There was a pause.
Then Mom said, “Garrett.”
That tone. Calm. Controlled. Deadly.
I’d rather take a puck to the mouth.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Are you married?”
I looked at the ring.
Then at CNN, where some entertainment correspondent was now saying the phrase whirlwind romance with a straight face.
“Technically?”
“Garrett.”
“I’m going to fix it.”
Another pause.
Then, softer, “Are you okay?”
And that was why my mom could still knock the air out of me without raising her voice.
She had been asking me that question since I was eleven years old and half-asleep in the backseat of her car while she drove us away from Boston in the middle of the night.
She had packed what she could, grabbed me, and left Phil.
No big speech. No dramatic scene. Just my mother with white knuckles on the steering wheel, telling me to keep sleeping even though we both knew I was awake.
We stayed with my grandparents for a while. Then she got us a place. Then she got a job working for Daniel Avery, who was a doctor and, against all statistical odds, not an asshole. She married him when I was fifteen, and Daniel moved us to Illinois so he could take over his grandfather’s practice.
Illinois had been oxygen.
No Phil stalking through the house like rage in human form. No waiting for his mood to decide whether I was a son or a punching bag. No Boston rinks where everyone saw Phil Graham’s kid before they saw me.
Daniel gave me Chicago sports. Bulls games. Bears Sundays. Cubs heartbreak. Blackhawks history. He made the city feel like something I could belong to before the Blackhawks drafted me first overall and the city decided I was theirs.
Phil still called after bad games.
I never answered.
Sometimes he showed up to road games, lurking near the family areas like he had any right.
I ignored him there too.
“I’m okay,” I told Mom. “Hungover. Confused. Possibly married to a national security event. But okay.”
She sighed. “Do you know who Hannah Wells is?”
“Apparently everyone does.”
“Garrett.”
“What? I’d heard of her.”
“You paid for Lily and me to go to her concert last summer.”
I froze. “What?”
“At Soldier Field. For Lily’s birthday.”
My brain produced a vague memory. Lily screaming over FaceTime because I had gotten her tickets to see some singer she was obsessed with. Mom laughing. Me pretending I hadn’t also bought backstage passes because my kid sister had braces, a dramatic streak, and the ability to make me do anything by saying please, Gare.
“That was Hannah Wells?”
Mom made a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan. “Lily sent you a photo.”
“She sends me a lot of photos.”
“She was hugging Hannah Wells.”
“I thought that was a friend.”
“You thought Lily’s favorite singer, the woman on every poster in her room, was a friend?”
“I don’t know teenage girls, Mom.”
“You live with the emotional range of one sometimes.”
Kendall.
“Uncalled for.”
“You married Hannah Wells.”
“Also uncalled for.”
In the background, I heard a muffled shriek.
Oh no.
“Is that Lily?”
Mom covered the phone badly. “No, honey, you cannot talk to him yet.”
Another shriek.
Then Lily’s voice, distant but clear. “HE MARRIED HANNAH WELLS?”
I dragged a hand over my face.
Mom came back on. “She knows.”
“I gathered.”
“She wants to know if this means she gets concert tickets for life.”
“Tell her her brother is experiencing a legal emergency.”
“She says that’s not a no.”
“Tell her I love her and she’s grounded from the internet.”
“She’s fifteen, Garrett. The internet is where she lives.”
“Evict her.”
Mom laughed then, soft and tired, and some of the tightness in my chest eased.
A hard knock hit the door.
“That’s probably Dean,” I said. “I have to go.”
“Call me after you know what’s happening.”
“I will.”
“And Garrett?”
“Yeah?”
“Do not answer if your father calls.”
My jaw clenched.
Because of course Phil would call.
Phil loved nothing more than opportunity wearing the mask of concern.
“I won’t.”
I hung up and opened the door.
Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis walked in wearing a suit that probably cost more than my first car, sunglasses, and the expression of a man who had been waiting his entire life to be this disappointed in me.
He looked me up and down.
Then at the TV.
Then at my ring.
Then he said, “You stupid, beautiful bastard.”
I shut the door. “Good morning to you too.”
Dean removed his sunglasses. “I leave you alone for one awards weekend.”
“Everyone keeps saying that to us.”
“Us,” he repeated, delighted and horrified. “Listen to you. Already a wife guy.”
“I will throw you off the balcony.”
“You’re on the thirty-second floor. That’s murder, Mr. Graham-Wells.”
“Do not hyphenate me.”
“I’m workshopping.”
Dean strolled farther into the room, taking in the damage with a lawyer’s eye and a frat boy’s soul. He paused at the rumpled bed.
“Please tell me you remember enough to know whether this was consensual.”
I glared. “Yes.”
“Good. Fantastic. One less felony in the folder.”
“There’s a folder?”
“There is always a folder.” He dropped his briefcase on the table. “Also, Sabrina James is here.”
I groaned. “Who?”
“Hannah’s entertainment lawyer. Harvard Law. Brilliant. Terrifying. Smiles like she knows where the bodies are buried because she probably buried half of them herself.”
“You know her?”
“I know of her.”
“That means yes.”
“It means she called me a privileged hockey-adjacent Ken doll during a mock trial and then beat me by six points.”
I stared at him.
Dean’s jaw ticked. “She cheated emotionally.”
“How do you cheat emotionally in mock trial?”
“By being a fucking bitch with better case law.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
Dean pointed at me. “This is not funny.”
“You called me beautiful five seconds ago.”
“You are beautiful. That’s part of the problem. The league noticed.”
My smile dropped. “What does that mean?”
Dean opened his briefcase and pulled out a tablet. “It means the NHL, the Blackhawks, and several corporate partners are looking at this situation and seeing dollar signs in a wedding veil.”
“No.”
“You haven’t heard the pitch.”
“I don’t want to hear the pitch.”
“You’re going to hear the pitch because I flew here on two hours of sleep and one airplane coffee that tasted like jet fuel.” He tapped the screen. “Female engagement. Viewership expansion. Cross-market promotion. Music fans buying jerseys. Hockey fans streaming her catalog. Prime-time features. Brand partnerships. Endorsements.”
I stared at him.
He kept going, because Dean loved nothing more than ruining my life in complete sentences.
“You are already on track for a monster contract. This could make you the highest-paid player in hockey history, not just from salary. Endorsements, Graham. National campaigns. Fashion. Fitness. Watches. Cars. All the stupid rich-guy bullshit you pretend you don’t like but absolutely enjoy when it comes with private jets.”
“I accidentally married a stranger and you’re talking about watches.”
“I’m talking about leverage.”
“I want an annulment.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Dean leaned back against the table. “Her team needs this.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Because if they didn’t, Sabrina James would have sent me a two-line email and a legal flamethrower. Instead, she agreed to a sit-down before anyone leaves the hotel.”
I remembered Hannah in my room, wet hair from sleep, green eyes murderous, wrapped in a sheet and looking like she wanted to kill me, herself, and a guy named Cass Donovan.
“She said her last relationship was PR,” I said slowly.
Dean’s eyes sharpened. “Did she?”
“Yeah. Fake boyfriend. Real asshole, I think.”
“That tracks.”
“You know about him too?”
“I have the internet, Garrett.”
“I have the internet.”
“You use yours to watch fight clips and order protein powder.”
“Protein powder is important.”
“So is knowing the global pop star you married has a fanbase capable of crashing websites.”
I looked back at the TV.
Our chapel photo was on ESPN again.
Hannah’s arms around my neck. My hand at her waist. The kiss itself was messy enough to make my body remember everything my brain didn’t.
I did not know this woman.
I knew the sound she made when she came.
I knew how she sounded angry.
I knew she was gorgeous in a way that felt almost engineered to cause traffic accidents. Green eyes, soft mouth, curves in all the right places, breasts that were absolutely none of my business and unfortunately still vivid in my memory because I had woken up with one in my hand.
But I didn’t know her.
And now the league wanted me to stay married to her for ratings.
“Absolutely not,” I said.
Dean sighed. “There he is. The noble idiot.”
“I’m not doing a fake relationship.”
“You dated Kendall Adams for five years on and off. Don’t pretend you’re morally opposed to fake.”
I shot him a look.
He lifted both hands. “Sorry. Low blow.”
Kendall and I had been off again for a few weeks, which was exactly why Vegas had sounded like a good idea. NHL Awards. Booze. Models. Teammates. One fun night where nobody wanted me to talk about feelings, contracts, my father, or why Kendall and I kept circling each other like two toxic planets.
I had expected sex.
I had not expected to get so wasted I apparently mistook a chapel for destiny and some singer with green eyes for my soulmate.
Dean’s voice gentled a fraction. “Look, nobody is saying you sign your life away.”
“That’s literally what marriage is.”
“Not in Hollywood.”
“I’m not in Hollywood.”
“You are now.” He tapped the tablet again. “There’s interest from the NHL. Big interest. They want a deal with the pop princess.”
“Do not call her that.”
Dean’s brows rose.
I frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Say nothing again, and I’ll know it’s something.”
“It’s just interesting that you’re already defensive.”
“I’m defensive because calling a grown woman a princess sounds like something a guy says right before she stabs him with a heel.”
Dean smiled slowly. “You like her.”
“I don’t know her.”
“You remember liking her.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. That’s biology.”
“That was almost a mature point.”
“Go to hell.”
Dean slipped the tablet back into his briefcase. “Conference room in thirty. Her team will be there. Sabrina, Allie Hayes, probably whoever else manages billion-dollar feelings for a living.”
“Allie?”
“Best friend. Publicist. Business manager. From what I can tell, fiercely protective and likely to blame you personally for gravity.”
“Great.”
“Also hot,” Dean added casually.
I stared at him.
“What?” he said. “I can notice. I’m single and under-caffeinated.”
“You’re about to negotiate my accidental marriage and you’re checking out her publicist?”
“I contain multitudes.”
I rubbed my temples.
Dean clapped me on the shoulder. “Clean shirt. No hat. Try to look remorseful, but not guilty. Confused, but not stupid. Sexy, but not like you know your dick caused a legal event.”
I looked at him.
He grinned. “That last one might be hard for you.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. I’m your lawyer and one of your best friends. Which means, unfortunately for both of us, I’m the only thing standing between you and waking up tomorrow as Mr. Hannah Wells in every headline on earth.”
I glanced down at the ring again.
Then at the TV, where CNN had somehow found an old clip of Hannah onstage in a stadium, thousands of people screaming her name while she stood under white lights with a guitar.
Soldier Field.
Lily had been there.
My sister had hugged that woman.
My mother knew her songs.
The entire country apparently knew her songs.
And I had asked if she was on reality TV.
I was going to need a bigger apology.
Or a lawyer.
Unfortunately, I had Dean, which was kind of both and mostly a pain in my ass.
The conference room looked exactly like the kind of place where romance went to be murdered by people with laptops.
Long table. Beige walls. Bad coffee. A bowl of mints no one was emotionally stable enough to eat.
I walked in behind Dean, already regretting every life choice that had gotten me here, including but not limited to tequila, Vegas, hockey, my face, and whatever part of my blackout brain had decided Hannah Wells looked like wife material.
She was already there.
Showered. Dressed. Hair down. Face bare except for a little mascara and lip gloss, which should not have made her look hotter, but absolutely did. She sat between Allie Hayes and Sabrina James with her hands folded in her lap, that stupid diamond still on her finger.
My ring felt like it weighed fifty pounds.
Hannah glanced up when I came in.
For one second, all I could see was last night.
Her mouth.
Her legs around my waist.
Her head tipped back on a pillow while she said my name like she had known it longer than a few drunken hours.
Then her eyes narrowed, and morning-after Hannah returned with enough cold judgment to shrink my dick and my ego.
Good.
That helped.
Sabrina James did not bother with greetings. She looked at Dean, then at me, then opened a folder.
“We want to propose a temporary marital arrangement.”
I stared at her.
Dean pulled out a chair like this was a business lunch and not the autopsy of my life. “Define temporary.”
I turned my head slowly toward him.
He ignored me.
Sabrina slid a packet across the table. “One year.”
“No,” I said.
Dean said, “Interesting.”
I looked at him harder.
Still ignored.
“One year gives us the strongest narrative arc,” Sabrina continued. “It prevents the marriage from being dismissed publicly as a drunken scandal. It allows Hannah to stabilize her image after the Cass situation, and it gives both sides time to create a clean separation when the contract expires.”
“The Cass situation,” Hannah muttered.
Allie put a hand over hers.
Sabrina did not blink. “The league and the Blackhawks are already aware of the commercial opportunity.”
Dean leaned back in his chair. “Aware is underselling it.”
“Dean,” I said.
He held up one finger at me, which was brave for a man within punching distance.
“All parties should be honest about value,” he said. “Hannah gets a reputational reset. Garrett gets expanded market visibility. The Blackhawks get crossover appeal. The NHL gets younger viewers and female engagement. Sponsors get to stop pretending hockey players in cologne ads are a personality.”
Sabrina’s mouth flattened. “We are not here to provide the NHL with access to Hannah’s fanbase for free.”
Dean smiled. “Good. I hate free.”
I stared at my lawyer.
My lawyer.
My friend.
The man who was supposed to be getting me out of this marriage, not shopping it around like I was a timeshare with abs.
“Are you working for me,” I asked, “or the league?”
Dean did finally look at me.
“For you.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Because you’re thinking like a man who woke up married. I’m thinking like the guy who has to make sure waking up married doesn’t cost you fifty million dollars in future leverage.”
“I want an annulment.”
Across the table, Hannah’s face did something small and quick.
Not hurt.
Worse.
Embarrassed.
Like she knew I was right and hated that I had said it out loud.
My stomach twisted.
Which pissed me off, because I had known this woman for approximately seventeen hours, and most of that time I had been inside her or unconscious.
Sabrina turned a page. “An annulment may be possible, depending on Nevada requirements and whether either party claims incapacity.”
“Great,” I said. “Let’s claim that.”
“That would create risk,” Sabrina replied. “The press would immediately frame it as blackout recklessness. Hannah would look unstable.”
“She got married to a stranger in Vegas,” Dean said. “That ship has already hit the iceberg.”
Allie’s eyes cut to him.
Dean grinned at her.
She looked like she wanted to staple his tongue to the table.
He looked delighted by that.
I kicked his chair under the table.
He coughed.
Sabrina continued, “A divorce immediately after the TMZ leak creates the same issue. Public humiliation. Panic. Confirmation that this was a mistake.”
“It was a mistake,” I said.
Hannah looked down at her hands.
This time, I shut up.
Allie leaned forward. “No one is asking you two to be madly in love.”
“Good,” I said. “Because we’re not.”
“Obviously,” Hannah said, coolly.
Annoyance sparked in me. “Obviously?”
She finally looked at me. “You asked if I was on reality TV.”
Dean made a choking sound.
Allie closed her eyes.
Sabrina wrote something down.
I pointed at Hannah. “I was hungover.”
“You were ignorant.”
“I know music.”
“You don’t know my music.”
“I know other music.”
“Congratulations. Very cultured.”
Dean leaned toward me and murmured, “She’s not wrong.”
“I will fire you in this conference room.”
“You cannot afford to fire me today.”
“Watch me.”
Sabrina tapped her pen against the packet. “Can we return to the contract?”
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Dean said.
I turned on him. “I swear to God.”
He lowered his voice. “Just listen. You don’t have to agree.”
Except that was bullshit, because I knew Dean. He did not listen for fun. He listened to locate pressure points. If he was letting Sabrina outline a marriage contract instead of burning it down with legal gasoline, it meant he saw something useful.
Which meant I was not getting out of this conference room without hearing exactly how everyone planned to monetize my wife.
My wife.
Still fucking weird.
Sabrina began listing points.
Duration. Twelve months preferred, with a possible early exit after major career milestones if both sides agreed.
Public residence. Hannah would relocate to Chicago for the NHL season, primarily staying at my apartment because separate hotels or separate homes would weaken the narrative.
Public appearances. I would attend select events with her. Award shows. Industry parties. Charity appearances. Anything connected to a Super Bowl campaign if it became relevant.
Hannah would attend home games when her schedule allowed. Possibly select road games. No mandatory appearances during playoffs without additional agreement.
Social media. Joint posts approved by both teams. No candid domestic content unless staged or mutually approved.
Privacy. No unauthorized interviews about the relationship. No leaking details of the wedding night, the contract, or private conversations.
Infidelity. Absolutely prohibited while the arrangement was active.
That one made Hannah’s mouth twitch with something bitter.
I knew enough to know Cass Donovan had probably been a walking STD with a guitar.
Dean asked about financial penalties.
Sabrina countered.
Dean pushed.
Sabrina pushed harder.
I sat there while two lawyers negotiated whether my life would include staged hand-holding and damage fees like they were arguing over arena naming rights.
Then Sabrina said, “Creative limitations.”
Hannah stiffened.
Dean’s eyes sharpened. “Meaning?”
“Hannah agrees not to write or release music explicitly about Garrett during the term of the arrangement without prior approval.”
I blinked. “What?”
Hannah’s head snapped toward Sabrina. “That was not discussed.”
“It needs to be,” Sabrina said. “Songs create narrative. Narrative creates speculation. Speculation creates exposure.”
“I’m not signing away my songwriting.”
“No one is asking you to stop writing,” Allie said carefully.
“Just to stop writing about me?” I asked.
Hannah shot me a look. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve known you for half a day.”
“Biblically, though.”
The room went silent.
Dean put his face in his hand.
Allie whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
Hannah’s cheeks went pink, and for one deranged second I felt proud of myself.
Then she said, “Trust me, if I wrote about last night, it would come with a medical warning and a parental advisory sticker.”
My brain shorted out.
Dean started laughing.
Sabrina looked like she wanted to bill us all extra.
I leaned back in my chair and tried not to think about the exact reasons last night would need a parental advisory sticker.
Failed.
Miserably.
The next item was worse.
“Intimacy coordinator,” Sabrina said.
I stared at her. “A what?”
“For public affection.”
“No.”
Dean tilted his head. “Actually, not unreasonable.”
I turned to him. “You want a stranger teaching me how to kiss my wife?”
Hannah’s eyes flashed. “Fake wife.”
“Legal wife.”
“Temporary legal inconvenience.”
“You were friendlier last night.”
“So were you. Then you asked if I was famous from television.”
Allie pointed between us. “This. This is why you need one.”
I spread my hands. “Need someone to teach us how not to argue?”
“No,” Sabrina said. “How to look romantically comfortable in public without looking like you’re either strangers or about to have sex against a wall.”
Another silence.
Dean’s grin crept back.
Allie glared at him before he even said anything.
He lifted his hands. “I said nothing.”
“You thought it loudly,” she snapped.
God help me, he looked charmed.
Sabrina and Dean moved on to travel schedules, living arrangements, media training, wardrobe approvals, family access, team access, which charity appearances counted as mutual obligation, and whether the league could use our image in promotional material.
My head started pounding again.
This was my life.
My marriage was being negotiated in bullet points.
I looked across the table at Hannah.
She had gone quiet.
Too quiet.
Her face was calm, but her hands were locked together so tightly her knuckles had gone pale around the ring. She had barely spoken since the songwriting clause. Every few minutes, Allie glanced at her with concern. Sabrina kept talking like a woman trying to build a fortress before the arrows hit.
And Dean kept bargaining.
Pushing for endorsement carve-outs. Appearance limits. Approval rights. Money. Control. Leverage.
Good lawyer.
Terrible friend.
I shoved back from the table.
Everyone stopped.
“I want to talk to Hannah alone.”
Sabrina’s brows rose. “That is not advisable.”
“I didn’t ask if it was advisable.”
Dean studied my face. “Five minutes.”
“Allie stays,” Sabrina said.
“No,” Hannah said.
Allie looked at her.
Hannah swallowed, then lifted her chin. “It’s fine.”
For once, no one argued.
They filed out slowly. Sabrina last, because apparently she didn’t trust me not to sell Hannah to the league for a protein sponsorship in the next three hundred seconds. Dean paused at the door, gave me one look that meant don’t be an idiot, then disappeared.
The door clicked shut.
And then it was just me and Hannah Wells in a conference room with bad coffee, legal packets, and the world’s most fucked-up honeymoon itinerary.
She looked smaller without her team around her.
Not weak.
Never that.
Just tired.
I stayed standing. “Do you want this?”
Her eyes flicked to mine. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
That seemed to surprise her.
She looked down at the table. “You don’t want it.”
“No.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I want to not be married to a stranger. That feels reasonable.”
“It is reasonable.”
“Then why are we sitting out there listening to them discuss whether we need supervised kissing lessons?”
Her mouth twitched, but it died fast.
I leaned against the edge of the table. “You just got out of a terrible PR relationship, right?”
Her shoulders tightened.
“I’m not trying to be a dick.”
“You have a natural gift, then.”
“Fair.” I softened my voice. “But seriously. Why would you do this again?”
She was quiet long enough that I thought she might not answer.
Then she exhaled.
“Because Cass made me look pathetic.”
I frowned. “He cheated on you.”
“It wasn’t real.”
“Still.”
Her eyes met mine. “It doesn’t matter if it was real. It looked real. That’s the only thing that counts in my world.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re signing up for more of it?”
Her jaw worked. “I’m in consideration for the Super Bowl.”
That shut me up.
“I could be the youngest solo headliner they’ve ever had,” she said. “Twenty-six. That’s not just a performance. That’s history. That’s power. That’s the thing that changes how people talk about me for the rest of my career.”
The room felt still.
“No one knows yet,” she added. “It’s not public. It’s not even supposed to be discussed outside a few rooms. But Cass happened. His song happened. Now this happened. And suddenly the conversation isn’t whether I’m talented enough or big enough. It’s whether I’m messy. Whether I’m spiraling. Whether I’m a joke.”
I thought about the CNN coverage. The ESPN coverage. The one photo of us kissing at the altar, already turning into a punchline, a fantasy, a scandal.
She looked away. “If I annul this today, I look humiliated. If I divorce you next week, I look humiliated. If I stay married and smile like I chose it, maybe I look like I moved on.”
“That’s a shitty reason to stay married.”
“It’s the reason I have.”
“No, it’s the reason they have.” I nodded toward the door. “What do you want?”
Her laugh was small and humorless. “I want Cass Donovan to develop a sudden allergy to microphones.”
I smiled despite myself.
“I want my life to stop being a public group project,” she continued. “I want to write music without everyone deciding which man owns which lyric. I want to get the Super Bowl. I want to walk into that stadium and make every person who said I was too young or too emotional or too damaged choke on it.”
Her voice shook at the end.
Only a little.
Enough.
Then she looked at me with those green eyes, and fuck, that was the problem right there.
Not her fame. Not the body I remembered way too vividly. Not the fact that she was gorgeous and sharp and apparently capable of insulting me into a semi.
It was the eyes.
She looked proud and scared at the same time.
Like asking for help cost her something.
“I need your help,” she said.
Quiet.
No performance. No publicist voice. No superstar polish.
Just her.
I felt my resistance take a direct hit.
“Hannah.”
“I know it’s insane.”
“It is.”
“I know you don’t owe me anything.”
“I kind of owe you a clean divorce.”
“Annulment,” she corrected automatically.
“See? We’re already communicating like a healthy couple.”
That got the smallest smile out of her.
It disappeared too quickly.
“I’m not asking you to love me,” she said. “I’m not asking you to make this real. I’m asking for time. A story. A way to get through the next year without Cass being the man who gets to define me.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
I looked at the ring on my hand.
I thought about Dean talking endorsements. The NHL seeing viewers. The Blackhawks seeing money. Sabrina seeing optics. Allie seeing survival.
And Hannah sitting across from me, asking like she hated needing to ask.
I had wanted an annulment.
I still wanted one.
Or I should have.
But I knew what it felt like to have some asshole’s version of you follow you everywhere. Phil Graham’s son. Phil Graham’s temper. Phil Graham’s legacy. People loved deciding who you were before you ever opened your mouth.
Cass had done that to her.
Now the world was helping.
I dragged both hands through my hair.
Her eyes stayed on me.
Pleading.
Hopeful.
Terrified.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
Her lips parted.
I pointed at her. “I’m not agreeing to a year yet.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m not letting your lawyer turn me into a handbag with a slap shot.”
“Fair.”
“And I'm not too sure on an intimacy coordinator.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Debatable.”
She breathed out. The relief on her face was small, but I saw it.
That was my first mistake.
Seeing it.
Caring.
I walked to the door and opened it before I could do something even stupider, like promise her anything.
Everyone looked up from the hall.
Dean’s expression shifted immediately, because the bastard knew me too well.
“Back in,” I said.
Sabrina stood. Allie rose beside her.
Hannah came to stand behind me, close enough that I could feel her there without touching her.
I looked at Dean.
“We listen,” I said. “That’s all.”
Dean’s mouth curved.
I gave him a death stare.
He wisely did not grin.
But across the hall, Allie rolled her eyes at him so hard I almost heard it, and Dean looked happier than any lawyer had a right to look before negotiating the terms of a fake marriage.
I was so close to firing him.
Instead, I went back into the conference room and sat down beside my wife.