My Ex-fiance's Uncle won't let me go
Ivy Callahan spent three years burying the one man she never stopped loving. Then she crashed her car straight into his.
Ivy has one job: keep other people's scandals off the front page. So when her fiancé, Julian Ashford, is caught leaving a hotel with another woman, she does what she does best — clean it up, smile for the cameras, and pretend her heart isn't breaking.
Then she rear-ends a stranger's car outside the hotel and looks up into the eyes of Roman Ashford — the hockey legend she left without a word three years ago, and the one man on earth she never expected to be Julian's uncle.
Roman never got over her. He's not about to lose her twice — especially not to his own nephew.
As Julian's scandal spirals and the Ashford family closes ranks to protect their name, Ivy is trapped between a debt she didn't create, a fiancé who's already chosen someone else, and an ex who's done waiting quietly in the background. When the family matriarch offers her an impossible choice — marry Julian to save her father's company, or lose everything — Roman makes a vow of his own: he won't let her sacrifice herself for a debt again.
But an old contract is about to surface — one with a signature on it that will blow the entire Ashford family apart, and force Ivy to choose not between two men, but between the life she was told to want and the one she actually does.
The hockey star won't let his ex go. The question is whether she'll let herself be found.
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Chapter: Chapter - No More GuessingRoman's PovThree years ago, Roman had let her walk away without a single word to stop her, and he had told himself for three years that the silence had been dignity. It hadn't been dignity. It had been fear, dressed up nicely enough that he could live with it.He wasn't going to make that mistake with the same woman twice in one lifetime."Don't marry him," Roman said.Ivy's breath caught, sharp enough that he heard it in the quiet of the car. "That's not an answer to what I asked you.""It's the only part of the answer I can say out loud right now, sitting outside my mother's house, with your father's company hanging over both our heads." He turned to face her fully, needing her to see exactly how much this was costing him to say. "I'm not going to pretend I don't want you to walk away from that wedding. I have wanted that since the second you got out of your car in that parking lot and I heard my own voice say your name like no time had passed at all.""Roman—""But I'm not going t
Last Updated: 2026-09-20
Chapter: Chapter 4 - Damage ControlIvy's POVBy seven the next morning, the photo had three hundred thousand views and a hashtag.Ivy sat at her kitchen table with her laptop open and her coffee going cold, watching her own professional nightmare unfold in real time — the exact kind of story she'd spent three years preventing other people from starring in. #AshfordAffair had already overtaken whatever half-hearted trend Camille's appearance at the lounge should have generated, and every single comment thread had decided the same thing: Ivy Callahan hadn't just cheated on her fiancé's scandal with sympathy — she'd apparently upgraded to his uncle within the same news cycle.Her phone rang before she'd finished her second read-through of the worst comments."Please tell me you have a plan," Julian said, without a hello."I have several plans. None of them fix the fact that you're the one who was photographed arguing with another woman first.""That's not fair.""Fair isn't the job, Julian. Optics are the job, and right n
Last Updated: 2026-09-20
Chapter: Chapter 3 - The LoungeIvy's POVJulian wanted to fix things between us over drinks at the Halcyon Lounge, in front of exactly the kind of crowd that would report back to every gossip column in the city if the fixing went well — and photograph every second of it if it didn't.Ivy had built the plan herself. Neutral territory, soft lighting, a guest list curated down to people who'd spin the reconciliation as a misunderstanding rather than a scandal. She'd done this a hundred times for other people's marriages and relationships. She had never once had to do it on her own."You look beautiful," Julian said, sliding into the booth across from her like the last forty-eight hours hadn't happened. "Thank you for doing this.""I'm not doing it for you." She kept her voice level, professional, the same voice she'd use with any client who'd embarrassed himself in public. "I'm doing it because if this engagement collapses in a scandal, it takes my father's company down with it, and I've spent three years keeping that
Last Updated: 2026-09-20
Chapter: Chapter 2 - The DebtIvy's POVThe estimate came back at four thousand dollars, and Roman Ashford's assistant hadn't sent it — Roman himself did.Ivy stared at the text for a full minute before she typed back: Send me an invoice and I'll wire it today.His reply came almost instantly. Come get coffee with me instead. We'll call it even.She should have said no. She should have blocked the number entirely, gone back to pretending the parking lot outside the Meridian never happened, and let Julian's scandal absorb every ounce of energy she had left. Instead, at ten the next morning, she found herself sitting across from Roman Ashford in a corner café two blocks from her office, watching him not touch his espresso while she picked apart a croissant she had no intention of eating."You didn't come here about the car," she said."No." He didn't bother pretending otherwise. That was new — or maybe it wasn't new, maybe she'd just forgotten how little patience Roman had for pretending. "I did some reading last ni
Last Updated: 2026-09-20
Chapter: Chapter 1 - CollisionIvy's POVThe flash went off before Ivy Callahan even got the car door open."Ms. Callahan! Is it true Julian Ashford was seen leaving the Меridian Hotel with another woman?"She didn't answer. She never answered — that was rule one. Rule two was to smile like nothing was wrong, even when everything was. Rule three, the one she'd learned the hard way, was never let them see you run.So she walked. Heels steady on wet pavement, blazer buttoned, phone already dialing Julian's line for the fourth time in twenty minutes.He picked up on the fifth ring. "Ivy, it's not what it looks like—""Save it for someone who still believes you." She cut through the side entrance, past the two junior publicists she'd sent ahead to intercept the photographers loitering by the valet stand. "I need you out the back in the next ten minutes or this is on every sports blog in the city by morning.""You're overreacting."She stopped walking.Three years of managing other people's disasters had taught Ivy exac
Last Updated: 2026-09-20
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