3– Gabrielle

A sharp, humorless laugh broke out of my throat before I could stop it. I stared at Kayden, waiting for the punchline, but his expression remained deadpan.

“A contract to be your official girlfriend?” I mocked, crossing my arms tightly over my chest. “What does that even mean?”

“You know what it means, Gabrielle.”

“A fake relationship?” A breathy scoff left me. “You have got to be kidding me. You muttered this same ridiculous nonsense outside my apartment last night, Kayden, and my answer hasn't changed. Are you completely delusional? Fake or not, I’ll never date you.”

“Gabrielle, shut up and listen for a second,” Arthur interjected, his voice tight and commanding.

“No, Sir, I won't,” I snapped, turning on my boss, the adrenaline overriding my usual professional restraint. “He is a liability! This entire mess started because he can't control his impulses, and now his brilliant solution is to drag me deeper into the mud with him? I refuse to be part of a PR stunt that completely compromises my professional integrity.”

“Your professional integrity is already gone the second that video hit a million views, Gabrielle!” Arthur roared, slamming his hand down on the side table. The room went dead silent. “Look at the reality here. By noon, the boards of both our agency and the NHL will have made their decisions. If we go with your plan of a strictly professional denial, the media will paint you as a predator who took advantage of an athlete, or him as an aggressor. Either way, the firm fires you today. You’ll be blacklisted from sports management globally. Is that the integrity you're fighting for?”

The words hit me like someone took a hammer to my heart. The room seemed to tilt. I looked over at Kayden's lawyer, who simply gave a grim, slow nod of confirmation. Even his agent wouldn't look me in the eye.

“Arthur…” I whispered, the anger draining out of me, replaced by a suffocating dread. “You can't do that. You know how hard I’ve worked to get here at such a young age. You said so yourself, that I’m an asset.”

“I’m aware. But people don’t know that about you, Gabrielle,” he said. “They’re already speculating that you came this far because of your family name and background.”

“But you know that is not true,” I argued. “I did this all on my own.”

“Exactly. Which is why I'm offering you this lifeline,” Arthur said, his tone softening but remaining unyielding. “Thirty days. We frame it as a whirlwind, passionate romance that got a little too intense outside your apartment. It shifts the narrative from an unprofessional scandal to a high-profile love story. The sponsors stay happy, the league backs off, and your job is secure.”

“And after the thirty days?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“We announce an amicable breakup due to the pressures of your respective careers,” Kayden’s lawyer answered, sliding a freshly printed document across the table. “A standard confidentiality agreement is attached. No one ever knows it was a setup.”

I looked down at the paper. The text blurred before my eyes: Mutual Marketing and Public Relations Agreement. 

It felt like someone was casting a spell to destroy both my professional and personal life at the same time.

It wasn’t a good feeling.

But if I was going to sell my soul to keep my career, I wasn’t doing it without setting the terms of my own.

"If I'm signing this," I said, my voice cutting through the room, "we are adding an addendum. My rules. Word for word, or I walk."

Kayden stepped back and settled into a chair. He leaned back, a flicker of amusement passing through his dark eyes. "Let's hear them, handler."

"Rule number one," I said, pointing a finger at him. "No touching. None. Off-camera, you stay at least three feet away from me at all times. If we are in public and the press is watching, you may hold my hand. That is the limit."

“Just holding of hands? Are we kids?” Kayden asked, his mouth twitching into a slight smirk. "We should be able to do more for the adoring fans?"

"I don’t give a fuck about you or your adoring fans," I snapped. "Any physical display of affection beyond hand-holding must be cleared with me five minutes in advance. If you spring another stunt like last night on me, I will ensure the press gets a front-row seat to me breaking your nose."

"Ouch," Kayden muttered, though he didn't look remotely intimidated. "Fair enough. My nose is worth too much to risk. What else?"

"Rule number two: Your personal life stays dead," I looked at the agent and the lawyer. "No clubbing, no mysterious women slipping out of your back door at 3 A.M., and absolutely no scandals. If you get caught with so much as a waitress during these thirty days, the contract is void, I get full immunity, and you pay out my salary for the next five years."

The lawyer pursed his lips but nodded anyway. "We can write that in."

"And rule number three," I said, locking my gaze onto Kayden's. "You do not talk to me unless it is strictly about the schedule or the media strategy. We are not friends. We are not a couple. This is a business transaction to clean up your mess."

Kayden’s smirk finally faded, replaced by that heavy, unreadable expression. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"I have a rule too," he countered, his deep voice sending an involuntary shiver down my spine.

"You don't get to make rules," I sassed.

"I do if I'm the one paying the agency's bills," he shot back. "Rule number one for you, Gabrielle: You move into my guest house. Starting today."

"Absolutely not!" I practically shouted. "I am not living with you!"

"It's for security," his lawyer interjected, sliding a tablet toward me showing a live traffic feed outside my apartment building. It was a zoo of news vans. "Your place is compromised, Ms. Gabrielle. Fans know where you live. If you go back there, the narrative breaks because you two aren't together. Moving in with him sells the whirlwind romance. It's non-negotiable."

I looked from the screen back to Kayden. He was watching me with a calm intensity that made my skin prickle.

There was no triumph in his eyes, no smug playboy smirk. Just a deep, dark, calculated focus.

“How’s it that you prepared this document so swiftly, hm?” I breathed, the realization hitting me like a wave. “It’s not possible that within the short hours of this scandal, you were able to get your lawyer to draft a legal document.”

Kayden smiled, showing off those pretty dimples. “It’s my lawyer’s specialty to draft such documents as swiftly as possible. This isn’t our first rodeo, Gabrielle.”

“Of course not.”

“I told you last night, Gabrielle,” Kayden added, his deep voice sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. “I wanted you to be my girlfriend. And as luck may have it, here we are. You’re mine now.”

“You psycho,” I hissed, shooting up from my seat and starting toward him. But Arthur grabbed my elbow, pulling me back.

“Sign the contract, Gabrielle,” Arthur ordered, handing me a pen. “Or hand me your company badge and ID right now. The choice is yours.”

My fingers shook as I took the pen. I looked at the contract, then at Kayden, who gave me a slow, encouraging nod. 

With a heavy heart and a stomach full of anger, I leaned over the table and pressed the pen to the paper.

I signed my life away for the next thirty days.