004

What I Lost

{Raxon's POV}

The penthouse doors closed behind me, and I kept walking.

Past the elevator. Past the front desk. Past the doorman who called out a greeting, I didn't return.

I walked until I was in my car with the engine running and my hands gripping the steering wheel hard enough to turn my knuckles white.

I'd signed the papers.

I'd signed my name next to hers—Nadia Owen, written in careful, nervous letters like she'd practiced it beforehand—and now I was legally bound to a woman I'd met exactly twice.

The first time, she'd been pressed against a pillar at a gala, staring up at me like I was something worth staring at.

The second time, she'd stammered through an apology I didn't want to hear while my mother looked on like a proud matchmaker.

Now we were engaged.

Soon we'd be married.

And I was supposed to act like this was normal.

I didn't go home. Home was where Shantel would be waiting, and I wasn't ready for that conversation. Wasn't ready to watch her face when I told her what my mother had orchestrated.

Instead, I drove. No destination. Just miles of asphalt and the radio turned off and the city blurring past my window.

I'd been driving for twenty minutes before I realized I was heading toward the arena. Muscle memory. The only place that had ever made sense.

I pulled into the empty parking lot and sat there, staring at the dark building.

I'd had a plan.

I'd bought a ring three weeks ago. Custom setting. Diamond that cost more than most people's cars.

I'd been waiting for the right moment....after the championship, maybe, or during the offseason when we could actually enjoy being engaged without the media dissecting every frame.

I'd pictured her face when I got down on one knee.

I'd practiced the speech in my head a hundred times.

Now there was a stack of signed papers on a conference table and a girl with dark hair who looked at me like I was still the man on her bedroom wall.

She had no idea what she'd walked into.

For a moment...one brief, unwelcome moment....I almost felt bad for her. She hadn't asked for this either.

My mother had plucked her out of mystery and dropped her into a life she didn't understand, and she was probably sitting somewhere right now convincing herself this was a fairy tale.

It wasn't.

And she'd learn that soon enough.

I shoved the thought aside and turned the ignition and drove home.

---

Shantel was in the living room when I walked in.

She was sitting on the arm of the couch, scrolling through her phone, still in the dress she'd worn to lunch. She looked up when I came through the door, and whatever she saw on my face made her go very still.

"No." She stood slowly, her phone slipping from her fingers onto the cushion. "Raxon. No."

"I didn't have a choice."

"Don't." Her voice broke. "Don't you dare say that. You always have a choice. You just...." She pressed her hand to her mouth.

When she spoke again, it was barely a whisper. "You chose wrong."

I crossed the room toward her. She stepped back.

"Shantel..."

"Your mother." The name came out like a curse. "Your mother did this. She's been trying to get rid of me since the day you brought me home from college. Do you know how many dinners I've sat through where she looked at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe?"

"I know."

"And you let her win." Her eyes were wet now, but her voice was steady. That was almost worse than screaming. "You let her choose for you. Like you always do."

"I didn't let her do anything. She backed me into a corner. The scandal, the media, the sponsors—if I don't marry this girl, my career is over. Everything I've worked for since I was fifteen. Gone."

Shantel stared at me for a long moment.

Then she laughed...a short, bitter sound that cut deeper than anything she could have said.

"So that's it. You chose hockey."

"I chose survival."

"No." She picked up her phone from the couch and walked toward the door. Her heels clicked on the hardwood, quick and final. "You chose the easy thing. You always choose the easy thing."

"Shantel, wait...."

She stopped in the doorway, her back to me.

Her shoulders were shaking, but when she spoke, her voice was clear.

"I loved you. I loved you for four years. I put up with your mother and your schedule and your ego and the way you disappear into your own head for days after a bad game. I did all of it because I thought..."

She stopped and swallowed. "I thought you'd fight for me. When it mattered. I thought you'd fight."

She walked out.

I didn't follow her.

I stood in the middle of my living room, surrounded by the silence she'd left behind, and tried to remember the last time I'd felt like I was in control of my own life.

I couldn't.

---

I didn't sleep that night.

I sat on the couch where Shantel had been sitting an hour earlier, her phone indentation still in the cushion, and stared at the wall.

At some point I got up and poured a drink.

At some point I poured another. Neither one helped.

The ring was still in my jacket pocket. I pulled it out and set it on the coffee table. The diamond caught the light from the streetlamp outside, glowing like it was mocking me.

I'd never get down on one knee now. I'd never give her that speech. I'd never see her face light up the way I'd imagined it would.

Instead, I would stand at an altar in front of three hundred strangers and promise to love a woman whose last name I barely knew.

I picked up the ring box and closed it. Set it aside. Poured another drink.

By the time the sun came up, I'd made a decision.

If I had to do this...if I had to marry this girl and play the happy husband for the cameras...then I was going to make sure she understood exactly what she was getting into.

No pretending. No false hope.

She was going to know, from day one, that this was a transaction. A business arrangement. A prison sentence we were both serving.

---

The press conference was three days later.

I stood backstage, adjusting my tie for the fifth time, while a makeup artist dabbed powder on my forehead.

Through the curtain, I could hear the murmur of the crowd....reporters, photographers, entertainment journalists who'd been covering my career since I was a rookie.

Nadia stood a few feet away, her hands clasped in front of her, staring at the curtain like it was a firing squad.

She looked terrified.

Pale beneath the makeup someone had carefully applied. Her fingers were twisting together so hard her knuckles were white.

I didn't say anything. It wasn't my job to comfort her.

This was business.

"Let's go," I said. "They're waiting."

---

The lights were blinding.

The microphones picked up every breath. I stood at the stand, Nadia beside me, and when the cameras started flashing, I put my arm around her waist.

She was stiff beneath my hand.

I could feel her pulse racing through the fabric of her dress.

"We're happy to announce our engagement," I said into the sea of microphones, my voice stable and completely empty. "Nadia and I have been seeing each other privately for some time. The incident at the gala was a misunderstanding that was blown out of proportion by certain parties. I would never hurt the woman I love."

The woman I love.

The words tasted like nothing.

"Raxon!" A reporter near the front raised his hand. "Is it true that you were involved with Shantel De Witt prior to this engagement? There are rumors she's devastated by the news."

I felt Nadia tense beside me.

"There was never anything serious between Ms. De Witt and myself," I said. The lie came out smooth and rehearsed. "We dated casually. It ended amicably weeks ago. Nadia is my priority now."

Somewhere out there, Shantel was watching this. I wondered if she'd thrown something at the TV yet.

I hoped she had. I deserved it.

"Nadia!" Another reporter near the middle. "How did you two meet? We're all dying to hear the love story."

Nadia glanced at me. I gave her nothing. No nod. No reassurance. She was on her own.

She took a breath. Then she faced the cameras.

"I've been a fan of Raxon's for years," she said. Her voice was more undisturbed than I had expected. "Since his rookie season. We met properly a few months ago at a charity event, and I don't know. It just... clicked."

"A fan turned fiancée! How romantic." The reporter was smiling. "So what made you notice him? Was it the highlight reels? The championship goals?"

Nadia paused.

Something changed in her face—a trace of confidence I hadn't seen before.

"Actually," she said, "it wasn't because he was handsome. Or the highlight reels."

The room laughed. She smiled, just slightly.

"It was a preseason game. His rookie year. He backchecked....I mean, really backchecked....in the last two minutes when they were already down by three. Nobody does that. Nobody notices those plays." She shrugged, almost apologetic. "But I noticed."

The room went quiet.

I stared at her.

Backchecking. In a meaningless preseason game. Six years ago.

She'd noticed.

"Nadia, that's...." The reporter laughed, genuinely this time. "That's incredibly detailed."

"I'm a detailed person."

The room laughed again. Warmer this time. They liked her.

I was still staring at her. I couldn't stop.

She wasn't just a fan with posters on her wall. She wasn't just some girl who'd crashed a party and gotten lucky. She knew the game. She'd been watching...really watching...for years.

I didn't know what to do with that.

"Raxon?" Another reporter. "Your thoughts? Sounds like you've got a devoted one."

I forced my face back into the cameras. Forced the smile.

"I'm a lucky man," I said.

The words tasted like nothing. Like everything I'd said today.

But under the nothing, something else stirred. Something I didn't want to name.

---

After the conference, the PR team swarmed us. Handshakes. Congratulations. A schedule of upcoming appearances that made my head spin.

Nadia stood beside me the whole time, nodding along, asking questions in that nervous voice of hers.

When they finally released us, I walked her to the car.

"Driver will take you home," I said. "I have a meeting."

I didn't have a meeting.

I just couldn't spend another minute standing next to her.

"Okay." She ducked into the car. Just before the door closed, she looked up at me. "Did I... was that okay? What I said about the preseason game? I didn't mean to go off script."

I looked at her. That hope again. That stubborn, angering hope.

"It was fine," I said.

She smiled.

I closed the door.

The car pulled away, and I stood on the curb, watching the taillights disappear into traffic.

A preseason game. Six years ago. She'd been watching for six years.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked back toward the venue. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to think about the way the room had gone quiet when she talked about backchecking.

I didn't want to think about the fact that she'd seen something in me...something real...long before she'd ever met me.

---

That night, I sat in my living room with the lights off, the ring box still on the coffee table where I'd left it.

Tomorrow, the schedule started. Charity galas. Joint interviews. Photo ops. A wedding to plan. A life to fake.

And a girl who knew the difference between a highlight reel and a backcheck in a meaningless preseason game.

I finished my drink and didn't pour another.

She would learn eventually.

They all did.