HEADLINES

CHAPTER 9

The apartment was dark except for the glow of the television, muted, casting flickering blue light across the small living room, and Olivia paused in the doorway with her key still in the lock, hoping against hope that Charles had fallen asleep in front of it like he sometimes did.

He hadn't.

He sat upright on the couch in his dinosaur pajamas, a scuffed football tucked under one arm like a teddy bear, his eyes drooping and snapping open again in the determined way of a six year old refusing to lose a battle against his own bedtime.

"Mommy." His whole face lit up the second he saw her, and he scrambled off the couch, football and all, before the smile suddenly dropped away.

He'd seen the bruise.

His small feet slowed halfway across the room, his eyes going wide and serious in a way that looked far too old for his face. "Mommy, who hurt you?"

Olivia dropped to her knees right there in the doorway, ignoring the ache still radiating through her shoulder, and pulled him close before he could ask again. "I slipped while I was cleaning, baby. It's nothing. I promise."

Charles pulled back just enough to study her face, his small brow furrowed with the particular stubbornness he'd inherited from a father he'd never met. He didn't believe her. She could see it plainly in the way his jaw set, the same tight line Killian's used to get right before he refused to back down from something.

He didn't argue, though. He just wrapped both arms around her neck instead, hugging her so tight it nearly stole her breath, football and all pressed awkwardly between them.

"When I get big," he mumbled into her shoulder, fierce and small and utterly certain, "I'm gonna be strong enough that nobody ever makes you cry again."

Something inside her cracked wide open.

She held him there on the floor of their tiny apartment, breathing in the smell of his shampoo, and made a silent promise into the top of his head that no matter what it cost her, he would never carry the same kind of pain she and his father had carried. Never.

Karen arrived the next morning with a bag of breakfast sandwiches and her usual chaotic energy, already talking before she'd fully closed the door behind her.

"Charles, sweetie, eat fast, we're leaving in ten." She was scrolling her phone with one thumb while unpacking sandwiches with the other hand, a skill Olivia had never quite figured out how she'd mastered. Then she stopped scrolling entirely.

"Oh my god." She turned the phone around, practically shoving it into Olivia's hands. "Liv, look at this."

The headline filled the screen in bold letters. SUPER BOWL MVP KILLIAN ASHFORD RETURNS TO LOS ANGELES. IS ROMANCE BREWING WITH HART SPORTS CEO MARA HART?

Beneath it, photo after photo, Mara beaming up at Killian with her hand curled around his arm, the two of them framed like something out of a magazine spread built entirely around a story that had never actually happened.

Olivia's chest tightened, a slow, unwelcome pressure settling behind her ribs, but she handed the phone back with a shrug that cost her more than it should have. "I don't care."

"Liv." Karen's voice softened, careful now. "Photographers catch one second out of an entire day. That's not the truth, that's just an angle."

"The truth stopped mattering seven years ago, Karen." Olivia turned back toward the stove, needing somewhere else to put her eyes. "Eat your breakfast, Charles. You'll be late."

At the agency, the article had already become the only topic anyone wanted to discuss. Employees crowded near Mara's office all morning, congratulating her like she'd already walked down an aisle, and Mara soaked in every second of it, dropping little hints about high school sweethearts and fate finding its way back around, enjoying nothing quite so much as the jealous, sideways glances aimed at Olivia every time she passed with her cleaning cart.

Out on the practice field, Killian had no time to think about headlines.

Coach Ramirez introduced him formally in front of the full roster, his voice carrying across the turf under the early morning sun. "Every one of you follows his lead. That's not a suggestion."

A few of the veterans exchanged looks. Damon, the linebacker who'd been running his mouth since day one, crossed his arms and said nothing, clearly waiting to see if the celebrity signing would crack under real pressure.

Killian didn't argue with any of them. He simply lined up for every sprint, matched every rep in the weight room, threw every pass with the same relentless precision that had won him a championship, until somewhere around the fourth gasser, Damon jogged up beside him instead of behind him.

"Alright," Damon muttered between labored breaths, something grudging shifting in his tone. "Maybe you're not just a pretty face after all."

By the time practice ended, the media had gathered outside the gates again, microphones extended before he'd even cleared the doors.

"Are you dating CEO Mara Hart?"

"I'm here to rebuild a football team," Killian said without breaking stride. "My personal life isn't anyone's business."

It ran across every sports channel by dinnertime, right alongside speculation nobody had bothered asking him to confirm.

Later that afternoon, he returned to grab a playbook he'd left behind, and as he passed the employee lockers, laughter drifted from around the corner.

"I heard the janitor still has that fatherless kid."

"Like mother, like son. No wonder nobody wanted her."

Killian stopped walking.

His jaw locked tight, and he turned slowly toward the two voices, his expression gone dangerously calm. "What did you just say?"

The laughter died instantly.

"We were just, it's just office talk, we didn't mean anything by it," one of them stammered, eyes darting toward the exit.

"I don't tolerate bullying on my team," Killian said, his voice cutting clean through the sudden silence of the hallway, "and I won't tolerate it in this agency either."

Hidden around the corner with a stack of supplies pressed against her chest, Olivia squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry, every word landing like a fresh bruise on top of the old ones.

Mara's office door swung open before anyone could say another word, her heels clicking sharply against the tile as she stepped into the hallway. "What is going on out here?"

One of the employees pointed, fast and desperate to shift the blame. "It's all because of her."

Every head in the hallway turned toward Olivia as she stepped slowly into view, and Mara's mouth curved into a cold, satisfied smile.

"Perfect timing, Olivia." She folded her arms, her eyes glittering with something sharp and cruel. "Since you're finally here, I have another job for you."