Chapter 1

MARY'S POV

For the past month, I’d clung to a single, fragile lifeline: Henry would never abandon me.

Not after nineteen years together. Not with the weight of his engagement ring still sitting on my finger. Not when the rest of my life had already shattered into pieces.

I had scraped together the last of my cash to get to the Kingsley ice arena tonight. I just needed to see him. I needed him to wrap his arms around me, bury his face in my hair, and promise that we would survive this.

Instead, the icy air seized in my lungs.

My steps faltered behind the scratched plexiglass. Just a few feet away, Henry was pressed against the boards. His hands were tangled in another girl’s hair, kissing her with a frantic, consuming hunger that made my stomach turn over.

When the girl finally pulled back, the harsh arena lights caught her profile.

Scarlett Harrington.

The breath I didn't realize I was holding left me in a hollow rush. Of all the people in Kingsley, it had to be her. The daughter of the man who had orchestrated my father's ruin, stolen our home, and reduced the Collins legacy to dust.

For a second, the blinding white of the ice blurred.

Thirty days ago, I was Mary Collins, heiress to the Collins Group, wrapped in cashmere and shadowed by security. Tonight, I stood in scuffed sneakers, the bankrupt daughter of a fugitive, watching my fiancé publicly dismantle what was left of my heart.

Someone in the bleachers noticed me.

“Oh my God… is that Mary?”

“Look at her. I heard her dad took the rest of the company funds and ran.”

The whispers rippled through the stands, sharp enough to cut through the hum of the arena. The laughter from the hockey team slowly faded out, leaving a heavy, suffocating silence in its wake.

Henry turned.

For a fraction of a second, something like guilt fractured his perfect features. Then, Scarlett rested a manicured hand flat against his chest.

Instantly, his expression shuttered. He looked at me with the blank indifference of a stranger.

“Henry.” My voice was barely a rasp, but in the sudden quiet, it carried.

Scarlett stepped out of his embrace, smoothing down her designer sweater. A sickeningly sweet, pitying smile stretched across her lips.

“Well, look who it is,” she murmured. “I honestly didn’t think you’d have the nerve to show your face at Kingsley after the scandal.”

I kept my eyes locked on the boy I had loved since childhood.

“I’m his fiancée.” I took a step forward, my fingernails digging half-moons into my palms. “Get away from him.”

Henry’s jaw clenched. “Mary, stop. She’s my girlfriend.”

The words knocked the wind out of me.

“Girlfriend?” A broken, disbelieving laugh tore from my throat. “We’re engaged.”

Scarlett sighed, tilting her head with the kind of condescending sympathy reserved for wounded stray animals. “Mary, sweetie… you don’t even have a zip code anymore. Did you really expect Henry to tank his social standing just to play charity case for you?”

My blood ran hot. My fingers twitched with the sudden, violent urge to wipe that perfectly contoured sympathy right off her face. But I refused to give Scarlett Harrington a show.

Henry closed the distance between us and grabbed my arm. “Let’s take this outside. You're making a scene.”

I yanked my arm out of his grip. The Rolex on his wrist caught the light—the luxury watch I had bought him for his birthday.

“After nineteen years?” I demanded, no longer caring about the dozen pairs of eyes burning into my back. “My mother is lying in a hospital bed. My father is gone. I've called you every day for a month, and you replace me with the daughter of the man who destroyed my family?”

Henry’s features hardened into stone. He hated public messes, and I was currently making him the center of one.

Without a word of defense, he reached for his left hand. He slid the silver engagement ring off his finger.

Grabbing my wrist, he pressed the band into my palm and forced my trembling fingers closed around it.

“I’m giving this back.” His voice lacked even an ounce of warmth. “We’re done, Mary.”

A physical ache splintered through my chest.

“I didn’t want it to happen like this,” he added, his gaze dropping to the floor before flicking back to mine. “But the Davis family has a reputation. I can’t let your father’s criminal record drag my future down.”

Nineteen years. He had been the center of my universe for almost two decades, and he was returning our ring like it was a borrowed sweater.

“The second I lose everything, you walk away?”

“It’s reality,” Henry stated flatly. “We’re not kids anymore. If you can’t handle seeing me with Scarlett, maybe you should withdraw from Kingsley completely.”

He turned his back on me.

He wrapped his arm securely around Scarlett’s waist, guiding her away. She glanced over her shoulder, tossing me one last, victorious smirk before the locker room doors swung shut behind them.

I stood frozen on the rubber matting. The familiar faces of my old social circle watched me, their expressions ranging from morbid curiosity to outright disdain. People who used to beg for invites to my summer parties wouldn't even meet my eyes.

Humiliation tasted like ash in my mouth.

I gripped the silver ring so tightly the metal bit into my skin. I swiped a frustrated tear from my cheek, spun on my heel to leave, and—

Smack.

I collided hard with a wall of solid muscle.

The impact sent me stumbling backward. My hand jerked, and the engagement ring slipped from my grip, clattering sharply across the arena tiles.

I instinctively dropped to my knees to retrieve it.

Before my fingers could brush the metal, a heavy sneaker stepped directly over the ring, trapping it beneath the arch of the sole.

Not crushing it. Just stopping me from reaching it.

“A princess shouldn’t bow down for trash.”

The deep, gravelly voice sent a jolt straight down my spine.

Slowly, my gaze traveled up. Past the scuffed skates, past the black hockey pants, and up to a massive frame clad in a Kingsley jersey. Dark hair fell in unruly waves over his forehead, framing a sharp, unfairly aristocratic jawline bathed in the fluorescent lights.

But it was his eyes that pinned me in place. Pitch-black. Calculating. Entirely too amused.

My stomach plummeted.

It was impossible. I knew that face. Everyone knew that face—it was plastered across sports networks and college draft predictions. He was the golden boy of the Canadian university league.

What the hell was he doing at Kingsley?

Then the haze in my brain cleared, and a terrifying realization clicked into place. He wasn’t just a hockey prodigy.

He was the delinquent next door.

“You…” The word barely left my lips.

A slow, wicked smirk curved the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah.” He drawled the word out, his dark eyes raking over me. “I see you remember me, Princess. Though I gotta admit, I got a hell of a lot hotter since I left.”

Ryder Vance.

My childhood nightmare. The arrogant, insufferable boy who had single-handedly ruined my Sweet Sixteen by fracturing Henry’s nose in front of two hundred guests.

"You haven't grown an inch," he mused lazily, crossing his massive arms over his chest. "Well. Maybe your body did. But your brain's still stuck in middle school if you're out here crying over that spineless loser."

I forced out a dry laugh and pushed myself to my feet, tilting my chin up to meet his gaze. I had just lost my entire life; I wasn't about to lose my dignity to Ryder Vance.

"So, what?" I challenged. "You transferred all the way from Canada just to watch my downfall from the front row? I'm flattered, Vance."

Ryder’s smirk vanished.

His dark eyes dropped to the floor. He kicked his sneaker back, scooped the silver ring up into his palm, and stared at it with blatant disgust.

Before I could demand it back, he wound his arm back and tossed it over my shoulder.

The metallic rattle of the ring hitting the depths of a nearby trash can echoed loudly in the quiet corridor.

My jaw dropped. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Just putting trash where it belongs," Ryder replied, his voice losing all its teasing warmth. He stepped closer, his imposing height casting a shadow over me. "Holding onto that piece of junk is the same as begging a coward to love you. And you used to be better than that, Mary."