All Chapters of Second Chance on the Rink: Rebirth of the Ice Queen: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Scarlett's POVI stayed on the phone with Emma for another two minutes, got the basic shape of the damage, and hung up.Then I opened the trending page myself.The top post had already cleared forty thousand reposts. Someone had gotten clean shots of me and Preston outside the restaurant, his arm around me, both of us laughing at something.Below that, a clip from inside, shaky and clearly taken on a phone through the window, showing the moment I threw Pierce's box back at him.The caption underneath read: Scarlett Publicly Humiliates Longtime Boyfriend While Out With Mystery Man.The comments were exactly what I expected. Half of them were people calling me every name they could think of. The other half were people arguing about whether Pierce deserved it.I kept scrolling.There were already three separate opinion pieces linked in the thread. One of them had the headline: Is Scarlett's New Image Rebrand or Meltdown? Another one called Preston a "low-profile athlete with no verifiab

Scarlett's POV"Do you have any idea what Owen brings to this family?" My father's voice kept rising. He stood in the middle of the living room like he was delivering a verdict. "He has the entire Hartwell Group behind him. Marrying him means our business expands at least three times over.""I'm not marrying someone I don't love," I said."Love." He let out a short laugh. "You're running around with some nobody athlete, the whole internet is dragging your name through the mud, and you want to talk to me about love? Do you know how bad you look right now?""Someone is deliberately smearing me.""Doesn't matter who did it. The damage is done. You're a joke." He pointed at me, voice getting louder. "If you marry Owen now, you can still salvage some dignity. You keep messing around with that broke guy, and you'll have nothing left."Mom stood up and stepped between us. "Alright, both of you just calm down for a second—""Charlotte, sit down." Dad's arm swung out to the side.He wasn't loo

Madison's POVI stood in front of the monitor, watching Scarlett go back and forth with Richard, who had finally decided to show up.Now it was my turn.I touched up my lipstick in the mirror, liked what I saw, and walked out onto the floor where Scarlett was having the worst day of her week.Scarlett looked up when she heard my heels on the marble. The expression on her face went from stressed to stone cold the second she recognized me."Funny running into you here," I said.She didn't say anything.I pulled out the chair next to her and sat down like I owned the place, which, given my accounts at this branch, wasn't entirely inaccurate."Let me guess," I said. "The loan's not going through?"Still nothing from her. She had this way of going completely quiet that I genuinely found irritating. Most people fill silence. Scarlett just let it sit there."Did you burn through everything already?" I asked. "All that money your family had, just gone? Or wait, let me think." I tapped my chin

Scarlett's POVThen he shoved me. Hard.The push was hard enough that I stumbled back and had to grab the railing to keep from going down completely."Dad—""Don't." He was already stepping past me, moving toward Madison, who had done an immediate and impressive transformation into something small and shaken.She had her hand pressed to her chest and her eyes were wide and glistening and she was doing the thing she always did, the thing that worked every single time."I'm okay," she said quietly, to no one in particular. "I'm fine. I just didn't expect her to—""She started it," I said."Scarlett." My father's voice was a warning."Why do you never let me finish? Why do you always believe her over me?""That's supposed to make it better?" He turned around and looked at me with that expression I had grown up fearing and then grown up resenting and now just found exhausting. "What is the matter with you? Out here in the street, trying to hit your own sister, after failing to get a loan,

Scarlett's POV"You already figured something was off about her," Preston said. "I just found out exactly how off."We were still standing outside the bank. I had the loan documents in my hand and the afternoon sun was doing too much, but I didn't move."I had someone look into Madison's background," he said. "Her mother Olivia. Currently serving time for fraud. It took a while to get access but my investigator managed to sit down with her."I waited."Olivia talked," he said. "Not easily, but she talked. Madison isn't your cousin. She's your father's daughter. He and Olivia had an affair, and Madison was the result. Your father has been bringing her up as his nephew's daughter, keeping her close, taking care of her. The whole family friend arrangement, the way he treats her like she can do no wrong."He paused. "Now you know why."I stood very still.I had known something was wrong for years. I had felt it in the way my father looked at Madison, the way he defended her, the way he sh