All Chapters of PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE: Chapter 201 - Chapter 210

At the terminal he pulls the suitcase from the back seat and sets it on the curb, then he stands in front of me with his hands in his jacket pockets and his breath making small clouds in the air.I look at his concerned face, and I want to tell him everything. Caleb at the door. The money. The condition. The hospital in Seoul. The treatment. The kiss from two years ago that I’ve been carrying in my pocket like a stone that gets heavier with every month I don’t put it down.I want to tell him so bad that my mouth opens, the first syllable of Caleb’s name forming against my teeth, but then I remember that the telling would require explaining why Caleb knows about the cancer before Rhys does, and explaining that would require admitting that I sat on the kitchen floor for five hours processing alone instead of calling my husband, and admitting that would mean looking at the pattern and seeing it clearly for the first time.“Call me when you land,” he says.“I will.”“Call me when you see

I reach for her hand immediately and hold it like I’m trying to prove something to myself. Her fingers are thinner than they were when we last saw, and it immediately makes me recall the specific pressure of a hand in mine that is losing weight and the way thinning fingers feel when they close around yours with less force than they used to.I’ve kept those memories locked away for about six years because it contains a hospital bed carrying a man whose hand went from squeezing to still over the course of an hour.“Mom.” My voice is carefully level because I know my falling apart would make her feel worse. “Tell me everything. The truth.”My mom looks at me with a sad expression. “The leukaemia is acute myeloid. AML. But the doctors are starting treatment this week.” She recites the words like she’s been repeating them to herself in private. “The oncologist says the response rates are reasonable for my age and the specific mutation, and Richard has already called four specialists and bu

RHYS’ POVThe call ends and I hold the phone against my ear for three seconds after the line goes dead because the silence after her voice is still closer to her than the silence of the apartment without it.I put the phone on the counter, screen up, just in case she calls back.She won’t call back. I know that.The tone she used means she’s on autopilot.I open the fridge. Close it. Open it again. The fridge contains leftover Thai and a protein shake and the sad pasta from two days ago and none of it is relevant but the opening and closing gives my hands something to do while my brain processes the call.Korea. A month. Without coming home first.The logistics make sense though. She’s already on the East Coast with her mother, so flying to Portland to repack and then flying to Seoul would add a day of travel, and a day of travel is a day she could be working.But none of it explains why she didn’t fold her clothes when she packed.I sit at the kitchen table with the spreadsheet still

I’m standing in the hotel bathroom brushing my teeth at 7 AM Seoul time with the mirror fogged from the shower and the toothbrush moving in the mechanical, repetitive pattern that toothbrushes move in when the person operating them isn’t thinking about it.I’m thinking about the fact that I’m in a foreign country performing a fake relationship with the one man who could destroy my marriage while my husband believes I’m at a book signing and I coincidentally found a hospital program that could save my mother’s life as I came here.My brain suddenly gets a shockwave, and the reality of my situation hits me.I’m in Korea. With Caleb Park. Pretending to be his girlfriend. While lying to Rhys about it.The toothbrush stops and I look at myself for the first time since I got here.I look around the hotel room. The small bag with three days of clothes. The laptop I haven’t opened because the manuscript is dead and the blog is still sterile. The jacket with the ring in the pocket. The phone w

I call Rhys every night because I promised, and the promise is the last structurally sound thing I own.Nine PM in Portland is one in the afternoon here, so I take his calls in daylight with the curtains half-shut. I’ve built a set. Laptop open in frame, coffee cup positioned like work is happening, a notebook at an angle. I tested three spots along the wall to find where the room reads as generic instead of expensive, because the Parks booked it and it looks like people who own hospitals booked it.“How’s the launch going?” he asks on night three.“Good. Publisher’s incredible. Bigger readership than I expected.”“You seem tired.”“Time zones.”“Naomi.”“I’m fine.”There it is. The coin I drop in every night to keep the machine running. And he takes it, every night, because taking it is what he decided to be two years ago on a kitchen floor with cold Thai food between us.That’s the part that’s chewing through me. He isn’t stupid. This is a man who reads a play three seconds before i