All Chapters of THE CAPTAIN'S FAKE GIRLFRIEND : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Damon Hayes had never been good at taking orders. Especially not from people who thought they owned him.“Sit down, Damon.”Damon didn't budge. He stood in the middle of the head coach’s office, his broad shoulders squared, his leather jacket draped casually over one arm. The room smelled of old coffee, stale ice, and decades of sweat—a smell Damon usually found comforting. Today, it felt like a trap.Coach Marcus Reed slammed a sleek digital tablet onto the dark oak desk. “I said, sit.”With a slow, deliberate exhale, Damon dropped into the leather chair opposite the desk, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He didn't look like a man under fire; he looked like a king bored with his court. But beneath the cool, impenetrable surface, his jaw was clamped so tight his teeth burned.“Care to explain this?” Coach Reed demanded, leaning forward and tapping the glass screen.A video played on a high-definition loop. It was grainy night-vision footage taken outside Vanguard, the cit

Note next morning, I woke up with one heavy, pounding realization echoing inside my head: I had agreed to fake-date Damon Hayes.I stared blankly at the popcorn ceiling of my dorm room, then slowly buried my face in both hands. “What on earth was I thinking?”Three months.That was all. Three short, agonizing months of pretending to be the cherished girlfriend of Westbridge University’s most infamous, arrogant hockey captain. Three months of rehearsed smiles, public dates, forced touches, and a strict, ironclad rule against catching actual feelings.Simple, my brain tried to rationalize. Clean.At least, that was what I kept repeating to myself like a mantra.My phone buzzed against the wooden nightstand, snapping me out of my spiraling thoughts. I reached out and picked it up. A single text message lit up the screen from a contact I hadn't even bothered to properly label.Damon: Library. 5 p.m. Don't be late.I frowned at the lack of greeting. No good morning. No polite please. Just

One down. One to go.The five words glowed against the dark screen of Damon’s phone, searing themselves into my mind.For a long, suffocating moment, the air left my lungs entirely. The quiet luxury of Damon’s apartment suddenly felt claustrophobic, the high-rise windows offering no comfort against the dark city outside. My eyes darted frantically from the harsh white text to the grim, carved-in-stone expression on Damon’s face.“What does that mean?” My voice sounded paper-thin, trembling despite my best efforts to hold it steady. “Damon, what does that mean?”He didn't answer. Instead, his jaw flexed, and he shoved the phone deep into his jacket pocket with a motion so sharp it was violent.“We're leaving,” he said, his voice dropping into a harsh, commanding gravel. “Now.”“No.”His eyes snapped back to mine, cold and blazing all at once. “What did you just say?”“You don't get to do that anymore,” I snapped, taking a firm step back, crossing my arms over my chest to hide the way m

The moment Damon whispered, “They were inside the apartment,” every microscopic hair on my arms stood on end. My pulse violently hammered against my ribs, echoing the dread that slammed through my body like an arctic blast.I looked frantically toward the dark hallway, then down at the shiny photograph trembling in his hand. It defied all logic. We had been asleep on the couch together—curtains drawn, heavy front door deadbolted, high-rise security active. Yet the photo had been taken from inside his living room, framing us in our sleep from the shadow of the kitchen archway. Someone had stood over us while we slept, breathe quiet, camera lens aimed at our vulnerable bodies.“How?” my voice cracked, barely audible above the hum of the refrigerator.Damon didn't answer. He was already moving, his athletic frame locked into a lethal, defensive posture. He glided to the front door, testing the brass deadbolt—still thrown. He strode to the balcony slider—latched tightly from the inside. F

My hands went completely numb, the phone felt like an block of ice in my grip.Or Damon will die next.I stared at the screen, reading the single sentence over and over until the letters blurred into jagged lines. My heart hammered against my ribs, a chaotic, desperate rhythm. I prayed I had somehow misread it—that my mind was playing tricks on me in the dim light of the room.I hadn't.“Damon…” My voice was barely a breath, fragile and trembling.He was already standing over me, his broad frame casting a long shadow across the polished floor. The shift in his demeanor was instant—lethal, focused, completely locked in. “What did they say, Amelia?”I couldn't bring myself to speak the words aloud. Giving them breath felt like sealing his fate. I simply raised my shaking hands and passed him the phone.Damon’s dark eyes moved swiftly across the blue light of the screen. For two terrifying seconds, his face was completely expressionless, a marble mask of stillness. Then, his jaw clenched