Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 1 - Chapitre 10

The ring box was hidden in my coat pocket as I followed the location Kane had shared with me on Life360 to the New York Storm's private lounge.The door hadn't shut all the way, and the laughter inside came through the gap."Captain, Lillian is coming back to New York next week. What are you going to do about that plus-size stand-in you keep at home?"My hand stopped on the door handle.Glasses clinked, and someone else joined in. "Erin used to be gorgeous. She'd show up in the stands wearing your old jersey, and half the team wanted her number. You really knew what you were doing, though. In seven years, you put more than eighty pounds on her.""Waffles for breakfast, peanut butter shakes before bed, and you even canceled her gym membership behind her back. Didn't you say that once she was heavy enough no one else would want her, she'd never leave you the way Lillian did?"The room burst into laughter.Kane never denied any of it.A few seconds passed before he spoke, his voice flat.

I said it to Kane, and I said it to myself.I hung up and called a rideshare home.Kane didn't come home that night.Fireworks went up outside the window. I picked up my tablet and saw the Instagram post Lillian had shared an hour earlier.In the photo she stood in the middle of an outdoor rink Kane had rented out for her. Fireworks filled the sky and fell across the ice, and Kane's captain's jacket hung over her shoulders.The caption was one line. "Seven years away, and somehow both the rink and someone were still waiting for me."I didn't scroll through their messages. I simply logged out of the Instagram account Kane had left open on the tablet.The next day, I arrived at the jewelry studio right on time.My manager held my resignation letter, and when she heard I was going home to get married, she was happy for me and sorry to lose me at the same time."I'm losing my best designer."I smiled and hugged her.For Kane I had turned down better jobs overseas and stayed in New York for

In those two weeks, besides finishing my last batch of designs for the studio, I emptied out almost the entire apartment.The couch, the rug, and the dishes I had bought were carried out one piece at a time. Once every color that belonged to me was gone, the place turned back into what it had been seven years earlier: black and white, cold, and empty enough to take in at a glance.The nutritionist replaced my old meal plan too.Once I stopped drinking two weight-gain shakes a day, I lost eight pounds in a week, the swelling went down, and my knees stopped aching every night.The night before I left, I decided some things should be said out loud, so I called Kane.The first call was declined. So was the second.After the fifth call, my phone finally buzzed with a text."If you still don't understand what you did wrong and won't give Lillian a sincere apology, then there's nothing for us to talk about."I looked at that line for a long time and then laughed. Fine. Nothing to talk about,

He looked at Theo's soaked clothes, then at the towel in my hand, and his expression darkened instantly."Theo, what did you do to my sister?"Theo lay back against the couch without bothering to lift his eyelids. "If you'd shown up two hours later, you might have had something worth getting angry about."Ethan's fist clenched."He didn't do anything." I got between them fast. "I'm the one who called the doctor."The family doctor showed Ethan the exam results proving that Theo had been drugged. Only then did Ethan grudgingly lower his fist.Theo buttoned his shirt. He was still unsteady when he stood, but he apologized formally to my parents first, then had his assistant turn the hotel's security footage and the drug sample over to the police.Before he left, he stopped in front of me."I owe you one for tonight.""How do we settle that?""Come collect when you've decided." He glanced at Ethan. "As long as your brother doesn't set the price for you."On the way home, Ethan finally tol

"No."Kane let the flowers fall. Then whatever had been holding him upright seemed to break, and he sank to his knees."Erin, I admit that at first I used you as Lillian's stand-in, but that changed. You're the one who waited for me to come home for seven years. You're the one who patched me up. You're the one I wanted to see most after every road game.""Those two days I couldn't reach you, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I searched all of New York. I was going out of my mind."He set the bracelet down at my feet, his voice breaking."After all those nights that belonged only to us, can you really throw them away as if they meant nothing?"I looked down at him. His sincerity had come too late; now it felt more absurd than his lies."Kane, when you look at me, is it really only me you're seeing?"While clearing out my closet before I left, I realized that the red dress, the jewelry, and even my hairstyles were almost all modeled on Lillian's taste.There was never any natural resembl