Chapter 121
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-OLIVIA-
I was in the kitchen with a pint of ice cream and too many open tabs.
Roman and Eden. Restaurant doorway. Her hand near his face.
I could not stop staring. It hurt in a stupid, physical way, like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed.
My throat stayed tight no matter how many times I swallowed. The ice cream was too cold. I ate it anyway. It was something to do with my mouth so I would not make the sound I had made on Blair’s couch.
Ethan had never mentioned her. No Not once. No Roman’s seeing someone. No we ran into Eden.
How did you go to a confirmed romance overnight? How did a man punch another guy for kissing you, send his date home for you, crumple another woman’s number, look at your mouth like he was starving, and then walk into a restaurant with Eden Hart like the last week had not happened?
I shoved another spoonful in my mouth. Chocolate smeared the inside of my cheek. I did not wipe it. I refreshed the article again like humiliation might load a correction.
That’s when I heard voices and footsteps.
The door opened.
Ethan first, talking, smiling.
Then Roman. I froze. I hadn’t seen him since the rumors started.
He saw me and stopped.
It was not surprise. It was worse. It was the look of a man who had been hoping the kitchen would be empty. Who had calculated the odds, told himself I would be at Blair’s, or upstairs, or anywhere that was not standing in sweats with his new relationship headline still glowing on the counter. His eyes hit me first. Then the pint. Then the phone. Then me again, like he could rewind the doorway if he stared long enough.
Color left his face. His shoulders locked. For one second he looked trapped in my house with the one person he had not wanted to find here.
Then her.
My heart felt like it had stopped moving for a second the moment I saw her.
Eden Hart walked into my kitchen like the house had been expecting a campaign.
My heart squeezed so tight I forgot to swallow.
He had brought her here.
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14:57 Thu, Sep 17
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
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Here. To my home. Knowing I was in love with him. Knowing I had confessed it. Knowing I had stood in a short skirt outside his locker room and tried not to look jealous over a phone number.
That was not accidental. That was cruel, or it was careless in a way that felt the same.
Ethan had not even warned me.
I was in sweats. Hair in a mess. Ice cream in my hand like a sad cliché. They all walked in on me mid-spoon with chocolate on my cheeks.
Wonderful.
Eden’s eyes went down my body and back up, slow enough to be rude. The look was not curiosity. It was assessment with a wrinkle of disgust, like I was a stain on a white sofa.
Never seen a girl eat ice cream before? I wanted to scream it at her. I bit it down until my jaw ached.
“Olivia,” Ethan said, too bright, already filling the silence Roman would not. “Didn’t know you were here. This is Eden. Eden, my sister Olivia.”
Eden smiled with her mouth only. “Hi.”
I set the spoon down. The click of it against the carton was too loud. “Hi.”
Roman still had not moved from the edge of the kitchen. Yesterday that stillness would have meant something. Today he had a celebrity in my house and I had chocolate on my face and he looked like he wanted the floor to open.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he said.
The words came out rough. Honest in the worst way. Not good to see you. Not this isn’t what it looks like. Just the admission that he had walked through the door hoping I would not be standing in it.
“Clearly,” I said.
Eden’s gaze flicked to the phone on the counter. The article was still on the screen. Of course it was. Her own face, next to his. She noticed. The disgust softened into something worse.
Satisfaction.
“Cute kitchen,” she said, which meant it was not.
I wanted to throw the pint at someone. I smiled instead, thin and mean. “We like it.”
Ethan coughed a laugh and then looked confused about whether he was allowed to. I was sure he heard the edge to my tone.
I picked up the ice cream again because putting it down had felt like surrender. “Congratulations,” I said, and made it sound almost polite. “On the relationship. It must have happened very fast. Ethan never mentioned you.”
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14:57 Thu, Sep 17
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Ethan glanced at Roman. “I didn’t know there was anything to mention until today.”
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Roman’s jaw tightened. A muscle jumped. He looked at me like he wanted to explain and knew there was no version that would not sound like an insult. Eden’s hand found his arm like she had practiced it. Possession, light and public. The same place I had wanted to put my own hand for years.
“We’ve known each other a while,” she said. “It only became public now.”
Either way, I was the girl in sweats holding dessert while he brought his girlfriend to my home.
I shoved another bite in my mouth so I would not say he had his hand on my waist recently.
Seriously? On my waist? Was that anything to boast about? She’d probably already had him in bed.
I kept on eating so I would not ask him, in front of my brother, why he looked sick to find me here if none of it had meant anything.
Roman watched me eat like it physically hurt him.
Good. Let it. Let him stand there with her perfume in my house and watch chocolate stain my body. He’d done this.
“I’m going upstairs,” I said. My voice breaking a bit. “You all enjoy the tour.”
I walked out with the pint because I was not leaving my ice cream for Eden. Because if I stayed I would cry, and if I cried she would win the look she had already started.
Behind me I heard Ethan start talking too loud, filling space. I heard Roman say my name once, quiet, like he had not meant to let it out.
“Olivia.”
I did not stop.
He had hoped I would not be here.
He had brought her anyway.
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14:57 Thu, Sep 17
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.