Chapter 122
-ROMAN-
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I felt like an ass.
I had asked Ethan if Olivia would be home. I had asked on purpose. He said she had stuff to do with Blair. That was the only reason I let Eden walk through that door.
A PR dinner leftover. A stop-in. I expected a house with no Monroe sister in sweats holding ice cream like I had just put a knife in her chest.
Then I walked into the kitchen and saw her.
Fuck.
I felt like a complete asshole.
She had been mid-spoon. Phone on the counter. My face next to Eden’s still lit on the screen. She’d been fucking watching us. Clearly hurt and indulging in ice cream to make her feel better.
She looked fucking sweet in sweats. Messy bun. Chocolate on her face that I wanted to suck off her.
That look on her face.
I could not get it out of my head.
It was not surprise first. Surprise would have been easier. It was the split-second before she locked it down- hurt, raw, the same look she had given me in the hallway when she shoved another woman’s number into my chest.
Then it hardened. Then she smiled that thin, mean smile and congratulated me like the world was ending.
I had done that.
I wanted to push Olivia away. I needed to. Ethan’s sister. Off-limits. Nothing with Eden was even real but I couldn’t tell her that.
That did not mean I wanted to be cruel. Cruel was bringing the PR relationship into her house while she sat there looking at my new ‘relationship’ like I had confirmed every ugly thing she already believed about me.
That I replaced her.
That I could touch her one night and arrive with someone else the next.
Well I hadn’t truly touched her yet even though I was fucking dying to.
I kept seeing it. The pint. The swallow she forgot. The way her fingers had tightened on the carton when Eden’s eyes went down her body. I had stood there like a coward and let Ethan introduce them. I had said I didn’t know you’d be here and watched her hear the truth under it: I had hoped she would not be.
1/5
14:57 Inu, Sep 17
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Guilt forced its way up my throat and stayed there.
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Eden said something about the kitchen, about schedules, about Friday. Ethan answered for both of us because I was not tracking. I was watching the empty doorway Olivia had gone through with the pint still in her hand. Every second I stayed in that kitchen made the betrayal worse. Every second I did not follow her made me the man she thought I was.
“Roman.” Eden’s voice sharpened. “Are you listening?”
“Yeah.”
I was not.
I was upstairs already, in my head, standing in front of a closed door I had no right to knock on.
Ethan glanced at me. “You good?”
“I need to check on something. I’ll be back.”
I excused myself before either of them could ask to join. Eden’s mouth tightened. She did not like minutes she did not own. I did not care. If I stayed I was going to say something I could not take back in front of my best friend and a woman my parents had assigned to my life.
The stairs felt longer than they had the night I carried her up them. That night she had been soft and wrecked and mine for as long as a staircase lasted. Tonight I was climbing toward the damage I had done on purpose and by accident at the same time.
I should have turned around. I should have gone back to the kitchen and played the part. Smile. Nod. Let Eden touch my arm. Let Ethan believe this was simple and real.
I kept climbing.
Fuck.
What was I doing?
Her door was closed. I stood there like a man with no plan and too many reasons to leave. I could still see her face. The kitchen light on the ice cream. The article she had not closed. The way she had looked at me like I had chosen the photo over her and then brought the photo home.
I knocked anyway.
Silence.
Then, muffled, hostile, “What.”
“It’s me.”
Another silence, longer. The door opened a few inches. Sweats. Messy hair. Eyes that had gone red at the edges and then hard so I would not get the satisfaction of tears.
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14:57 Thu, Sep 17
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
I had put that look there.
“If you brought her up here, I will commit a crime.”
“She’s downstairs.”
Olivia did not move aside. “Then go downstairs.”
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“I asked Ethan if you would be here,” I said. It came out raw. “He said you were with Blair. I would not have walked her into this house if I knew you were in the kitchen.”
She laughed once. “So the cruelty was accidental. That helps.”
“I am not trying to be cruel.”
“You dated a woman overnight and brought her home. What would you call it?”
I did not have a proper answer. PR was not something I could give her without opening a door I was not ready
to open.
All I had was the look I could not stop replaying. Olivia in her own kitchen, realizing I had let another woman walk in behind me.
That look felt like betrayal because it was.
I had used the first excuse my parents handed me and brought it into her house.
“I came to apologize.”
“For which part?” She tipped her head. “The article? The kitchen? The look on her face like I was trash next to her shoes? Or the part where you rejected me and showed up where I was with two separate girls so far?”
My jaw locked. Every version of the truth sounded like an excuse. “Olivia.”
“Do not say my name like that in this house.” Her voice dropped. “Ethan is downstairs. Your girlfriend is downstairs. You do not get to stand at my door and sound like you care.”
I did care.
That was the whole problem.
I cared enough that her face was the only thing I had seen since I left the restaurant. I cared enough that Eden’s hand on my arm had felt like a disaster waiting to happen.
I cared enough that I had climbed these stairs knowing it would make everything worse and done it anyway because leaving her with that look was too much for me.
I should have left it at the apology. I should have gone back to the kitchen. Instead I stood there looking at her mouth and the ice-cream pint on her dresser and the hurt she was trying to hide.
“I didn’t want you to see it like that,” I said.
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14:57 Thu,Sep 17
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Then you should not have done it.”
Fair.
I dragged a hand down my face. “I should go.”
“Yes,” she said. “You should.”
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I did not move right away. The pull toward her was the same one I had been fighting since she was nineteen and crying into my shirt. Coming upstairs had been a mistake. Staying would be a worse one. Reaching for her would finish what the kitchen had started.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. It was not enough. It would never be enough for walking Eden through her door. “I mean it. I hate that you had to see it like that. I hate that I put that look on your face.”
Her throat moved. For a second the hardness slipped and I saw it again—the same wound from downstairs, still open.
Then she shut the door.
“Go back to her. Roman.”
I made myself walk away from her door before I reached for her and ruined the only thin line I had left between us.
Downstairs, Eden would still be waiting.
Ethan would still want an explanation I could not give.
I had asked if she would be home so I would not have to be this man in front of her.
I had become him anyway.
And I still did not know how to stay away from her.
Fuck me.
4/5
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.