Chapter 34
Chapter 34
~BLAIR
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I observed their reactions through the glass door. Both Grayson and what appeared to be his brother Nico, based on articles I had read featuring them together, seemed visibly distressed as they took in the picture frame I had hung on the wall. I had deliberately chosen a sizable frame so that anyone entering could easily see the image. I felt a surge of pride in my choice.
The next time Lily decided to visit while I was away, she would see the picture displayed there, and there would be nothing she could do to change it.
This was what happened whenever anyone dared to mess with me. She’d looked so proud earlier, catching them having their secret date while I was out of sight. I couldn’t wait to see her reaction when she saw this -hopefully, I’d be home for it.
I watched as Grayson stepped outside, his neck flushed red. “What the hell is that picture?”
I shrugged casually. “The one from our honeymoon? It’s my favorite, so I decided to hang it up.”
His jaw tightened. “Blair.”
I smiled mischievously. I loved making him say my name like that.
“What?” I asked innocently. “Is something wrong?”
He looked almost nervous as he said, “Everyone who walks in will see you in a tiny bikini. I don’t think that’s very welcoming.”
“That’s kind of the point…for everyone to see it.”
“That’s highly inappropriate.”
I shrugged again. “Well, I like it.”
He rubbed his face in frustration but no longer argued. Instead, he stormed back into the house, where his brother greeted him with a knowing smile, clearly enjoying the exchange between us.
Good job, Blair. You win again.
~CHASE~
The meeting had been scheduled as routine.
The kind of administrative conversation I usually half-listened to while checking my phone under the table.
I only took it because the front office had asked, and because sitting still at home with the truth about Blair had started to feel like losing my mind in stages.
Halfway through, I stopped pretending it was routine.
‘I want a straight answer,” I said, interrupting the man across the desk mid-sentence. “When I was brought onto the Vipers-why me? There were other options. Why did the organization push for my contract?”
The man, a senior director named Keller who had been with the team longer than most of the coaching staff, sat back a little. He was careful by nature. People in his position usually were.
“You had the talent,” he said. “That part was real.”
“And the other part?”
Keller studied me for a moment, then exhaled through his nose. “You want the real truth?”
“Yes,”
“Someone from Monroe Athletics had significant influence in the process. Calls were made. Interest was expressed at a level the organization doesn’t ignore. Your name moved to the top of the list faster than it
Chapter 34
would have on the development track alone.”
My head started spinning.
Monroe.
Blair’s family.
“You’re telling me the Monroes got me hired,” I said.
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“I’m telling you their involvement accelerated it. You still had to perform. But the door opened because someone with their influence wanted it open.”
My hands had gone cold. I flexed them once against my knees and forced the next question out before I could retreat from it.
“And the captaincy.”
Keller’s expression shifted into something closer to caution. “What about it?”
“Sophie told me her father pushed for it because of her. That I owed the opportunity to that relationship. Was that true?”
Silence stretched just long enough to become an answer of its own.
“The coach may have supported the decision,” Keller said carefully. “But the external pressure that mattered didn’t come from inside the Preston family. Monroe interest was expressed again when leadership was being discussed. Strongly. Your name had backing most players at that stage don’t get.”
I sat very still.
The narrative I had used to justify everything-leaving Blair/marrying Sophie, believing I had finally stepped into a world that required a different kind of partner, came apart in real time.
Sophie had looked me in the eye and taken credit for a rise she had nothing to do with. She had framed herself as the reason doors opened. And I had believed her because it was flattering, convenient, and let me rewrite the quieter truth sitting in front of me for years.
I was wrong. Totally wrong.
Blair had done it.
Not with speeches. Not with public claims. With influence I never saw and help I never properly questioned.
I had called her ordinary.
I had called her a downgrade.
I had married someone else while she was still the reason any of this existed.
“Chase.” Keller’s voice cut through the noise in my head. “You asked for honesty. That’s as honest as I can be without crossing lines I shouldn’t.”
I stood up too fast. The chair scraped hard against the floor.
“Thanks for your time.”
I didn’t remember leaving the office clearly. The hallway, inside my car-all of it passed in a blur of rising heat and the sick, delayed understanding of how thoroughly I had misread my own life.
By the time I was on the road, my hands were tight around the wheel and the anger had nowhere to go.
Sophie had lied.
With the self-serving story she had sold me when I was most willing to hear it. She had let me believe my captaincy was tied to her. She had let me treat Blair’s years of support like it was nothing. And I had used that lie as permission to discard the one person who had actually built something under me without asking for credit.
Blair had told me I didn’t know what I was losing.
Chapter 34
She had been right in ways I was only now capable of seeing.
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Thit the steering wheel once with my hand, the sound dull and useless in the closed car. The mistake didn’t feel small anymore.
Six years of Blair. Bills handled. Doors opened. A man who thought he was climbing on his own while the ladder was being steadied by someone he eventually embarrassed in public and replaced for a girl he
believed.
I had chosen Sophie because she looked like success.
I had left Blair because I thought she didn’t.
And the entire time, Blair Monroe had been the reason I had any success to stand on.
And now she was married to Grayson Shaw, wearing his name, supporting him like she used to do for me.
I didn’t know what I was going to do with the information yet.
I only knew the version of myself who had walked away from her was a fool, and the cost of that
foolishness was getting harder to breathe around by the minute.
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Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.