Chapter 98
-GRAYSON-
I was thrilled and pissed in the same breath.
(B9
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Thrilled because the baby was mine. Because she had said it, confirmed it for me even though she was clearly still hurt by my recent actions.
Because I had heard a heartbeat that belonged to us. A heartbeat that sang a song of our special night as one.
I was pissed because I had made a mess of my life. I had hurt her. My wife. I had no idea the kind of pain she’d endured, both physically and emotionally. Thanks to me.
Fuck. She’d been innocent this entire time. She hadn’t been cheating behind my back with Chase. She’d been loyal. A virgin. She gave that precious part of herself to me and what had I done in return? Asked for a divorce. Betrayed her.
I closed my eyes as I saw her face in front of me. A face I couldn’t get out of my head no matter how hard I tried.
I loved her.
The words stayed there without a fight for the first time.
I was in love with Blair Monroe, and I had ruined our marriage by believing articles and that fucking asshole Chase.
I had asked her for a divorce over a kiss she had not even given. I had let Lily back into rooms Blair had left in pieces. I had stood in a ballroom and put my mouth on another woman while my wife was pregnant with my child and crying in a bathroom.
She’d seen it all that day. That public display that was meant to let everyone believe that I was okay when truly I was dying inside at the thought of Blair having a baby for another man. My rival.
So it was me. I was the one who made her cry during that event. It was never about Chase. It was always about my dumb decisions.
I opened my laptop.
The park pictures were still easy to find.
I called the people I used when something needed to be found quietly and quickly.
“I want the photographer,” I said. “The original files. Within the next hour.”
I needed to see for myself the shit Chase had done that day to cause all of this mess in the first place.
It did not take long. Men who sold pictures of my wife to gossip sites were not hard to locate when you had money and no patience.
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The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
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By late afternoon I was in a parking garage downtown with two of my security standing behind me, and a nervous man in a cheap jacket trying not to look at any of us directly.
“I will ruin your life,” I told him, voice flat, “if you do not show me exactly what happened that day. Not the picture you sold for easy money. The rest of it. I want all of them. Pictures. Videos. Whatever you have.”
He glanced at the men behind me. Whatever he saw there made him fumble his phone out with shaking
hands.
“I-I shot a lot. They only wanted the kiss. I didn’t think-”
“Play it.”
He found the clip.
The park. Blair in the same clothes I remembered from the articles. Chase stepping in. His mouth crashing to hers first.
She did not kiss him back. I could tell right away that the kissing was all his doing. Nothing at all to do with her.
Her body was stiff, like she hadn’t expected the kiss and then she shoved him and slapped him hard enough. that the phone mic caught the sound.
I went still. She’d even slapped him.
The clip kept going. Blair walking away. Chase with a mark on his face. No second kiss. No leaning in. No reconciliation. Just a man taking something she had not offered and a camera choosing the one second that would sell.
The photographer started talking. I did not hear most of it.
I had asked for a divorce over something Blair did not even do.
I had seen a still image and believed it. I had told her I loved Lily to make it hurt. I had put divorce papers in her hands the morning after I had been the first man inside her.
I had spent weeks treating her like she had chosen Holt, while the full video showed her rejecting him in a public park.
I felt like the biggest asshole of the century. Blair was never wrong in any of this. It was always me. I was the one that caused all of this mess.
“Send me every file from that day,” I said. “If anything new hits a site without my knowledge, you will find out how small your world can get.”
He nodded too fast. My security took his information. I walked back to the car before I put my fist through something that would make another headline.
On the drive home the clip replayed behind my eyes. Chase leaning in. Blair’s shock. The slap.
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14:53 Thu, Sep 17
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
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She had told me part of it in the hospital. She didn’t even mention what had truly happened. I had not needed the video to believe her. I needed the video because I had to see how stupid I’d been. How badly I’d wronged her.
I loved her.
I had hurt her anyway.
When I got back to the house I stood in front of the wall of pictures I had never taken down and looked at her laughing in a frame from a marriage I had treated like a trap.
“I’m sorry.” I said to an empty room, which was useless, and still the only thing I had for the moment.
Then I sat down with the unsigned papers, the original park video on my phone, and the printed ultrasound image I had not given back, and tried to figure out how a man who had gotten every important fact wrong was supposed to deserve time he had already asked her for.
I ripped the divorce papers into tiny pieces in front of me. She had every right to hate me for what I’d done.
Chase had lied.
The articles had lied.
But my decision to ask for a divorce was on me alone. No one had forced me to do it.
Still. Blair had allowed me into that hospital room, letting me hear the heartbeat of our baby. I didn’t deserve her. She was too good for me.
I would give her the time. I would not rush her even though I was impatient to have her back in my life. Especially since she was pregnant and I was worried about both her and our baby.
I would also make sure Holt never got anywhere near my wife and child again.
Never again.
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14:53 Inu, 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.