Mason–fucking–Hall.

The picture was crystal clear, Mason helping Pepper down the steps at a black-tie gala two nights ago. It was noted that he was her escort.

How the fuck could she do this to me? It’d only been three fucking days since she ripped my heart out.

I crumpled the tabloid on Connor’s coffee table into a ball. The press had been all too happy to report on the return of their favorite hockey couple, and now that Mason had been offered a contract for next year to replace the retiring players cut through me like a knife.

I couldn’t fucking breathe. Couldn’t think. I swore my heart stopped beating. If a broken heart was the price for loving, then fuck that shit.

“No, I can’t right now. You know I have a game today.” I heard Connor snap.

“I don’t have any other choice!” A woman shouted. It had to be Connor’s sister, Jessica.

I looked back over my shoulder toward his entry hall and was greeted by a flurry of footsteps as Hannah rushed in, confirming my assumption. Her green eyes sparkled like the glitter on her unicorn shirt as she climbed onto the couch next to me.

“Hi, Uncle Eric!” She said, bouncing on the couch cushions with all five years of her weight. “My mama says I’m going to the game with you today!”

Another round of shouting began at the door, and I quickly tried to distract Hannah.

“Is that so?” I asked the urchin. “Does that mean you’re going to help me out in the goal?”

She giggled, the sound bright and open. “Uncle Eric, you know I’m too little!”

“Fine then. Leave me alone to face the giant hockey players all by myself.”

I heard the sound of the door shutting, and Connor appeared, running his hands over his hair.

“Hannah Banana, why don’t you run to the kitchen? I bought some of those yogurts you like.” He gifted his niece with a smile.

“Thanks, Uncle Connor!” she jumped off the couch and raced toward the kitchen.

“What the fuck am I gonna do?” Connor asked, tension radiating off him. “She doesn’t give a shit about Hannah, just wants to chase after the next asshole that’s going to promise her a high. And I can’t stop her. I can’t do shit but clean up after her mess and try to keep Hannah safe. Any other time, I could take her, but we have a game.” He checked his phone. “A game that we’re going to be late for we don’t leave in the next three minutes.”

“We’ll figure it out at the rink,” I promised him as I stood. “Maybe Bailey or Paige will be there. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of her. Worst comes to worst, I’ll slap a helmet on her and stick her in the goal behind me. You know nothing’s getting through.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll trust you with my team, my scoreboard, and my life, but not Hannah.”

The subject of our conversation popped her head in. “Sour apple is my favorite!”

“I know, that’s why I got them.” Connor scooped her up, grimacing at the hole in her jeans and her knotted hair before forcing a smile. “What do you say we go see a hockey game?”

“Yes!” She threw her arms up, sending yogurt splashing down on Connor’s hair.

He shook it out like it was nothing and laughed.

It never failed to shock me how different he was with her. How the skirt-chasing asshole on the ice only melted for one female on the planet, and she was five.

Hell, the girl who melted me didn’t want a fucking thing to do with me, and had moved on so fast I should have called our break-up a pit stop, so in that regard, Connor definitely had more going for him.

I rode with them, seeing as he had a booster in his Rover and I didn’t have one in the truck. Once we got to the rink, we each took one of her little hands, keeping her between us to block the paparazzi that had lined up at the player entrance to the rink.

The guard gave us a smile and opened the door.

“Thanks, Don,” I said as we slipped into the building.

“Have a great game,” he answered, tipping his hat at Hannah.

I muffled a curse as I saw a petite blonde leaned up against the wall outside the locker room. “What could she possibly want?” I growled. As if Pepper hadn’t shredded my soul, now Ivy needed a piece?

“Whoever knows what Ivy wants?” Connor remarked, shaking his head.

My head snapped toward him. “You can tell them apart?”

He gave me a look that blatantly called me an idiot. “Ivy’s face is slightly narrower, her lips are a little fuller, and her eyes are a shade darker. Plus, she’s hotter.”

“Bullshit,” I snapped in automatic defense of Pepper before I remembered that she wasn’t mine to defend anymore.

“Language,” Hannah lectured with very serious eyes.

“Sorry, Banana. I’ll work on it,” I promised, squeezing her hand.

“Hey,” Ivy said, wringing her hands just like Pepper as she walked toward us.

God, it made my fucking heart hurt. But maybe it was a good trial run for dealing with Pepper today, not like my head wasn’t screwed up enough before a game.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Well, I’m not sure there’s really anything to say. She made a choice. I wasn’t it.”

I didn’t miss the look Connor shot me.

Neither did Ivy.

“Maybe after the game?” She asked quietly.

“I like your skirt,” Hannah said, eyes on Ivy’s short, black choice for the day. “And your boots.”

Ivy’s eyes widened, and she dropped down to Hannah’s level. “I like your sparkles,” she said, pointing at her worn unicorn shirt.

“Thank you,” Hannah answered. Sounding way more grown up for her five years. Then again, considering the shit the kid had seen, she was way too mature for her age.

“She yours?” Ivy asked Connor.

“I’m his niece,” Hannah answered.

“Hey, Hannah,” Gage said as he walked by us, headed for the locker room. Shit, he looked tired today. That was a bad omen.

“Gage, is Bailey here?” Connor asked

“Nope.” He shook his head but smiled at Hannah. “Sorry, honey, Lettie is sick. She was up all night with a cough and fever. I know she would have loved to play with you.”

Connor muttered a swear word.

“Everything okay?” Gage asked.

“Yeah, Jessica just got…” He cleared his throat. “She thought Hannah might like to see a game.”

Understanding dawned on Gage’s face. “Okay. Let’s see if Paige or Nine is here. I’m sure she can hang with them.”

“I’ll take her,” Ivy offered.

“I’m sorry?” Connor asked, taken aback.

“What?” Ivy asked, narrowing her eyes up at him. “Am I not good enough to hang out with Hannah? It is Hannah, right?” Ivy asked her.

She nodded. “Can you braid?” Hannah pointed to Ivy’s long blonde hair which was done in some kind of intricate design.

“Yep! Want me to braid yours?”

“Yes! Please, Uncle Connor! I’ll be so good, I promise.”

Connor’s eyes locked with Ivy’s, a war waging in his eyes. There was nothing more precious to him than Hannah. And there was no one he thought less of than Ivy after she’d let Pepper take the temporary fall for the Crosby pictures.

“I’ll keep her in the family box. After we take a pit stop to the merch storage because you definitely need a jersey if you’re going to cheer on the Sharks!”

“She’ll be okay,” I said to Connor, keeping my voice low.

“Please?” Hannah begged.

He melted.

“Okay. Just...be good, and careful, and stay right next to Ivy. And if you get lost, you just tell them that your name is Hannah Bridgerton and show them this.” He slipped his security badge over his head and put it around her neck. “Ivy, she is…” He stroked a hand over Hannah’s hair.

“I’ll take care of her. Promise,” Ivy told him softly, losing her usual cool confidence. She put out her hand, and Hannah took it without hesitation, which was something I’d never seen. It had taken me a year to earn her trust. “Now, what do you say let’s get you a jersey. Who’s your favorite?”

The two walked down the hallway as Hannah said, “Uncle Eric!”

“Screw that! Ivy, don’t you dare! It’s Bridgerton or...well, that’s it!” Connor called after her.

Ivy threw a smile over her shoulder and wiggled her fingers in goodbye, disappearing into the belly of the rink with Hannah.

I laughed as we headed toward the locker room, and it struck me that I hadn’t laughed since Pepper had broken up with me.

A flash of blonde and pink caught my eye, and I stopped dead in my tracks as Pepper appeared at the end of the hallway.

Our eyes locked, then hers fell away as Mason came up behind her, slinging an arm around her shoulder and pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“You going to tell me what’s going on there?” Connor asked as we turned into the locker room.

“We had something. Now we don’t. Simple as that.” I slung my bag to the floor and started to strip.

“That didn’t look simple,” he said carefully.

I looked around us, making sure no one could hear. “I loved her. We had to keep it secret. She chose her job...and apparently Mason.”

His eyes didn’t widen as much as I’d expected after dropping a secret like that.

“Yeah, I figured it was something like that.”

“You did?”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Have you seen you lately? You were all puppy-eyed at Pepper, or both of you looked like you were going to strip each other and fuck on the ice. Then you stopped sleeping if those circles under your eyes are any indication, and well...you’re kind of an asshole again.” I might be oblivious sometimes, but I’m your best friend. Feel better now that you’ve told me?

“Yeah, I do.”

“Good. Now get that shit out of your head. We have a game.”

We lost.

The buzzer sounded, and I leaned back against the top rail, listening to the crowd’s displeasure. Yeah, guys, I feel the same way.

I’d played like shit, and the reason was sitting directly on the blue line with Mason-fucking-Hall. Guess she was letting someone else keep the numbers so she could run them later, but she’d never fucking skipped out on keeping stats herself so she could watch me play.

Ever.

And now I sounded like a jealous little bitch. Awesome.

Fuck, I’d never let a woman in my head to that level, let alone lost a game because my dick overrode my brain...or maybe it was my heart. Not that it mattered. What was the point of having a heart if it just iced you out and left you numb?

It was time to take my heartbroken ass home to my apartment. At least then the only sounds of disappointment would be my own.

“Contract is signed,” I told my agent. I was now the fifth highest-paid goalie in the NHL, and a Shark for five more years. I’d briefly debated taking the New York offer, even with fewer dollar signs, just to get away from Pepper, but she’d chosen what was best for her career, why shouldn’t I do the same?

“Good. I got the other papers you signed, too. You sure about this?” Greg asked. “It’s a shit ton of money.”

It was two million dollars to be precise. My entire signing bonus, which meant I’d be living on my monthly paychecks in this apartment instead of the house I’d had my eye on. But I could build a house on my family land in Montana as my endgame, so I was more than cool with it.

“Yep, I’m sure. Just make sure he doesn’t think I’m the lender, only the co-signer.”

“Yeah, I know the drill by now. Consider it done.”

“Thanks, Greg.”

“She’s not with Mason!” Connor shouted as he burst through my front door.

“Greg, I’ll call you back, someone just dropped in.”

“No problem. Later, Gentry.”

I hung up, and took another swig from the bottle of whiskey I was a quarter of the way through. “Good to see you, too. How was your day, dear?”

“Shut the fuck up. She’s not with Mason. That picture is because his Dad was on the gala committee and the Sharks are donors. He didn’t take her. They’re not together.”

“It’s true,” Ivy said as she made it to the door, heaving for breath with Hannah on her hip. “Seriously, it’s like you’re a gazelle or something,” she panted at Connor.

“At least choose an animal that eats meat, okay?” he retorted.

“Okay, what are you three doing here?” I asked, stretching my legs out in front of my couch. “Because if you’re up for drinking, I’m cool with that, but I really don’t want to talk about Pepper. Especially not around sensitive ears.”

Connor took Hannah from Ivy, and her little eyes drooped.

“Why don’t you put her to sleep in the guest room? There’s Netflix,” I offered.

“Yeah, good plan. I’ll be right back.” He disappeared down the hallway.

Ivy sat down carefully on my other couch, perching on the edge like she might flee at any moment.

“Spit it out,” I ordered, in no mood for her shit.

I hated having her here. She was just enough like Pepper to make me miss her, and nothing like her in every way that mattered.

“I have to show you something, and I need you to not freak out.”

“With an intro like that, how could I not be curious?” I sat up slowly and killed the Marvel movie I’d put on to fill the silence that was all the more obvious since Pepper left.

Ivy reached into her leather jacket and removed a manilla envelope.

“Yeah, so I’ve seen this movie,” I drawled. “My safeword is Ontario, and my hard limits are you and you. Don’t take it personally. You just remind me of someone I used to love.” I gave her an ice-cold smile and took another swig of the whiskey.

“Give me that!” She grabbed the bottle. “Jesus. And she said you were one of the good ones. How disappointing. Did you really mean love in the past tense? Because if so, then my being here is pointless.”

I debated my options for a second before the alcohol spoke for me.

“I still love her. I’m a fucking idiot, but yeah, she owns me. Believe me, if I could press a button and make that shit stop, I would.”

She took a deep breath, nodded to herself, and then opened the envelope. Glossy photos flew across my coffee table.

Pepper straddling my hips in the theater.

Her head thrown back.

My fingers deep in her pussy.

Me looking at her with utter adoration and love after she came on my hand.

I cleared my throat. “Thanks for the porn?”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “Not even curious how I got them?”

“My guess would be a very well-paid theater attendant.” Fuck, I hated that someone had been there, watching, taking pictures of one of the best moments of my life. That face she made when she came? That was mine. It wasn’t for anyone else to see.

And right this moment, she was probably showing it to Mason.

“How much do they want?” I asked, refusing to touch the pictures.

“What?”

“To keep the photos out of the press? How much do they want? I don’t care what she did to me. I don’t want these photos of her out there. She’d be horrified.”

After a moment of silence, I looked up to see Ivy staring at me.

“What?”

“You wouldn’t use them for revenge?”

“Fuck, Ivy. Who do you think I am? I would die for her, and it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t love me, or want me. I’ll always do what’s best for her.” The words rang truer than even I’d realized until that moment.

Ivy blinked rapidly and flicked away a tear she seemed inconvenienced by. “Yeah, she was right. You are one of the good ones. And she was horrified when she saw them.”

“She’s seen these?”

Connor appeared in the doorway, and I gathered the pictures, stacking them and turning them over on their front so he didn’t see.

“She has. I already paid the pap. You don’t have to worry. They came across my desk at work, and I got to them before my boss could see them. But I...God, Gentry, I didn’t know that what you had was real, and I was spinning from Crosby, and I just wanted to protect her.”

Every single one of my muscles locked. “What the fuck did you do, Ivy?”

“Hey, now…” Connor took the seat next to her.

She swallowed. “I showed them to my dad. Not the...sexy ones. Just the ones that showed the way you were looking at each other. I mean the rest is...you know...obvious.”

“You what?” I shouted, coming to my feet.

Connor did the same. “Hear her out. Keep your cool.”

“Hear her...since when are you on her side, jackass?” My fists clenched.

“I’m not.” He shrugged. “I’m on yours. And I’d be fucking pissed, too. Hell,” he shot her a sideways glance and she seemed to shrink. “I am pissed. And disgusted.”

“Hey, I kept them from being published!” she argued.

“You let your dad force your sister into choosing between Gentry’s career and the man, himself,” he snapped.

I saw red.

“You. Fucking. What?” My voice was low, even, and filled with so much loathing that it took Ivy a good minute to finally raise her eyes to mine.

“I thought you’d leave her like Crosby left me. Mason had already hurt her so much, and if you broke her heart, she’d never survive it. She was already in so deep and so in love with the idea of you.” There was so much pain in her eyes, that my rage softened enough to listen to her. “I love my sister, Eric. I don’t love anyone in this world like I do Pepper. And I thought if I hurt her a little now, she’d be spared what I knew was coming later.”

“Because Crosby fucked you over.”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“I am not Crosby. I’m not Mason. I’m not fucking Connor!” I gestured toward my best friend.

“Hey, what the hell did I do?”

“I’m me. Just me. A guy who grew up in the middle of nowhere, Montana. Who concentrated on keeping my skills tight and my nose clean, and who fell in love with a little blonde who happened to be the coach’s daughter. So if you two Harris girls could stop blaming me for the sins of every other hockey player who came before me, that would be fucking fantastic.”

“I know that now,” she admitted. “She begged our dad not to make her choose. She loves you so much, Eric. I swear.”

“Yeah, and she’s not with Mason, right? Okay.” I gave her a sarcastic nod. “Pepper made her choice. I told her I would always choose her over hockey. Always. So excuse my surprise when ironically, she chose hockey over me.”

“She knew you needed the contract to buy your family’s land,” Ivy said. “She knew that choosing you would cost you what she could never give you back. She didn’t choose hockey, she made you choose hockey because she figured you would anyway. It’s all she’s ever known.”

“Because she didn’t trust me.”

“Because she doesn't trust herself,” she countered. “Trust me, I’ve heard her cry every single night, and there’s zero chance she’s with Mason. She hates him. She loves you, and she’s willing to destroy herself because she thinks that’s what’s best for you, the same as you just said you would do for her. She simply beat you to the punch.”

I let that sink in.

The pictures.

The contract.

Her constant declaration that she wasn’t worth it.

Shit. She hadn’t changed her mind after that hotel room. I’d never managed to change her mind in the first place. She still thought she wasn’t worth me losing my contract.

But my contract was signed.

Secure.

And even if Coach benched me or traded me, the signing bonus had already secured my family’s land. Who the fuck cared if I ended up in the minors as long as they were okay?

As long as I had Pepper.

“Where is she now?” I asked.

Connor grinned. “You’ll lose your starting position.”

“Where is she?” I repeated to Ivy.

“We have an idea that might keep you on the team, but it’s drastic,” she added, totally ignoring my question.

“Oh, you two are working together now?”

“Don’t get used to it,” Connor quipped.

“Yeah, okay, what’s the idea?” Traction? A year in Siberian prison? I was all ears.

“So, there’s only one other couple that gets away breaking the fraternization rule,” Ivy started slowly, trailing off at the end.

“Right. Bentley and Chloe, but they had history before she was hired by the Sharks.”

“But that’s not all that makes them different,” Connor led on.

Understanding hit me straight in the chest, and my heart started pounding in response. Holy shit.

“It’s one hell of a loophole,” I said.

“Yeah, kind of an all or nothing type thing,” Ivy agreed.

And it’s a hell of a risk to take after she flat out said she didn’t want you.

But when was the last time I backed down? Got scared? Let someone else make my choices for me?

Never. And I wasn’t starting now.

“I choose all. Where the fuck is she?”

A slow smile spread across Ivy’s face.

“Now that is the fun part.”