Page 146 of Slapshot Bride

He lets go and takes a step back. “Every game he's ever played will be questioned. Every goal he'll ever score will come with an asterisk. His sponsors are already uneasy because of your little runaway-bride scandal. Add this in the middle of the season...” He spreads his hands. “There isn't a version of Easton Blake that walks away from it.”

He tilts his head. “His contract has a morals clause.”

A slow, satisfied smile spreads across his face. “They all do.”

The room is very quiet now.

All I hear is my ragged breath.

“One click. That’s all it’ll take, Riley. One click and Easton is done for.”

He glances at the watch on his wrist. “He’s about two hours and thirty minutes out. One click, and he’ll step out of that ice today, and never return. Never be seen on the streets. Buried for life, with an unforgettable story.” He snaps his fingers.

My throat is dry, a painful lump now settling there, but I force the words out.

“What do you want, Preston?”

He smiles. It’s crooked, but his eyes are gleaming.

“You come home. Tonight. Quietly.”

His tone is calm, almost reasonable. “You and I release a statement. A reconciliation. A difficult time. A private matter that's been resolved.”

He lifts the phone between us. “And this footage never existed.”

His thumb idly traces the edge of the screen. “It stays locked away on a drive in a safe. Your insurance. Mine.”

A faint smile tugs at his mouth. “And Easton Blake gets to go back to being a hockey player who had a strange few weeks with a troubled woman... and moved on.”

I can barely force the words past the knot in my throat.

“A-and if I...” I swallow. “If I refuse?”

“The moment those words leave your mouth...” He says it without the slightest hint of anger. “The video goes public.”

I think about the recording on my own phone. Preston in the locker room, threatening Easton. I could put it out right now. And it proves he’s a bastard, which isn't news, and it does exactly nothing to the video sitting in his safe.

One of us has something that ends a career. It isn't me.

The truth settles in.

Everything I’ve done in the last three months. Running away. Finding myself. Reconnecting with everything, and everyone I gave up… Easton did that for me.

I can’t let Preston take his life from him. Not for me.

My heart drops. My eyes sting with unshed tears threatening to spill, but I’ll never give him that. He’ll never see me cry.

He’s taken enough already.

I drag in a shaky breath, as I come to the decision that’s for the best.

“Give me a minute,” I say.

Something in Preston relaxes. He’s won and he knows it and he has the grace, at least, not to show it. “Of course. I’ll be in the car.”

He straightens his jacket, and walks out the front door like a man leaving a meeting, and I stand there with my whole life folding shut around me.

A stray tear slides down my cheek when he’s gone. The sob threatens to choke me but I swallow it. Not now. Not yet.