Chapter 3

I woke in a room I barely recognized.

The curtains were white. The bed smelled faintly of Chloe’s perfume. For one disorienting second, I thought I had been taken to a hospital.

Then I saw Ryan’s watch on the bedside table and understood.

The guest room.

Chloe sat beside me with a damp cloth folded in her hands. “You fainted by the dumpsters. Ryan carried you upstairs.”

I pushed myself upright. My head throbbed.

“Where’s my phone?”

“Charging.”

“Give it to me.”

She did not move.

“I already explained everything to the neighbors,” she said. “I told them you aren’t a stalker.”

“How generous.”

Her eyes filled. “I said you’re an old friend who came to stay with us.”

“With you.”

She hesitated, then lifted her chin. “Ryan and me.”

She said it softly, almost kindly, as if easing me toward an unavoidable truth.

Years ago, Chloe had stood beside me in a university office when someone tried to steal my scholarship. She had called the girl a thief and held my hand while I filed a complaint.

I had trusted her because she seemed to hate women who took what was not theirs.

Apparently, she only hated competition.

“I need my degree certificate and employment records,” I said. “I have an interview.”

Her expression changed so quickly I almost missed it.

“What interview?”

“Where are my documents?”

“I don’t know. Look around.”

The main bedroom door stood open.

Ryan’s clothes filled half the closet. Chloe’s Ice Crew uniforms hung beside his suits. On the dresser, her makeup surrounded a framed photograph of them kissing each other’s cheeks after a playoff win.

“He sleeps in here?” I asked.

“Only when he drinks too much.”

I opened the bedside drawer.

Three boxes of condoms sat inside. One had been opened.

The room went silent around me.

Chloe folded her arms. “Emma, don’t make that face. You and Ryan barely saw each other. People have needs.”

The words struck harder because she said them without apology.

My phone began ringing.

The sound came from her pocket.

I turned.

Chloe took one step back.

I crossed the room and pulled it from her hand. The call had ended. On the screen, Daniel Brooks had sent a message twelve minutes earlier.

**Your interview begins at nine. Are you coming?**

Beneath it was a reply from my account.

**I’ve reconsidered. I am voluntarily withdrawing.**

For one moment, all I could hear was blood rushing through my ears.

“You answered for me.”

Chloe shrugged. “You’re emotional. I was protecting you from making a decision you’d regret.”

The bedroom door opened.

Ryan walked in wearing team sweats, his jaw dark with stubble.

He saw my face and stepped between us automatically.

“What did you do to her?”

I stared at him.

Not *What happened?*

Not *Emma, are you all right?*

His first instinct was still to shield Chloe from me.

“She declined my job offer from my phone.”

Chloe’s voice trembled. “The executive is a man. He offered her a position, an apartment, and a relocation package. I thought it sounded inappropriate.”

Ryan’s expression changed.

Jealousy moved through his thoughts like fire.

*An apartment?*

*What does that man want from her?*

He looked at me with contempt he had not earned.

“You quit your job to come here, and one night later you’re running to another man for a place to live?”

“It is a corporate housing benefit.”

“Of course it is.”

His thoughts pleaded, *Tell me you only came for me.*

His mouth said, “How much are you planning to sell yourself for?”

The room went still.

Chloe lowered her eyes to hide the satisfaction in them.

I looked at the man I had once crossed five time zones to comfort after a loss. The man whose private fear had convinced me that cruelty was only love wearing armor.

“I have thirty minutes to get to Northstar,” I said.

I turned toward the door.

Ryan caught my wrist.

“No.”

I looked down at his hand.

“Let go.”

“You’re not going anywhere until we settle this.”

Behind him, Chloe said softly, “Ryan, maybe she wants you to be jealous.”

His grip tightened.

I could hear his heart inside my own head.

*Choose me.*

*Say you don’t want that job.*

*Say I’m enough.*

For the first time, I understood that Ryan did not want love.

He wanted proof that I would keep abandoning myself for him.