Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Easy,” she said. “We hold the control. We’ll… make a big scene, something with him relapsing into his bad boy behavior. We’ll show that you aren’t afraid to stand up for yourself, even when you’re hopelessly in love. That at the end of the day, you have self-respect. You don’t take any shit. You’re strong enough to walk away from a toxic situation.” The more she spoke, the more excited she became. “Honestly, this could lead into even bigger sales for the next album. Think of how many girls have called off an engagement or gone through a divorce? You could write their future anthems!”
“Wouldn’t that play out poorly for Aleks?”
“Of course not,” she said, waving me off. “We’ll make the big breakup something small in the eyes of the NHL. Nothing against team rules, nothing that will call for any game time suspension or anything. Maybe he’ll be seen with a gaggle of puck bunnies, make out with one of them or something.”
She waved me off again, but my stomach soured at the thought. Not that I hadn’t seen Aleks tangled up with plenty of women in the tabloids throughout the years, but that didn’t mean I was ever pleased about it.
He had a very specific type.
The women who garnered his attention were smokey-eyed and dolled up. They wore tight dresses and floss for swimsuits. They confidently claimed him in public, straddling his lap at restaurants or making out with him unabashedly in pool cabanas with their whole ass hanging out.
And those observations were not made with my lip curling or any kind of judgment. They were made with awe, with longing, with respect.
Because those women were hot. They were sexy. They were bad.
They knew what they wanted and how to get it. They lived loudly. And they didn’t give two shits what anyone had to say about them.
That was what Aleks found attractive about them.
I knew because he’d urged me so many times in high school to stop caring about what people thought of me, to stop trying to fit into some sort of box that could be easily sold.
Sometimes I wondered if I had listened to him, if maybe he wouldn’t have rejected me.
If maybe the night I asked him to kiss me, he would have.
Instead, he looked at me with pity like I was a sweet little girl not aware of what she was asking for, like I didn’t understand the world and he was somehow sheltering me from it — from him.
The memory made a soft smile touch my lips, even as the pain of it stung my heart like a rusty butter knife carving into it. “I don’t think he’ll go for this,” I whispered, and this time my doubt wasn’t born from how crazy this all sounded, but more from the fact that I truly was not his type.
“He will. We will make it mutually beneficial, give him something to solidify his place with the team despite what his past record has shown. Trust me — Richard Bancroft wants to sell tickets. He wants to sell suites. He wants to make money off brand partnerships. And this, his team’s bruiser engaged to the hottest pop star on the planet?” She thumped my knee. “This is a money-making dream come true.”
Isabella stood, walking over to where Cora, my angel of a house maid, had left us a large pitcher of iced tea. I wasn’t particularly fond of people working for me in my home. I preferred to clean my own house and cook my own meals. But over the last couple of years, the truth was that my time to do those things had dwindled to almost nothing. And so, I had a small team of people I trusted — a chef, my house maid, a house manager, and my security. I adored them all like family and paid them more than my financial advisor advised, but they were worth it to me.
Isabella poured each of us a glass before holding hers up toward mine.
“Besides, you know Aleks will want to keep his little bad boy rep. It gets him more super models than his bankroll and fancy cars ever could.” She arched a brow. “If he thinks he’s hit the pussy lottery now, just wait until he’s the ex of Mia fucking Love. The kittens will be clawing each other’s eyes out for the chance to be the woman who helps him get over you.”
I tried to ignore the way jealousy sparked in my chest at that, at how it always had any time I saw another woman with my best friend. Because that’s what Aleks was, what he had been since we were sixteen. He knew me in a way no one else did. He understood what I was never able to say out loud. Even when time stretched between us, when our lives got busy and we didn’t talk for months… he could still take one look at me and just know how I was feeling, what I was thinking, and if I was okay or not.