Page 48 of Rule 3: Never Fake Marry the Coach's Son

It would be strange if he didn’t look from time to time.

“Big day ahead of us,” I call out, padding toward the bathroom.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Oskar

Paparazzi wait for us at the arena. They wear black, standing out against the snow-covered ground. The January breeze brushes around us. Dmitri squares his shoulders and takes my hand in his gloved one.

“Picture time,” he declares.

“Okay.” I give a strained smile.

My heart beats wildly. Whenever I’ve been at charity events there have been photographers, but I’ve always been confident in the fact that I’ve never been the subject of their attention. Pictures of lower team management don’t make headlines.

But now everything is different. Now I’m the story. God, they were all over Noah and Finn when they first got married.

This is going to be huge, and I don’t think Dmitri has any idea of just how big this is. Just how much news of this will be read and discussed.

Because if this were real... God, it would be wonderful. I imagine the younger version of me reading that a hockey player like Dmitri had run off with a man. It would be incredible.

But this is a lie.

For a moment guilt surges through me, but in the next moment, I feel one of Dmitri’s fingers brush over the palm of my hand. Electricity zings through me, my body confused that his touches don’t mean what I want them to.

I inhale and exhale.

“Is good,” Dmitri assures me, and it takes me a second to realize that he’s talking about the group of men directing their cameras at us. “You look handsome.”

A laugh escapes me, more nerves than humor. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“You’re supposed to tell me I look handsome too.”

“I am?”

“Is polite. About repr...” He frowns.

“Reciprocity?”

His face brightens. “Yes. It’s about that. Exactly.”

“You’re always handsome,” I say, the words slipping out before I can catch them.

My stomach drops. I hadn’t meant to voice that truth.

But Dmitri just shrugs with the casual confidence of every brooding hero from every teen movie ever made. “I know. Is why I didn’t give you hard time.”

“You sort of gave me a hard time.”

His eyes dance, then dart to the side.

In the next moment, he wraps me in his arms, and I’m surrounded by the scent of cedar and citrus and Dmitri.

“Forgive me?” he murmurs.

“Always.”

My heartbeat escalates, and he tightens his grip on me, then he kisses the corner of my mouth.