Page 87 of Faking the Shot
“Is it?” she asks, tilting her head. “Or are you just afraid of what happens if you let someone in again?”
Damn her and her therapist’s wisdom.
I stare up at the ceiling, the faint lavender scent of the room suddenly feeling too much. “Maybe. Or maybe I just need a hobby that doesn’t involve emotionally unavailable men.”
“If you date him, you’ll figure out if he’s truly emotionally unavailable—or maybe, you’re the one keeping people at arm’s length,” Dr. Wright says, her voice calm but pointed. “Dating isn’t a commitment. It’s a way to explore, to let someone in little by little. It’s not about deciding if they’re your forever—it’s about learning more about them and about yourself.”
I sit back, her words sinking in like a stone tossed into a still pond. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am afraid—afraid to risk something real again, afraid to feel everything I’ve buried for so long.
Or maybe . . . I just need to figure out how to survive fake-dating Kaden Crawford without accidentally falling for him.
No big deal, right?
Right.
Except my heart isn’t as boarded up as I thought. And that? That’s the real problem.
Chapter Forty-Six
Valentina
How to Fake It and Fall
The thing about your life falling apart is that it rarely gives you any notice.
One minute, you’re happily sipping your third iced coffee of the day, trying to convince yourself that pretending to date Kaden Crawford isn’t the worst decision you’ve ever made. Thenext? Your phone buzzes with a notification that threatens to send you spiraling into full-on cardiac arrest.
BREAKING: Kaden Crawford’s ‘Relationship’ with Publicist Valentina Holiday Exposed as Fake.
My heart plummets straight through the floor as I stare at the screen. The headline blares back at me like a neon sign for my impending doom.
“No, no, no, no,” I whisper-shriek, fumbling to refresh the page. Maybe it’s a glitch. A prank. Some cruel cosmic joke.
It’s not.
The article loads with the kind of speed that only bad news can achieve. There’s my face, there’s Kaden’s infuriatingly handsome smirk, and there’s a photo of us at some restaurant last week. To the untrained eye, it looks like a couple sharing a private moment. To me, it looks like my career circling the drain.
My phone buzzes again. Another notification. Then another. My brain goes into overdrive as I scroll through the avalanche of headlines.
“PR Disaster? Kaden Crawford’s Relationship Exposed!”
“Hockey Star Plays the Field—and the Media!”
“Love or Lies? Inside Kaden Crawford’s Fake Relationship.”
Oh, for the love of overpriced lattes.
I pace my room like a madwoman, clutching my phone in one hand and a throw pillow in the other because apparently, panic cleaning is my default setting. “Okay, think. THINK,” I mutter to myself, spinning in a tight circle like that’ll somehow manifest a solution.
A loud buzz rattles the coffee table, and I lunge for it, fully expecting a text from Kaden. Or Jacob. Instead, it’s my sister, Noelle.
Noelle:You, okay? Just saw the news. Call me when you’re done hyperventilating.
The panic threatens to overwhelm me as I glance around my room, my gaze landing on the mountain of paperwork I’ve ignored over the weekend because Kaden and his parents wanted to go to Maple Ridge.
“This can’t be happening,” I mutter, sinking onto the couch and clutching the throw pillow like it’s a life raft. “It’s fine. I can fix this. I fix things for a living. This is what I do.”
Except this time, it’s me that needs fixing. And Kaden. And the reputation I’ve spent years building.
