Page 14 of The Pucking Date
He huffs a laugh, totally unfazed. “Is that your way of saying I look good shirtless?”
I glare. He winks. “Don’t push your luck, O’Reilly,” I shoot back, grabbing my stuff. The snark is my armor, but it feels thin.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” His voice is easy, but there’s that glint in his eyes again, familiar and maddening. “Though technically…youarewearing my shirt. Which, if I’m being honest, is further than I thought I’d get this weekend.”
I roll my eyes so hard it’s a miracle I stay upright. “In your dreams.”
“Constantly.” He smirks without missing a beat.
I shoulder past him. Careful, not letting any part of me brush against him. “Shower’s all yours,” I toss over my shoulder. “Try not to scar anyone else tonight.”
His laugh follows me out the door.
I make it back to my room without running into anyone, some small mercy in an otherwise spectacularly mortifying evening. I shut the door, lean against it, and try to remember how to breathe.
This is fine. Totally fine. I just flash-reenacted a one-night stand with my wet dream…while wearing his shirt.
No big deal. Just another day in the downward spiral formerly known as my post-Chad rebound era.
I catch my reflection in the mirror and groan. Wet hair. Flushed cheeks. Finn’s worn T-shirt hanging off one shoulder like I’m playing dress-up in my imaginary boyfriend’s clothes.
I flop onto the bed, face-first into a pillow that doesn’t smell like him, which is both a relief and a crushing disappointment.
Four months ago, I was the polished, composed girlfriend of Chad Vanderbilt. Empowered PR director. A woman with her life together.
The bastard wined and dined me like we were already on the cover ofTown & Country.Five-star dinners, tickets to black-tie benefits, sleek little gifts that showed up at my apartment without warning. A bottle of perfume fromParis. A first edition ofThe Unbearable Lightness of Being—my favorite book, a subtle nod to my Czech heritage and, ironically, the complicated weightlessness of our relationship. A necklace I was too nervous to wear outside my house.
We took weekend getaways to Montauk, and then, just when I thought it was too good to be real, he flew me to Italy. Venice, Florence, Milan. Another holiday weekend we stayed at his family’s villa in St. Marteen, all white linen and staff who called me “Miss Novak.”
It was the kind of swoony, fairytale setup you don’t say no to, especially when you’ve spent your whole life shrink-wrapped in overprotective-dad energy, with every guy who so much as glanced your way catching a death stare in return.
Even my father seemed to approve for once, or at least he didn’t openly disapprove, which was basically the same thing. I’m pretty sure my mother had something to do with that, probably reminding him I was twenty-eight and legally allowed to date without a chaperone.
Chad checked all the boxes. Polished, respectable, and well-connected through his family’s financial firm, a company managing millions for professional hockey players. He knew the league inside and out, advising athletes on investments, contracts, and more importantly, whispering in the ears of sponsors about which players were worth betting on.
He fit seamlessly into our world. Maybe a little too seamlessly now that I think about it. And for a while, I persuaded myself it was real.
Then, over brunch at some obscenely pretentious club where they served oysters on an actual ice sculpture, Chad reached across the table, took my hand, and gave me thatsoft, tragic look rich boys learn right after polo and before private equity.
“This has been incredible,” he said. “Truly. But…” I blinked, waiting for the punchline. “My life’s about to…shift,” he continued, with the gravitas of someone announcing a stock split. “I’ve just gotten engaged.”
I stared at him. “Come again?”
“I’m engaged,” he repeated, with the practiced calm of a man who’d already spun this story in the mirror. “To Allegra van Alst.”
He said it like her name came with a coat of arms and a title. Like I should be impressed. Or offer congratulations. Instead, I laughed.
“So just to clarify, Chad, you were romancing your future wife while simultaneously dicking down the help?”
He winced, just slightly. “No need to be vulgar, babe.”
So I just sat there, blinking in disbelief, too shocked for a comeback. I only managed to raise my eyebrows. He had the audacity to wave me off like I was noise pollution. “I have…obligations. You wouldn’t understand. Allegra comes from a very connected family.”
Translation: old money, old rules. Daddy golfed with senators and probably owned half of Connecticut.
“And you…” He gave me this soft, almost pitying smile, the kind you save for someone with toilet paper stuck to their shoe. “You’re just…not from our world.”
Our world.
