Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Everything I’ve spent my life building is suddenly at risk.
I loved Ariana Ridley long before the world knew my name. Before the NHL. Before the pressure of being one of the youngest coaches in the league. Before I learned how to survive by locking my heart down tight.
Leaving her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done — and the one choice I never made peace with.
Now she’s back.
And she belongs to another man.
My new General Manager.
I tell myself I can handle it. Discipline is my job. Control is my strength. I know how to keep my distance — how to respect the lines that should never be crossed.
But every glance drags the past to the surface. Every quiet moment reminds me the love I buried never died.
I see the cracks she tries to hide, the fear she’s learned to live with, and the way she still looks at me like I’m the one place she can breathe.
I want to protect her.
I want to fight for her.
And I want things I have no right to want.
Because if I cross that line, I don’t just risk my career — I risk shattering the woman I never stopped loving.
Some choices haunt us forever.
Some loves never let go.
And trying to right my wrongs might just ruin us both
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Bound
Shane
If a heart was tied to a person, mine was inextricably bound to her — and it stopped beating the day I left her behind.
Ariana Ridley had tried desperately not to be noticed when we were in college, but one look at her and it was clear how impossible that mission was. She was like a diamond buried deep, and her beauty was the volcano that unearthed her. It wasn’t only her piercing blue eyes or snow-white complexion. It wasn’t just her heart-shaped lips or her goddess-like curves.
It was the untold stories in her gaze, the way she wore her trauma like a cloak.
She called to me in a way I couldn’t fight, because I saw what everyone else overlooked.
Ariana was a survivor.
She was just like me.
We fell in love too easily, too quickly, at a rate that should have foretold how bad it would be once we finally hit the ground.
I was young and stupid when I let her go, when I chose my dream of hockey over her because I thought I was doing the right thing, and because hockey was the only thing I’d ever been able to depend on. I hated myself for the choice I made, and I regretted it every day.
I saw her once after that, years later, when I got injured and watched my dream go up in smoke. I begged for her forgiveness. She rightfully denied it.
I never thought I’d see her again.
Which was why I was grinding my teeth together to keep my jaw from dropping now, my heart kicking back to life in my chest with a force strong enough to take me to my knees.
Because here she was, in front of me again.
My Ari.
Standing next to my new General Manager.
As his wife.
Resilience
Shane
2006
Her hand shot into the air, and with it, she knocked my whole world off balance.
It was January 2006. I was a junior at Boston College, playing hockey for the university’s team and counting down to when I’d have my psychology degree in hand on my way into the NHL. I’d already been drafted by the Jacksonville Barracudas, my rights held by them while I attended college.
Four years to hone my skills on the ice with the Eagles, earn my degree, and enjoy a little bit of a normal life.
And then, it was off to the races.
I’d had a plan ever since I was ten years old. That was the year I realized hockey was everything to me. That was also the year I stopped treating it like a game and started manifesting a career.
I’d play my ass off through high school. I’d get drafted. I’d make sure the team that drafted me understood I wanted to go to college, and they’d hold my rights until I graduated. I’d go the full four years, get better and stronger on the ice, and make sure I had a backup plan in the form of a degree that could be used for a future career.
So far, I’d checked the boxes.
I’d played like a beast through high school, securing a spot in the USHL when I turned sixteen. I garnered scout attention early and was drafted the summer after I graduated high school, with the understanding that I would attend college, but the team would retain my rights. And here I was, the top-scoring winger for the Eagles and just three semesters away from graduation.
I had a plan.
And I was following that plan perfectly.
Until the second that girl raised her hand and ruined everything.
“Is resilience an individual trait, or is it built through community?” Professor Reid asked, scribbling Nature vs Nurture in the Home Environment on the whiteboard as he did. It was the first day of my Human Behavior in the Social Environment class — an elective I’d selected with team leadership in mind.
If I wanted to be a leader, not just on this team but on the ones I’d play for in the future, I needed to understand how humans ticked. I needed to know how to work with players from all backgrounds and upbringings.
Again, all part of the plan.
Two rows in front of me in the lecture hall, a hand bolted into the air.
I had a clear view of the girl the hand belonged to — or at least to the back of her head. She wore a white t-shirt, and her dark blonde hair was plaited into a thick braid that she had pulled over one shoulder. Even from two rows back, I could see that her nails were bitten short.
And she had a scar — right in the middle of that hand suspended above her.
“Yes,” Professor Reid said, nodding to the girl as he clasped his hands behind his back. “Miss?”
“Ariana Ridley,” she answered, lowering her hand. Her voice shocked me. It was smooth and raspy, like that of a woman twice her age. “I believe it’s an individual trait.”