Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
"Thank you," Laina said simply.
That was no accident at all. She might still not understand why Troy wanted her to be here, but she was pretty sure her husband had asked the couple to look after her.
"There's nothing to thank us for. We're really delighted to finally get to know you, and..." Camilla stopped speaking when she heard the PA system in the stadium crackle to life.
It was time.
The crowd erupted. A roar that started low and built until it shook the glass in the suite, and Laina's head whipped toward the window.
Troy Barrymore was walking out of the tunnel.
Not in a jersey. Not in skates. He was in a dark suit, his shoulders cutting a line through the spotlight that tracked him across the ice, and the noise — the noise — was like nothing Laina had ever heard from this building.
Twenty thousand people on their feet.
Because in this arena, no one cared about the rumors. No one cared about the headlines or the interview or the scandal. In The Res, Troy Barrymore was a hero. Always had been. Always would be.
The spotlight followed him to an elevated platform near the commentators' booth, where two men were already seated behind a desk. Old Goldie — the gravelly-voiced legend who had called Waymakers games for three decades — and his partner Fleming, who had been trying to get a word in edgewise for most of those thirty years.
The crowd roared again as Troy took his seat between them.
"Welcome back, Troy."
"Thanks, man."
Laina couldn't believe what she was seeing and hearing. Troy was giving a live interview in The Res? She turned to Camilla and Trey, her eyes wide. "What's happening?" she whispered.
Trey's tone was gentle. "I believe Troy made you a promise."
A promise? What promise?
"He's fixing things like a good husband would do."
And right on cue, Fleming's question was the perfect follow-up.
"So what brings you here?"
Laina found herself fighting back tears once again as she looked back at the commentator's platform, which was now also being broadcast on the jumbotron above the ice. Troy's face, forty feet tall, looking directly into the camera.
"I thought I'd clear up a few things," Troy had answered in a gruff voice.
"Ah." Old Goldie nodded understandingly. "Marriage trouble."
The crowd laughed. Old Goldie, blunt as always.
"I've always thought my personal life was my business alone."
"Not when you look that pretty, I don't think so."
The comment from Old Goldie had Camilla wincing, but when she took a peek at Troy's wife, she was relieved to see that the words just had Laina laughing along with the crowd.
"It was why, seven years ago, I kept my marriage a secret."
And to Laina's shock — the camera swung to the Ericsson Suite, and her face appeared on the jumbotron. Right there. In real time. Forty feet tall, with her wide eyes and her trembling mouth, and twenty thousand people looking up at her.
Oh no no no no!
She could feel herself starting to panic. Her hands gripped the edge of the couch, and her first instinct was to duck, to hide, to make herself invisible the way she had always made herself invisible—
"Is that Mrs. Barrymore?" Fleming was asking with a smile.
This wasn't right. Her presence might cause trouble. But just when she was about to jerk to her feet—
"That's her." Two words. But spoken with such quiet pride that her heart...
It just started beating for all the right reasons again, and she could only think...
I love him.
I love you.
So, so much.
It was that love which pushed all the panic away, and she was able to stay in her seat and remember that she had given him her word.
I love you.
I will never leave you again.
"I wanted to keep her to myself. To keep her safe. I mean, don't get me wrong. This game, I love it. The management, my team, the fans of the Waymakers. It's all good. But that's the good side. And we know in this world, every business has its ugly side, and that's what I wanted to protect her from." Troy's jaw clenched. "But in my effort to keep her a secret, while focusing all of my energies on winning one more championship for the Waymakers, I didn't realize what all of that was doing to our marriage."
Laina started shaking in her seat as she covered her mouth, unable to believe what she was seeing. Because while Troy had been speaking, the jumbotron had started playing footage from all the years...all of them, oh God.
Footage of her.
In Section 308, Row 14. Season after season. Her face caught by the arena's security cameras in a crowd of thousands. Cheering with the rest of the fans every time he scored a goal, leaping to her feet with her fists clenched. Protesting alongside them whenever he was fouled, her small voice lost in the roar but her face fierce and furious. And that one time — the time she had the biggest scare in her life, when Troy had taken a devastating hit and had to be rushed out on a stretcher — the cameras had caught her breaking down completely, her hands over her face, her shoulders shaking, a stranger in the next seat putting a hand on her back because she looked like she might collapse.