Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 135300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 541(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 541(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Autograph?
What the fuck?
“It’s for my grandson. Kid’s a big fan of all the greats,” he explains awkwardly.
That’s not the problem.
The problem is no one should know I’m here.
That was one good reason to head to upstate Maine.
For most people, I’m not a household name anymore. I’ve been out of the game long enough to tarnish my celebrity status.
Only the bigger hockey fanatics still recognize me, but still. I wasn’t expecting to find anyone here, up the ass end of nowhere.
Margot looks at me over the guy’s head and reaches for her phone.
“Sure, pal. What’s the name?” I force a smile, icily calm.
“Little Nick! I mean, Nick works fine. Man, thank you! He’ll be so excited.”
Still smiling until it burns my face, I slash my signature across the napkin with the pen he holds out, then pass it back.
“Here you go.”
“Helluva favor, Mr. Saint. You’re a real inspiration and a class act, too.”
“I try. Thanks.” I hope like hell it ends there.
But one quick look around shows me he’s not the only one staring at us.
Behind him, there’s a kid with a baseball cap, his mouth hanging open. He offers me the hat without a word, his little face turning red.
“Dude, you’re Kane Saint? You’re my brother’s favorite! He’s off at college, so uh, would you sign it? If you don’t mind…”
It’s a frigging baseball cap.
How the hell did my cover get blown here of all places?
As I sign the hat for the boy mechanically, Margot scrolls on her phone, her face suddenly pale.
“Um, Kane?” The moment the kid leaves, she shows me the screen.
There’s an article with my face from a couple years ago. I’m laughing after speaking at a tech conference with the cockiest fucking people I’d ever met.
Margot’s photo is right next to mine. She’s standing casually with a man who must be her brother, all of them in black, somewhere in Portland not long after Leonidas died.
Then the brutal headline:
New power couple? Tech king and retired hockey hunk Kane Saint caught hunkering down in small-town Sully Bay with Blackthorn heiress!
Fuck me blind.
Not good.
The article was barely posted an hour ago, but news flies once every gossip hound and celeb-obsessed gremlin gets a hold of it.
Margot’s already royalty in these parts.
The street musicians play on, ignoring how they’re suddenly not the center of attention. Sophie and Dan haven’t noticed anything yet.
Let’s keep it that way.
“The kids,” I whisper, and Margot nods.
“Let’s get them home,” she agrees.
I don’t make eye contact with anyone as I push through the crowd to them. They’re still swaying to the music and finishing their caramel apples.
I vowed early on to keep them out of the spotlight once I realized how corrosive fame can be.
I chose this life, knowingly or not.
My kids should never face the consequences.
They don’t get to pick when people fire off unwanted photos like gunshots, let alone if they show up in lurid stories about the divorce.
It’s not fair.
Everyone should get a choice, and I hate that the world doesn’t work that way.
I also don’t want them to face the constant invasion of privacy before their lives have really started.
The lies people tell because it sells or generates clicks.
The fucked up lengths people will go for their next scoop or million views on Instagram.
All your worst secrets, all your insecurities, all national news fodder in soulless gossip rags.
It’s worse that they’re not just print magazines anymore and the dirt goes supersonic speeds online.
“Hey, guys.” I touch their shoulders to get their attention. Margot’s at their other side, watching them intently.
It dawns on me that she’s no stranger to this shit.
She knows exactly how to handle it, possibly better than I do.
And maybe we both knew this thing between us was a ticking time bomb.
I just never thought it would detonate publicly.
“We need to head home now,” I tell them firmly, keeping my voice calm. Outwardly, I’m smiling, but inwardly I’m cursing myself breathless.
This shouldn’t be happening.
Not here.
Not now.
“Dad, what’s wrong?” Dan asks, still watching the trio.
“I remembered something important at home. Come on, guys,” Margot says, and I throw her a grateful glance.
When Viola laid into her, I could see her rattled, but now she’s pure efficiency.
If they want a fight, they’ll be sorry for ever going against a Blackthorn scorned.
“Meet you at the car?”
“Sure,” she says.
A second later, she’s back in the crowd, smiling her pretty face off as people flash photos and yell questions and compliments.
A few phones swing in my direction, too, so I hustle the kids toward the rental vehicle parked on the street.
To their credit, they don’t protest once they figure out it’s serious. They just follow.
I wish I could say this has never happened before, but it has.
Fuck my life entirely.
I just never thought it would matter here and complicate everything more.
What the hell am I doing, dragging Margot down worse?