Chapter Twenty-Nine

Bex

I can hear it in Leo's voice over the phone. He's been dying to give me hell since he heard about the painting I bought for Rowan and what I paid. I believed it when Harper said that she doesn’t share the buyer information of purchased pieces, but the art world is tight knit and not shocking to find out that the information got back to Leo.

“Word around town is that some rich hockey bloke bought the Effervescent Embrace for three times what it sold for only a few hours before, yeah? Can you believe that?” I can hear the smug sound in his voice and the chair in his study groaning as he leans back into it.

“Don’t start, Leo.” I say, scooping protein shake powder into a plastic tumbler to take with me to the stadium gym.

Leo doesn’t heed my warning, a throaty chuckle escapes instead. “Just admit that you have it bad for this girl. She’s special, I already know that. So when are you bringing her home to meet Mum?”

The question hits me harder than I’d like to admit. “There’s nothing to bring home, alright?” I growl, the words tasting bitter. “It’s done. Finished.” The pain of it still throbs, like a chunk of my heart got ripped out and left to freeze over on the rink.

His voice turns serious. “Done?” he asks, as if annoyed by my answer. ”And all because of that story she ran about you on The Seattle Sunrise’s social media page? Just a clean cut then?”

I exhale sharply while twisting the lid on my tumbler. “More like a jagged one,” I mutter. “She didn’t just write a story, Leo. She laid out my life, like she was peeling it open for the world to see. Lily, Dad, every goddamn private moment she could dig up. And for what? A promotion for a job she didn’t even want?”

“Now hold on, that doesn’t sound like Rowan at all,” he says, the sound of concern in his voice.

I snap back, frustration bubbling up. “How do you know what ‘sounds like Rowan’?”

I hear his chair move again like he is preparing for battle. “She’s been helping me get the magazine fully online. I offered her a full-time job, thinking she’d jump at it. I also know that her talents are wasted in sports media—no offense. But she turned it down. Wouldn’t take it, and now I think I understand why.”

“How is that supposed to mean anything to me?” I ask, trying not to let him needle me. “You’re telling me that makes her a saint? I gave her everything, Leo. Every part of me she wanted, she got.”

Leo shakes his head, undeterred. “What journalist, who supposedly sabotaged her personal life to get ahead, would turn down the job she’s always dreamed of—one that pays double, includes a living stipend, and her own bloody corner office—just to avoid stepping on your toes?”

He has a point and it has me questioning her motives. If Rowan was hell-bent on advancing her career at any cost, she would’ve taken that job with Leo in a heartbeat. But she didn’t. She turned it down, and there’s a crack in the certainty I had before.

I clench my jaw. “You’re right, none of it makes sense. But the article had her name on it. She must’ve done it. And she’s one of the only people that knows over half that stuff in the article.”

He’s thinking over what I just told him and then speaks. “You’re sure it was her? Because I know her work. I’ve been following her stuff for awhile, and that article… that wasn’t her voice. I don’t know who wrote it, but it wasn’t Rowan.”

“What are you trying to say?” I demand, though his words dig under my skin.

“Bex, listen to me,” he says. “I’ve got contacts in the industry, and I heard from a friend of a friend in the IT department at The Seattle Sunrise that Rowan left a notebook behind when she went to talk to Charles after the Hawkeyes got back from Vancouver. Charles had access to it.”

I straighten, my grip tightening on the phone. The notebook. My mind flashes back to the notebook she always has on her, taking constant notes, the one she clutched like it held her entire career—because it did. And if I knew what that notebook contained, I bet Charles knew too. A chill runs through me.

“Charles used her notebook?” My voice is low, but the weight of the revelation presses against my chest.

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Leo admits hesitantly. “He either wrote the article himself or had someone else do it using her notes. But from everything I’ve seen and heard, Rowan didn’t write it.”

The crack in my resolve widens. If that’s true, she didn’t betray me. But she still left the notebook behind, didn’t she? Still gave Charles the ammunition to tear me apart.

“Why didn’t she tell me about the notebook?” I ask, though the question is as much for myself as it is for Leo.

“She might not have known,” Leo offers. “Or maybe she thought you’d never believe her. I don’t know, Bex. All I know is that the Rowan I’ve been working with isn’t someone who’d do this to you.”

Something about what he’s saying feels right. I’d convinced myself that Rowan charmed me—that she was just another person trying to take something from me, even though I knew better than to think that about her.

“Even if you’re right,” I say slowly, “How the hell do I fix this?” I admit quietly.

“You start by talking to her,” Leo says simply. “Find out the truth before it’s too late.”

We say our goodbyes, but his words linger long after the call ends. I sit there, staring at the floor, the weight of the conversation pressing down on me. If Rowan didn’t write that article, then I’ve been wrong about her—about everything.

I need to see her, but we leave to head back on the road for the second round in the playoffs. I need to get my team past the next few days and then I can think about how to address this with Rowan.

Because if there’s even a chance that I’ve been wrong, I don’t know if I can live with myself for pushing her away.