Chapter 1

I was a two-hundred-pound girl. But on the night of graduation, I slept with Nova, captain of the Ashbury Ravens hockey team.

The next morning, laughter drifted down the hotel hallway from his teammates.

"Nova slipped his room key to Sienna last night, right?"

"What, you think he'd give it to the Zamboni? That tub of lard. One look at her gives you nightmares for three days."

"Did you guys see her reporter's notebook? It's covered in Nova's name. She's actually got a crush on Nova. Disgusting."

So the room key that had slipped into my notebook wasn't meant for me.

And the name he murmured against me in the dark wasn't mine either.

My eyes burned with humiliation. I got dressed, walked out alone, and disappeared for six years.

Six years later, my mother, Diane Quinn, was three months behind on her dialysis bills, and the sports website I worked for was on its last legs.

My editor, Claire Bennett, slapped a file on my desk.

"Nova. Newly crowned MVP. Not one interview in six years. Land him, or you're out."

Chapter 1

I held up my voice recorder and squeezed my way into the team's media room.

Forty camera lights blinked on at once. Forty microphones pressed in around him, and he hadn't answered a single question.

I tried to step forward, but a press officer blocked me immediately. "The Crease? Ma'am, we don't take questions from bloggers."

Somewhere in the corner, someone laughed.

"Let her ask. What kind of question is a dying website going to come up with?"

The mockery swept through the room like a wave.

Nova took his time pressing a bandage over his bleeding brow, then looked up past everyone and found me.

The indifference in his eyes was nothing like the heat of that night.

It hit me then. In six years, I'd lost eighty pounds. I was no longer that girl who'd nursed a secret crush on him.

That night had been nothing but an accident.

And the man he was now probably didn't remember me at all.

I let out a breath, gripped my voice recorder, and stepped forward.

"Mr. Nova, how do you respond to being photographed entering and leaving a nightclub with two women last week?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Nova's brow furrowing, but he made no move to answer.

The press officer couldn't hold back. "Is this the caliber of journalism at The Crease? Nova just took home the MVP award, and all you care about is tabloid gossip?"

"Ma'am, the team reserves the right to sue you for defamation."

I looked at Nova through the crowd and dipped my head. "My apologies. That was out of line."

With that, I turned and walked out of the media room.

My phone was buzzing nonstop in my bag. I sprinted to the parking lot and didn't pull it out until I'd made sure no one was around.

It was Claire.

"I'm sorry, I didn't..."

"Maggie, listen to me." Claire's voice was barely above a whisper. "The board signed off this afternoon. The Charles Aldridge Foundation earmarked funding for The Crease, on one condition: Sienna starts tomorrow as a special correspondent. The boss gave her Nova's file too."

"I fought for you. All the boss would agree to is this: whoever lands the exclusive first, stays."

Sienna Aldridge.

Six years later, the name that had haunted my entire student life rose again like a nightmare.

The Zamboni nickname came from her.

Back then, I was the beat reporter for Ashbury's hockey team. Medication for an illness had ballooned me up to two hundred pounds.

And because my father, Patrick Quinn, drove the Zamboni at the rink, they gave me that revolting nickname.

I thought time would bury all of it.

But the moment those same people reappeared in my life, I realized how foolish that hope had been.

I leaned against the cold metal of my car, helplessness threatening to swallow me. "How could she..."

"Because she's an Aldridge, and you're just the poor scholarship kid her family sponsored." Claire went quiet. Several minutes passed before she spoke again. "There's something else. Diane was rushed to the ER again this morning. The clinic says the dialysis bills can't wait any longer."

Only then did I notice six missed calls from the dialysis center.

"Maggie?" Claire said tentatively.

I wiped at my eyes. "I'll get Nova's exclusive. I'll find a way."

After hanging up, I searched online as I walked, looking for places Nova frequented so I could stake him out.

I'd barely reached the parking lot exit when a black SUV pulled up at the curb and the window rolled down.

"Maggie." A man in a suit held out a card. "I'm Nova's agent. Head to the training center. The back door will be open for you."

"Why would I go?"

He extended the card another half inch. "Because he's offering you something no one in the league has gotten in six years."

Chapter 2

Two in the morning at the team's training facility. Only one row of cold white lights glowed above the ice.

The Zamboni was making its final lap.

I stopped at the top of the stands, my feet rooted to the floor.

The blade scraped across the surface, leaving behind a thin film of water that gleamed under the lights like a long mirror.

That sound had followed me until I was nineteen.

My father had driven one of these machines for nineteen years. He woke at four every morning, even when the garage was eighteen degrees. Before every shift, he slapped the steering wheel twice.

He'd loved that job with everything he had, and they turned it into a weapon to humiliate his daughter.

"You don't look right."

Nova sat on the bench, his stick across his knees. The bandage on his brow was gone, and a row of black stitches stood out against the cut.

I walked down and slapped my voice recorder on the boards. "Mr. Nova, why did you bring me here?"

"A business deal." He stood up.

"Sixty minutes. An exclusive interview. Something the entire league hasn't been able to get in six years. I'll give it to you."

"But you have to play my girlfriend for one season."

I tightened my grip on my bag strap. "Why me?"

"As you pointed out, I was just photographed with two women at a nightclub last week." His tone was even. "The Youth on Ice Foundation no longer thinks I'm fit to represent them. It's my most lucrative endorsement, and I don't intend to lose it."

"So why me?"

"Because you need this interview more than anyone." He took a step closer, leaning down near my ear, and said softly, "And because you won't fall in love with me."

The instant Nova leaned in, I nearly thought he'd recognized me.

But if he had, he'd want nothing more than to distance himself from me.

Why would he come to me with a deal?

That thought made me laugh in spite of myself. "Sounds like a win-win. Where's the contract?"

Nova handed me the contract. I looked it over.

Attend public events according to the PR schedule. Post photos on social media without captions. Take no relationship questions from any other outlet.

The compensation: ten million dollars.

That number was enough to cover all of my mother's dialysis, clear every debt, and keep her alive for years.

"I'll add one clause," I said. "Sixty minutes, and you answer every question."

He studied me for a long time. "Everything except one question. You'll know which one when the time comes."

I hesitated.

Maybe the question Nova refused to answer was exactly the one I wanted to ask most.

I didn't agree right away. I tucked the contract into my bag and said evenly, "I'll give your offer serious thought."

I turned and walked out without looking back.

In the instant I turned, I thought I caught something unreadable flickering through his eyes, but it was gone too fast for me to hold on to.

Chapter 3

The next morning, Sienna walked into The Crease in high heels.

White cashmere coat, the same shade of lipstick she'd worn for six years.

She stopped at my desk and looked down at me with a smile. "Maggie. Eighty pounds down. You almost look human now."

I didn't look up. "Welcome aboard."

"I'm not here to join the staff."

She set a document on my keyboard. A Nova interview proposal, signed by Sienna Aldridge.

"I'm here to take over."

"The Nova exclusive has been my assignment."

"My father has owned half this company since last week." She leaned in, lowering her voice. "Maggie, if you're smart, those dialysis treatments keeping your mother alive might continue a little longer."

I gripped the mouse.

"Stay away from Nova. You have no business being around him. You don't even..." She paused, something I couldn't read flashing through her eyes. "You don't even know where you stand."

"Remember that, Maggie. Otherwise, I'll show you what happens when you cross me."

Sienna turned and walked out.

Her heels struck the floor like hammers against my temples.

I was dragged back six years, to another snowy day just like this one.

She'd cornered me in the parking lot, patting my arm the way you'd pat a dog.

"Your mom works two jobs to feed you. Your scholarship needs my signature every fall. So tell me, doesn't that mean my family is basically raising you?"

I snapped back to the present, watched her walk away, and clenched my jaw.

After six whole years, was I still never going to escape Sienna?

After work that day, I went to the dialysis center.

My mother lay in bed, tubes running through her arm, and she still had the energy to scold me.

"Who told you to get mixed up with people like that? Your father resurfaced their rink for nineteen years and died in that garage. They didn't even send flowers. Don't sell yourself for money, Maggie."

Dr. Rebecca Hayes, my mother's attending physician, pulled me into the hallway and handed me a printout. "Maggie, your mother's kidneys can't hold out much longer. I'd recommend starting a transplant evaluation as soon as possible. At the very least, clear the outstanding balance. This is your statement for the month. Next month's will be even higher."

I stared at the number.

Five hundred thousand dollars. Not even a fraction of the contract Nova had offered me.

With that thought, I stopped hesitating. I pulled the contract from my bag, signed my name without a second thought, and mailed it out.

I texted Claire: "I'll get the Nova exclusive."

She replied instantly: "Sienna said the same thing. Whoever files first wins."

I leaned against the hallway wall.

Six years ago, I'd carved a man out of my heart, scraped him out clean.

Six years later, I was going to write him back in, word by word.

Chapter 4

Nova moved fast.

The night I mailed the contract, he made two posts on Instagram.

The first denied the nightclub rumors. He explained that the two women were strangers he'd met at the same party. He'd realized they had been drugged and escorted them out.

Both women quickly shared the post and commented on it.

They thanked Nova for not revealing the truth right away, waiting instead until they'd identified the perpetrator and filed a police report.

The second post was a photo of our fingers intertwined.

No face shown. No tag.

I liked this approach. At least I could still live and work normally instead of being chased around by the media.

And Sienna wouldn't have a chance to use her family's influence to muscle the exclusive away from me.

But what I couldn't understand was why Nova had chosen to spend ten million dollars hiring me to play his girlfriend when he could have simply cleared his name.

I dialed the number I knew by heart but hadn't called in six years.

It was answered quickly. I waited a long time, but Nova said nothing.

Just when I thought he'd never speak, his low, husky voice came through. "Reporter."

A shock went through me.

The way he addressed me was so familiar, just as it had been six years ago.

I remembered the day I'd left my reporter's notebook on a bench in the team locker room and gone back for it.

I'd pushed the door open and found one of Nova's teammates standing on a chair, holding my notebook high and reading my secret crush aloud. "I've interviewed every player on this team except you... I can't bring myself to, because I'm afraid you'll see the real me."

The room erupted in laughter.

Someone called out, "Nova, how does it feel being crushed on by the Zamboni?"

Nova stood up, his shin guards still strapped on.

His face hard, Nova snatched the notebook from his teammate. He crossed the locker room, walked up to me, and handed it back.

"Now I've seen the real you. Have you seen the real me, Reporter?"

"Reporter?"

His questioning voice, with wind rushing over the line, pulled me out of the memory.

"I'm here."

Maybe I imagined it, but Nova seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

"You're calling this late. Is something wrong?"

"You could have just cleared your name. Why are you paying me to pretend to be your girlfriend?"