Chapter 3

Hailey POV:

After washing my face and changing into a simple sweater and jeans, I grabbed the folder I had printed out in the study the night before and headed downstairs to the dining room.

Donna Hayes, our fifty‑something housekeeper who had worked for the family for a decade, had laid out a spread of eggs Benedict, berries, and bagels across the mahogany table. I sat at my usual spot, pushing a strawberry around my plate, my stomach too twisted to eat.

Heavy footsteps echoed from the gym hallway. Beckett walked in shirtless, a white towel slung low around his waist, sweat gleaming across the ridges of his abs. As an elite athlete, he walked around the house like this constantly, indifferent to who was looking.

He sat down across from me and drained a glass of orange juice in one go.

"Beckett, we need to talk." I pulled a crisp stack of stapled paper from my tote and slid it across the wood until it hit his knuckles. The bold title stared up between us: PRENUPTIAL AND PUBLIC RELATIONS AGREEMENT.

"I want to terminate the contract."

I looked straight into his ice‑blue eyes, keeping my voice flat.

The relaxed post‑workout expression vanished. "Terminate it?" He laughed, low and humorless. "And on what grounds do you think you can do that?"

"On the grounds that there is nothing between us except this piece of paper."

"Nothing between us?" He repeated the words softly. Then he shoved his chair back, stood, and walked slowly around the table toward me. Before I could move, he planted both hands on my armrests, caging me in.

"Say that again, Hailey. Tell me there's nothing between us."

My heart hammered so hard my chest hurt. I forced my chin up. "It's the truth."

The corner of his mouth curled up, though his eyes stayed freezing. "Have you forgotten Clause Four of that contract? As long as this marriage exists, we are required to fulfill our marital obligations."

The blood drained from my face. "That's for the cameras. We're only acting."

"Acting?" His fingers clamped around my upper arm and hauled me out of the chair. Before I could catch my balance, he scooped me up against his chest in a vise‑like bridal carry. "Then let's act out the whole script."

"Put me down!" I gasped, kicking and slamming my fists against his bare shoulder. At the kitchen doorway, Donna poked her head out, eyes wide, and ducked back behind the swinging door.

Beckett ignored my punches, his muscles like iron, and marched up the grand staircase. He kicked the master bedroom door open and tossed me onto the center of the bed.

I scrambled toward the edge. I did not even make it two feet. He came down on top of me, his two‑hundred‑and‑ten‑pound frame pinning me flat.

His mouth crashed down on mine. There was no tenderness—only raw anger, punishment, and a brutal demand for submission.

I twisted beneath him, my fingernails digging into his wrist. Against an NHL center who fought grown men on the ice for a living, my strength was laughable. I could not budge him an inch.

His free hand tore the hem of my sweater, ripping it at the seam. Cold air hit my skin, and a wave of sheer panic choked me.

Hot, humiliated tears spilled from my eyes and ran into my hair. "Beckett... stop. Don't..."

He froze above me. Looking down at the tears streaking my cheeks, the corner of his mouth twisted into a cruel, victorious smirk. "Now tell me," he rasped against my ear, "do you still think there's nothing between us?"

I squeezed my eyes shut, turning my head into the pillow. Everything inside me went cold and dead.

He did not give me another chance to fight back. The quiet bedroom filled with the sound of tearing fabric and my muffled sobs against the linen. It was a cold, ruthless claim of ownership, his way of stamping his name onto me to prove he held the leash in this contract.

When it was over, he did not say a word. He rolled off the mattress and walked straight into the bathroom.

I lay motionless in the tangled sheets like a rag doll with its strings cut. On the nightstand, the termination agreement he had carried up in his fist sat crumpled into a jagged ball of paper.