[POV: Lanaya Roux]

The player's tunnel was a suffocating throat of concrete and shadows.

Maverick's grip on Lanaya's elbow didn't loosen. His long fingers dug through the thick fabric of her jersey, the heat of his palm seeping into her skin like a brand. An unwanted electric jolt shot straight up her arm. She hated it. She hated the immediate, traitorous way her body registered his touch.

"Let go of me," Lanaya warned. Her voice echoed off the damp walls.

"Not until you listen."

"I have nothing to say to you. And I definitely don't want to hear whatever lie you've cooked up about Crew."

She yanked her arm back hard enough to strain her injured shoulder. Maverick used her momentum against her. He stepped smoothly into her space, crowding her backward until her spine hit the rough concrete wall.

He was too big. Too close.

The heavy scent of cedar, dark musk, and pure adrenaline flooded her senses, suffocating the last remaining oxygen in the tunnel. Her breath hitched. A dark, twisted pull tightened low in her stomach, a physical awareness she violently tried to push down.

"It is not a lie." His voice was a brutal rasp. "But that is not why I stopped you."

"Then what? Did you just want to gloat about the tie?"

"Look at your phone, Lanaya."

She glared at him. Her heart was hammering a frantic, erratic rhythm against her ribs, and it had nothing to do with the game. Without breaking eye contact, she dug her phone out of her gear bag.

The screen lit up the dim tunnel.

Six missed calls from Camden Roux. One forwarded email attachment from her father's assistant.

Lanaya opened it. It was a drafted press release.

Redstone Franchise Files for Bankruptcy. Crew Roux Memorial Foundation Slated for Immediate Liquidation.

The concrete wall dug painfully into her shoulder blades. The air left her lungs completely. "No. My father would never let this happen."

"He is broke, Roux." Maverick stepped a fraction closer, trapping her between his arms. The friction of his chest brushing hers sent a sickeningly hot spark straight through her. "He has been bleeding money for years. The only way to save Redstone and the foundation is a joint merger with my father."

"What does that have to do with us?"

"The board won't approve the buyout if the two star players are tearing each other apart on national television. We are a PR nightmare."

"Then I will request a trade."

"You can't."

"Watch me."

"No one will take you, Lanaya. Alexander already made sure of it."

The name came out flat. Not the way a son says a father's name with pride or resentment - something older than either of those. Something that had been worn smooth by years of learning to move inside that authority rather than against it. A weariness so settled it had become structural. For one unguarded second, she almost felt something like recognition. Then it was gone, and so was any softness in his eyes.

"He controls the league," Maverick continued, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low register that vibrated against her skin. "You are locked in. We both are."

Lanaya pushed against his chest, but it was like shoving a wall of pure muscle. "What do they want from us?"

Maverick stared down at her. His eyes were storm-dark, filled with a volatile mix of rage and a starving, suffocating heat that made her pulse pound in her throat.

"An engagement."

Her blood ran ice-cold. "What?"

"They want us engaged. Publicly. By tomorrow morning."

Lanaya let out a harsh, broken laugh. "Fake engaged? To you? I would rather swallow glass."

"Do you think I want this?" He leaned down, his mouth brushing dangerously close to her ear. The sheer heat radiating off his body was unbearable. Electric. "You think I want to pretend to be in love with the girl who looks at me like I am a murderer?"

"You are a murderer."

He flinched. The muscle in his jaw ticked violently, but he didn't pull away. He stayed so close she could feel the heavy, rapid thud of his heart against her own.

"I won't do it," Lanaya whispered fiercely. "I will let the team burn before I put a ring from you on my finger."

"You will do it."

"You can't force me."

"I don't have to." Maverick pulled back just enough to lock his dead, grey-blue eyes with hers. The raw dominance in his stare made her shiver. "Because if you walk away tonight, I will buy Crew's foundation myself. And I will burn it to the ground."

Her hands curled into fists. "You wouldn't."

"Try me, Huntress." The toxic promise slid over her skin like a blade. "Say no, and see what I destroy next."

Lanaya shoved past him. She was done. Done with his voice and his heat and the way he said Crew's name like he still had the right to.

She made it ten steps down the tunnel before she stopped.

She didn't mean to. Her body just halted, the way it always did at this exact stretch of corridor, in front of the framed team photograph bolted to the concrete wall. The old Redstone junior squad, twelve years old in matching jerseys, squinting into the flash. Crew was in the center, grinning with his whole face, one arm thrown around Lanaya's shoulders and the other around Maverick's.

The three of them. Before everything.

She almost let herself remember what it had felt like to stand between them, how solid and permanent the world had seemed in that fraction of a second before the camera flashed. Almost. She turned away before the memory could finish forming, before it could show her the part that came after.

Then she made the mistake of looking back.

Maverick was not watching her anymore. He was watching the photograph. His jaw was tight, his arms loose at his sides, and his expression was something she had never once allowed herself to actually look at. Something that had no cruelty in it. Something that looked like a man standing at the edge of a wound that had never once closed.

He didn't know she was still watching.

For just that moment, neither of them was an enemy. They were just two people standing in a tunnel, staring at a boy who was never coming back.

Then Maverick's eyes shifted and found hers, and the cold slid back into place like a door being shut from the inside.

Lanaya turned away and walked out into the noise of the arena corridors and did not look back again.

But the image she carried with her, the one that followed her all the way to the parking lot and refused to let go, was not his threat.

It was his face when he thought no one was watching.

[POV: Lanaya Roux]

The silence in the tunnel shattered.

Lanaya brought her hand back and slapped Maverick Hayden across the face.

The crack echoed off the concrete. Her palm burned. His head snapped to the side.

He slowly turned his face back to her. The grey-blue of his eyes had gone completely black. The red mark of her handprint bloomed over the bruise she had already given him on the ice.

"Feel better?" His voice was a lethal, quiet rasp.

"You are a monster," Lanaya breathed.

"I am a businessman."

"This isn't business. This is blackmail."

"It is survival." Maverick crowded her again, the raw heat of his body trapping her against the wall. "If the foundation goes under, everything Crew built dies with it. The youth clinics. The scholarships. All of it gone by Friday. Unless we sign the contract."

"Where is it?"

"My penthouse. Tomorrow morning. Eight AM."

Lanaya shoved both hands against his chest. She needed distance before the heavy cedar-laced scent of him completely suffocated her.

"I hate you," she promised. The words tasted like poison. "I will sign your contract. I will smile for the cameras. But if you think for one second this changes anything between us, you are dead wrong."

"I don't want it to change anything."

"Good."

"Tomorrow morning, Huntress. Don't be late."

He turned and stalked into the shadows. Lanaya stayed pinned against the wall, her legs shaking. She raised her trembling hand to her chest, right over her wildly beating heart.

She was engaged to the boy who let her brother drown.

Eight AM felt like an execution.

Maverick's penthouse was a cold monument to the Hayden empire. Floor-to-ceiling windows, dead air, no pictures. Sharp angles, black leather, and sterile glass.

Lanaya stood clutching her coffee cup like a weapon while two corporate lawyers slid a thick stack of papers across the oak table.

"The contract stipulates a twelve-month public engagement," the lead lawyer said. "Cohabitation is mandatory. You will move into this penthouse by the end of the week."

"No." The word tore out of her. "Absolutely not."

"It is non-negotiable." Maverick's voice was flat, completely shut down. "A fake engagement looks fake if we live in separate apartments. Page four, section B. Read it yourself."

Lanaya crossed the room and snatched the contract off the table.

Her stomach plummeted.

Both parties agree to reside in the primary residence of Maverick Hayden for the duration of the twelve-month term. Failure to comply will result in immediate termination of the merger agreement and the liquidation of all associated assets, including the Crew Roux Memorial Foundation.

She dropped the paper as if it burned her.

"You agreed to trap me."

Maverick finally looked up. The coldness in his eyes cracked, revealing that same dark, starving intensity from the tunnel. "Sign the paper, Lanaya."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then the foundation is gone in five minutes."

He held out the silver pen. A challenge. A threat.

She snatched it from his hand. Her fingers brushed his, and the violent spark of electricity that shot up her arm made her teeth click together.

She signed her name so hard the pen tore through the paper.

"There," she spat. "You have your fake fiancée. Are we done?"

Maverick stood and reached into his suit pocket, pulling out a small velvet box.

"Not quite."

He snapped it open.

The diamond was massive. A perfect blinding cut set in platinum. Heavy, expensive, and completely terrifying.

"Give me your hand," he ordered.

"I can put it on myself."

"Give me your hand, Roux."

She extended her left hand slowly, fingers trembling. Maverick's calloused hand wrapped around hers. The heat of his skin was a shocking contrast to the cold metal. He held her firmly, his thumb pressing into her pulse point, before slowly pushing the diamond onto her finger.

It fit perfectly.

The weight of it was wrong. Too familiar. Like something that had been measured in advance, or waiting, or both.

Her mind went somewhere she hadn't let it go in eight years.

She was fourteen. The old outdoor rink on Fenwick Street, the one the city had since torn down. Late October, the ice still rough from the first freeze, the sky that particular dark blue it only went in the hour before full dark.

Crew had been doing backwards crossovers in the center, showing off for no one in particular, which was completely on brand.

"Lanaya, watch this!" he shouted, and immediately fell flat on his face.

She laughed so hard she had to grab the boards.

"You good?" Maverick called from the far end. His voice had just started to change that year, catching on itself in unexpected places.

"I meant to do that," Crew announced from the ice.

Maverick skated over without a word and pulled him up by the collar. Crew immediately went back to his crossovers, unbothered, still grinning. That was the thing about Crew. He filled every silence he walked into. He made the cold feel warm and the ice feel like somewhere you had chosen to be.

When Crew drifted back to center, Maverick stopped beside Lanaya at the boards. Not talking. Just there.

She hadn't looked over at him for a long moment. When she did, he was already looking at her. Not at the rink. Not at Crew. At her.

The cold air burned in her throat. He was fourteen years old and he had the look of someone who had just understood something enormous and was not yet sure it was safe to say out loud.

"It's gonna snow tomorrow," he said finally. Still looking at her.

"Okay," she said, which was a stupid thing to say, and she knew it immediately.

Crew called out from the center. The moment broke. Maverick pushed off the boards and skated away, and Lanaya told herself it was nothing, it was the cold, she was imagining things.

She spent the next three years telling herself that.

Then the summer came.

And after the summer, there was nothing left to tell herself at all.

The memory snapped shut. The penthouse swam back into focus, sharp and sterile and nothing like Fenwick Street. Nothing like any version of them that had ever been safe. She became aware that Maverick's thumb was still pressing against her pulse point, and that her heart rate hadn't slowed down at all.

"Beautiful," the lawyer murmured, packing up his briefcase. "Welcome to the family, Miss Roux."

The lawyers left. The door clicked shut.

Lanaya stared down at the ring, the weight of it anchoring her to a nightmare she couldn't wake up from.

"It's done," Maverick said, his voice dropping to a dangerous rasp. "You're mine for the next twelve months."

Lanaya looked up. For one fraction of a second, she was fourteen again, and the ice was rough, and the sky was that particular dark blue. Then she buried it.

"I am not yours. I will never be yours."

Maverick stepped into her space. His long fingers wrapped around the back of her neck, his thumb resting dangerously close to her pulse.

"Keep telling yourself that, Huntress," he whispered, his gaze dropping to her mouth. "Let's see how long you actually believe it."

[POV: Lanaya Roux]

Friday arrived with the suffocating inevitability of a nightmare.

Lanaya stood in the center of Maverick's sprawling guest bedroom, surrounded by cardboard boxes that held the entirety of her life. Ash-wood floors. Slate-grey walls. A king-sized bed that looked more like a slab of marble than a place to sleep.

It didn't feel like a room. It felt like a cell.

"I can unpack those for you, Miss Roux."

Lanaya spun around. A woman stood in the doorway - older, sharply dressed, with eyes that saw entirely too much.

"No. Thank you. I'll do it myself."

"Mr. Hayden requested I ensure you are settled. I am Mrs. Gable. The estate manager."

"Estate manager," Lanaya repeated dryly. "Because calling this a penthouse isn't pretentious enough."

Mrs. Gable didn't crack a smile. "Dinner is at seven. Mr. Hayden expects you in the formal dining room."

"Tell Mr. Hayden I'm not hungry."

"He was quite specific that your attendance is mandatory. To discuss the upcoming press tour."

The press tour. The dog-and-pony show where she would have to smile, wave, and pretend the heavy diamond on her finger wasn't an anchor dragging her to the bottom of the ocean.

"Fine. Seven," Lanaya snapped.

Mrs. Gable gave a crisp nod and disappeared.

Lanaya sank onto the edge of the mattress, dropping her head into her hands. She had survived the morning press conference. Barely. The flashbulbs were blinding. The questions were invasive.

But the worst part wasn't the media. And for once, it wasn't even Maverick.

It was their fathers.

Camden and Alexander had stood together at the edge of the room while the cameras flashed. Not across from each other the way two men finalizing a business arrangement would stand. Side by side, speaking too quietly and too comfortably for men who were supposed to be meeting over a merger. At one point, Alexander said something low and her father nodded - not the nod of a man receiving new information, but the slow, automatic nod of a man being reminded of something he already knew. When someone nearby mentioned Crew's name, directing a question about the foundation toward Camden, both men went still at the exact same moment. Her father answered smoothly. Alexander said nothing. He simply set his glass down on the nearest surface, very carefully, and turned to look at the window.

Lanaya hadn't known what to do with that.

She still didn't.

She stood up, needing to move. She ripped open the nearest box and began shoving clothes into the walk-in closet, channeling all her vibrating anger into the simple task. By six-thirty the boxes were empty. By six-forty-five she was pacing. By six-fifty-five, the scent of cedar and dark musk hit her before the knock even sounded.

Her heart kicked against her ribs. She hated the immediate, traitorous reaction.

"Come in."

The heavy door pushed open. Maverick stood in the frame - dark jeans, fitted black t-shirt stretched across his broad chest. The bruise on his jaw was a dark, violent shadow. He looked too big for the doorway. Too dangerous for the room.

"You skipped lunch," he stated.

"I wasn't hungry."

"You need to eat. You have practice tomorrow."

"Don't tell me what I need." She crossed her arms. "And stop monitoring my meals."

He stepped fully into the room. The sheer heat radiating off him immediately changed the temperature of the air. "I monitor everything in my house."

"I am not one of your possessions, Maverick."

"No," he agreed, his voice dropping an octave. He closed the distance until he was standing entirely too close. "You're my fiancée."

Lanaya let out a harsh laugh. "Only on paper."

"The media doesn't care about the paper. They care about the performance."

"I gave them a performance this morning."

"You looked like you were being led to a firing squad." He reached out. Before she could dodge, his fingers wrapped around her wrist, pulling her left hand up between them. The diamond caught the light. "If you look at me like a hostage on the press tour, Alexander will know we're faking it."

The name came out the same way it had in the tunnel - flat and load-bearing, worn smooth by long practice. Not hatred. Not pride. The specific blankness of a man who had learned exactly how much pressure that name could apply, and had stopped flinching under it years ago. For a moment his jaw tightened in a way that had nothing to do with her.

Then his eyes came back to her face and the shutter closed.

"Then let him know," she said. She tried to pull her hand back, but his grip was iron.

"If he knows, the merger dies. The foundation dies." His chest brushed against hers. The friction sent a shocking, unwanted spike of electricity straight through her. "Is that what you want, Huntress?"

"I want you to let me go."

"I can't."

The raw honesty in those two words made her freeze. She looked up. The cold, mocking mask was gone. His grey-blue eyes were storm-dark, fixed on her mouth with a starving intensity that made her breath hitch.

"Maverick," she warned, her voice trembling.

"We have to make them believe it," he whispered, his thumb tracing the frantic pulse in her wrist. "Starting right now."

Before she could process the threat, his hand tangled in her hair, and his mouth crashed down on hers.