Pucking Sweet: An MMF Workplace Hockey Romance (Jacksonville Rays Book 3)
Pucking Sweet: Chapter 15

Anderson strides up to our table looking like a million bucks, so confident knowing he’s worth easily fifty times that. He wears his hair with that deep side part, casually flashing his grandfather’s heirloom wristwatch as he waves.

Dad and Rowan push back their chairs and stand to shake his hand, welcoming him to our little family lunch. Mom stands too, wrapping her arms around him with the same warmth she just showed me.

From over her shoulder, he looks down, locking eyes with me at last. His piercing blue gaze roots me to my chair as the corner of his mouth tips. “Hey, Poppy. Good to see you again.”

I shiver. I haven’t heard that voice in three long years. It feels like my heart hasn’t beat for almost a full minute. It sputters to life, and I exhale through parted lips. “Oh, this is not happening.” I slap my napkin down on the table, rattling the silverware.

“Told you she’d take it poorly,” Rowan says, scooting his chair back in.

“You all knew?” I search their faces, first Rowan, then Deidre, then Ivy. “You knew they were together this whole time?”

“Violet asked us not to tell you,” Deidre explains, her worried eyes wide.

Furious, I push back from the table and stand.

“She didn’t want to hurt you, Poppy,” Deidre goes on, desperate to placate me. “She just wanted to give you time to grieve and move on. It didn’t seem right to tell you.”

I turn away from them to face my mom, who’s still standing with Anderson. “How long?”

“Poppy, please don’t make a scene,” Mom says, glancing all around the dining room with a fake smile on her face.

“Sit down, and eat your fish,” says Dad from behind me.

“How long?” I say again, looking up at Anderson.

“About two years,” he replies.

My heart drops right through the floor. Two years. My family has been sneaking around and lying to me about this for two freaking years? My sister is too much of a social butterfly to keep something like this quiet by herself. How many people helped her? Who else smiled in my face and made me look like a fool?

Mom wraps a hand around my forearm and leans in, voice stern. “Poppy, you will sit down and hear Anderson out. It’s not his fault you called things off—”

I wrench my arm away from her. “Not his fault?”

Her eyes flash with malice. “Sit down. Now.”

“The fish is getting cold, Princess,” says Dad.

I spin around. “Oh, Daddy, I fucking hate fish! I hate it, okay? So, you can take that plate of seared bass, and shove it up Rowan’s ass!”

“Poppy,” Mom cries, reaching out with both hands like I’m a wild horse loose in the dining room.

Dad’s fork and knife clatter down to his plate as he glares up at me. Normally, that face would be enough to have me bursting into tears. But in this moment, I feel only rage.

“Poppy, sit down,” he says.

I take a step back, looking around the table. “You all knew. You kept this from me, you lied to me, and then you manipulated me to get me here so you could spring this on me like—like what? God, this is like the world’s worst intervention!”

“A little decorum right now would go a long way,” Mom urges.

I glare at her. “And Anderson, Mom? Seriously? After everything I said?”

Now it’s Anderson’s turn to step in. He towers over me. “Go on, Poppy. What lies are you going to tell your family about me now?”

My hand drops limp to my side as I see the way they’re all watching, waiting for me to respond. Do they really believe him over me? They must, with the way they all greeted him so warmly just now. Mom said they’re all thrilled for this union.

A match made in heaven.

Those words make my stomach churn.

“I have to go.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. You haven’t even touched your fish,” says Mom, trying to lead me back over to the table. “Just sit down now. That’s my sweet girl.”

I go with her, but only so I can retrieve my clutch from the back of my chair. I pick it up by the delicate gold chain, slipping it on my shoulder.

“Poppy, don’t you dare leave this dining room,” Dad warns.

“I’ve gotta go,” I say again, my voice eerily calm. My motions are robotic as I check my clutch for my phone, lipstick, and credit cards.

Mom steps in closer. “Poppy, if you leave—”

“You’ll what?” I say, snapping my clutch shut. “Lie to me some more? Belittle me? Disown me?”

She crosses her arms. “Well, your Nana certainly didn’t leave you that trust fund for you to go around acting like this, now did she?”

I glare at her. Our Nana was an heiress. She left each of us kids with a trust fund of ten million dollars. Once we turn thirty, we can start drawing on it. At five percent a year, that’s five-hundred thousand dollars a year over twenty years. Ivy and Rowan are already drawing on theirs.

I’ve always been smart. I haven’t been planning on that money as a need, but heavens what a blessing. In a few short years, I could have real options. I’ll have a safety net, travel money, and guaranteed retirement. It’s cruel to think my own mother would rip that away.

“You wouldn’t dare touch Nana’s money,” I say at her.

“I am the guarantor of her estate—”

“She wanted me to have that money, Mom.”

She smirks, knowing she has me. “Well, if you’re going to be an embarrassment to the family, I think we’ll have to rethink the terms, won’t we?”

I search her face, heart sinking. “How can you be so cruel?”

She blinks twice. Then she changes her manipulation tactic as smoothly as an F1 driver changes gears. “You’re being hysterical right now. This was clearly a lot for you to digest, so allowances will be made. Anderson warned us that your feelings for him might not be completely gone—”

“Ohmygod!” I throw up my hands and stalk away from the table.

“Poppy, come back,” Mom cries.

“I’ve got this Mrs. S.,” I hear Anderson say.

Oh great, the master manipulator is letting herself be manipulated!

My heels click as I march through the doors of the restaurant into the empty hotel lobby.

Anderson follows close behind me. “Poppy, wait—”

“Go away.”

“Will you just slow down? Give me two minutes to explain.”

“I’m not interested.”

“You know, this is completely unfair, and I don’t deserve it. You dumped me, Poppy. Remember?”

I stop, chest heaving as I try to breathe.

Anderson steps in behind me, and I can just barely smell his expensive cologne. It unlocks so many memories. “You left me the night before our wedding,” he goes on. “I had to wake up and replace the ring and that pathetic fucking note. You bailed, and I moved on. Now you’re gonna crucify me for it?”

I spin around, my rage burning white-hot. “You moved on with my sister! Are you freaking kidding me, Anderson? There wasn’t a single other woman in the whole wide world you could rebound with?”

He glares down at me, that sweep of dark hair framing his brow. “You don’t think I tried? You think I wanted this?”

“Well, you can’t have tried very hard now, can you? The population of metro DC alone is, like, what? Five million people? If we assume half of those are women, and even just a quarter of those women would be willing to consider marrying an egotistical, entitled ass, that still leaves over half a million women you could’ve dated before you crawled into bed with my sister!”

“Poppy—”

“Did you date half a million women in a year, Anderson?”

“No, but I—”

“Did you at least float them your nepo baby resumé that just says ‘M&H Construction’ at the top?”

“God, you are such a fucking bitch,” he shouts. “No wonder you’re still fucking single.”

I can’t hide my flinch as I try desperately to rebuild my walls of slipping sand. “Anderson, please, let’s not do this here—”

He leans in, glaring at me. “I’ve waited three goddamn years to say this to you, Poppy: I thank my lucky stars every day that I was spared being yoked to you for the rest of my fucking life. I already wasted three good years on you. I’m not wasting anymore. You’re insufferable and you’re gonna die alone.”

A moment of silence hangs heavy in the air between us. Slowly, I nod, blinking back my tears. It’s true, we dated for three years. In that time, I gave him my heart and my body. I told him I loved him again and again. I told him until I started to believe it too. I tried so hard to be what he needed and what my family expected.

And they had such beautiful dreams for us. We attended every society function, blazing our trail straight to the peak of Olympus—state senate runs, then the governor’s mansion, maybe even one day the White House itself. Anderson would be the star, and I would be the one who helped him shine.

St. James & Montgomery, the merger of the century.

That was my path…until I stood at my mirror the night before our wedding and took a long hard look at my reflection. I didn’t even recognize the woman looking back at me. Who was Poppy? I didn’t know anymore. I’d spent so much of my life following the rules and living up to other’s expectations. I twisted myself inside out again and again. First for my family, then for him.

Anderson dismissed my dreams and belittled me in front of our friends, so I made my dreams smaller. He was unfaithful, and I looked the other way. He was controlling, and I corrected my behavior to better meet his exacting standards. All the while, our families looked on with pride. A match made in heaven. Mom used to say that about us too. I close my eyes tight, catching my tears before they fall, ashamed I can’t hold them back.

Anderson heaves a tired sigh. “Why do we do this, Pop? Why do we make each other so crazy?”

“Because we’re all wrong for each other, and always have been.” I gaze up at him. “Just…tell me you love her. Tell me you’re different with her. Tell me you’re faithful. Tell me you listen to her. Tell me you care.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Poppy…”

“Please, Anderson.”

His gaze heats as his frustration mounts again. “What the hell do you want me to say here? I mean, come on, Poppy. You know what this is. You know how this game is played. You used to play it better than anyone.”

For the third time today, my heart drops. “You’re just using her. You’re using my little sister?”

He scoffs. “Of course I’m using her. I’m using her like she’s using me—like you used me.”

I shake my head again.

“Oh, don’t act so holier than thou.” He levels a finger in my face. “You used me for my name and my family and everything that came with it. You wanted to be queen of the fucking universe. Admit it.”

“No. I didn’t, Anderson, which is why I gave back the ring and left.”

He sighs, dropping his hand to his side.

I look around at the opulence of this grand hotel lobby, steeped in so much history and significance, and I feel nothing but a deep, aching emptiness. For so long, I chased this. I chased belonging in a place like this, belonging to people like Anderson Montgomery, and for what?

“This life is done for me,” I say. “I’m done, and now I’m leaving.” I turn away, and Anderson grabs my hand.

“What now, Poppy? I marry into your family, and you’ll just be a ghost? For the rest of our shared lives, you’ll just be somebody that I used to know?”

I gently twist myself free of his grasp. “I gave my sister all the warnings I can give. If she’s still willing to choose this life, then she deserves it…and you. Goodbye, Anderson.”

Squaring his shoulders at me, he throws his last sharpened dagger. “If there’s one thing we both know, it’s that family always comes first for you, Poppy. I’ll be seeing you again, most likely at the wedding. I’ll be the one standing at the altar.” He takes a step closer, lowering his face to mine. “And you’ll be standing one step behind your little sister, holding her bouquet, watching as she claims the destiny that was always meant to be yours.”

With a last devastating smirk, he turns on his heel and walks away, back toward the dining room. Back to my waiting family.