Someone Else's Forever

~HADLEY~

The bright glare of the phone screen illuminated the dark corners of my bedroom, but it was the headline that made the blood freeze in my veins.

*Westport Vipers Captain Garrett Lockwood marries Whitney Chambers in private ceremony.*

Cassidy stood frozen in the center of the room. Her knuckles were stark white around the edges of the device. She had burst through my door seconds ago, but time stopped the moment my eyes locked onto the image beneath the bold text.

There he was. Garrett. My boyfriend of six years.

He stood at a grand altar draped in white roses, wearing a crisp black tuxedo that framed his broad shoulders. His large hand rested on the waist of a woman in a sweeping white wedding dress. His other hand was in the middle of sliding a diamond ring onto her finger. The worst part was his face. He was smiling. It was the wide, boyish, eye-crinkling smile I had spent my adolescence believing belonged solely to me.

He was giving it to Whitney Chambers.

The coach’s daughter.

My chest tightened until my lungs refused to expand. The air in my bedroom grew heavy, pressing down on my throat like a physical weight.

Cassidy broke the suffocating silence. "That bastard. How could he do this to you? After everything?"

I could not form a single syllable in response. My brain was trapped in a loop, trying to reconcile the image of Garrett kissing another woman at an altar with the man who had kissed my forehead just three days ago.

I had known him for nine years. I was thirteen when we met, and he was fifteen—a messy-haired kid with battered skates, massive hockey dreams, and empty pockets. I was the quiet, invisible girl who had become his anchor. When he turned eighteen, we made it official. I was sixteen, young and naive enough to believe we were building a foundation that would last a lifetime.

I poured every ounce of myself into him. I paid his rent when he missed shifts at his part-time job. I bought his custom skates and replaced his broken sticks. I covered the grocery bills, the phone bills, and the endless travel expenses. I handled all the tedious details of his life so he could focus on the ice.

And when raw talent was not enough to get him noticed by the major leagues, I did the one thing I promised myself I would never do. I weaponized my last name.

Davenport Athletics held unmatched influence in the sports world. My father, billionaire Harrison Davenport, owned the boardrooms that controlled the arenas. I had gone to my father, swallowed my pride, and begged him to open a door for Garrett. That quiet, untouchable influence was the exact reason Garrett was drafted to the Westport Vipers. It was the exact reason he had been handed the captaincy this season.

Garrett never knew any of it.

He thought I was just Hadley. He believed I came from an upper-middle-class family that had enough spare cash to support a struggling athlete. He never knew I was Harrison Davenport’s daughter. I let him believe the lie because I craved a version of my life that existed outside the shadow of my father’s corporate empire. I wanted a love that was earned, not bought.

I had spent an hour in front of my bathroom mirror this very morning. I had practiced my speech until my voice went hoarse. I was going to sit him down on my couch tonight, take his calloused hands in mine, and confess the truth. I was ready to stop lying by omission. I wanted to step into our future with zero secrets between us.

Instead, I was staring at a digital photograph of him promising his future to someone else.

Whitney Chambers had always hovered on the edges of our lives. She was the spoiled, entitled daughter of the Vipers’ head coach. She treated the team locker room like a VIP lounge and paraded around the players as if she owned them. I had noticed the lingering glances. I had seen the easy, flirtatious smiles Garrett threw her way when he thought my attention was elsewhere. I had heard him laugh a little too loudly at her mediocre jokes.

Every single time I brought up my discomfort, he would pull me into his chest and kiss the top of my head.

"She’s just the coach’s daughter, babe. You’re being paranoid."

I heard his deep voice echoing in my memory, twisting the knife deeper into my ribs. I had not been paranoid. I had been foolish, trusting, and blind.

Cassidy paced the length of my rug. "I am going to destroy his car. I am going to call every tabloid and tell them exactly who bought those custom skates he wears. He is dead to me, Hadley. Dead."

Her words sounded muffled, as if I were listening to her from underwater.

My knees gave out. I sank onto the edge of my mattress. The screen of Cassidy’s phone lit up again and again. Notifications poured in. Sports blogs, gossip columns, and fan pages were all picking up the story. There were more photos. Garrett pressing a kiss to Whitney’s cheek. Garrett holding a champagne flute. Garrett looking happier than he ever had with me.

Before I could even blink the burning tears from my eyes, the heavy oak door of my bedroom slammed open.

The wood cracked against the wall like a gunshot.

My father stood in the doorway.

Harrison Davenport was a man who commanded empires without raising his voice. He wore a bespoke charcoal suit, his silver hair styled with precision, but his eyes were chips of ice. He radiated a dangerous, calculated fury that instantly sucked the remaining oxygen out of the room. He never yelled unless a situation was beyond salvaging. The dead, cold stare he fixed on me meant an ending had already been written.

My father gripped his own phone in his hand, his knuckles white. "I just saw the articles. Every single one of them."

Cassidy snapped her mouth shut and took a massive step backward. Even she knew better than to test Harrison Davenport when he was in this state.

My voice was a dry rasp. "Dad..."

He stepped into my sanctuary, his dress shoes clicking sharply against the hardwood floor. "Do you have any earthly idea what this looks like? The media is having a field day. If word gets out that you were his devoted girlfriend while he married his coach’s daughter, it will drag your name through the dirt. It will drag Davenport Athletics through the dirt."

He stopped at the foot of my bed, looming over me like a judge about to deliver a sentence.

"This family does not tolerate public embarrassment. Everything I have built for you, every connection, every ounce of prestige—this boy’s pathetic stunt threatens to humiliate all of it."

I wrapped my arms around my stomach. "I didn't know. I swear I didn't know he was doing this."

My father cut through my defense with a voice sharper than a scalpel. "I listened to you. I gave you the freedom to date a boy I knew was unworthy of our bloodline. I used my corporate connections. I opened doors that were sealed shut. I funded his rise to the captaincy because you sat in my office with tears in your eyes and begged me to give him a chance. And this is the gratitude he shows us?"

A tear slipped down my cheek, hot and humiliating. "I thought he loved me."

The words sounded small, weak, and pathetic. I hated myself for speaking them aloud.

My father’s rigid posture did not soften a fraction. "Love is a luxury my children can survive without. I allowed you that luxury once, against my better judgment. Look exactly where it got you."

He closed the distance between us, standing directly in front of my seated form. I was forced to tilt my head back to look at his imposing figure.

"It is time you listen to me now."

The quiet authority in his tone made my stomach drop into a bottomless pit.

"You will marry Beckett Calloway."

The name hit me like a physical blow to the head. I stopped breathing. The room spun out of focus.

Beckett Calloway.

My voice was a hollow whisper. "What did you just say?"

"He is the captain of the Frostpeak Wolves. He is Garrett’s biggest rival on the ice. His family owes the Davenport empire a massive debt that has gone unpaid for far too long. This marriage will settle their accounts. More importantly, it will protect your image. The press will not see a jilted, heartbroken girl. They will see a strategic, powerful alliance between two hockey dynasties. It kills the scandal before it breathes."

I stared up at my father, waiting for the punchline. Waiting for his stern face to crack into a rare smile. It never did.

I pushed myself off the mattress, my legs shaking under my weight. "You cannot be serious."

"I am dead serious. The wedding will take place this coming weekend."

This weekend. Four days from now.

A harsh, disbelieving laugh tore out of my throat. The sound was wild and unfamiliar to my own ears. "You want me to marry Beckett Calloway? The same Beckett Calloway who looks at anyone wearing a Westport Vipers jersey like they are dirt beneath his boots? The man who has been in love with the same girl since he was a teenager?"

My father brushed the objection aside with a flick of his wrist. "Daphne Winslow is no longer relevant. Beckett understands the heavy debt his family carries. His father and I had a conversation twenty minutes ago. Lawrence Calloway has already agreed to the terms."

Of course he had. Billionaires did not care about broken hearts when balance sheets were on the line.

Cassidy stepped forward, her protective instincts overriding her fear of my father. "Mr. Davenport, you cannot force her into this. She is grieving."

My father did not even spare Cassidy a glance. He kept his piercing gaze locked on me. "I can, and I will. This is not a discussion, Hadley. Prepare yourself."

He turned on his heel and strode out of the bedroom, leaving the door wide open behind him. His footsteps faded down the grand hallway, echoing like the ticking of a countdown clock.

I looked down at my trembling hands.

On Cassidy’s phone, which now lay discarded on my duvet, the screen glowed one last time. Garrett’s smiling face mocked me from the digital display. He looked at his new bride like he had not just taken six years of my unyielding devotion and set it on fire.

I had given that boy my youth. I had handed him the career he was currently celebrating on national television. I had hidden my true self just to make him feel tall.

His repayment was a humiliation so profound it ached.

And now, my father was offering me a different kind of execution. A cage built of corporate duty, ancient family debts, and a man who would despise the very sight of me.

Beckett Calloway.

The ruthless captain of the Frostpeak Wolves. Garrett’s fiercest enemy on the ice. A man whose heart belonged to someone else.

And by this weekend, he would be my husband.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the reality of my new existence settled over my shoulders like freezing water. There were no negotiations. There were no escape routes.

There was no way out.