The Wrong Upgrade

~HADLEY~

The echo of skates hitting the ice faded as I walked away from the main rink. The harsh fluorescent lights of the Westport practice facility buzzed above my head. I marched down the concrete hallway, my grip tightening on the strap of my leather bag.

I found him exactly where I knew he would be.

Garrett leaned against the painted cinderblock wall outside the men's locker room. He had his phone in his hand, his thumb scrolling, flashing that familiar, crooked smile at the glowing screen. It was the exact same smile he used to reserve only for me. The same smile that was now plastered across every sports blog, magazine, and social media feed right next to glossy photos of his new bride.

Hearing my footsteps, he glanced up. Genuine guilt flashed in his dark eyes for a fraction of a second before a defensive mask slammed down into place. He shoved his phone into his pocket.

He pushed off the wall and straightened his broad shoulders, trying to look imposing. "Hadley. I was going to call—"

I swung my arm and slapped him across the cheek with every ounce of strength I possessed.

The sharp crack echoed loudly down the empty corridor, cutting off his pathetic excuse. My palm stung from the impact, but the physical pain grounded me. It kept the tears locked away.

"Do not stand there and lie to me. I saw everything. The whole world saw everything online." I snapped harshly, my voice laced with ice.

Garrett rubbed his reddening jaw, his eyes darting frantically down the hall to check if any equipment staff had witnessed the hit. A couple of trainers lingered near the double doors, casting curious glances our way. He jerked his chin toward an empty meeting room to our left.

"Let us take this inside." He muttered. He pushed the heavy wooden door open and walked in without waiting to see if I followed.

I stepped inside. The door clicked shut behind us, cutting off the ambient noise of the arena and leaving us in a suffocating silence.

"How could you do this to me?" I asked, keeping my voice steady despite the storm raging inside my chest. "Six years, Garrett. Six years of me standing next to you, believing we were building something real. You marry her without even having a conversation with me first? Without a single warning? I had to find out from a headline."

He dropped his hand from his face, shifting his weight uncomfortably. "It happened fast. Whitney and I just made sense."

"Made sense?" I let out a dry, bitter laugh that scraped my throat. "I supported every single one of your dreams. When you were a rookie and could not afford new custom skates, I bought them. When your rent was short because you blew your paycheck on training trips, I covered it. When you needed someone to believe in you before anyone else did, I was there in the stands. The second you became team captain, it was like I suddenly was not good enough anymore."

His expression hardened, his pride flaring up. "That is not fair."

"Is it not?" I took a step closer, invading his space and forcing him to look down at me. "I was good enough when you had nothing to your name. I was good enough when you needed someone to hold your life together. But the moment the spotlight hit you, you decided you needed an upgrade."

Did he truly think she was an upgrade over me?

Garrett exhaled sharply. He looked away at the blank whiteboard for a second before meeting my eyes again. "I needed someone who looked the part, Hadley. Someone who fits the image of a captain. You are just you. You are quiet. You stay in the background. Whitney understands this hockey world. She grew up in it. She knows how to stand next to me at press events and make me look like I belong at the top."

The words landed harder than I expected, sinking like stones in my stomach.

"She told me something else." He continued, his voice dropping into a lower, defensive pitch. "She told me she is the reason I got the captaincy. Her father pushed management for me because of her. I owe her for where I am now."

I stared at him. The irony was so sharp it almost made me dizzy. Whitney Chambers had proudly taken credit for the one major thing she had nothing to do with. The prestigious captaincy he was so damn proud of had come straight from my father. From Davenport Athletics. From me, quietly asking for favors I never wanted him to know about, just so he could achieve his lifelong dream.

And he believed her. He believed a mid-level manager's daughter had secured him the captaincy of a major league team.

A short, disbelieving laugh escaped my lips. "You really do not know what you are losing, do you?"

His brows pulled together in frustration. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Before I could answer, the door handle turned.

Whitney Chambers stepped inside the room like she owned the entire arena. Her blonde hair fell in perfectly straight sheets, and her expression was instantly territorial.

She closed the door behind her and moved directly to Garrett's side, sliding her arm through his with practiced ease. "Oh, look. The unimportant ex. I thought I made it clear this was over. What are you still doing here, bothering my husband?"

"Whitney—" Garrett started, raising a hand.

She ignored him, her eyes raking over my simple jeans and sweater with open disdain. "You always were a little desperate, were you not? Hanging around for years, hoping he would eventually see something special in you. Newsflash, he did not. He settled until something better came along. Now that something better is wearing his ring."

I did not flinch. I had already been humiliated in the most public way possible over the weekend. Her cruel words were just background noise to me now.

"You two deserve each other." I offered a tight, forced smile.

Whitney's smile turned mean, her perfectly painted lips curling into a sneer. "We do. Which is exactly why you need to back off. Garrett does not need his old charity case lingering around, reminding everyone where he came from. Stay in your lane, Hadley. It suits you better."

I held her gaze for a long, heavy moment. Then I looked back at Garrett. He was not defending me. He was not even looking uncomfortable anymore. He just looked like he wanted the conversation to end so he could return to his new life.

That told me everything I needed to know about the man I had loved.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the thick ivory envelope. My hands were steady as I held it out in the space between us.

"I actually came to give you this."

Garrett frowned, taking it automatically. "What is it?"

"An invitation."

He tore the seal open without wasting any time. His dark eyes scanned the heavy cardstock. Then his entire body froze. I watched the exact moment his brain processed the gold-foiled names.

Hadley Davenport

&

Beckett Calloway

His head snapped up, his jaw dropping. "What the hell is this?"

"My wedding invitation." I said calmly, relishing the shock on his face. "I am getting married this weekend. Since you were so rude and chose to get married without inviting me, I wanted to show you how it is really done. The proper way."

The color drained from his face. Then it rushed back in a massive wave of disbelief and anger.

He held the card up like the letters might rearrange themselves if he stared hard enough. "This is a joke. Beckett Calloway? The captain of the Frostpeak Wolves? You are marrying him? Come on, Hadley, you know how unbelievable this looks. You and someone like Beckett? You only got someone as popular as me because I knew you for years. Beckett does not even know you exist."

I tried not to take his brutal assessment too personally.

"It is true." I said softly.

He laughed once, a sharp and humorless sound. "Bullshit. You expect me to believe you are suddenly engaged to my biggest rival? What, is this some kind of revenge stunt? You trying to get a reaction out of me? How much did this fake invitation even cost you? Do you want me to pay for it?"

"It is not a stunt." I kept my voice soft, locking my emotions down behind a wall of ice. "The wedding is real. This weekend. You are invited, though I understand if you and your new wife are too busy celebrating your own marriage to attend."

Whitney snatched the invitation from his hand, reading the elegant script quickly. She tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder, her lip curling in disgust. "This is pathetic. You are so desperate for attention that you are announcing a fake engagement to the one man you know will get under his skin. It is hilarious that you think someone like Beckett will ever marry you. Or to even think that we would believe something that is so obviously fake."

I looked at her arrogant face, then back at Garrett's furious expression.

"Believe whatever you want." I turned on my heel. "I just thought you should hear it from me instead of the press. The same way I had to hear about your wedding."

Garrett's jaw was tight. He kept staring at the invitation in Whitney's hand like it had personally insulted him.

"You are serious." He muttered.

"I am."

Silence stretched between the three of us. The same man who had spent years telling me I was his future was now looking at me like I was a pathological liar. I did not wait for him to find more insults.

I walked out of the room, leaving them standing there with the invitation and whatever twisted version of the truth they wanted to believe.

My hands only started shaking once I reached the empty parking lot.

I leaned against the driver's side door of my car, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. I had done what I came to do. I had looked him in the eye. I had told him the truth about my wedding. And I had walked away before either of them could see how much the betrayal still carved into my chest.

. . . .

~GARRETT~

The invitation sat in my hands like it might burn straight through the heavy paper.

I kept reading the same two names over and over again, certain that if I stared long enough they would rearrange themselves into something that made sense.

Hadley Davenport

&

Beckett Calloway

There was no way in hell.

Whitney leaned over my shoulder, the sharp scent of her floral perfume filling the cramped meeting room. She let out a short, dismissive laugh and plucked the card from my numb fingers, tossing the invitation onto the center of the table like it was a piece of trash. "Oh, please. This is so obvious. Your little ex is trying to get under your skin. She is pissed you moved on, so she cooked up some fake engagement to the one man she knows will bother you. It is desperate. And pathetic. And honestly, even a bit sad."

I wanted to believe her. Everything about the situation felt unreal.

Hadley marrying Beckett Calloway was impossible. Beckett was my biggest rival in the league. He was the guy who had spent years looking at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of his skate. He was untouchable.

I exhaled a tense breath. "You are right. There is no way Calloway would marry someone like her."

Whitney smiled, looking satisfied with herself. "Exactly. Hadley is simple. Quiet. Boring. She never belonged in this world. Beckett Calloway has a childhood sweetheart he has been obsessed with forever. Everyone knows it. They are the golden couple of the Wolves. He would never throw that away for her."

She pulled out her phone, already scrolling through her contacts.

She tapped the screen. "Daphne and I are close. Best friends since we were teenagers. If anyone would know what is going on, it is her. I will call her right now. We will clear this up in two minutes and laugh about how sad your ex has become."

I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest. "Do it."

I needed to know for sure. Hadley just never seemed like someone who would lie about something this big. It was just too crazy for me to believe.

Whitney put the phone on speaker and set it on the table next to the discarded invitation. It barely rang once before a soft voice answered.

"Whitney?"

Whitney let out a bright, bubbly laugh, her tone turning sickeningly sweet. "Daphne, hey. You are not going to believe what I am looking at right now. Garrett's ex just showed up and handed us a wedding invitation. It has her name and Beckett's on it. It says Hadley and Beckett Calloway are getting married this weekend. Can you believe the nerve? Obviously it is fake. I told Garrett there is no way your man would ever marry some nobody like her. He loves you. Everyone knows that."

There was a short, heavy silence on the other end of the line. It made me uneasy. The quiet stretched on, and even Whitney seemed anxious waiting for her friend to confirm it was all a fake stunt.

Then Daphne spoke, her voice broken and raw.

"It is not fake."

Whitney blinked in confusion. "What?"

Daphne let out a choked sob. "It is true. Beckett is marrying her. Hadley Davenport. This weekend."

The room suddenly felt like a massive earthquake was happening. The floor dropped out from beneath my feet.

I stared at the phone like it had just spoken in a foreign language. Whitney's confident, smug expression cracked for the very first time.

Whitney forced a nervous laugh. "Daphne, that does not make sense. You are telling me Beckett is actually marrying Garrett's ex? Some quiet little nobody? Come on. You two are endgame. You have been together forever. That man loves you and worships the ground you walk on. He will never marry someone like her. She is nothing compared to you."

"I know." Daphne's voice wavered slightly, but she did not take the devastating words back. "But it is happening. His father arranged it. He does not have a choice but to marry her. She is Harrison Davenport's daughter. The Davenport Athletics Davenports. Billionaire family. He said he cannot get out of it. She is using her money to get him."

Billionaire's daughter.

The words hit me square in the chest with the force of a speeding puck.

Hadley.

My Hadley?

The girl who used to wear my oversized hoodies and sit in the stands with a cheap thermos of coffee. The girl who never talked about money, never flashed wealth, never acted like she came from anything more than a comfortable middle-class home. The girl who had quietly paid for things when I was short and never once made me feel small about it.

Harrison Davenport's daughter.

That could not be right. She did not have a fancy car. She never wore designer clothes. Everything she owned was cheap.

Whitney recovered first, her voice turning sharp with furious denial. "No. Not a chance. The Hadley we know is not a billionaire's daughter. That is ridiculous. She was always scraping by. She must have just used the fact that she has the same name as Harrison's daughter to make the invitation look real. It is a stunt. A pathetic little stunt."

I forced myself to nod, desperate to agree with her. "Yeah. Has to be. Hadley never once mentioned anything about money like that. She would have told me."

But even as the reassuring words left my mouth, something terrifyingly cold settled in the pit of my stomach.

Because she had always had money when I needed it.

She had always known people.

She had always managed to make my biggest problems disappear without explaining how.

I had never asked questions. I had just selfishly taken what she offered and told myself I would pay her back someday. And the captaincy. Whitney claimed her father pushed for it, but Whitney's father was a nobody compared to the towering empire of Davenport Athletics. If Hadley was a Davenport, it meant she was the one pulling the strings. She was the one who handed me my entire career on a silver platter.

Whitney was still talking to Daphne, pacing the room and trying to poke holes in the story, but I barely heard her.

My eyes kept drifting back to the invitation on the table. The thick paper. The embossed lettering. The names that refused to change no matter how long I stared.

Hadley Davenport.

Beckett Calloway.

Somewhere underneath the profound shock and the anger, a much uglier feeling was starting to crawl up my spine.

If it was true.

If the girl I had just publicly discarded and traded in for a superficial upgrade was actually the daughter of the man who owned one of the most powerful sports companies in the country.

Then I had not just cheated on my girlfriend. I had made a catastrophic enemy I never saw coming.

Whitney ended the call, ending the connection with a sharp tap to the screen. She was still insisting Daphne must be confused or covering for something. She turned to me with a confident little shrug.

"See? Even if Beckett is somehow involved in some weird arrangement, it does not mean it is our Hadley. There is no way. She is not that girl."

"Yeah." I said quietly, my voice hollow. "You are right."

But the bad feeling would not leave.

It sat in my chest like a bruise that kept getting darker, spreading its toxic weight through my veins, and no amount of Whitney's frantic reassurances could make it fade.