Divorcing My Superstar Husband: Watch Me Shine

Hailey POV:

My phone buzzed against the velvet sofa cushion just as the antique grandfather clock struck midnight. I did not reach for it right away. Sitting alone in this massive Manhattan townhouse in the dark was my nightly routine, and late‑night messages never brought good news.

It vibrated again, insistent and cruel. I finally snatched it up and unlocked the screen. A multimedia message from an unknown number. I tapped the image, and the air left my lungs.

The photo showed a dim, neon‑soaked bar. My husband, Beckett Carlisle-the franchise center and captain of New York's NHL team-stood near the counter, head tilted back, laughing.

Even from a side angle I knew the broad cut of his shoulders, the careless way he slouched into a room as if he owned it. In this city, he did.

Before I could lock the screen, a second message popped up. "He's with me.-C."

My fingers went ice‑cold. That single letter belonged to Candice Burnett. I could picture her sweet, innocent smile and the gold B necklace she wore around her collarbone-the one she still used, even after marrying Beckett's teammate, to remind everyone in the hockey circle of their college history.

Two years she had orbited him, and tonight she had finally grown bold enough to send me proof.

My muscles tensed to hurl the phone into the marble fireplace. Instead I sucked in a slow breath and slapped it face‑down on the cushion. Giving Candice a reaction meant letting her win.

Cursing under my breath, I walked into the kitchen and drank a glass of cold water in three fast gulps. It did nothing to cool the burning in my chest. In the dark windowpane above the sink I caught my reflection: pale skin, tight lips, hollow eyes. Being Mrs. Carlisle was the biggest joke in New York.

A low roar echoed from the underground garage. He was back. I hurried to the sofa and fixed my eyes on the flickering television so he would not know I had been waiting up.

The heavy oak door swung open and slammed shut. A tall figure stumbled into the archway.

Beckett's charcoal suit was wrinkled, his tie yanked loose, his dark‑blonde hair in messy spikes, a flush of alcohol coloring his cheekbones.

Even from ten feet away, the stench of aged whiskey rolled across the rug, tangled with a cloying vanilla perfume. Candice's signature scent. My stomach churned.

His gaze landed on me and his lips twisted into a mocking smirk. "Well, look at that. Still awake, my dutiful little wife?"

I said nothing, staring at the television. My silence wiped the smirk off his mouth. He stalked across the rug and blocked the light from the screen.

"I'm talking to you, Hailey." He braced a hand on the back of the sofa and leaned in, hot whiskey breath washing over my cheeks. Up close, his ice‑blue eyes were bloodshot, the jagged scar across his right eyebrow-a souvenir from a skate blade in his rookie season-standing out white against his flushed skin.

"You're drunk, Beckett."

"Drunk?" He scoffed. "I'm wide awake. What I want to know is whether you're having fun playing the devoted housewife in the dark." His hand shot out and gripped my chin, forcing my head up. "Or are you just cooking up some new sob story to run to my grandfather and complain about me?"

Mentioning Theodore Carlisle-the head of the family and the only person under this roof who treated me like a human being-made something snap. I wrenched my head free and glared at him. "Don't touch me."

Beckett froze, his hand hovering. For two years I had swallowed his coldness and kept my head down. My sudden hostility made his mockery harden into dark irritation. He spotted my phone on the cushion and snatched it up.

"Let's see what's giving you so much attitude tonight." He tried to punch in a passcode. The screen flashed red. He tried again, jaw tightening when it stayed locked.

My heart jumped into my throat. If he saw Candice's text, he would know I was stewing over them. I lunged for his wrist. "Give that back!"

He shoved me back with his forearm. I stumbled as he raised the phone higher. His grip faltered-the phone slipped through his fingers and slammed screen‑first onto the pointed corner of the marble coffee table.

Crack. The sharp snap echoed through the room. A web of silver cracks split the glass from edge to edge, the screen completely dead.

Beckett looked down at the ruined device, then at me. Not a trace of apology. He rubbed a hand over his tired eyes with a grunt of annoyance. "What a pain in the ass." He turned and staggered up the grand staircase.

I stood frozen until his boots faded down the second‑floor hallway. Slowly my knees gave out. I crouched beside the table and slid my trembling fingers under the shattered phone, the jagged glass biting into my skin. At one corner the cracked screen still glowed faintly, just enough for me to read the last line before it died.

"He's with me.-C."

I closed my eyes.

Hailey POV:

Clutching the broken phone, I walked out of the living room and climbed the stairs. The lingering smell of whiskey and sweet perfume clung to the air, making my throat tighten.

I pushed open the door to the master suite, intending to grab my nightgown and head to the guest room. My hand stopped on the doorknob. Beckett had not gone to his own suite in the west wing. He lay sprawled across the king‑sized bed, still in his dress shirt and slacks, taking up the entire right side of the mattress.

"Go sleep in the guest room."

His eyes stayed shut. Just when I thought he had passed out, his raspy voice cut through the dim room. "This is my bedroom."

A bitter laugh escaped my throat. "Then the other half of that bed is mine, and you're not welcome here."

His eyes snapped open. Under the amber glow of the wall sconce, his ice‑blue gaze looked completely sober. "Don't push my patience tonight, Hailey."

I pressed my lips into a thin line. If he wanted a war over square footage, fine. I was too exhausted to let him chase me out of my own space. I marched past the foot of the bed, set my broken phone on the nightstand, pulled back the duvet on the left side, and lay down with my back turned to him. "Likewise."

The mattress dipped as he settled onto the pillows. Silence settled over the suite, thick and suffocating, broken only by the uneven rhythm of his breathing a few feet behind me.

Sleep stayed out of reach. Lying this close to him dragged me back two years, right after my college graduation.

A drunken one‑night stand at a charity gala had left me with two pink lines on a pregnancy test. The father was Beckett, the golden boy of the NHL who did not even remember my name the next morning. I had planned to handle it quietly on my own.

Before I could, my grandfather passed away. On his deathbed, his old army buddy-Theodore, who had saved my grandfather's life decades ago-swore he would look after me. When Theodore found out I was carrying his great‑grandchild, he stepped in immediately.

At that exact same time, Beckett's tabloid scandals had pushed the league and his general manager to the edge. Sponsors were threatening to pull millions, and the front office was ready to invoke the Morality Clause and suspend him. Beckett needed a stable, wholesome family‑man image.

So Theodore drew up a two‑year prenuptial PR contract. We got married at City Hall. A month later I lost the baby to a miscarriage, alone in a cold hospital bed while Beckett played an away game in Toronto.

The child was gone, yet the ironclad contract remained, locking us into a fake marriage until his reputation was spotless or the two years ran out.

Back then, I had been naive enough to think sharing a roof might thaw the ice between us. Now I knew better.

The mattress shifted. Before I could tense, a heavy, muscular arm draped over my waist, radiating heat through my thin blouse. My entire body locked up.

"Get your hand off me!"

Instead of pulling back, Beckett hooked his forearm tighter, yanked me backward against his hard chest, and buried his face in the crook of my neck. "Stop moving."

His voice was a low murmur against my pulse point. The scent of vanilla on his collar hit my nose again.

"You smell like another woman, Beckett. It makes me sick to my stomach."

The arm around my waist went rigid. For three seconds, neither of us breathed. Then he violently shoved me away and rolled off the opposite side of the bed. In the dark I heard the wardrobe doors bang open, then the bathroom door slam, the lock click, the shower turn on full blast.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Hot tears finally spilled over my lashes, soaking silently into the pillow. I did not make a sound. Twenty minutes later the water stopped.

I saw Beckett walk out with a towel low around his hips, water glistening on his broad shoulders. He did not come back to the bed. He yanked a spare blanket from the wardrobe, tossed it onto the velvet chaise, and dropped his six‑foot‑three frame onto it, legs hanging awkwardly over the armrest.

I turned to face the window, feeling his stare burn into the back of my skull. Neither of us spoke another word.

Toward dawn, exhaustion dragged me under. My dreams were a tangled mess of spiderwebbed glass and Candice's smiling face.

When the first gray light sliced through the drapes, my eyes fluttered open. The chaise was empty, the spare blanket folded neatly at the end.

On my nightstand, next to the shattered phone, sat a brand‑new, factory‑sealed box for the latest smartphone.

Under it, a white notepad sheet with Beckett's slanted handwriting: "Stop looking at me with those eyes."

A cold laugh bubbled up in my chest. Did he really think a thousand‑dollar piece of electronics could buy my silence after last night? I grabbed the metal trash can and swept the note, the shattered phone, and the unopened box straight into the bin with one swing of my arm.

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.