Flash Marriage To The Hockey Tycoon

AVERY POV:

"ICE PRINCE FULLER BOND FINDS HIS NEW QUEEN,ENGAGEMENT IS IMMINENT!"

My screen glowed with the homepage of BriarWhispers, our university's toxic gossip hub. The headline screamed in a bold, garish font.

Beneath the headline was a high-resolution photo. The background was The Daily Grind, the most popular coffee shop on campus.

In the photo, my secret boyfriend of three years, Fuller Bond, the star forward for the Briar University ice hockey team, was kissing a girl.

He was bent over her, his expression tender.

The girl, smiling up at him with pure adoration, was nestled in his arms. Her light blonde hair fell in perfect waves around her shoulders.

She was my stepfather's daughter.

My stepsister. Haleigh Gibbs.

My mind went completely blank, filled only with a high-pitched ringing.

My friend Kloe snatched the phone back, her thumb swiping angrily down to the comments. And read it to me.

"'Oh my god! They're perfect together!'"

"'Haleigh finally got him, I knew it!'"

"'Who's Avery Velasquez? Never heard of her.'"

Her voice cracked on my name. "Do you see this, Avery? That bastard! And that two-faced bitch Haleigh! You stayed in the shadows for him for three years, like some dirty little secret, and for what?"

A memory fragment surfaced.

Last week. Fuller, pinning me against a locker in the rink's back hallway. His lips at my ear, his voice a low promise. "Babe, just a little longer. After this season, I'll tell everyone you're my girl."

The sweet lie and the cold, hard picture on the screen collided. It wasn't a knife in my heart. It was just a dull, spreading numbness.

My own phone buzzed violently on the bedside table. The screen lit up with one word: Mom.

I answered it, my movements robotic.

My mother Elvina Romero's voice was impatient and cold as ever, with no hint of warmth. "Avery, where have you been? Why aren't you answering your phone?"

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

I looked down and my eyes rested on the thin needle on the back of my hand. Ear is the regular drip sound of the monitor in the ear. Shortly after my appendectomy, the wound in my abdomen was pressed by layers of gauze, so I didn't even dare to breathe too hard.

However, at the moment, only my best friend Kloe Copeland is with me.

Her blonde ponytail was coming undone, stray hairs framing a face tight with a fury .

My mother didn't notice. She never did. "I don't care what you're doing, you must be at the dinner tonight. I've arranged for you to meet a very promising young man. You need to pull yourself together."

Another one of her "promising young men." Another pawn in her game to curry favor with her new husband and solidify her social standing.

Then, she added a final, careless twist of the knife. "And stop thinking about Fuller. He and Haleigh are a perfect match. Don't go and embarrass yourself."

Everyone knew.

I was the only fool in the entire university.

A metallic taste filled my throat. The room started to tilt again.

Kloe ripped the phone from my hand. "Mrs. Romero, Avery is in the hospital!" she yelled into the receiver., her voice trembling with suppressed rage."She needs rest, not to be used as your social climbing tool!"

She hung up, her chest heaving.

I leaned against her shoulder, the first tear finally tracing a silent path down my cheek. Then another. I made no sound.

Kloe just held me, whispering curses against Fuller and Haleigh and the whole world.

After a long moment, I pulled away. I wiped my face, my hand surprisingly steady. I looked out the window at the bleak, gray sky.

I need a husband. Someone who can help me change my life. Someone who doesn't actually want a traditional marriage.

I picked up my phone. I dialed my mother's number.

Before she could start yelling, I spoke, my voice a calm I didn't recognize as my own.

"I'll go."

Silence on the other end.

"But," I continued, the words tasting like power on my tongue, "in exchange, the shares of the Velasquez hotel my father left me. They are to be transferred into my name. Immediately."

The silence stretched, thick with her shock.

Finally, her cold voice came back, clipped and furious.

"Fine."

AVERY POV:

I sat at a window table at Top of the Hub, overlooking the glittering expanse of Boston. The waiter had replaced my lemon water for the third time.

My mother's "promising young man" was an hour late.

The champagne-colored dress I wore felt like a costume. It was something Elvina had sent over, with a note that said, "Look like a debutante." It was too tight in the chest and smelled faintly of her cloying perfume.

I swirled the ice in my glass, my mind not on the man who was supposed to be here, but on the 15% stake in my father's hotel. On how to make Fuller and Haleigh pay.

After about an hour, the man still hadn't shown up, and at that moment, I realized I'd been tricked.

Just as I was about to signal for the check and leave, a tall figure slid into the chair opposite me.

He was silhouetted against the city lights, a broad-shouldered shape in a perfectly tailored black suit.

"Sorry," he said, his voice a low, magnetic drawl laced with a careless apology. "Traffic was a bitch."

I looked up, and my breath caught.

The man was sculpted from arrogance and golden light. Sharp, defined jawline. A mess of blond hair that looked effortlessly perfect. And his eyes-a startling, deep blue that seemed to drink in the restaurant's shimmering lights.

I knew him.

Collier Rivers.

The legendary captain of the Briar University ice hockey team. A name that was a permanent fixture in campus sports headlines. The heir to what was rumored to be one of Boston's most powerful sports dynasties.

What was he doing here? How had Elvina managed to hook someone from the Rivers family? Then again, I should never underestimate my mother's ambition.

He studied me, a slow, appreciative glide of his blue eyes. A playful smirk touched the corner of his mouth. "Miss Emily? More interesting than the photo."

Emily?

Well, it seems that he chose the wrong seat and the wrong blind date.

This discovery is like a pot of cold water poured on me.

I opened my mouth to correct him, but a crazy and reckless idea flooded into my mind.

His gaze was unsettling, but I forced myself to meet it. I wasn't here for flirtation. I was here for a transaction.

I took a deep breath, abandoning all pretense of social grace. "Mr. Rivers," I said, my voice flat. "I need a husband."

One of his blond eyebrows shot up.He probably didn't expect me to be so direct. Then the smirk widened into a look of genuine interest. He leaned forward slightly, propping his chin on his hand. "Go on."

I held his gaze, my words precise and cold. "A contract husband. For one year. At the end of the year, we part ways, no strings attached. In return, I can..."

He cut me off before I could even figure out what I could possibly offer a man like him. He leaned back, his fingers drumming a soft, rhythmic beat on the polished table.

He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound. "You can what? Help me deal with my match-making grandfather? Or fend off the endless parade of Puck Bunnies?"

His directness stunned me. He was clearly familiar with this kind of proposition.

I bit my lower lip, deciding to gamble everything on the one thing I had left: the raw, ugly truth. "I can't give you anything, Mr. Rivers. I have nothing. I was just publicly dumped by my boyfriend. I just need a new identity to escape my current situation."

I expected him to laugh, to call me crazy, to get up and walk away.

Instead, the smirk vanished from his face. He looked at me, really looked at me, and his eyes held a strange, unreadable depth.

The silence stretched on, thick and heavy.

Then he spoke, his voice even and absolute. "Okay."

I blinked. I must have heard him wrong. "What?"

"I said, okay," he repeated, then picked up his napkin and dabbed at the corner of his mouth. "I have one condition, though."

My heart hammered against my ribs.

"I don't like to wait." He stood up, the motion fluid and commanding. He extended his hand to me. "City Hall is still open."

My brain short-circuited. He meant now. Right now.

I stared at his outstretched hand. The knuckles were strong, the palm broad. This was insane. This was the most reckless decision of my life.

But I had no other choice.

I placed my hand in his. His skin was warm, his palm calloused. Not the hand of a pampered rich boy, but of an athlete who spent his life gripping a hockey stick.

We walked out of the restaurant, leaving my untouched dinner and his untouched drink behind. He led me to a sleek, black Aston Martin parked at the curb.

Thirty minutes later, I was standing under the fluorescent lights of Boston City Hall, signing my name on a legal document: Avery Velasquez.

As I pushed the form across the counter, Collier reached over and picked it up. His blue eyes scanned the name I had just written, "Avery Velasquez."

I wasn't trying to hide anything,I knew he would eventually find out. If he disagrees now, he can formally reject it at this point.

Silence stretched between us. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. I could feel the clerk's curious gaze on us.

Then Collier laughed-a low, genuine chuckle that echoed off the marble walls. He picked up the pen and signed his name without another word.

When he finished, he slid the form back to the clerk and turned to me, his smirk back in full force. "You're a terrible liar, Mrs. Velasquez. But you've got guts. I like that."

Then I watched as the man beside me signed his name-Collier Rivers-and the clerk stamped the documents.

When the clerk handed us the two new marriage certificates, the world felt tilted and unreal.

I, Avery Velasquez, within twenty-four hours of being betrayed, had just become Collier Rivers's legal wife.

Walking out into the cool night air, a shiver ran through me. Collier shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders.

It was heavy and warm, carrying the faint, clean scent of expensive cologne and something else-something uniquely him, like cold air and woodsmoke.

He looked down at me, his blue eyes impossibly bright in the dark.

"Where to next, Mrs. Rivers?"

AVERY POV:

The next morning, Collier drove me to my stepfather's house in Chestnut Hill. I never called it home. It was a gilded cage.

He didn't ask any questions. Before I got out of the car, he simply handed me a black, heavy-stock business card. It had a name and a phone number on it. Nothing else.

"Any trouble, you call me," Collier said, "I'll be waiting for you outside. "

I took the card, murmured a "thank you," and walked toward the oppressive stone facade without looking back.

Maria, the housekeeper, opened the door. Her eyes widened with a mixture of surprise and pity when she saw me.

I walked straight into the living room. My mother, Elvina, and my stepsister, Haleigh, were sitting on a plush white sofa, sipping tea. The scene was so domestically blissful it felt like a slap in the face.

Elvina's perfectly sculpted eyebrows drew together in a frown. "You're back," she said, her voice dripping with disdain. "How was the dinner? Did you meet Mr. Preston Sterling?"

Haleigh set her teacup down, her face a mask of innocent concern. "Avery, you look terrible. The days you disappeared,Fuller was so worried about you ."

The hypocrisy made me want to gag.

I ignored Haleigh. I placed my handbag on the glass coffee table with a deliberate thud, loud enough to shatter their little performance.

I looked directly at my mother. "I'm here for what's mine. The documents for the 15% share in the Velasquez hotel, and the keys to my father's house."

Elvina's face tightened. She hadn't expected this directness. "Avery," she said, adopting her haughty, society-matron tone, "we had an agreement. You were supposed to complete your 'task' first."

I let out a short, humorless laugh. "Oh, I completed it. Just not with the person you arranged."

I reached into my bag, pulled out the marriage certificate, and slapped it down on the table between them. "I'm married."

The air froze. Elvina and Haleigh stared at the document as if it were a venomous snake.

Haleigh was the first to break, her voice a shrill shriek. "Impossible! Who did you marry?"

As she was about to grab it, I quickly snatched it back. All they needed to know was that I was already married; the details of who I was married to were irrelevant.

Elvina was shaking with fury, her manicured finger pointing at me. "You're insane, Avery! Do you know that Mr. Preston Sterling has agreed to invest in our company, provided you marry him? You've ruined everything! All our plans!"

Their reaction was much more severe than I anticipated. It seems the disastrous union, caused by my last-minute change of mind, has had serious consequences. But, frankly, it doesn't concern me.

I watched their meltdown with a cold, detached calm. "That was just your plan, not mine.Now, can I have my things?"

This is not a question, but an established fact. My father made a will before he died. After I get married, I will have the right to inherit 15% of the shares of Velasquez Hotel and my father's villa.

I've been waiting for Fuller to marry me before I get these back. But it's not needed now.

Elvina looked like she wanted to tear me apart, but my unwavering gaze held her back. She couldn't afford a scene in the Gibbs household. Her precarious position here was her weakness.

With a hiss of fury, she went to the safe, retrieved a folder and a set of keys, and threw them on the table in front of me.

I picked them up. I turned to leave.

COLLIER POV:

I hadn't driven far. I was parked at a street corner with a clear view of the Gibbs mansion's front gate.

I lit a cigarette but didn't smoke it, just watched the smoke curl from my fingertips. I kept seeing her eyes from last night. The way she'd looked when she said, "I need a husband." Brittle and broken, but with a core of steel underneath.

My phone rang. My grandfather, Arthur Rivers IV.

I answered. His booming voice filled the car. "Kid, I heard you took a girl to Top of the Hub just now."

I let out a low chuckle. "Your intel is as good as ever, Grandpa."

I didn't bother denying it. "And I married her."

The line went silent for a full ten seconds. Then, a roar of laughter erupted, so loud I had to pull the phone from my ear. "That's my boy! Finally did something useful! Who's the girl? When do I get to meet her?"

I glanced at the mansion's gate. "Her name is Velasquez," I said softly. "Avery Velasquez."

My grandfather's laughter paused. His tone became thoughtful, intrigued. "Velasquez? The boutique hotel family? Interesting. Her father was a talented man."

I flicked the ash from my cigarette. "She's a wonderful girl, Grandpa."

He grunted in satisfaction. "Good. Bring her to see me soon. And make sure she's not getting pushed around. No one messes with a Rivers."

I hung up,I took out the marriage certificate, running my fingers over the cover, and scanning the names and dates with my eyes, almost as if I were trying to memorize it.

After all, I had been waiting for this moment for far too long.

Just at that moment, Avery walked out of the gate. Her back was ramrod straight, like a small soldier returning from a victorious battle.

I crushed the cigarette out and started the engine.

I pulled the car up smoothly beside her, lowering the passenger window. I raised an eyebrow. "Did we win the battle? Mrs. Rivers?"

A small, tired smile touched her lips. She opened the door, slid in, and tossed the folder and keys onto the dashboard. She let out a long, deep breath, as if she'd been holding it for years.