Married To The Hockey Devil

A Proposal worth millions

Chapter 2

A Proposal Worth Millions

Emma's POV

I sat in the plastic chair outside Dr. Patel's office, my hands folded so tight in my lap that my knuckles hurt.

I had come straight from my morning shift, still smelling like burnt toast and coffee grounds, because there was no version of this appointment I could afford to skip.

"Ms. Collins." Dr. Patel opened the door and gestured me in without his usual smile. That alone told me everything before he said a word.

"How is he?"

"His heart function has dropped again since last week." He said it plainly, the way you say things you have had to say a hundred times before, but I could see it still cost him something.

"I need to be honest with you this isn't a situation where we can keep waiting for the right moment. Without surgery soon, his heart could fail I wish I had better news."

"How soon is soon?"

"Days not weeks anymore."

I nodded like the words made sense, like my whole body wasn't screaming underneath the calm face I had learned to wear for exactly these kinds of rooms. "And the amount hasn't changed."

"No."

"Okay." My voice came out steadier than I felt.

"Okay thank you, Doctor."

I didn't cry in his office I saved that for the elevator, where nobody could see me, and only for the length of the ride down.

The rest of the day disappeared into a blur of no's.

The bank teller slid my application back across the counter with an apologetic smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I'm sorry, Ms. Collins. Without collateral or a co-signer, we can't approve this."

The children's charity office told me their funds were already allocated for the quarter. "Try again next cycle," the woman said, like Noah's heart operated on a schedule that matched theirs.

I called Priya, my old roommate from before I dropped out, hoping maybe her family could lend something, anything. "I wish I could, Em. I really do things are tight for us too right now."

Everyone was sorry, sorry didn't pay for open-heart surgery.

By the afternoon I had run out of people to ask, so I did the one thing I swore I'd never do. I went home, opened the small wooden box on my dresser, and took out my father's watch. It was scratched and old, the leather band cracked from age, but it still ticked.

He used to let me wear it when I was little and pretend I was grown up. It was the only thing of his I had left.

The pawn shop owner barely looked at it before naming a number that made my chest hurt.

"That is all it's worth?"

"Sorry, sweetheart it is old."

I took the cash anyway and didn't look back as I walked out, because if I looked back I wasn't sure I would be able to leave it there.

Even with the watch money added to everything else I had scraped together, I was still nowhere close.

That evening, I dragged myself into my shift at the diner feeling emptier than I had in months. I was wiping down table nine when the bell above the door rang and two people walked in who clearly didn't belong.

A woman in a sharp gray suit and a man carrying a leather folder, both of them scanning the diner like they were looking for something specific.

"Emma Collins?" The woman asked.

"Who is asking?"

"My name is Diane Whitfield. I'm Mason Brooks' publicist. This is Robert Klein, his attorney. We were hoping we could have a few minutes of your time."

I almost laughed. "I don't have anything to say to Mason Brooks or anyone who works for him."

"Please," Robert said, holding up a hand.

"Just five minutes we have a business proposal that could genuinely help you."

I should have walked away right then. But something in the way he said "help you" made my feet stay planted.

"Five minutes," I said. "Not one more."

They slid into the booth across from me and Diane got straight to it. "Mr. Brooks is in need of a wife temporarily just until the end of the current hockey season."

I blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

"A marriage of convenience," Robert clarified.

"Public appearances together, living arrangement, presenting as a happily married couple to the press.”

“Nothing more than that no romantic expectations no emotional obligations of any kind."

"And in exchange," Diane added, sliding a folder across the table, "Five million dollars upon completion of the contract."

I stared at the number printed on the page like it might rearrange itself into something that made sense.

"You want to pay me five million dollars to pretend to be married to a man I met for two minutes over a cup of coffee."

"Essentially, yes."

I pushed the folder back toward them and stood up. "Marriage isn't something people rent out. I don't care how much money you are offering the answer is no."

Robert nodded slowly, unbothered, and reached into his jacket for a card instead. He set it gently on the table. "If circumstances change, call us."

I didn't touch it I walked away, and later, when I was closing out my section, I swept it straight into the trash bin along with the crumpled napkins and used receipts.

My phone rang forty minutes after I got home it was the hospital.

"Ms. Collins, you need to come in right away. Your brother collapsed."

I don't remember the drive there. I don't remember running through the doors or the nurse guiding me to where Noah lay motionless on a gurney, machines beeping around him, his face too pale under the fluorescent lights.

I stood there frozen, watching his chest rise and fall in shallow, uneven breaths, and I felt something inside me break open completely.

My hand went into my coat pocket without me even deciding to move it, closing around the card I'd fished back out of the trash before I left the diner.