“Yes,” he announces as immediate cheers and claps go through the crowd gathered around us. I notice a few regular people with their phones out taking videos. Excitement etches their features. This is their hero, the man who won the Super Bowl, died, and came back.
Her gaze flits over me as she smiles. “We all saw your engagement post, and I see you’re holding a bouquet. Does this mean you’re married?” She directs the question to me, and I gaze adoringly up at Graham and bat my lashes.
“Yes, to a most amazing man.”
His smile lights up, and part of me realizes that I mean those words, I do, while the other side of me is whispering in my ear to put more armor around my heart.
“Training camp is about to start. Is there a honeymoon planned around all that work?” she asks.
Graham and I have already discussed how to address this if it comes up, mostly in front of his family. He smiles at Shelley. “We’re waiting until the season is over so we can spend some quality time together. Obviously we can’t tell you where we’ll honeymoon this weekend, because we’d like for it to be a private affair.”
She nods. “Tell us—any qualms about taking the field again after what happened?”
Graham squeezes my hand harder as if he needs support, so I lean my head on his shoulder, trying to offer comfort.
“I trust the game. What happened to me was unique and won’t happen again.”
“What does Kian Adams have to say about your marriage to Graham?” a man calls out, jutting his way forward. I frown, recognizing him as the middle-aged man who hung around my apartment for days.
I keep my face blank while Graham visibly tenses, his eyes turning into slits. “You’d have to ask him,” he growls, then whisks me down the steps and away from the man.
The man follows us, along with the crowd of people. “Is it true that you spoke with Kian today?”
Graham whips his head around. “No.”
“I was talking to your wife,” he replies snidely. “There are photos online of Mrs. Harlan outside a bookstore with Kian, right before the wedding. It’s no secret they were a couple before she met you.”
Graham stiffens and with great effort turns to me and pushes up a smile, but I see the fury in his eyes. “Brody’s here. Let’s go, darling.”
Leaving the man and the crowd behind, he ushers me down the steps and opens the door to the back seat of a black Mercedes.
“Congratulations, newlyweds!” Brody calls from the driver’s seat as Graham gets in on the other side of me in the back. Cas waves and smiles from the front next to Brody.
I say nothing. Neither does Graham.
Brody squints at me, then Graham. “Too soon, my turtledoves?”
“Just drive,” Graham mutters as he stares out the window, decidedly not looking at me.
“All righty then,” Brody murmurs as he pulls out into the traffic. We get three blocks before I finally break the silence.
“I was going to tell you about Kian, but there wasn’t time.” Not exactly true. I could have sent a text, but I just wanted the wedding to be over with, and then I would have told him. I didn’t expect the PI to be on the steps of the courthouse. “You’re angry,” I say.
“Yes,” he says as he whips out his phone, taps it, then shows me the photos on a website.
I exhale. The PI captured us just as Kian took my hand. Kian’s face is earnest, yearning evident, while mine is slightly obscured.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I say softly.
Brody glances back at me at a red light. “What’s going on?”
“Kian came to see me at the store. He wanted to tell me that a man had been asking questions.” I pause, searching Graham’s granite profile. “If I’d know someone was taking photos, I wouldn’t have gone outside, but it seemed the better option than talking inside the store and making a scene.”
Graham pinches the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe you talked to him. You should have sent him away.”
“If this is about the NDA, I’d never tell him. I only talked to him to protect you.”
Mercurial gray eyes pin me. “This isn’t about the NDA. I don’t want him near you, Emmy. You’re my wife, and it worries me that he might hurt you. Don’t you understand?” His gaze searches my face. Endlessly. He continues to trace my features before landing on my lips. His nose flares.
Tension sparks the air, making it potent.
I drop his eyes. “Jane had an axe. I felt perfectly safe,” I murmur as Brody parks on the street in front of a brownstone.