She jolted to a stop, concern bringing her eyebrows together as she twisted up her mouth. “What are you talking about?”

He slung the bag over his shoulder and took a long look at the woman he’d fallen for. He really was a class-A fool. She looked exactly the same—like the woman who’d made him think things could be different. But she was the same as everyone. It was all about his connection to David the Great.

“I heard you make the plan with him,” he said, starting toward the door.

She clasped her hands in front of her belly and exhaled a long breath. “I was trying to buy time, to keep him from rushing in here with those two reporters because I knew you wouldn’t want to have to deal with that.”

He stopped walking. Best to get this all out now. He’d spent too much of his life covering for other people’s shit motives.

“Yeah, never mind that a story like this could help you renegotiate your contract with the Ice Knights,” he said, the words coming out raw from that part of him that made him a heart player on the ice. It was the part that hoped, that believed, that burned for more—at least it had been. “Really, getting the three of us together—well, David the Great who never gives interviews for sure—would help solidify your career trajectory and your importance in the Ice Knights media plan.”

It all made perfect sense, but he still didn’t want to believe it. There was no other explanation, though—after all, she’d been the loud mouth who leaked the story about his parentage in the first place.

“That is so much bullshit,” Shelby said, her voice shaking with anger.

All of that show was probably a mix of guilt and shame at getting caught. He had no time for it.

“You’d have the one story no one else could get and all you had to do to get it was worm your way into my life.” He white-knuckled his grip on his bag at the realization that hit. “Tell me, the cabin. Was it really an accident? Did you give the house marker a little extra kick to have it read six instead of nine? You were there before me. You easily could have done it for the hockey story of the year.”

She jerked back as if he’d slapped her. Then she straightened, her chin lifting as she looked at him as if he was the one who’d betrayed her.

“Are you ever not the victim in a situation?”

That was fucking laughable. As if he was just feeling sorry for himself. “Excuse me?”