‘Thanks and it’s lovely to meet you too …’ she beamed at Shelley, then made a show of checking her watch. ‘But I’d better rush, I have an appointment with a client,’ she added. Hannah had nowhere to be at that particular moment, but she needed to remove herself from the café and away from Ward and his stunning companion. Then she turned to him but didn’t make eye contact. ‘Like I said, we need to touch base about preparations for the NHL ceremony. Wardrobe and all that. Big red carpet affair for sure. Huge. I know it’s not your thing but …’

Shelley punched his arm playfully. ‘Don’t make Hannah’s job harder than it has to be. He told me about the experience you all had at Armani. For the record, he enjoyed it, even though of course he’d never admit it.’ She rolled her eyes conspiratorially, evidently all too aware of Ward’s contrary reluctance.

‘Well, even better that we ran into each other today then too,’ Hannah chirped, the thought occurring to her. ‘Assuming you’ll be his plus one for the night, Panthers’ management would be more than happy to pick up the tab for your outfit too.’ She winked. ‘They have a Bergdorf account so I could meet you guys there sometime this week and go through some options?’

Shelley’s eyes widened with delight and Hannah congratulated herself on that little brainwave. What girl wouldn’t want someone else to fit the bill for something fabulous to wear at a glitzy red carpet-ceremony?

She wondered why Ward hadn’t taken Shelley as his plus one to the Plaza that time, then figured that maybe she was camera shy or that he didn’t want the press ‘up in his business’, to use his words. And also couldn’t help but wonder what she had made of that gossip paparazzi photo of him with his ‘mystery lady friend’ in the park. Maybe Shelley didn’t care a whit either way, and stuff like that was par for the course and simply the price you paid for being with a pro athlete.

Something Hannah had come to realize far too late.

Bidding the couple goodbye, she reminded Ward once again to call her to go through arrangements for the event, and then headed back out onto the street, happy to put some distance between her thoughts and the encounter.

But still curious about Shelley, she took out her phone and brought up Ward’s socials, scrolling to his follow list, which despite her continued encouragement remained in the double digits, even though he now had hundreds of thousands of followers.

The people he had deigned to follow were mostly teammates, sports sites, ESPN etc and then she saw it.