PROLOGUE
Before Everything Changed
Five years ago, Stella Hart believed she knew what love looked like.
It looked like Jesse waiting for her outside the arena after a late game, his hair still damp from the shower and his jacket pulled tight against the cold.
It looked like coffee at midnight because neither of them was ready to say goodnight.
It looked like his hand finding hers beneath a restaurant table whenever someone walked too close to their booth.
Most of all, it looked like trust.
Stella was twenty-four and still trying to establish herself as a sports journalist. She carried a notebook everywhere and treated every assignment as if it might be the one that changed her career. Ice Hockey had become her favorite beat almost by accident. She loved the speed of the game, the sharp sound of skates cutting across the ice, and the sudden silence that fell over an arena when everyone waited for a shot.
Jesse was one of the players she had been assigned to cover.
He was already becoming a star.
At twenty-six, he had the talent, discipline, and confidence that made people believe he would eventually become one of the league’s biggest names. He was also surprisingly private. Reporters knew his statistics, his playing style, and his reputation on the ice, but very few knew the man behind them.
Stella did.
At first, she had only wanted an interview.
Then she discovered that Jesse was easier to talk to when there was no recorder between them.
Their conversations began after games. A coffee became dinner. Dinner became a walk through the city. Soon, she found herself looking forward to his messages more than she cared to admit.
He remembered small things about her.
She took her coffee without sugar.
She hated crowded restaurants.
She worked better when she could hear music in the background.
Jesse noticed all of it.
In return, Stella learned things about him that never appeared in interviews.
He hated being praised after a bad game.
He called his mother after every important match.
He kept an old photograph inside his wallet.
And when he was worried, he became quiet.
Their relationship grew without either of them deciding when it had begun.
There was no single moment when friendship became love.
It happened slowly, in ordinary places, through conversations that lasted longer than they intended and touches that began to mean more than either of them expected.
Stella fell in love with him.
Jesse fell in love with her.
For a while, nothing else seemed important.
Until the night it did.
They had just left the arena after one of Jesse’s best games of the season. Snow was falling lightly, covering the pavement outside the players’ entrance.
Stella stood beside him beneath the weak yellow light.
“You played well tonight,” she said.
Jesse did not answer.
She turned toward him.
Something was wrong.
He kept his eyes on the street.
“Jesse?”
He finally looked at her.
There was something in his expression she had never seen before.
Fear.
Not for himself. For her. “We need to stop this,” he said. Stella stared at him.
“What?”
She waited for him to laugh, to tell her he was joking, to explain that he had said the wrong thing.
He did none of those things.
“Why?”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“You can’t do what?”
“Be with you.”
The cold seemed to disappear.
Stella could hear only her own breathing.
“Did I do something?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what’s wrong.”
“I can’t.” Her eyes searched his face.
“Is there someone else?”
“No.”
“Do you love me?” His silence lasted only a few seconds.
To Stella, it felt much longer.
He looked away, and that was the moment something inside her broke.
She stepped closer.
“If you don’t love me anymore, just say it.”
Jesse closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, the tenderness she knew was gone from his expression.
“You need to stay away from me, Stella.”
She could barely speak.
“Why?”
“Because it’s better this way.”
“For who?”
He had no answer.
She reached for his arm.
He stepped back.
That hurt more than anything he had said.
“Jesse, please.”
He looked at her one last time.
“Let me go.”
Then he walked away.
Stella remained outside the arena long after he disappeared.
Snow gathered on her coat. Cars passed at the end of the street. Somewhere inside the building, the team was still celebrating its victory.
She stood alone beneath the lights, trying to understand how the man who had once held her as if she were the safest place in his world could leave without giving her a single honest explanation.
That night, she made herself a promise.
She would forget him.
She would stop looking for answers.
She would build the career she had worked so hard to create.
And she would never let Jesse Cole break her heart again.
Five years later, she would discover that some promises are easier to make than to keep.
Especially when the person you are trying to forget is the one person you never truly stopped loving.
