Fake Dating My Ex's Favourite Hockey Player - Chapter 68: Chapter 68

EMILIA
The hardest part of falling in love — truly falling — is the moment you realise what love isn’t.
It’s the moment you understand that love shouldn’t ache just to feel real. That the tight pull in your stomach isn’t butterflies — it’s fear. That the alarm bells ringing in your mind aren’t oxytocin — they’re warnings.
Real love doesn’t confine you.
It doesn’t demand control.
It doesn’t shame you for falling short of its expectations.
It doesn’t dismiss your voice or steal your choices.
It doesn’t mask manipulation as care, or dominance as passion.
Love isn’t supposed to strip you bare until there’s nothing left to give.
Liam’s hands move gently into my hair, unraveling the little braid I did this morning. A tear escapes before I can stop it.
And when I open my eyes—
It’s not Liam I see.
It’s Zane.
The memory returns so vividly, I almost double over. It visits me often, especially when I try to convince myself that he loved me. That he always did.
I’m at the bedroom door, swaying on unsteady legs. Feverish. Weak. Every breath feels like it could be my last. I know I’m moments from blacking out, but I can still see everything. I feel everything.
He’s angry. I should’ve known better than to speak.
But I do.
“Ba—babe, please. Please, put that down.”
My voice is broken, barely more than a whisper.
But the hurt is deafening.
He’s in the hallway, standing over an open suitcase, hurling my clothes down the stairs — one after the other, like they disgust him. Sweaters I knitted myself. The hoodie he gave me on our first date. A pair of slippers Tessa mailed last winter, still in their gift wrap.
They hit the bottom of the stairs in a limp, broken heap. Like me.
“You think this is a joke?” Zane’s voice cuts sharp through the thick air. “You miss my game because you have a fever? Because you didn’t feel up to it?”
My mouth parts, a trembling breath leaving me before I can speak. I don’t even know what to say. I was sick. I am sick. My vision still dances at the edges. My legs are jelly.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I just— I couldn’t even sit up—”
He turns. Eyes like frostbite.
“Yeah? But you’re standing just fine to me,” his mouth pulls into a frown. “You’re supposed to be proving to me that you’re worthy of being my wife, Emilia.”
Each word is flung at me, heavier than the last. “You can’t even show up when I need you. What the hell kind of partner does that make you? You think you get to pick and choose when you matter?”
He grabs a picture frame from the wall — one of us laughing on the beach last summer — and throws it. It smashes against the hardwood, the glass skittering across the floor in all directions. I flinch. My hand flies to my chest. My body folds in on itself.
And still, I don’t move.
Because I need to prove that I do love him enough. That I can do better. So maybe if I just stand still, maybe if I just say the right thing, he’ll forgive me for being tired. For being human.
He storms up the stairs, two at a time, until he’s towering over me, chest heaving.
I don’t even notice his hand until it’s mid-air.
It never lands.
He freezes — then pulls it back slowly, as if he’s the one who’s just been hurt. As if I’m the one who’s betrayed him by expecting it to come down.
I flinch anyway.
And he sees it.
He sees the way my shoulders jerk, the way my eyes clamp shut, how my breath rattles in my throat like a warning bell.
He softens.
His voice drops into that familiar hush — the one he uses to calm me down during fights, when he’d stroke my hair and kiss the bruise he swore wasn’t from him.
“I’d never hurt you, baby,” he murmurs, brushing a strand of hair from my cheek like I’m something delicate. Like he didn’t just raise his hand at me.
Then he kisses me. Soft. Loving. Forgiving.
My tears are trapped between our mouths.
He pulls back and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear with such practised tenderness I forget how afraid I was a second ago.
Then, with ice in his voice:
“Now get the fuck out of my house.”
For a moment, I don’t react. Can’t. My mind doesn’t know which version of him to obey — the one who kissed me, or the one who just shoved me out of his life.
My hands move automatically, my feet following like they belong to someone else.
As I descend the stairs, careful not to slip on shattered glass or shattered pride, all I can think is—
If I had gone to the game, he’d still want me.
This is my fault.
Love just looks like this sometimes.
A second later, my body loses the battle.
I black out and tumble down the stairs.
When the memory finally fades, I can feel Liam’s hands are in my hair again, gentle and unhurried. He tugs loose the braid I’d made that morning and presses his forehead to mine.
It should be a perfect moment. It’s soft. It’s safe. He smells like aftershave and sun and something bitter I can’t place. He’s not asking anything of me — just being with me. Just seeing me.
And still, I flinch.
It’s small, barely a twitch — but I feel it. And worse, so does he.
His hands still instantly. “Did I hurt you?”
My lips part, but no sound comes out. I shake my head too fast, too hard. “No. No, you didn’t.”
But something inside me is screaming.
I pull away, just enough to create space, and wrap my arms around myself. Like I’m trying to hold myself together.
Liam doesn’t say anything right away. He just watches me, his expression unreadable—but kind. Always kind.
And then he asks, gently, “Did someone else?”
My breath leaves me.
I nod once.
My throat burns with the memory, with the sound of Zane’s voice echoing in my skull, the feel of the floorboards under my feet as I fell on the glass and swallowed my pride. Again and again and again.
My chest tightens, my voice barely a breath. “I don’t know how to let someone love me if I don’t hate myself first.”
That breaks something in the silence.
Liam sits up, gently pulling me with him. He cups my face in his hands — not forcefully, not demandingly — just so I’ll look at him.
His thumbs wipe away my tears. His voice breaks.
“You never have to earn love, Emilia. Not mine. Not anyone’s. You are not too much, and you are not broken. You were hurt. And I swear to you, I will never use your hurt as a weapon.”
And then, slowly — like the sea turning calm after a storm — he leans in and presses the softest kiss to my forehead. It’s not hungry like yesterday’s. Or claiming like it was a moment ago. Just… present.
“I don’t want you to give me the pieces of you that you think are lovable,” he whispers into my hair. “I want all of you. Even the scared parts. Especially the scared parts.”
I break then. But not the way I used to — alone, hollowed out, empty.
This time, I fall apart into someone’s arms.
And I realise ever since I met him, I haven’t had to hold myself together all on my own.
Liam pats my head gently as I cry, like I’m something delicate. I sniff and squint up at him through wet lashes. “Stop that.”
He grins, completely unfazed. “Why would I? This is prime patting real estate.” He leans in, buries his face in my hair, and inhales dramatically. “God, I love your hair. I love getting lost in your curls when I kiss you. And you always smell so sweet—do you use cookie-scented perfume or something?”
I blink at him. “On my hair?”
He shrugs like it’s a perfectly reasonable question and resumes patting me, looking proud of himself. “Cam uses cologne on his. Honestly, I don’t question anything anymore.”
I laugh, a soft hiccup of sound that loosens something tight in my chest. “He’s kind of a weirdo.”
“You have no idea,” Liam says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His hand stays in my hair, warm and steady. I should pull away, but I don’t. I lean into it instead.
“I talked to my brother’s ex,” I say quietly, the moment turning softer. “Adrian.”
“Yeah? Was he cool?”
“The sweetest. And kind of a computer wizard. So I asked if he could help dig up dirt on Stone.” My voice drops a little, like if I say it too loudly, it might jinx it. Liam’s fingers drift down from my hair to my cheek, slow and tender, brushing the edge of my jaw before settling right above my collarbone.
His expression hardens—just a flicker. “Trust me, that won’t be hard. That guy’s practically a scandal waiting to happen. Almost got busted for steroids a while back. The league covered it up, but it’s all there, buried deep enough for someone smart to find.”
I lift my head, my pulse picking up. “Wait, seriously?”
“Yup. And don’t even get me started on the NDAs. Last year alone, he had more women sign silence agreements than most people date in a lifetime.” His thumb brushes my collarbone, gentle again. “Even if you hadn’t said anything, I was already on it.”
My lips twitch. “Really?”
Liam grins, then reaches up to pinch my nose. “I was just waiting for you to catch up, genius.”