Hometown Fake Engagement – Nicole Regan

I don’t know how long I can keep these worlds separate. The man who wants. And the player they expect. As practice winds down and sweat drips into my eyes, one truth stands out clearly. Whatever’s happening off the ice isn’t making me weaker. It’s making me better. And that might be the most dangerous part of all. I’m halfway down the hallway outside the training office when I hear her voice. Lila’s. I slow down without meaning to. My skates hang over my shoulder.

One step stalls, breath catches. The rubber mat softens my footsteps. Someone left the conference room door cracked open enough for sound to slip through. I should keep moving. I know that. Privacy. Boundaries. All the things I’ve been good at respecting. But then she laughs—soft, a little breathless—and something in my chest stutters. “I didn’t plan for this,” she says. “I really didn’t.” I stop. She’s talking to Jules. I recognize the cadence now, the way Lila sounds when she’s trying to be reasonable with herself.

When she’s lining up facts like they’ll keep her from tipping. “I keep telling myself it’s temporary,” Lila continues. “That it’s… optics. Timing. Convenience.” My grip tightens on the straps of my bag. “But when he looks at Max that way,” she says softly. “When he shows up without making a big deal of it…”

There’s a pause. The kind that stretches. “I think I’m in trouble.” The words hit harder than any check I’ve taken this season. My pulse spikes, loud in my ears. I lean my shoulder against the wall—the cool surface seeps through my shirt, grounding me. This isn’t meant for me. I know that. And yet it feels like someone aimed it straight at my chest. Jules says something I can’t quite hear, but Lila answers immediately. “Yes,” she says. “That kind of trouble.” My breath catches. “I didn’t expect to fall,” Lila admits.

“I wasn’t looking for it. But it’s happening anyway.” For a second, the hallway tilts. I think of Max correcting my grip—how careful he is with the people who stay. I think of Lila’s hands in the morning, steady even when everything else around her feels like it’s about to give. She’s falling. For me. The realization is equal parts elation and terror. My chest feels too full, like there’s no room left for doubt, only intention.

Want crystallizes into something sharper now—resolve. But underneath that, fear coils tight. Because what if I can’t be what she needs? What if the league pulls me away?

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Formatted with Vellum OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Epilogue Author’s Note Sneak peek Also by Nicole Regan OceanofPDF.com T 1 ALEXEI he alarm splits the morning air like a knife.

I’m three steps from my front door when it hits—high, shrill, relentless. Not a car. Not a house alarm I can ignore. A building. Red lights strobe across brick, turning the quiet street into a crime scene. The art center. Two hundred feet from my new duplex, and something’s wrong. My pulse spikes. Training kicks in before thought does. I’m already running. The front door rattles in its frame, locked tight. But the side entrance—glass panel, warped wood, crooked on its hinges—looks forced.

Someone’s inside. Or something’s broken. Either way, every second I stand here is a second longer for whoever’s in there. I don’t think. I shoulder the door. It cracks open with a sound that’s definitely illegal. The alarm screams louder inside. Paint and dust and something sweet—clay, maybe—hit my lungs.

Red emergency lights flash across empty hallways. “Hello?” My voice comes out rough. Raw. “Anyone here?” Nothing. “Я ЧТО, ДЕБИЛ?!” I mutter in Russian, because cursing at myself in English feels too real. Then—footsteps. Fast. Frantic. “HEY!” A woman’s voice cuts through the noise. “What are you doing?!” I spin. She’s in the doorway, breathless.

Dark eyes wide. Phone raised like a weapon. We stare. I’m inside a tripped alarm with a broken door at my back, and she’s between me and every headline I’ve been running from. The alarm keeps screaming. This is not how I wanted to meet my neighbor. Neither of us moves. The air pulls tight. My pulse hammers against my ribs.

Every instinct says run—but running looks guilty, and guilty is the last thing I can afford. Her phone buzzes. Her thumb hovers over the screen. One call. That’s all it takes. Cops. Cameras. Headlines. NHL Bad Boy Breaks Into Community Center.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 4b8ea61d9c8cf0bb
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,171,119 bytes (2.071 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 301
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 385.81 minutes
• Total Words: 77,163
• Total Characters: 436,754
• Average Words per Page: 256.36
• Average Characters per Page: 1451.01

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