Length8h 53m
About this audiobook
A professional defenceman agrees to answer one honest question at a press conference, purely to get out of the room faster.
He is still paying for it four months later.
The click of a dozen microphones being adjusted, plastic against metal, cuts through the murmur of reporters settling into their seats. Mac Hanratty steps up to the podium and scans the room the way he reads a breakout. Twenty-three faces. Maybe twenty-four. Notebooks, recorders, phones angled at him like tiny satellites. The fluorescents hum. Somebody in the back row cracks their knuckles, and the sound puts him in a basement rink on a Sunday morning with his father saying *stop fidgeting, you look nervous*.
He is not nervous. He is tired. Three periods, a goal and an assist, a win that puts them well inside the early-season picture, and all he can think about is the phone in his pocket and the messages he has not opened.
Harper is in the third row with a story she is not sure she should write. She has been covering this club for two months, long enough to know which players answer questions and which ones perform answering them, and long enough to notice that this one has stopped doing either.
By the time she is sure about the story, it is far too late to stop it.
What follows: a question he could not dodge, rules that were supposed to hold, a first crack, a mask worn in the mirror, a weight nobody warned him about, a game two people play when nobody is watching, and the precise edge of trust.
*He lied.*
*Then why did he send that text?*
*To get me alone.*
Perfect for readers who love a quiet, competent hero with a family he refuses to discuss, a journalist heroine who is genuinely good at her job rather than decorative, small-town roots pulling on a big-league career, a slow burn conducted mostly in glances and text messages, real consequences when the story finally runs, explicit scenes, and an ending neither of them gets for free.
Audiobook details
GenreRomance
Length8 hrs 53 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 15, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Dedication
2Chapter 1 - The Question I Couldn’t Dodge
3Chapter 2 - The Story I Wasn’t Sure I Wanted
4Chapter 3 - The Rules I Thought Would Protect Me
5Chapter 4 - The First Crack
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6Chapter 5 - The Mask I Wear in the Mirror
7Chapter 6 - The Weight I Didn’t Expect to Carry
8Chapter 7 - The Game We Play When No One Is Watching
9Chapter 8 - The Edge of Trust
10Chapter 9 - The Debt That Follows Me
11Chapter 10 - The Truth I Almost Told
12Chapter 11 - The Sister I Never Let In
13Chapter 12 - The Cracks I Can’t Hide
14Chapter 13 - The Gesture I Couldn’t Refuse
15Chapter 14 - The Whisper Before the Fall
16Chapter 15 - The Ice We Walk On
17Chapter 16 - The Evidence I Didn’t Want to See
18Chapter 17 - The Light Before the Tunnel
19Chapter 18 - The Choice That Cost Me Everything
20Chapter 19 - The Lie That Wins
21Chapter 20 - The Trap I Walked Into
22Chapter 21 - The Fallout
23Chapter 22 - The Truth That Sets Us Free
24Chapter 23 - The Press Conference
25Chapter 24 - The Game That Matters
26Chapter 25 - The Morning After
27Chapter 26 - The Blizzard
28Chapter 27 - The Series That Defines Us
29Chapter 28 - The Forever Shift
30The End
31About the Author
32Also by Quinn Mercer
33Acknowledgements
34A Note from the Author
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