Winning Her Back

Start Reading

I'm not letting a deaf guy drag me down. Let's end this clean.

That's what I said the year Kieran lost his hearing. The year I walked out.

Years later he came home a champion. The genius nobody saw coming. His face on every screen in the country.

At his first fan event, a reporter asked if he'd ever take his ex back.

He found me in the crowd and looked right at me. Smiled with nothing warm in it.

"I'm not that cheap."

A beat.

"But if somebody doesn't know what they had?" His mouth curved, slow. "She shouldn't blame me for what comes next."

That night he had me pinned beneath him, my voice gone to nothing, begging.

He reached up and slid the hearing aid out of his ear. Slow. Lazy about it.

"Sorry. What was that?"

"Husband can't hear you."

Chapter 1

The first time I stood close enough to touch Kieran in years, he looked at me like he'd never seen me before.

The crowd shoved me to the front. His eyes swept the row and stopped on my face. Nothing in them moved. No heat. No hate. A stranger's glance.

Then, under all that screaming, his voice came through. Soft. Cold. Pitched just for me.

"We meet again."

I hadn't known it would be him.

An hour before the airport, I found out the guest I'd been sent to handle tonight was Kieran. I almost dropped the phone.

By then his face was on every wall in the city. The deaf kid nobody had wanted, the one who used to sit by the window like the cold couldn't reach him. Overnight, a national champion.

Cap and mask, low-key black, and the whole room still bent toward him like he was lit from the inside.

"Make sure you get to Kieran," Everett had told me on the phone. Twice. "Tonight matters, Ari. You hear me?"

I'd stayed at the back with sweat slick in my palms.

Five years since I left him, and this was how I got to watch the bright, blazing life he'd built. By accident. From the front row. With his name screamed in my ears.

The fans went off like a flare when he smiled.

He reached up and clicked the hearing aid into place, watching me the whole time.

"I never used to do many of these," he told the crowd. "My speech wasn't good enough." A pause. Every word landed clean now, exactly where he set it. "But I'm pretty good at talking these days. Anyone want to come up?"

Something in my chest pulled tight. I stepped back without deciding to.

His eyes didn't let go. He raised one hand. The big screen found my face, white and frozen, and a thousand people turned at once.

"I'm just staff"

His mouth tipped. "That works too."

They pushed me up the steps.

"So." The host grinned. "When did you first fall for Kieran?"

Half the room shouted it for me. That spring split, two years ago. The three-minute clutch everyone still rewatched. The floor roared.

He just watched me. Waiting.

"Five years ago," I said.

My voice shook on it. The room went still.

Half his face sat in shadow. His tone didn't move. "Five years ago I hadn't debuted yet." A pause. "You sure you were into me back then?"

Five years ago. Of course.

Five years ago wasn't when I started loving him. It was when I left him.

I'd buried the date so deep I'd stopped being able to find it. Three years since he went public. Five since I walked out. Somewhere in between I'd lost the thread, because remembering the exact day cost more than I could spare.

But I wasn't about to hand that to a room full of cameras.

I steadied the mic. Let them think I was just one more girl who got the year wrong.

"Right," I said. "Three years ago."

His face stayed smooth. Perfectly, terribly calm.

The host slipped the knife in before I could breathe. "He split with his ex five years back, didn't he? Ever think about a second chance?"

The room hissed.

I kept my head down. I couldn't look at him.

I didn't need to. His stare had already settled on the side of my face. Cool. Unblinking. It didn't move.

Chapter 2

"I'm not that cheap."

He pulled the mic off its stand, tipped his head, and let his mouth curve low.

"But if somebody doesn't know what they had?" A pause. "She shouldn't blame me for what comes next."

His event ran two hours.

I waited by the side door and watched dead leaves chase each other across the pavement. Now and then fans drifted past on their way out, and their talk landed in my ears whether I wanted it or not.

"Wait, back up. What's the deal with his ex?"

"Oh, total academic gold-digger. Got close to him on purpose for some research project on deaf people. Second her scholarship came through, she dumped him."

"Vivienne literally cried about it in the group chat. Honestly? Sweet of her not to leak the girl's name."

Vivienne.

The name dropped a face into my head. Pretty in the way that always had something rotten under it.

In college she'd pulled the right strings, and I'd ended up forced into a leave of absence. It took me years of scraping rent together before I clawed my way back, into grad school.

On the worst nights, classmates used to pull up Kieran's championship runs to cheer me up. She was always somewhere in the footage. Front row. Sign held high.

"You've got to hand it to Vivienne," one of them said once. "Backed the right horse. Light-years better than the clueless ex who threw him away."

Except it was Vivienne who threw away everything I had.

None of them knew that. That was the thing about her. She never said the cruel part out loud. She planted it, smiled for the room, and let everyone else carry it for her.

The chatter thinned and dropped me back into my own body.

I was at the studio doors waiting for him when I turned a corner straight into someone's chest.

Soap. Clean, familiar. The smell undid five years in half a second.

His hand caught my waist.

I met his eyes, flat and cold, and shoved out of his hands like I'd touched a hot burner.

"I"

"Get in the car."

He said it like every word he spent on me was one too many.

His manager came over. "Could you send Professor Marsh's address to the driver? We'll all go together."

Professor Marsh is my grad advisor. He's also the man who taught Kieran how to speak. The two of them had dinner planned, and they'd sent me, specifically, to bring him.

I got in.

The light was going. Everything outside dimmed to soft gray.

I sat beside him with my heart slamming hard enough to bruise.

He stared out the window, lit and unlit by the lights sliding past. None of that on-stage edge left on him now. Just something hollowed out.

My phone rang.

Everett. The senior who'd been chasing me the better part of a year.

Kieran's head turned almost the second it lit up. He propped his jaw on one hand and tapped the hearing aid at his ear. Slow. Light.

I hung up.

"Boyfriend?" he asked.

"Yeah."

I looked away too fast, like the lie was the only thing holding the rest of it down.

But when I'd dug out the phone, something had already slipped from my bag and rolled across the floor. It came to a stop against his shoe.

By the time I saw it, it was too late.

He narrowed his eyes at it. A small silver pin, the plating rusted at the edges. Something I couldn't name moved through his face.

It was from three years ago. His first regional title. I'd stood outside the arena in cold that bit past freezing, in line, to get one. Almost no one was watching him yet. They hadn't made many.

It's been out of print for years.

I've carried it every day since.

And now, lying there at his feet, it looked so wrong. So impossible to explain.

Chapter 3

I bent to pick it up.

Kieran's shoe came down on it first. Light. Deliberate.

"You didn't want me," he said, flat. "But a scrap of rusted metal, that you'll get down on the floor for."

The cold of it dropped straight through me.

He crouched. Hooked a finger under my chin and tipped my face up until I had to look at him.

"Aria. You're not still hung up on me, are you?" A pause. "Boyfriend at home, and you're carrying this around. That's not embarrassing to you?"

It was the first time that familiar face had ever aimed something like contempt at me. It went in clean, right under the ribs.

He took out his phone. Smiled at it, easy, and said it one word at a time.

"Tell you what. Dump him, and I'll go public with you. How's that sound?"

I couldn't tell if he was toying with me or meant it.

His eyes were cold. Not a trace of a smile in them.

At some point the tears had started without me.

"...No."

The second my eyes went red, he let go.

He picked the pin up off the floor and dropped it in the trash. He did it fast, like the thing burned.

Then he sat back, closed his eyes, and said, "Aria. Stop coming around to stir me up."

By the time I walked Kieran into the private room, Professor Marsh and Everett were already there.

And next to them, a face I knew.

Vivienne.

Years, and she still walked in shining, every edge of her polished.

She saw me and let the surprise show. "Professor Marsh. This is the new speech coach you found for Kieran?"

"She is. Kieran's come a long way. Doesn't need me at all anymore." Marsh said it warmly. "Aria's my student. I trust her with him."

Vivienne gave me a slow, knowing blink and smiled. "He's doing so well now, isn't he. Bet this version won't drag you down. Will he?"

My hands closed into fists.

The words I'd said the day I left him came back on me, all at once.

Kieran kept his eyes down the whole time. Said nothing.

Everyone was looking at me, confused. I made my voice quiet. "Professor, I've got a heavy course load, so for now"

"Ari." Everett cut in. "Hands-on work is part of the program too. Listen to your advisor."

I swallowed the no and sat down beside him.

Kieran's lowered eyes lifted in an instant and went to Everett.

"My junior here is gentle. Kind, too," Everett told him. "I'm sure the two of you will hit it off."

Their eyes met. Kieran smiled. "It'd be an honor to learn from her."

Then his gaze dropped to Everett's hand, the one setting food on my plate, and stopped there. Didn't move. His own hand went still around his glass, knuckles standing up white, and he didn't lift it again.

I ate without tasting any of it. Half a year under Marsh had taught me how to drink, so I drank, and the more I put away, the colder Kieran's face went.

When it broke up, Everett offered to drive the professor home. "Ari, you good on your own?"

"I'm fine." I planted my feet against the spinning and waved him off.

Then the quiet came down, cold pouring in on a dead-autumn wind, and I caught the edge of a planter to stay upright.

I'd just reached for my phone to call a car when Kieran came out.

The glass door slid open without a sound. The wind lifted his dark hair. His eyes had gone deep and unlit.

He came straight at me and closed a hand around my wrist.

"Your boyfriend just lets you cab home alone?"

Chapter 4

The second our eyes locked, that clean soap smell drifted between us on the wind and cut straight through the liquor on me.

His face stayed cold. "Aria. Your taste is a disaster."

I tried to pull free. He only gripped harder.

Something I'd held down too long came up all at once, my voice breaking on it. "How I am is none of your business. We broke up."

"Did we." Not a question. A cold huff of a laugh, and behind it something caught fire. "Then let's talk about something else, Teacher." His eyes held mine. "How about a lesson tonight?"

He pulled me into the hotel.

The cold let go of me and I stumbled after him. "I'll give you the lesson tomorrow"

"No."

Nothing got through to him, and his grip was frightening. So I stopped fighting it. I just followed, head down, quiet.

He slowed. Drew me into the elevator. Down the hall. Into the room.

Black in there. He didn't turn on a light.

The liquor rolled in my stomach and left a heat that wouldn't burn off.

The moment he started to step away from me, I grabbed a fistful of his shirt before I could think about it.

He went still. His laugh came low and cool. "Aria. You're doing that on purpose, aren't you."

I flinched back like the fabric had scalded me. "I have night blindness."

"Mm. Night blindness."

Then he had my wrists, and the cold flat of the wall against my back.

"So teach me like this, Teacher."

His breath was right there. Hot, close, everywhere, until it pushed all the air out of the room and my head went light.

I heard him say it. "I like you."

Something pulled tight, low in my stomach.

"What?"

His voice didn't waver. Easy, almost idle. "That line. I never could get it right. So teach me."

I made myself swallow. "It was fine."

"Was it." A short silence. "Then how about this one. I love you. Is that how you say it?"

God. He was going to be the end of me.

I pulled in a breath and dropped my eyes.

He stopped me from looking away and took his time looking at me instead.

"Your turn to correct me, Teacher. I love you. How's it supposed to sound?"

I hadn't said those three words in years. They didn't come easy.

The clock in the corner ticked, keeping time with my pulse.

After a while I got it out, hoarse. "I love you."

He cupped my face in both hands. "Again."

The dark thinned. Moonlight came through the window and laid him out in front of me, and for one second he lined up exactly with the boy from every dream I never let myself have.

The tears came. I choked on the rest of it and said it anyway. "I love you."

His mouth came down on mine.

Hard, and gone past control with it, until there was no breath left anywhere.

A phone went off at exactly the wrong second and broke us apart.

Our foreheads stayed together. He was breathing rough. He reached into my pocket and pulled the phone out himself.

The dim light cut his face into clean, hard lines. His eyes were burning with something close to mad.

I caught the screen.

Everett.

"Break up." His voice was wrecked. "Aria. Break up with him."

Except I had never been with anyone at all.

The little silence handed both of us back a scrap of sense. I pushed him off me. "I I need to get back to school."

The hope in his eyes went out, one degree at a time.

That warm look closed over into nothing again.

"Aria. You can't go back."

"Whatwhat do you mean?"

Chapter 5

A small click, and Kieran switched the hearing aid off.

"I'm not letting you go," he said. "You're mine."

Then his mouth was on mine, like the last of his control had gone with the sound.

He knew exactly what he was doing. The second I'd run out of air he'd ease off, leave me one breath, and take it again. Not to break me. Because five years of wanting had come down off the shelf all at once, and he couldn't get it back up there.

I caught enough air to stop him. "Kieran, put the aid back in. I need to tell you something"

He took my hand and slid it under his shirt. "Tell me like this."

Under my fingers, the hard line of muscle. Hot as a banked coal.

The way he looked at me was all hunger. Young, and wanting, and aimed at one person in the room.

I half-panicked through it. "I don't have a boyfriend. I lied to you earlier, I'm sorry"

He turned me and got the shirt off. "Can't read a word of that in the dark, Aria. Look straight ahead."

The window threw our reflection back at us. Two shadows, shifting with the neon outside, sliding slowly into one.

His fingertip traced my cheek, damp, light. His voice went soft. "All I know is, you like me. That's all the proof I need."

I was shaking under his hands.

Then his hand moved, and the whole room dropped out from under me for a second, and there was nothing left in me that wanted to say no.

"Kieran... gentler."

He cracked one eye open, lazy as a wolf that had already eaten. "Sorry. What was that? Husband can't hear you."

A pause.

"Shame. He can't hear a thing tonight."

That night I dreamed about the beginning.

Back when I first knew him. His hearing was bad even then. He'd sit by the window, sealed off, cold to everyone.

The other kids liked to mess with him. Stuck notes to his back. Called him the deaf freak when they were sure he couldn't hear.

I liked talking behind his back too. In the loud crush between classes I'd lean close to his ear and say it under my breath.

"Kieran's my favorite person."

I got bold, because he couldn't hear me. "Aria's going to marry Kieran someday."

Then one day he turned around. His voice came out stiff. "You've been at this a whole semester. Still not done?"

That was when I saw it. The hearing aid in his other ear.

He'd heard all of it.

All these years later, with him holding me against the window, the person saying it had changed.

"Kieran is Aria's favorite person," he said against my skin. "And liars have to be a sad little dog about it for the rest of their life."

His kiss went careful. Then careful turned into pleading.

"Aria. I have money now. I swear I won't drag you down. Don't leave me. Okay?"

But if he ever found out the truth. That I was the one who sold him to that gaming company. Took twenty grand and walked.

Would he still want me?

I woke up and he was gone.

I opened my phone. His name had just hit number one.

He was terminating his contract.

Chapter 6

Online, it was a pileup.

[Why would he shred a perfectly good contract?]

[Gotta be a girl. You know Sovereign bans every pro on the roster from dating, right?]

[They've nuked so many couples over the years. Heard they don't play nice about it.]

[But he JUST won. Peak of his whole career. Why now??]

[Word is the ex is back and wants him back. There are screenshots.]

In the screenshots somebody posted, my name was right out in the open. Vivienne had put it there.

Vivienne: [Aria dumped Kieran years ago because she couldn't deal with him being deaf. Now he's gone soft on her, she's begging to get back together, and he said yes. I just hope his fans can help him.]

I didn't have a second to spare for any of it. I called him, fast.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't throw away everything he'd built on one impulse.

His line was busy. Stayed busy.

I grabbed my coat and went down.

What was waiting for me was a wall of fans and reporters, the hotel lobby packed solid.

The second I showed, they came at me.

"That's her. I've seen the photos. That's actually the ex?"

"You're the one who made Vivienne cry, aren't you? How do you even have the face to come back?"

"Get out. Stay away from him."

The malice came all at once and I had nowhere to put it.

I got a hand up against the camera flashes. Someone caught my wrist and dragged it down.

Vivienne.

She had her old-friend face on, all soft concern. "Ari. I know you've got a past. Honestly, marrying Kieran is the best move you've got left." A breath, pitched for the crowd. "But I've loved him for years. I'm begging you. Don't do this to him."

Earnest as anything. The fans ate it up.

"A past? What past?"

The mics came swinging in.

I turned my face from the cameras and said nothing about back then.

Not because I had nothing to say. Because I knew exactly how this room would chew up anything I handed it, and I wasn't about to give Vivienne her next clip. Let her read the silence as guilt. I could afford to wait.

That year, there'd been one fellowship spot. One.

The night before the list went up, someone reported me for academic misconduct. The spot was gone.

Vivienne took it, as the alternate.

Then she withdrew two months in.

I still remember what she told me then.

"Even if it goes to waste, you're not getting it." A smile. "Anything you want, Aria, I take. All of it."

And here, years later, Vivienne was the fragile one. In front of the cameras, calling me the snake.

I tried once. "I never faked anything"

She cut me off and dropped her voice low, just for me. "Want me to tell them about the hush money? The twenty grand you took from his company behind his back?"

The blood went out of my face.

"I'll explain it to him myself."

"No need."

She lifted her phone.

The call timer read three minutes, eighteen seconds.

The other end was Kieran.

She held it up, smiling, light. "Kieran? Did you catch all that?"

"Every word."

The voice came from behind me. Cold.

My stomach dropped through the floor.

I turned. He stood apart from the crowd, cap and mask on, perfectly still, watching me.

He hung up the phone and said, in that clear, even voice,

"Aria. Come here. Explain it to me yourself