Page 65 of Her Player

Good. He should be uncomfortable.

"Miss Caldwell," he said.

"Coach Mercer." I gestured at the chair across from my desk. "Sit down."

He sat. He placed the folder on the desk between us with both hands, deliberate as hell, like he was presenting evidence at a trial. Which, as far as I was concerned, he was.

I looked at the folder. Then at him. "What is this."

"A formal relationship disclosure," he said. "Per PHL governance guidelines, any coaching staff member in a romantic relationship with a person connected to team ownership is required to file a written disclosure with the team's primary owner and the league office within thirty days of the relationship becoming—" He paused. "Official."

I stared at him.

He stared back.

"You're filing a disclosure," I said flatly. "With me."

"With you," he confirmed. "As primary owner of the Las Vegas Vipers."

"About your relationship with my daughter."

"Yes."

"Which you are disclosing. To me." I tilted my head. "Her mother."

His mouth twitched at the corner. Almost a smile, if he'd let it get that far. He didn't. "The league requires it go through the primary owner regardless of⁠—"

"Regardless of the fact that the primary owner is also the mother of the person you're disclosing the relationship about."

"Yes."

I looked at the folder. I looked at him. I picked up the damn folder and opened it.

It was thorough. I'd give him that much. Four pages of documentation: the timeline of the relationship, a conflict of interest assessment he'd clearly had a lawyer help him draft, a formal declaration that the relationship would not influence any coaching decisions, roster decisions, or team operations of any kind, and a recusal clause he'd written himself stating that any situation where Brynn's connection to the team created even a perceived conflict would be immediately escalated to me for independent review.

I read every word.

He sat across from me at my desk and waited without fidgeting, which told me more about the man than the four pages did.

I closed the folder.

"You had a lawyer draft this," I said.

"I had a lawyer review it," he said. "I wrote it."

I set the folder down on my desk. "Why."

He looked at me steadily. "Because she deserves it. Whatever this costs me professionally — whatever you decide to do with it — she deserves someone who handles it right. Even when handling it right means sitting across a desk from her mother and filing paperwork."

My office was dead quiet.

Outside I could hear the distant sound of skates on ice as the morning practice crew started their warm up. The Zamboni's low hum somewhere in the building. The coffee maker in the break room down the hall clicking off.

I thought about the first time I saw him look at my daughter. That thing his eyes did when he looked at her, the thing he never quite caught in time. I thought about every time since then that I'd watched this man choose her. Deliberately. Carefully. With the full awareness of a man who understood exactly what he was doing and did it anyway.

I thought about Ryan.

About what he would have made of a man who filed goddamn paperwork.