True Love and Other Disasters

Her big green eyes widened and she opened her bag to dig around inside. “I’ve had a very rough day.” She pulled out a piece of cinnamon gum. “Very rough.”

She owned a hockey team worth close to 200 million. How rough could it be? “Break a nail?” He half expected her to check her red fingernails before she stuck the gum in her mouth.

“My life is more complicated than worrying about a broken nail.” She chewed, then added, “Very complicated, and now that Virgil is gone, everything has changed. I don’t know what to do.”

He wondered if she was one of those women who liked to talk about their problems with strangers. Lord, he hoped not, and raised his gaze to the ceiling, purposely breaking eye contact so she wouldn’t feel free to unburden herself.

Thankfully, the elevator opened and Ty followed Faith down the hall to the conference room. He stepped ahead of her and opened the door.

She looked up into his eyes as she passed, close enough that her purse brushed the front of his sweatshirt. “Thank you,” she said, smelling like cinnamon and flowers.

“You’re welcome.” His gaze slid down her back to her behind, covered in a pair of dull beige pants, and he had to admit that the woman’s body did amazing things to her boring clothes. Stepping inside the room, he came to a sudden halt. He put his hand on his hip and stared at the billboard mock-ups propped up on easels about the space.

“Hello, everyone,” Faith said, all cheery as she hung her coat over a chair and took a seat beside her assistant at the conference table.

In contrast to Mrs. Duffy’s cheerfulness, Ty asked, “What the hell is this? A joke?”

A woman named Bo something or other from the public relations department shook her head. “No. We need to capitalize on the coverage we’ve received and all the media attention we’ve been getting.” She pointed to a drawing of two people standing back to back with the caption “Can Beauty Tame the Savage Beast?” “The media seems to think there’s a problem between the two of you, and we want to use that to our advantage.”

The PR director, Tim Cummins, added, “Of course we know that there is no real problem.”

But there was a problem. A big one. Ty took a seat across from Faith and folded his arms across his chest. He and the boys had worked their asses off the last four game nights and all the press had been able to write about was “the palpable friction” between him and Mrs. Duffy. In the sports section last Sunday, the Seattle Times had devoted a full three paragraphs to the supposed “sparks” before they’d gotten around to mentioning his hat trick or goalie Marty Darche’s impressive thirty-six saves. Frankie Kawczynski had broken a finger mixing it up in the corner with Doug Weight, and all she’d had to do was breeze into the lounge with her blonde hair and big boobs and the press corps lost its damn mind. If anything, he wanted her less visible. Less involved with the press. Not more.

Faith looked up from the press clippings in front of her. “I had no idea they blew that up and made something of it.” Her big green eyes looked up at him. “Did you?”

“Of course. You didn’t read the Chinooks coverage?” What had she been doing?

“Jules has given them to me, but I’ve been busy.”

With what? Meeting with the lover she’d been talking to the day of Virgil’s funeral? Is that what she’d meant by a rough day?

“We think this will pack the seats with fans,” Tim continued. “We’re all aware the ticket sales have not yet reached the pre-lockout numbers. If fans think there might be some friction between the team’s captain and the female owner, they might turn out to see it for themselves.”

Bo what’s-her-name added, “We think it’s a good angle. Sexy, and as everyone knows, sex and controversy sells.”

Ty sat back in his chair and frowned. He didn’t like it. Not one bit. What were they planning on doing? Sexing up Mrs. Duffy? She didn’t need any more help. Or him? A T-shirt and jeans were as sexy as he got. He just wasn’t a hair-gel-wearing, blinging kind of guy.

“I think it’s a good idea.” The king of gel and bling, Jules Garcia, pointed to one of the boards with the caption “Beauty and the Savage Beast.” “I like the idea of Faith wearing Ty’s jersey, while he’s bare chested.”

Ty frowned. The guys would never let him live that down. “Forget it. I’m not going to be some ‘Savage Beast.’”

“I believe it’s some Sah-vahge Beast,” the drunk woman across the table pronounced dramatically.

Ty’s gaze moved from Tim to Mrs. Duffy. “That’s right, Miss July.”

She twisted the pearls around one long finger and Ty’s traitorous brain flashed on the picture of her naked with a string of pearls looped around one of her breasts. “Perhaps the reporters saw something that I didn’t.

Do you have a problem with me, Mr. Savage?”

Other than she didn’t know the difference be tween a defenseman and a forward, and the press tripped all over themselves to get to her? Other than he’d seen her naked peach and couldn’t get it out of his head? “No. No problem.”

“Excellent.” She smiled as her finger continued to twist those damn pearls, her red nails a bright contrast against all that beige.

“This is all very preliminary,” Tim assured him. “We want you to feel comfortable.”

That wasn’t going to happen. “Well Tim, I’m just never going to feel comfortable being some savage beast in a pair of hockey shorts.”

“Would you feel more comfortable if you were a savage beast in a loincloth?” One corner of Faith’s mouth tilted up higher than the other, and he was sure she was just trying to piss him off.

“Christ.” Ty stood and moved toward the door. “Find some other asshole.”

“She was kidding. I think.” Tim looked at Faith. “Weren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“We can come up with something you like better,” the PR manager said in a rush. “We really feel this will boost sales!”

Kidding or not, appearing on a billboard half naked wasn’t his style. His style was playing hard and putting points on the board. He reached for the doorknob. “Forget it.”

“Baby.”

There was a collective gasp as he stopped and turned slowly around. “What did you say?”

Jules leaned over and spoke in her ear. She shook her head and said, “I don’t particularly like the idea of creating friction to sell tickets, but you don’t see me whining and storming out like a baby.”

That was probably because she didn’t have to take off her shirt. Although it certainly wouldn’t have been her first time. “Let me make a few things really clear for you, Mrs. Duffy. First, I’m not a baby and I never whine.” Not even when he fractured bones or pulled tendons. Hell, he’d finished a game against the Rangers with a broken foot. “Second, I play hockey. That’s what you pay me to do. Nowhere in my contract does it stipulate that I have to appear shirtless on billboards and the sides of buses.”

“If you don’t want to take your shirt off, I think that’s fine.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Some people aren’t comfortable with their own sexuality. I understand, but the least you could do is listen to Tim and Bo. They’ve obviously put a lot of work into this, and in such a short time, too.” She turned her attention to the PR director and his assistant. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Mr. Savage is just being unreasonable,” she added.

Comfortable with his sexuality? Did she just call him gay?

“Ten minutes,” Tim assured him. “Give us ten minutes to change your mind.”

To prove her wrong, and that he wasn’t completely unreasonable, he moved back to his chair and sat. “Ten minutes.” They could talk until they dropped dead from exhaustion, but they weren’t going to change his mind.

Chapter 6