Foreplayer

by Kate Meader

  “Listen, I need to go talk to Tommy. I’ll think about it.”

  Tara hugged her. “You’re such a good friend, buying me the hot guy I want.”

  “I haven’t said I’ll do it. I’ve got this”—she gave a desultory wave in Tommy’s direction—“to take care of.”

  “You sound so excited,” Tara commented dryly. “Thought he was the man of your dreams.”

  Yes. Yes, he was. Not a burden at all.

  Snap out of it. She’d come this far and she wasn’t going to let that dummy ruin it for her, no matter how good he was in bed. (Which she didn’t know for sure. Maybe he was terrible and she could do much better with someone else … someone suave, sophisticated, sex-in-a-suit.)

  “I’m going in.”

  “Good luck!”

  She headed over, her head held high, yet as in over that same head as ever. She needed to do this. To get Cal out of her brain.

  She was so mad at him. So pissed that he’d dismissed her hopes and her chances with someone like Tommy. So annoyed that he couldn’t give a better reason other than “the man’s a slimeball lawyer type” for why he wasn’t worth her time. She swiped at her eyes because—oh my fucking God—she was crying. Cal Foreman had made her cry.

  She couldn’t make a move on Tommy like this.

  “Mia?”

  She turned, half in hope, but it was him. Tommy. The man she wanted more than anything.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” She promptly burst into tears.

  Tommy placed an arm around her shoulders, and her immediate thought was: damn, that fifties advice on how to snag a husband really works.

  Twenty minutes later, she had downed two vodka and cranberry juices and was trying to explain to Tommy Gordon that she was perfectly fine. No, really she was.

  He wasn’t buying it, but he was definitely paying more attention to her. It was as if the strange saltwater secretions from her eyeballs shifted his perception of her. She was suddenly more attractive to him.

  That made her hopping mad.

  Not at Tommy, though. He was just being a gentleman. No, Cal Foreman was the enemy here. He’d made her something she was not. Soft. While that seemed to be winning her points with her target, that wasn’t how she wanted this to go. She wanted to win by being herself.

  She scanned the room and spotted Tara, chatting with Violet and Elle. Good old Tara, who never let anything get her down. She waved at Mia and made an exaggerated eye roll toward the stage, where they’d started the charity auction.

  Time to spend some dough.

  “Sold for thirty-six thousand!”

  Loud applause followed Reid Durand off the stage to where Cal was waiting to make his entrance.

  “Beat that, Foreman.”

  “It’s not a contest, shit head,” Cal muttered.

  “That’s your problem. You’d do better to realize that everything is a contest.”

  Cal pushed by him, his body tight with tension. Ten minutes ago, he’d been mildly annoyed at Mia because she had invited Tara for some Gretzky-only-knows reason and tried to fix him up with her. His ex! But that was just the shit-covered appetizer to the hell entrée she was about to deliver. How he longed to return to that simpler time when that was all he had to be pissed about.

  All this time, for weeks, for months, she’d been planning to seduce Tommy Gordon.

  The asshole who had screwed Cal over five years ago.

  Cal had made that dig about Tommy Gordon’s low standards, not because of Mia, but because of Bethany. Gordon’s standards weren’t high because he had fucked Cal’s fiancée on a regular basis before, and likely after, she was supposed to marry Cal. And this was the man Mia wanted. Someone up there hated his guts, that was for sure.

  He could tell Vadim about what Tommy had done. That would drive a wedge between the happy lovers. If Vadim knew what a shit his agent was …

  But Cal hadn’t told him before. Something had always held him back. Shame, partly, but more a sense of circumstances unfolding the way they were supposed to. He was embarrassed at being made a fool of but he wasn’t completely surprised. To prove he was a decent guy and a good sport, he’d even stayed friends with Bethany afterward.

  Water-off-a-duck’s-back Cal, who couldn’t be fazed, who could happily move on without a care in the world. Cal who was so cool about it all he’d stay in his ex’s life, even though she cheated on him. A no-conflict resolution told the world he was a lover, not a fighter.

  Despite their friendship, there was a world of difference between Cal and Vadim, the son of a Russian oligarch, a man born to billions and blessed with good looks and limitless talent on the ice. An aristocrat who saw the many shades of fortune that came his way as his right. He might not be an asshole like Tommy Gordon, but they were definitely cut from the same cloth: privileged, sophisticated, to the manor born. Vadim liked Tommy. Hell, he would probably approve heartily of any relationship between his agent and his sister.

  Mia, after all, was a princess about to blossom into a queen. All the pieces of her life were falling into place, all her plans were finally coming to fruition: the Olympics, her pro career, her love life. She’d set her sights on Tommy Gordon, and who was Cal to say that was a mistake? Like Bethany, she’d made it clear that she craved a certain type of man.

  It so happened they craved the same man.

  He refused to get into a pissing match with Tommy Gordon, not again. He refused to compete for a woman like some prehistoric Neanderthal. Mia had made her choice and any deviation from it was in Cal’s imagination.

  “Next up on the block …”

  The lights blinded. As a pro athlete who spent a chunk of his primetime under glaring lights and eviscerating attention, Cal should be used to this. But tonight he would give his jerk-off hand to be anywhere else.

  Harper nudged him forward on the stage so he was standing to the side of the podium, fully exposed. “Next up, all the way from Boston—”

  “Boo!”

  Boo?

  “Someone’s not a fan of Beantown,” Harper said with a throaty chuckle. “But he’s a Chicago Rebel now. A date with Cal Foreman is up for grabs, and I have it on good authority that the man can cook!”

  Harper shoved the mike in his face. “Tell us what you might cook for a lucky lady, Cal. What’s your signature dish?”

  “Well, Ms. Chase, I make a mean mac and cheese.”

  “It sucks!” That voice again. That beautiful, bratty voice. People looked around, seeking its source, but the coward had decided to keep her heckling to the shadows. No problem. The shadows wouldn’t be deep enough to escape the neck-wringing she had coming.

  Harper’s porcelain doll features twisted slightly. She was clearly annoyed that someone was trying to upstage her. “And what would you do to make a romantic evening for your date?”

  “Just listen, I guess.” A few of the ladies went aw at that.

  Encouraged that someone appreciated his efforts, he went on. “Give her a foot rub.” Though he didn’t want to do that on a first date. Not on any date, except—he worked overtime to put her out of his brain and especially how she was so damn determined to win that asshole’s heart, a guy who didn’t deserve to even touch her feet.

  “Foot rubs, listening, mac and cheese, and he scores goals on demand, ladies. I think the package sells itself.” Harper patted his arm. “How about an opening bid of—”

  “Five thousand,” a pretty redhead in the front row offered.

  “Five thousand,” Harper repeated. “A very respectable opening bid. “Can we double it?”

  It seemed they could. And again. It went by so fast that three minutes in, the bid was already at twenty-four thousand dollars.

  Then it took a turn.

  “Fifty thousand,” someone called out from the back. Someone with a sexy edge to her voice and a whole lot of rancor in her tone.

  She approached the front of the room, and people parted for her—actually parted. A
ll Cal could see was Mia, fury in her expression, a queen coming to claim her subject. Not that this bidding business was necessary. He already belonged to her.

  For a moment there, it was only the two of them. Well, the two of them and their mutual annoyance which needed its own stage.

  Harper coughed slightly, pulling him back to reality. “Not sure we can beat that.” She threw a glance to the redhead, who shook her head sadly, knowing when she was beat.

  “Sold to Mia Wallace!”

  Everyone clapped and whooped, and it was all a bit of blur. Cal jumped off the stage to meet his new owner, figuring the strangling portion of the evening could wait. Annoyance was being quickly evicted by a bubbling sense of joy. She might be angry, yet she had chosen him. They’d had a disagreement and now they were about to make up.

  He would tell her everything. About Tommy. About Bethany.

  But most important, he would tell her how he felt. How much he loved her. She didn’t just own him, she owned his heart.

  He smiled at her. She didn’t smile back.

  “Could we talk?”

  “I did it for charity, Cal.”

  Sure she did. Anyone could have done it, but she was the one who threw that kill bid into the mix.

  “Right, the kids will be thrilled. We need to talk.”

  “Maybe later. Right now, I’m—” She turned and as if that bitch of a universe had ordained it, he appeared. Tommy Fucking Gordon.

  “Foreman.” He nodded and Cal tried to kill him with his mind, wishing he would fuck the fuck off to the hole in the ground he’d crawled out of.

  But he didn’t. He stayed right there and …

  … put his arm around Mia’s waist.

  Rage red images of murder danced across Cal’s blurring vision.

  “We need to finish our conversation, Mia,” Tommy said. “Unless you and …” He waved at Cal.

  “Oh, God, no!” Mia’s eyes glittered with anger. “I actually bought him as a gift for someone else.”

  “Calvin!” Tara threw her arms around him. “Don’t you love helping the animals?”

  “It’s a children’s charity, Tara.” Cal glared at Mia. “I thought you won the auction.”

  “I did, but I figured what the heck, I don’t have any use for you.” She turned to Tommy. “Could we go somewhere quiet and discuss what we were talking about earlier?”

  “Mia—”

  But she was already turning and walking away. With him.

  26

  Tara placed a hand on Cal’s arm. “I think you need a drink.”

  He needed oblivion and he doubted there was enough alcohol in this hotel to get him there. “Tara, I don’t think I can deal with whatever you’re sellin’ right now.”

  She pulled a face. “You’ve got it bad, Calvin.”

  “You know my name is Callum or Cal.”

  “Yep. But I like Calvin better. Buy me a drink and you can tell me all about it.”

  “All about what?”

  “How you’re in love with Mia.”

  “I’m not in love with Mia. I’m not in love with anyone.”

  He’d never seen anyone look so disgusted. If she kept that up, her face might develop all sorts of lines. “So you’re the last one to know. Well, the second to last one because she doesn’t know yet. Or at least she’s pretending she doesn’t know because she thinks some clothes hanger in a five thousand dollar suit would be a better bet.” She patted his hand. “Sometimes people take a while to figure things out. A glass of champagne, please.”

  “Tara—”

  “Champagne first, Calvin.”

  Jesus. He headed up to the bar, his entire being seething. He really should leave, but part of him wanted to talk to Tara because she had spent time with Mia and maybe she could tell him something that would make him feel better about what happened.

  He ordered a bourbon—which he never drank but beer wouldn’t cut it—and a glass of champagne.

  He looked her square in her lovely green eyes. “I don’t get how you and Mia are friends.”

  “Why? Because she’s smart and funny? I’m smart and funny.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Did you guys talk about me?”

  She tilted her head, and she may as well have said “Oh, Cal.”

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  “Not that much. She’s not really gossipy, like me. She’s kind of lonely, I think.”

  How could she be lonely? She had her brother and her in-laws and him. He wanted more, but he would try to be magnanimous and settle for that—if she could ever find it in her heart to talk to him again.

  Tara sipped her champagne. “She needed advice about snagging Mr. Hot Shot, but there was only so much I could do. I suggested she ask your advice about capturing the attention of the twenty-first century male.”

  “That was all your idea?” The only advice Tara would think he was expert in was sexual. This explained a lot. “What kind of advice? Blow job tips and ways to wow him in bed?”

  Hell, Cal was merely the dress rehearsal for this suave, sophisticated, nothing-like-a-hockey-player guy. Once he’d exhausted his usefulness, Mia pushed him back toward his ex so he wouldn’t feel lonely.

  “Sometimes, I think you don’t have a high opinion of yourself, Cal. Oh, I know you’re good in bed and you know that but the rest … we didn’t have a whole lot else to talk about, did we?”

  “Tara, I’m sorry—”

  “It’s okay—sometimes, that’s all you’re looking for. I didn’t realize that at the time, so I pushed and I’m sorry, too, about what happened at the wedding. We both played a part in that. I think I only realized we weren’t really all that suited because whenever Mia talked about you, I knew the two of you had a deeper connection in days than we had in months. Now she thinks you’re a jerk, and to be honest, that’s good.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes. Because you’ve had it very easy with women. Oh, sure you don’t think so but you haven’t really been trying very hard, have you? And that’s probably because your heart was waiting for the right person to fight for.”

  Which he realized but had failed to execute. What was the point anyway? She wanted someone who was not him. She pushed him into Tara’s arms. She had made her position clear.

  Cal Foreman ain’t it.

  “I need to head out.”

  “You can fix this, Cal.” She patted his arm, all pity. “Call me tomorrow and we’ll do lunch.”

  Whatever. He turned and ran into someone trying to get closer to the bar.

  “Oh, hello, Cal,” Selena Fabien said silkily. “Having fun?”

  Yeah, fun. Absolute whizz bang of a night. He ignored her and moved aside to go around.

  “Charming,” she muttered.

  Fury flared. He turned back, his blood at a dangerous simmer.

  “You’ve got some nerve showing your face here.”

  She blinked in confusion, but not for long. That sharp brain of hers joined the dots and figured it out.

  “Sounds like you’ve had one too many.” She placed a hand on the bar and raised a finger to get the barman’s attention.

  Not so fast. He hadn’t touched a drop. Who needed alcohol when he had this much fury fermenting within his veins that his blood was likely close to eighty proof?

  “If they had any idea what you’re capable of, do you think they’d still be doing business with you, Selena?”

  Her lips curved in a supercilious smile. “I don’t think I have anything to say to you at this time.”

  “Oh, I get it. You don’t want to talk about the career you ruined? The life you destroyed so you could cover up your son’s bad—no, criminal—behavior.”

  She assessed him, a cool customer without a doubt. “What exactly do you need from me, Mr. Foreman?”

  “Oh, I don’t need anything. But you need to apologize to Mia for screwing up her life.”

  “Cal …” Tara said quietly, her hand on his arm. “Maybe you should co
me along now.”

  Selena made a noise between disbelief and disgust. “Mia’s life? I’m not sure what that young lady told you but she came out of this just fine. Unfortunately some girls like to play the victim. She’s obviously taken the time she needed to decide if pro hockey was really for her and I’ve already spoken to Coach Lindhoff. Put a good word in for her. The situation has already been dealt with and frankly, it’s none of your business.”

  Cal would not be dismissed, and neither would Mia’s life and career.

  “So much for the sisterhood. So much for looking out for the next generation. Instead you’d rather be part of fucking over my girl.”

  “Is everything okay here?” Harper had suddenly appeared with Remy, her observant gaze split between Selena and Cal.

  The Commissioner of the National Women’s Hockey League caught Cal’s eye. You won’t do it. You won’t dare challenge me like this. Mia didn’t want it out there, so you’re not going to embarrass her.

  And you know something? Selena Fabien was right. Cal would never air Mia’s dirty laundry in public, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do something about it. He usually took the easy road because if he let himself get mad, if he truly allowed it to take over, he might not come back from it.

  Screw that.

  He didn’t have to say why. He just had to put Selena Fabien on notice.

  “Y’know something, Ms. Fabien, you carry on. But tell your son he’s on my radar. If by some fucked-up miracle he ever makes his way out of the AHL and ends up on the same ice as me, he’ll have to be carried off in a body bag.”

  “Foreman!”

  “Cal!”

  The first voice was Harper’s, the second … Mia’s. His gaze locked with hers and saw fear and fury mixed in there. Not only Mia, but shit—Vadim and Isobel as well. Everyone had descended on this corner of the bar to witness Cal’s meltdown. Fucking fantastic.

  Selena gasped and clutched at her throat. “Did you just threaten my family?”

  “I believe I did. Not nice, is it?”