Ah. That explained his father’s sudden disappearances and sudden reappearances. Ty hadn’t seen much of the old man, and figured it had to have something to do with a woman.
“And they kick Pebbles out and make her sleep with me.”
“Pebbles?”
“My mother’s dog.” She pushed her hair behind her ears and dropped her arms to her sides. “Pebbles hates me and the feeling is mutual. She snaps and snarls at me all the time. Except when she needs something. Like a place to sleep.”
He tilted his head to one side and looked at her. “Why don’t you kick her out?”
“I tried,” she said through a sigh. “But she looks at me with those beady little eyes and I just can’t be that mean. Now every time Pebbles jumps in bed with me, I know that Pavel’s in the other room getting naked with my mom.” She made a face and shook her head. “I probably wouldn’t be so disturbed if it wasn’t my mother moaning and carrying on like someone is killing her.”
It wasn’t the sort of reaction he’d expect out of a former stripper and Playmate. Especially an unrepentant stripper and Playmate. He didn’t really know what he’d expected. Maybe someone who thought sex was no big deal, no matter who was having it. At least, that had been the attitude of the strippers he’d known. “Huh.”
“Huh what?”
“For someone who used to get naked for a living, you seem all uptight about sex.”
“That was a job.” She shook her head as she looked into his eyes. “Stripping was never about sex.”
Which made no sense at all. A woman getting naked was always about sex. “Neither was Playboy,” she added.
She should tell that to all the guys who looked at her photos, because it sure as hell looked a lot like sex. At least it had to him. It had felt like it too. He thought of her wearing those pearls and felt his sac get tight. “Bullshit. You sold sex.”
She shrugged. “That was acting.”
He didn’t believe her, but all this talk about sex had him thinking of sliding his hands up the back of her jeans and cupping her smooth, bare behind as she put her hot moist mouth against his throat again. He needed to get out away from her, but he didn’t want to stand up just yet. His jeans were loose, but not that loose. “Again, I apologize for kissing you the other night.” He looked at his Rolex as if he had somewhere else to go. “I’d had a few too many beers. That’s not an excuse, and I’m sorry.”
She took the hint—thank the Lord—and reached for her purse on the nearby chair. “It was inappropriate on both our parts,” she said.
“Let’s just chalk it up to alcohol and forget it happened.”
“I can do that.” She hung the gold chain strap over one shoulder. “Can you?”
He was going to try like hell. “Absolutely. You have my word that it won’t happen again.” She stood before him like a sexual buffet that he wanted to dive into headfirst. “You could run around naked in front of me and I wouldn’t do a thing.”
She raised one skeptical brow. “Really?”
“Yep.” He lowered his gaze down the full curves beneath her shirt then back up again. “You could go ahead and whip that top off and I’d just sit here kind of bored.”
“You wouldn’t move a muscle?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I’d probably yawn.”
She dropped her purse to the floor, crossed her arms over her chest, and grasped the bottom of her shirt. “You sure you won’t feel anything?”
Holy shit. “Yeah.”
Her fingers gathered the edge, pulling it up until a strip of smooth white skin showed just above her jeans resting on her hips. “Still not feeling anything?”
Ty had been playing in the NHL for more than fifteen years now. He knew a thing or two about putting on his game face. “Not a thing.” To prove his point, he yawned. Which was difficult considering he had a hard time breathing.
She laughed, a soft seductive little chuckle as she pulled the shirt up past her little belly button, pierced with a pink jewel. “Nothing?”
The blood rushed from his head to his crotch and he fought the urge to fall to his knees and press his open mouth against her smooth belly. “Sorry, Mrs. Duffy.” Then he told the biggest whopper of the day. “You’re just not that attractive.”
She raised the bottom of the T-shirt further up her slim ribs. “You don’t think so?”
“No.”
“A lot of men have told me I’m beautiful.”
“A lot of men lie to get women naked.” The shirt rose a few stingy inches.
“Even women they’re not attracted to?”
His gaze took in her smooth belly as she pulled the shirt up just past the pink satin cupping the bottoms of her breasts. “Depends.”
“On?”
“If it’s after midnight and the bar’s about to close.” He held his breath, waiting for more. “A lot of people get more attractive at closing time. But I’ve never been the kind of guy to go ugly just to get laid. You could probably come over here and give me a lap dance right now and I’d just go ahead and fall asleep.”
Her little chuckle became deeper as if she could read his mind and knew he was lying. “I haven’t given a lap dance since I quit Aphrodite years ago, but I imagine it’s like riding a bike.” She gathered the shirt in one hand and slid a slow, deliberate palm across her bare belly. “I guarantee that you wouldn’t fall asleep.” There was something sinful and hot about a woman touching herself. “Within seconds you’d be whimpering like a baby and begging for mercy.”
“That’s a bold statement, Mrs. Duffy.”
“Just stating a fact, Mr. Savage.” Her little finger skimmed the top of her waistband and dipped below the top button. “You feelin’ sleepy yet?”
“Keep going. I’ll let you know.”
The tip of her ring finger followed her pinky beneath her waistband. “Bored?”
“Gettin’ there.”
“Wait.” Her hand stopped along with his heart. “Wouldn’t a lap dance be considered inappropriate behavior?”
Hell no!
She laughed and dropped her shirt. “And just after we said it wouldn’t happen anymore.”
His hands grasped the edge of the table to keep from reaching for her. From grabbing the waistband of her jeans and pulling her to him until she stood between his thighs, close enough to touch. He wanted to tell her she could behave inappro priately all she wanted. Anywhere. His bed came to mind, but the look in her clear, almost calculating eyes stopped him. While she’d just turned him inside out and upside down, she felt nothing.
She reached for her purse. “Are we going to be able to forget this happened, too?”
“Not a problem.” With his dick throbbing against his inner thigh, he said, “I’ve already forgotten.”
She moved toward the door but turned and looked at him over her shoulder. “Me too. You’re not the only one who was bored.” The door swung open before she reached it and her assistant stepped inside. “What’s up, Jules?” she asked.
Jules looked from her to Ty. “I just came to let you know that I set up a meeting next week with the director of the Chinooks Foundation.”
“Sounds good.” She adjusted the purse on her shoulder and looked at Ty one last time. “See you around, Mr. Savage.”
Jules watched her leave, then asked, “Is there something going on between you and Faith?”
“No,” he answered truthfully. There was nothing and there could never be anything either.
“It looked like something.”
“I’m the captain of her hockey team.” He raised his hands and rubbed his face. What the hell had just happened? “That’s it.”
“I hope that’s true. She’s my boss and I don’t allow myself to think of her like that,” Jules said.
He dropped his hands. “Like what?”
“Like the way you were looking at her. Like she was standing naked in front of you.”
It was so close to the truth, Ty stared at the bastard. “Even i
f that’s true, why is it your business—eh?”
“Because her husband just died and she’s lonely. I’d hate to see her get hurt.”
Ty folded his arms across his chest. “You seem overly concerned with her feelings.”
“I’m concerned about her, yes, but she’s a survivor. I’m more concerned about the Chinooks.” Now it was Jules’s turn to fold his arms across his chest. “What do you think the other guys will say about you making it with the owner of the team?”
“You seem to know. So, why don’t you tell me?”
Jules shook his head and stared him in the eyes. And as much as Ty wanted to punch him in the head, he had always admired a guy who didn’t back down when he was right. And as much as Ty hated to admit it, Jules was right. “I don’t think I have to list how many ways that would be profoundly stupid. There is no reason why we can’t knock out the Sharks in the next game and advance to the third round. Then we’re only two teams from winning the cup. I don’t think I need to tell you what a distraction that would be for you and everyone else.”
“That’s right. You don’t.” Ty stood. “That’s why we were talking about my father dating her mother.” Which was true. In between him looking at her like she was naked. “I like you, Jules. If I didn’t like you, I’d just tell you to stay the hell out of my business.” He moved toward the door and stopped to look down into the other man’s face. “So, I’m going to be straight with you. Every man on the team has seen those pictures in Playboy. There’s no point in even denying that. Hell, you’ve seen them, and Mrs. Duffy doesn’t seem at all worried about it. But there’s a world of difference between thinking about her in those pictures and taking it a step further. Let me assure you that nothing is going to get in my way of making it all the way to the finals.
“Not winning the cup has been a monkey on my back for fifteen years. I’ve been one overtime shot away from having my name engraved on the cup, and the last thing I’m going to do is fuck that up.” He gave Jules one last hard look and walked from the room.
He’d parked his BMW in the lower level of the parking garage, and on his way home, he thought about what he needed to do in tomorrow night’s game. They needed to shut down San Jose’s de fense, clinch the second round, and move on to the third. He thought about Faith and Jules. And he thought about his dad and Faith’s mother. Of all the women in Seattle, why did the old man have to screw around with her? Ty didn’t get it. It was like Pavel was the Pied Piper of penis and women followed him anywhere.
He drove across the floating bridge of Lake Washington to Mercer Island. He parked the BMW in between his Bugatti Veyron and his father’s Cadillac.
“Jesus, Dad,” Ty said as he walked into the kitchen and tossed his keys on the deep brown granite countertop. “You didn’t tell me that Faith Duffy walked in on you having sex with her mother.”
Pavel shrugged as he turned from the refrigerator and shut the door. “She was supposed to be in California.” He popped the top on a can of Molson and shrugged as if that said it all. “But she got sick and came home early.”
Ty doubted she’d been sick and suspected her sudden departure from San Jose had more to do with that kiss in the hall than bad fish or the flu bug. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You are judgmental.” Pavel raised the can to his lips and took a drink.
“No. You didn’t tell me because you knew I wouldn’t like it.” He sighed and shook his head.
“Seattle is a big city, Dad. Couldn’t you find another woman besides Faith Duffy’s mother to bang?”
Slowly Pavel lowered his beer. “Don’t talk disrespectful, Tyson.”
That was the weird paradox about Pavel. You could treat women like shit, and that was okay. But you couldn’t talk disrespectfully. “What’s going to happen when you break up with her?” There wasn’t a doubt in Ty’s mind that he would, too. “I don’t want to have to deal with a hysterical woman showing up here.” Like when women always discovered that Pavel was married, or wasn’t going to marry them, or he had dumped them for someone else.
“Val isn’t the type to get too attached. She’s only in town for a short time to help her daughter through a difficult time. She’s a devoted mother.”
Which brought up a subject Ty had been meaning to talk about. He couldn’t come right out and ask the old man when he was going back to his house. “What are your plans?” he asked instead as he moved toward the refrigerator and opened the stainless-steel door.
Pavel shrugged and raised his can. “Just having a beer. Later Valerie invited me over for dinner. I’m sure the two ladies wouldn’t mind if you joined us.”
After his latest conversation with Faith and the enormous wood she’d given him, that wasn’t going to happen. “I’m meeting some of the guys at Conte’s for poker and Cubans.” He was definitely in the mood to kick some ass on the poker table.
“You spend too much time in the company of men and it makes you bad-tempered.”
“I’m not bad-tempered! Jesus, I wish people would lay off about that.”
Pavel shook his head. “You’ve always been so sensitive. Like your mother.”
His father was talking out of his ass again. Sensitive? Like his mother? Ty was nothing like his mother. His mother had spent her life loving the wrong man. Ty had never been in love at all.
“You need to find a woman,” Pavel suggested. “A woman to take care of you.”
That just proved how well the old man knew him. The last thing Ty needed was a woman in his life. A down-and-dirty hookup was a different matter, but even that was too big a distraction. And right now, he couldn’t even afford a quick, wham-bam distraction.
Chapter 12
On Monday morning Jane Martineau walked into Faith’s office at the Key. A petite little package with dark hair and glasses, Jane wore very little makeup and was dressed in black from head to toe. She was cute rather than pretty, and not what Faith expected in either a lifestyle reporter or the wife of former elite goaltender Luc Martineau.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” she said as she shook Faith’s hand. She put a black leather briefcase on the desk and reached inside. “I had to threaten Darby with physical harm if he didn’t at least approach you for the interview. I also sicced his wife on him.”
“I didn’t know he was married.” For the inter view, Faith hadn’t known what to wear and had dressed in a white blouse, her black pencil skirt, and black patent leather T-strap pumps. Clearly, she’d overdressed.
Jane took out a pad of paper and a pen. “To my best friend since grade school, Caroline. I introduced them.”
“Wow. You still see your friend from grade school.” Faith didn’t know why she found that unusual, other than she hadn’t seen her friends from grade school for about fifteen years or so.
“I talk to her almost every day.”
“That must be nice. To have a friend for that long.” She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to sound pathetic.”
Jane looked at her through the lenses of her glasses as she dug around in the briefcase. “You didn’t. People come and go. Caroline and I are fortunate to still be in each other’s lives.”
Faith eyed the small tape recorder Jane pulled out of her briefcase and asked, “Do you have to use that?” God forbid she said something pathetic and it ended up in the newspaper.
“It’s as much for your protection as mine.” She set it on the desk and put the briefcase on the floor. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask you any embarrassing questions. This isn’t an exposé or a hit piece. Seattle hockey fans are excited about the playoffs and curious about you. They want to know a little bit about Faith Duffy. You don’t have to answer anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. Fair enough?”
Faith relaxed a bit. “Fair enough.”
Jane sat and started the interview with simple questions about where Faith had been born and how she’d met Virgil. Then she asked, “You’re only thirty years old; how does it feel to own an NHL franchise?”
“Shocking. Unbelievable. I still can’t believe it.”
“You didn’t know you were going to inherit the team?”
“No. Virgil never mentioned it. I found out the day his will was read.”
“Wow. That’s a nice inheritance.” Jane looked at her through the lenses of her glasses. “There are probably a lot of women who’d love to be in your shoes.”
True. She had a great life. “It’s a lot of work.”
“What do you know about running an entire organization like the Chinooks?”
“Admittedly not a lot, but I’m learning every day. I’m getting on-the-job training, and I’m actually starting to understand hockey and how the organization runs. It’s not as scary as it was a few weeks ago. Of course, Virgil was smart enough to hire good people and to let them do their jobs. So that makes my job easier.”
Jane asked about goals and points and the Chi nooks’ chances of winning the Stanley cup. In a 4–2 win the previous Saturday, the Chinooks had beaten the Sharks in Game Six and were set to play the Red Wings in the third round Thursday in Detroit. “Zetterberg and Datsyuk were both top scorers in their division during the regular season,” Jane said, referring to two Detroit players. “What’s the plan to slow down the momentum of Zetterberg and Datsyuk?”
“We just need to keep playing hockey the way we like to play it. We had thirty-two shots on goal last Saturday night, compared to the Sharks’ seventeen.”
The two of them left the office and headed down to the arena, where the team was practicing. “Everyone thinks we should be afraid of Detroit,” Faith said, and the closer they moved to the tunnel, the more the air thickened with testosterone. “They’ve got some great talent, but so do we. I think it will come down to…” she thought of Ty and smiled “…what’s in a player’s gut.”
“Hey, Mrs. Duffy,” the “Sniper,” Frankie Kawczynski, called out as Faith and Jane approached. He stood in the tunnel in front of a blowtorch heating the curve of his stick.
True Love and Other Disasters Page 14
