“Better.” Which wasn’t necessarily true. She missed Virgil every day, and there was a large hole in her heart. “Thank you for asking.”
Darby reintroduced everyone in the room, starting with executive management, continuing around the table to include the hockey operations staff and concluding with the big captain of the Chinooks sitting at the far end of the table. Roughly eight men and her. Some of them more rough than others. Or rather,
one
more rough than the others.
The last time she’d seen Ty Savage, he’d appeared more civilized, in his designer suit. Today
his volatile blue-on-blue eyes looked across at her from beneath his black brows, and he didn’t look civilized at all. His arms were folded across his muscular chest covered in a white T-shirt. The words “Chinooks Hockey” were printed in black up one of the long sleeves. It was just after noon and he already sported a five-o’clock shadow. “Hello, Mr. Savage.” Why the captain of the team needed to be in on the meeting, she didn’t know. Although she supposed it didn’t matter.
One corner of his mouth lifted, like she’d amused him. “Mrs. Duffy.”
She set her clutch on the table and took off her coat. One of the coaches rose and helped her. “Thank you,” she said as he hung it on the back of her chair. She pulled down the long sleeves of her cream angora sweater to cover her wrists and directed her attention to the faces around her. “My late husband loved this organization. He loved hockey and used to talk about trades and averages against and front-end deals. I’d listen to him for hours, but I never had any idea what he was talking about.”
She smoothed the back of her skirt and sat. “That’s why I’ve decided to sell the team to someone who has the same passion for the game as Virgil.” A lump formed in her throat and she wondered yet again if she was doing the right thing. She wished she were certain. “A half hour
ago, Landon Duffy signed a letter of intent to buy the franchise.” She expected applause. Something. She looked across at the table for some sign of relief, but oddly, she didn’t see any. “When the sale is final, we’ll hold a press conference.”
“When will that be?” Coach Nystrom asked.
“A few weeks.” She folded her hands on the table in front of her. “Landon assures us that nothing will change.”
Someone farther down the table said, “We heard he’s thinking of moving the team.”
Faith had not heard that. If it happened, Virgil would roll over in his grave. “When did you hear this?”
“I got a call this morning from Sports Center asking to confirm it.”
“He didn’t mention it, so I assume he plans to leave the team here in Seattle.” She shook her head. “Why would he move the team?”
“Money,” Darby explained. “We’re still recovering from the lockout, and another city might offer him a new stadium with better concession deals and lower labor costs. A new city might give him more lucrative television contracts and better tax incentives.”
A frown creased Faith’s forehead and she sat back in her chair. She knew about the 2004–2005 NHL lockout. She and Virgil had been married a short time, and she remembered him flying off
to meet with the players union, and the impasse that had resulted in the cancellation of the entire hockey season. She remembered a lot of swearing. Much worse than she’d ever heard in any strip club.
The door to the conference room opened and Landon entered, followed by two lawyers. She wasn’t all that surprised to see him. “Have you finished telling them the good news?” he asked, all smiles, as if he were an avenging angel sent to save the Chinooks from her clutches.
She stood. “We’re still discussing the details.”
“I’ll take over from here,” he said, sounding like the CEO that he was in his four-thousand-dollar suit.
“You don’t own the team yet, Landon. I don’t believe you can legally discuss anything.”
He waved his hand, dismissing her. “Run along.”
She felt her cheeks flush. From anger or embarrassment, she didn’t know. Maybe both. She stood a little straighter and squared her shoulders. “If you want to talk to the coaches and staff, you’ll have to wait outside until we’re finished.”
His smile fell. “Like hell, Layla.”
No maybes about it now. She was both mad
and
embarrassed. To call her Layla in the lawyers’ offices had been bad enough, but here in a room filled with these men was far worse. He meant it to be degrading. To remind all the men in the
room of her former profession. If Virgil were alive, Landon wouldn’t have been so openly disrespectful. Not in public, anyway. Now he felt free to publicly insult her. “I said wait outside.” Then she smiled and used the nickname he hated, “Sprout.” She didn’t know why he hated his nickname so much. “Sprout” was kind of cute, and lots of kids had gone through adolescence called far worse.
Apparently Landon didn’t think so, and his icy gaze got all frosty again and he took a step toward her. “For five years I’ve been forced to tolerate you,” he said as a vein on his forehead popped out. “Not anymore. If you don’t leave, I’ll have security take you out with the rest of the trash.”
Anger clutched her stomach and burned her cheek, and before she gave it a thought, she opened her mouth and said, “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not selling the team. I’m keeping it.”
Landon stopped dead in his tracks. “You can’t do that.”
Momentarily satisfied at her power to slap him down, she smiled. “I can do whatever I want. And what I want is to keep the team your father gave
me
.” God, she wanted to hurt him. To call him names and spit in his face. To give him a good hard knee between the legs. In another life she would not have hesitated, but Mrs. Duffy did not knee men in the nuts. Virgil had taught her that. “Stay away from my hockey team.”
He took a few more steps and reached for her. Before she could react, a big body stepped in front of her and she was suddenly staring at a wide back and white cotton T-shirt.
“It might be best if you leave now, Mr. Duffy,” Ty Savage said. “I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.” Faith wasn’t sure if he meant her or Landon. “And I would sure hate to read in the papers that Mrs. Duffy had you hauled out by security.”
From behind Ty’s back she heard Landon’s lawyers say something, and then Landon said, “This isn’t over, Layla.” After a few tense seconds, the door slammed shut behind him and Faith let out a pent-up breath. Her cheeks burned. She’d endured her share of humiliation. Some of it, admittedly, self-inflicted, but this felt like the time in elementary school when Eddie Peterson pulled up the back of her dress at the drinking fountain and exposed her holey pink underwear for the entire first grade.
Ty turned and spoke to her, “What did you do to make the man hate you so much?”
She looked up past the white scar on his chin surrounded by stubble, over his mouth and into his blue-on-blue eyes. “I married his father.” She gave in to her weak knees and sat. “Thank you for stepping in.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Her hands shook and she pulled them into her
lap. “I guess I’m not selling the team,” she said, dazed, and to no one in particular. She turned and looked at the stunned faces around her. She knew the feeling. She was just as stunned by her announcement.
“I’ve never seen a man treat a lady like that,” Darby said with a shake of his head.
Landon didn’t think she was a lady, and the last thing she wanted to do was talk about Landon and what he thought of her. “I suppose I’ll need a crash course in hockey.” Her face felt a little numb from the shock.
“You can hire an assistant,” one of the coaches suggested. “Virgil had one until the lockout. After that, I don’t know what happened to Jules.”
She’d never heard of a Jules. “Jules?” Her voice sounded strange and she had to fight the urge to put her forehead on the table and groan.
What had she just done?
“Julian Garcia,” Darcy answered. “I’ll see if I can dig up his number for you.”
“Thank you.” She guessed she was keeping Virgil’s team. At least for now, and she really didn’t know what else to say but, “I’ll do what I can to make sure you all get the Stanley Cup. That was Virgil’s dream and I know he was looking at acquiring players to make the team even stronger.” Or at least she thought she’d heard him mention it.
“The trade deadline has passed. Our roster is set, but next season we sure could use a guy in the blue zone with a mean right hook,” someone at the end of the table said.
Faith wasn’t sure what that meant, but no one seemed to notice, as they talked over and around her in rapid-fire succession as if she wasn’t even there.
“Someone who can defend as well as fight.”
“We’ve got Sam.”
“Liking to fight and intimating your opponents are two different things,” Ty added to the conversation as he took his seat at the end of the table. “Sam’s better feeding the puck up ice than he is at fighting. No one’s afraid of Sam.”
“That’s true.”
“Andre and Frankie are both coming along.”
“Not fast enough. We need someone like George Parros, but who can shoot the puck like Patrick Sharp.”
“Someone like Ted Lindsay.”
Coach Nystrom said, “Yeah, like ‘Terrible Ted.’”
They all nodded as if ‘Terrible Ted’ was their guy. Faith’s head was spinning and the conversation swirling around her made her feel as if she might hyperventilate. She had every right to hyperventilate; her life was spinning out of control, but she figured she probably shouldn’t pass out on her first day as owner. It might look bad. “How
much to get this guy? This Terrible Ted?” she asked in an effort to join the conversation and not appear so absolutely clueless.
The conversation came to a halt and their heads pivoted to stare at her. Somehow she’d rendered them all speechless. All except Ty Savage. His eyes squinted as if he was in pain. “We’re fucked.”
“Saint, there’s a lady in the room,” a man in a Chinooks cap admonished.
“Sorry.” Then Ty tilted his head back and said, “We’re screwed like a crack whore on payday, eh?”
She looked across at Darby. “What?”
“Ted retired in nineteen sixty-five.” He tried to give her a comforting smile but it looked as pain-filled as Ty’s squinty eyes. “Before you were born.”
“Oh.” She guessed that meant Terrible Ted wasn’t available. So much for not
appearing
clueless.
T
hen she looked at us with those big green eyes and asked how much to get Terrible Ted to play for the Chinooks?”
Pavel Savage choked on the beer he held to his lips and lowered the mug to the table. “You’re screwed.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
Ty nodded and took a long drink of his Labatt’s. His father had shown up at his house an hour ago, unexpected. Like always. “Yep. That’s what I said.” He set down the bottle and picked up his driver. Since his father’s arrival, the two of them had talked about last night’s game against Vancouver and Round Two, tomorrow night. They’d talked about Virgil’s death and what it meant for
Ty’s chances at the cup. “The GM suggested she dig up Virgil’s old assistant.” He stood with his feet a shoulders’ width apart and placed the club behind the golf ball. “I don’t care how many assistants she hires to tell her the difference between a cross check and slashing, she’ll never have what it takes.” He brought the club back behind his shoulder and swung. The ball shot across the room and into the center of the big net at the other end. When he’d bought the house on Mercer a month ago, he’d bought it because of the huge media room that would allow him to practice long drives inside. A wall of windows looked out at the lake and the city of Seattle beyond. At night the skyline was spectacular. “The old man could not have died at a worse time, but at least he created a strong front line before he croaked.”
“That is some comfort. God rest his soul,” Pavel murmured as he looked down at the little radar unit monitoring Ty’s speed and tempo. The speed read 101, and Pavel’s dark brows lowered. “Is she as beautiful as her pictures?”
“I haven’t seen her pictures.” Ty hooked another ball with his driver and lined it up on the golf mat next to the radar. He didn’t have to ask whom his father was talking about. “I don’t give a shit about her pictures.” After she’d announced earlier that afternoon that she was not selling the team, the Chinooks PR department had issued
a statement to the press that landed Faith Duffy on every channel of the local news. They’d dug up film footage of her walking into an event with Virgil and had spliced it with footage of her wearing a low-cut dress from her
Playboy
days and smiling with Hugh Hefner.
Ty’s phone had rung nonstop, with reporters wanting to know how he felt about the new owner, and instead of answering, he’d unplugged his phone. After Landon’s behavior, Ty was certain Virgil’s son wouldn’t have been a better choice. The man’s judgment was obviously flawed and influenced by emotion and personal motivations, which was never good in an owner. Now suddenly, a playmate was the better of the two choices. How had that happened? “You’ve seen the photos, I imagine.”
“No. I have not.” Pavel’s eyes pinched at the creased corners as he watched Ty swing.
The ball shot across the room and hit the red center of the net.
“That’s surprising.” Ty glanced at the radar, then at his father: 113. He recognized that squinty glint. Pavel was sixty-five and as competitive as ever.
“Not so much.” He shrugged and motioned for Ty to hand him the club.
“You couldn’t find an old
Playboy
.”
“No.” Pavel lined up a ball beside the radar.
Ty didn’t tell his father that he had the magazine in his gym bag right across the room. There was just something wrong about showing it to the old man, especially when he hadn’t even seen it himself.
“But then I really didn’t try. There are a lot of beautiful women in this world, why spend unnecessary time and energy on one?” Which summed up Pavel’s relationships with women. Even those women he’d married. He swung and the ball flew across the room and into the net. The radar flashed 83. Not bad for a man Pavel’s age, but of course it wasn’t good enough to beat his son.
“The grip on your club is hinky,” he said and handed Ty the driver. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
There was nothing wrong with his grip and Ty shot a few more balls into the net just to prove it. A little after ten, he flipped on his big-screen TV and settled onto the overstuffed moss-colored couch to watch the news. He thought about tomorrow night’s game and the Sedin twins.
He thought of Faith Duffy and hoped like hell that her announcement not to sell the team didn’t throw the Chinooks off their game. Knowing who was going to end up owning the Chinooks was better than not knowing, but not by much.
He thought about the way she’d looked that afternoon. First composed and together, then obviously shaken. Landon had called her “Layla,”
which Ty figured had probably been her stripper name. Virgil’s son was an asshole. No two ways about it. To purposely degrade any woman in public was a nasty thing to do, but to do it to his former stepmother in front of a roomful of people showed a nasty arrogant streak that had made Mrs. Duffy look like the classier of the two. She’d stood there, toe to toe, with her head high and her back straight, and Ty had to give her points for not dissolving into tears or cussing like the irate stripper she’d once been.
He raised his beer to his lips and took a long drink. She didn’t dress like a stripper. Not even like a more subdued playmate. No bright colors or tight T-shirts ripped in strategic places. No tight jeans or short skirts with thigh-high boots. That afternoon, she’d been all covered up from her chin to knees like an uptight socialite. Of course, that sweater had just drawn attention to her large breasts, and every man in the room had been wondering what she looked like naked.
Ty lowered the bottle and glanced over at his gym bag. He guessed some of the guys already knew. He set his beer on the coffee table and moved across the room. Looking at her photos wasn’t something he would have gone out of his way to do, but they were sitting right there and he was a man. He reached into the bag and pulled out the five-year-old magazine with some woman he
didn’t recognize on the cover all painted up like Uncle Sam. As he moved back toward the sofa, he flipped to the pictorial in the middle. His feet stopped as he stared down at Faith Duffy standing in a field of wildflowers wearing a sheer yellow dress. The light was behind her and she was nude beneath the loose material. In the next photo, her back was to the camera. Her green eyes looked over one shoulder, and the dress was pulled up her long legs and past her smooth behind.
Ty turned the page and this time she was on her hands and knees on a blanket laid out on a deep green lawn. She wore a pair of pink spike heels, white thigh-high stockings, and a pair of tiny white panties that tied at her hips. Her back was arched and her breasts thrust forward in a thin white bra. Heavy. Round. Perfect. It must have been cold that day. Her nipples puckered against the thin lace. Her wild hair curled about her shoulders and a slight smile curved her pink lips. He flipped to the next photo of her kneeling on the blanket next to a picnic basket, her thumb hooked in one side of her panties, pulling them down one thigh. He tilted his head to the side and a brow lifted up his forehead. She was as bald as a little peach.
He turned to the next photo. “Holy shit,” he whispered as he eyed the centerfold. Faith lay on the blanket, completely naked except for those
thigh-highs and a long strand of pearls looped around her left breast. One of her knees was bent, her back arched off the ground and her skin glowed. Her eyes looked into the camera from beneath heavy lids, and her lips were parted as if she wanted to make love.
What a shame, he thought as he looked at her smooth, round breasts. What a shame that she’d wasted that body on an old man. Because no matter what anyone said, Viagra couldn’t turn back time fifty years and give an eighty-one-year-old man what it took to please a thirty-year-old woman.
He flipped to her Playmate Profile and read that she’d been born in Reno, Nevada, and was five foot six. She’d weighed 125 pounds and her measurements were 34D-25-32. He thought of her in that black dress the day of Virgil’s funeral and figured she hadn’t changed much. Her ambition was to “be a goodwill ambassador and help orphans in third-world countries.”
Rich laughter poured from Ty’s lips. Her
ambition
should have read, “I want to be a gold digger who ends up with more money than a third-world country.” He supposed
Playboy
wouldn’t have printed something like that, but at least it would have been more accurate, and he would have respected her honesty.
Her favorite food was crème brûlée. Her least
favorite: hot dogs. Her favorite movie:
Sweet Home Alabama
. She hated social injustice and rude people.
Ty chuckled and flipped back to the centerfold. He knew the photos had been airbrushed, and she really wasn’t his type of woman, but damn, she was something. Her hard nipples were perfect little pink berries in the center of her breasts and there wasn’t a mole or mark anywhere on her. A woman who looked like that should have at least one love bite somewhere on her perfect body.
He thought of her curled along the side her old husband. He’d liked Virgil, but the mental image made him a little queasy. Maybe it was just him, but he tended to think he wasn’t alone in his belief that an eighty-one-year-old man just didn’t have the jump in his junk to keep a thirty-year-old happy in the sack. Virgil might have had decades of practice, and more money than God, but it took more than that. It took a healthy stamina to satisfy a woman like that.
He closed the magazine and thought of the phone call he’d overheard the day of Virgil’s wake. Virgil might have had enough money to keep his young wife happy, but he’d bet there’d been someone else putting a satisfied smile on his young wife’s face.
From twenty-six stories above the city, Faith looked out the two-story wall of glass at the lights of Seattle and the thick fog covering the waters of Elliott Bay. Through the soupy night, she could almost pinpoint the exact location of Virgil’s estate. Not that she could see it, but she’d lived there for five years and knew it well.
She thought of the first time Virgil had brought her to his home after their quickie wedding in Vegas a month after they’d met. She’d taken one look at the big house out on the island and just about had heart failure, wondering if she’d get lost in the big, rambling mansion.
She thought of the first time she’d seen Virgil at a
Playboy
party she’d helped host at the Palms. That night he’d made her an offer she’d refused. He’d made it again after the Playmate of the Year ceremony at the Playboy Mansion. He’d told her he’d show her the world and everything in it, and all she had to do was pretend that she loved him for more than his money. He’d promised her a million dollars for every year that she stayed married to him and she’d said yes.
In the beginning, she’d figured she’d stay married to him for a few years and get out. But after a short time, they became best friends. He’d shown her kindness and respect, and for the first time in her life, she’d known what it felt like to be safe and
secure and not have to worry about anything. By the end of the first twelve months, she loved him. Not like a father, but like a man who deserved her love and respect.
He’d been good to his word, and during the first few years of their marriage, they’d traveled all over the world. Hit every continent, and stayed in exclusive hotels. They’d toured the Mediterranean in yachts, gambled in Monte Carlo, and lounged on the white sands of Belize. But shortly after their second year together, Virgil suffered a massive heart attack and they didn’t travel out of the country after that. They’d stayed in Seattle and socialized with Virgil’s friends, but mostly they stayed at home in the big house on the island. Faith hadn’t really minded. She’d cared for him and loved taking care of him.
But they’d never actually made love.
All the money and surgeries and miracle pills in the world hadn’t prevented Virgil’s old age and diabetes from interfering with and robbing him of the one thing that made him feel like a vital man. Long before he’d met Faith, he hadn’t been able to have and sustain an erection. Nothing had worked for him, and his enormous pride and gigantic ego insisted that he settle for the next best thing. The appearance of sex with a much younger woman. A centerfold.
If she were totally honest, she would admit
that she hadn’t minded. Not just because he was fifty-one years older than herself, although that had been a part of it—especially in the beginning. But mostly Faith just didn’t like the uncertainty of sex. You could never tell by looking at a man if he was good in bed or not. There was never any way of knowing until it was too late and your panties were missing.
Before Virgil, she’d had a lot of boyfriends and a lot of sex. Sometimes it had been really good. Sometimes it had been really bad. To her, sex was like a box of chocolates—and yeah, she’d sort of stolen that from Forest Gump—she never knew what she was going to get. Faith didn’t like anything that wasn’t a sure thing, and there was nothing worse than craving something wonderful and yummy but getting a horrible orange jelly.
She hadn’t had sex since she’d married Virgil. At first it had been difficult, especially since she was young and she’d been fairly active, but after a few years of going without, she really didn’t miss it anymore. Now that Virgil was gone, she doubted her sex drive would suddenly come back to slap her in the head. And she just couldn’t see herself with another man.
The doorbell brought Faith out of her contemplation of sex and men. She moved through the living room and the travertine tile felt cool beneath her bare feet. She and Virgil had purchased
the four-bedroom penthouse last year, but they’d used it only on the rare occasions when it had been easier to stay overnight in the city. It was mostly finished in marble and tile and had an ultramodern feel. Virgil had let her decorate it, and she’d picked out white leather and tons of red and purple pillows. It had a main-level terrace that looked out over Elliott Bay, and a rooftop solarium covered with glass that had an unrestricted 360-degree view of the city, the busy waterways, and Mount Rainier beyond.
She opened the door and a white ball of fur jetted past, its little toenails clicking on the tile. Faith felt an overwhelming urge to punt.