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 if 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.