“After I send the photos to the newspapers, I’ll blow them up and hang them around town with the other billboards of you and the captain.”
She’d figured wrong. She’d thought he’d stop with the threat of sending the pictures to the Seattle Times. The thought of her and Ty like that on a billboard added panic to the fear in her tumbling stomach. “What makes you think I care if people see me like that? I’ve suffered worse humiliation in my life.”
“I don’t think you care. You’re a stripper and have no morals. You’re shameless, but I don’t think you want to humiliate the captain and the rest of the team. Especially when it looks like they might actually win that cup.”
She believed him. She believed he’d do what he said. “Your father always said that you were a little pissant.”
Landon’s eyes narrowed. “My father was a fool with a taste for trash.” He stood. “My lawyers will send the papers to you tomorrow. Sign them and send them back as soon as possible or the price will go down even more. I thought about having you gift the team to me, but God forbid anyone assume we were involved somehow.”
She didn’t care about the money. “What are you going to do with the team?” She couldn’t believe this was happening. Not now. Her throat closed and she licked her dry lips. “Are you going to move it?”
He shook his head. “That won’t be necessary now that the team has had such a successful playoffs season. I’ll keep it in Seattle.” He smiled again. “I can’t say the same for your boyfriend. He’ll be traded as soon as I can work out the details.”
The hits just kept coming. This one right to her heart. “Why? He’s doing exactly what Virgil hired him to do.”
He tilted his head back and looked down at her through his frosty gaze. “I hardly think my father hired Mr. Savage to fuck his wife.”
“You would trade a captain who’s led this team to the final round of the championship just because you hate me?”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Savage has become in volved with you, and I don’t want him or you anywhere near my team.”
/> Faith looked at the man in front of her, at the only man on the planet she’d ever feared and she lied to save the only man she’d ever really loved. She shrugged. “Trade him to Toronto, for all I care,” she said, mentioning one of the lowest scoring team of the season. “I doubt they’ll want him, though. He’s persona non grata in Canada these days. Although that’s exactly what the jerk deserves. To be forced to play on a losing team that hates him.”
“Don’t tell me he got tired of you already?”
“He’s decided he wants someone more respectable,” she said, giving Landon the one lie he would believe. “Most men want to have an affair with a stripper. Few want a relationship outside of the bedroom.” She shrugged and pointed to the photos. “Those pictures are old news, Landon. The captain and I are no longer…an item.”
Now it was Landon’s turn to shrug. “Which means the captain is smarter than I gave him credit for. Maybe I’ll keep Mr. Savage. Depends on if he hands me the cup.”
He believed her for now. Perhaps a little too easily, but she guessed she shouldn’t be surprised, considering what he thought of her.
“That doesn’t change your predicament,”
Landon said. “Sign the contracts tomorrow or the photos hit the newspapers the next day.”
The thought of Landon’s hands on the cup made her sicker than she already felt. She had to say something. Do some thing or Landon would win. “You expect me to give up a hundred-and-seventy-million-dollar team? Just like that?” was the best she could come up with. “What? Over some photos that might humiliate Ty Savage and the rest of the team?”
“Yes,” he said, calling her bluff. He moved past her but stopped in the door. “Enjoy your last night in the skybox, Layla. After tomorrow it’s mine.”
Technically it wouldn’t be his until the sale was final in a few months, but she was in no position to argue.
“When will you make the announcement?” she asked.
“The night I’m handed the cup.”
Chapter 18
Faith sat in the owner’s box as the Chinooks were announced. One by one they skated onto the ice amidst the roaring cheers of the hometown crowd. Her face felt hot and her stomach burned from pent-up emotion. Sam and Marty and Blake. Her team. Her players. The guys she’d come to know over the past two months. Tension pounded the base of her skull and everything seemed unreal as she went through the motions.
There had to be a way. There had to be something she could do to keep from losing everything. But there was nothing. Nothing at all. She had no choice.
Her first instinct when Landon had left her office was to run. Run home, pull the covers over her head, and pretend everything would be all right. But she couldn’t do that. Everyone expected her to sit in the box tonight as if her world hadn’t just come apart.
“Do you want a glass of wine?” Jules asked her.
She looked at him. At her assistant in his peach-and-green silk shirt, obviously still suffering from a metrosexual crisis. What would happen to Jules?
“Faith?”