Page 5 of Pucking Billionaire

Chapter 4

Mason

A few seconds earlier

So, this is Theodore’s daughter? She looks like every gold digger that’s ever tried to tempt me: tall and slender, with perfectly symmetrical facial features, big breasts, lush chestnut hair, gorgeous brown eyes… and the attitude of a honey badger. The only incongruency is her outfit: instead of high fashion, she’s wearing a simple red dress with black polka dots on it, like a sexy ladybug on Halloween. Thankfully, there are no buttons in sight. Gold diggers tend to wear outfits with plenty of those horrible things. This woman also smells differently from most gold diggers I know—who seem to bathe in fancy, nose-tickling perfumes. Instead, I detect juicy mango and mouthwatering watermelon, but that could be my thirst playing tricks.

Eyes narrowing murderously, she rushes at me, just like Number Twenty did the other day—and he ended up sitting out the rest of that game in the penalty box.

Poking me with her slender finger, she says, “How dare you?”

The urge to lick that finger is strong, which is as dumb of an idea as was talking shit about her where she could overhear me.

“Landon, I’ll call you back.” I hang up, then stare down at the finger and the woman attached to it. “If you were a guy, you’d lose that appendage.”

She draws back, and I realize I’m giving her the look I usually give players of the opposing team on the ice.

Great de-escalation. What’s next, spitting at her? Talking shit about her mama? Telling her there are twenty-five polka dots covering her breasts?

“You’re a beast.” She jerks her finger back and glues her hand to her side, like a gunslinger itching to draw her weapon.

I cock my head. “Is that the best insult you’ve got?”

On my team, it’s the sort of thing we might say to the referee, or to someone’s grandmother.

“You’re a rabid bear.” She looks tempted to poke me with the finger again. “A dumb gorilla.”

“Those are just examples of beasts,” I can’t help but point out.

Why am I antagonizing her when I need her to sell me the team? This is like that time I asked the ref if his wife knew he was fucking us.

“Who the hell are you?” she demands. “How did you know my father?”

Shit. Now she’s getting closer to making the stalking accusation I was warned about.

“Theodore owns the hockey team I play on. Owned, I mean.”

The reminder that the old man is dead tugs at something in my chest. She, in contrast, doesn’t so much as bat an eye.

Gritting my teeth, I continue. “I liked and respected him.”

And it’s true, I did, though I didn’t see him as a father figure like some of the others on the team did. For me, labeling someone a father figure is an insult.

She continues staring at me, so I finish with, “I knew him for many years.” It takes effort not to add, “Unlike you.”

“Oh.” She purses her plump, glossy lips. “I didn’t even realize he owned a hockey team.”

Of course, she wouldn’t know that. She knows nothing about him. But I don’t point that out. Instead, I use this as my opening. “He did,” I say with a cordiality I usually reserve for talking to ESPN. “He and I were working on a deal where he would sell said team to me, but we didn’t finish the paperwork in time…” I look at her meaningfully.

Hopefully, her gold-digging nature will make her more interested in the money than in revenge for my earlier words, which were really just me voicing an unpleasant truth.

Fuck. The deadly stare she gives me is how a ladybug must look at spider mites before devouring them whole—at least that’s what I saw in that bug documentary I watched the other day. “Why are you telling me this?” she demands.

“I thought it was obvious,” I say, deciding to just go ahead. “I’m here to make a deal with you.”

Chapter 5

Sophia

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