Page 9 of Hockey Wife

Banks snorted. “No army of lawyers this time?”

At the mention of lawyers, she could feel his teammates’ interest pique.

“This would be better done in private.”

“Don’t think so, princess. Have a nice life.”

Princess? Where did he get off calling her that? He knew nothing about her. So perhaps that was the image she cultivated: a spoiled trust fund baby, but when they last met, it was as equals. Just a girl and a guy who hit it off. Evidently, he’d done his research since, read all the headlines, and come to the same conclusion as everyone else.

Georgia Goodwin, poor little rich girl.

Her irritation was morphing into something stormy. Dangerous. She wouldn’t be typecast by him or anyone else. She opened her mouth to say so, but he had already turned away, having clearly decided this conversation was no longer worthy of his interest.

She hadn’t braved this stupid bar for nothing.

“We’re still married.”

Oh, that got the big guy’s attention.

“Fuck, no,” Dex muttered.

When her husband—ha!—turned, his face was alive with anger. No more cold disdain. This she could work with.

“What did you say?”

“I think you heard me.” She waved a hand, suspecting it would piss him off. Energy thrummed through her.

“What the hell is this?” Banks’s mouth had a cruel twist to it, so unlike that last time when it had looked kissable and pliant while he slept. “It was a done deal.”

“There was a paperwork error. The divorce didn’t go through.” She examined her nails, relishing the burst of power barreling through her veins. His scorn. Her fuel. “So much for the army of lawyers.”

There it was, the glare that would have stopped her heart if it wasn’t already dead. For a moment she thought he would turn away again. She held her breath, waiting for him to walk. It would have been what she deserved.

So when he didn’t do that, when instead he turned to his teammates and said, “You heard nothing,” then placed a hand on her elbow, she felt, not exactly victorious but, a part of something bigger. Impossible to ignore. Which was absurd because no one ever missed Georgia with her bubblegum pink finery and head-turning looks.

That night, two months ago, he’d worn a distinctly unVegas green flannel shirt and dark denim, looking like a lumberjack whose pickup had broken down on his way to the Rockies. In his mid-thirties, he was older than her twenty-four years, and while she’d dated older men before, Banks had given off a different vibe. Not leering or pervy, but almost gentlemanly. He hadn’t tried to look down her dress. He hadn’t tried to move closer or even touch her. Not until later. When she’d rescued him from the overzealous bride and curled her pinkie around his, she felt closer to him than she had felt to anyone in the longest time.

But not now. Now all she felt was an aching loneliness. Had she really thought that reconnecting with him would solve her problems? So foolish, Georgia.

As he led her away, she turned to look at his profile. Harsh. Unyielding. Sexy?

A small shiver shuddered through her body, the answer to that question a resounding yes.

But then he spoke and ruined it.

“You’re going to explain to me what happened, Georgia, and so help me God, if I’m not happy with the answer, you’ll wish you’d never walked in here.”

4

Banks considered himself a reasonable man.

He had three sisters after all. A man living with all that estrogen learned to be reasonable. He wasn’t like his teammate Dex O’Malley, a disaster-dick on two legs, constantly getting into trouble with women, the org, and the law. So much trouble that he had to have his reputation rehabilitated with fake engagements and shelter volunteer gigs.

No, Banks wasn’t like O’Malley at all.

He was worse.

And the reason was standing before him, looking like a cupcake in human form. Banks’s life was one of work and ambition, but then he met Georgia Goodwin and all that fell to the wayside.

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