Page 1 of Curvy Fake Wife for the Player

Chapter 1

Alex

"I'm serious, Alex, you need to stay out of trouble. Just, I don't know, stay inside and have a beer, maybe watch a movie where a lot of shit gets blown up."

I could hear the frustration and the seriousness in my agent, Jack's voice. It was serious, I knew that, but I was Alex Witter, top winger for the Houston Highlanders, I didn't take anything too seriously except my career.

"I don't get into trouble, Jack. It just seems to find me." That was truer than I wanted it to be. "I just got back from visiting Dante, so you shouldn't hear anything about me other than I wore a feather boa while I had a tea party with a little girl."

The trip to visit Dante had actually been fun and relaxing. The best part? Other than adoring fans, no one bothered me while I was there.

"That's good. Very good."

"Worried?" Jack had been my agent for nearly a decade, I kept him on because he made me a very rich man with incredible endorsement deals and he always gave it to me straight, even the bad news. Maybe especially the bad news.

"Hell yeah, I'm worried. Top scorer in the League or not, another fuck up could cost you twenty million worth of endorsement deals. We have three contracts that renew this year, Alex."

Shit. "This is bullshit, Jack. I didn't force Tatiana to talk to the tabloids about our sex life." My ex, one of many, had hoped that her little stunt would get me to call her or rekindle our brief fling, or some such nonsense. She was dead wrong.

"Maybe so, but your name was connected to some acts most wouldn't consider family friendly."

"Yeah well I'm not a family man, am I?"

"No," Jack sighed. "You know how these morality clauses work, man. Keep your shit under wraps and stop fucking crazy."

I barked out a laugh at his advice. "Hard to do when you're me." It was how I always justified things that happened to me. But I took my job on the ice completely seriously, and the privileged life it gave me. "I won't do anything to screw up my business, but I can't be responsible for what other people do."

"You could stop sticking your dick in crazy, Alex. Training starts in a few weeks and I want you fresh and not distracted by anything. Feel me?"

I nodded even though he couldn't see me. "I feel ya, and I'll keep that in mind," I promised and ended the call.

I'd come too far in my life, from a dirt poor kid who grew up in a trailer park in Crayfish Hills, Tennessee to the number one high school, and then college prospect, before becoming the top scorer in the National Hockey League. I wouldn't let a spurned woman ruin it all because she wanted more than I ever promised her. Fuck that. I loved my life. Some might consider it empty, the women and the parties, the vacations and the money, but it was exactly the life I wanted. The media called me Hockey's Millionaire Playboy, and to a certain extent, I played up the role for their sake. The fans ate it up, the women loved it too, and aslong as I didn't go too far, management was fine with my antics. I made headlines both on and off the ice, and there had never been any problems with that.

Until now. Fucking Tatiana. Jack was right about one thing, I had to stop sticking my dick in crazy before it caught up to me in a really bad way.

"I guess I'm staying inside," I said out loud to myself as I made my way to the kitchen, pulling a beer from the fridge along with a pack of steaks.

My chef had left a few meals, but I was in the mood for something simple, so I seasoned the steaks, grabbed two more beers, and took the elevator to the roof. I lived in a penthouse apartment but the roof made it feel like a house with the grill area in one corner, plants and flowers all along the perimeter, and comfortable seating with a great view of all of Houston. Enjoying the last hour of sunshine of the day while I ate helped me relax. As much as I'd wanted to hunt down Tatiana and tell her off, I was glad my first instinct had been to call Jack. He'd gotten me a new phone number so she couldn't call, and planted stories that she was just jealous that I'd moved on before she did.

The truth was there was nothing to move on from. We met at a charity event and hit it off immediately, and by hit it off, I mean that we were instantly attracted to one another. She was interested and easy, which was exactly how I liked my women. I was interested and horny, and we'd spent a hot and adventurous week in bed together before we came up for air. We had our first date on day nine, and by day eleven I realized my mistake and broke things off with her. That was a year ago, and now that she was aging out of the modeling world, she was using me to stay relevant.

"Stop," I growled to myself as I finished off the steak and the second beer. She wasn't worth thinking about, but I gave in to a few more thoughts as I made my way back down to theapartment and then banished all thoughts of her from my mind completely. I needed to focus on the upcoming season. I needed to be ready, to be sharp. There were always young players looking to steal my spotlight, and the closer I got to thirty, the harder the young bucks pushed. I wasn't ready to give up hockey yet, which meant I needed to focus.

I grabbed another beer from the fridge, because when training started I would only indulge in alcohol on the weekends, and never more than two drinks until the season was over, which wouldn't be for a good long while if we made the playoffs for the sixth season in a row.

That third beer had knocked me on my ass, or maybe it was the sun and the stress. Whatever the reason was, I woke up to a moonlit sky. I didn't usually sleep in the middle of the day because there was always too much to do, but I'd been laying low since Tatiana's interview had brought the paparazzi vultures to my front door once again.

I rolled off the sofa to go in search of dinner, but a whimpering sound stopped me. I lived in a penthouse apartment so it wasn't as if there was a stray animal inside, but I went to check the roof since critters sometimes found themselves stuck up there. A quick look around revealed nothing, so I shrugged it off and went back downstairs. The whimper came again and once again, I frowned.

"What in the hell is that?"

I had no idea how a stray animal could have made it all the way up to my floor without being noticed, but the sound wouldn't quit, so I opened the front door and froze.

A baby sat in a hot pink carrier on my doorstep. I looked up and down the hall, waiting for one of my players to jump out and take credit for this obvious prank, but there was no one there. No one but the whimpering baby kicking her chubby little legs in the air.

"Where did you come from?" It was a good damn question but since the hall appeared to be empty, I had no choice but to pick up the carrier holding the baby and bring it inside.

I set the carrier on the kitchen counter and stared at the tiny thing with a shock of red hair and big green eyes. How did a baby end up on my doorstep? Mine was the only unit on this floor and it required a special key card to gain penthouse access.

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