Page 63 of The Dating Contract

But she couldn’t let him know that, not when he was still considering her for partnership.

“That’s good,” he continued, as if he hadn’t noticed her reaction. “Especially with news like this. Do you know what kind of PR they’re going to do with this?”

“Well,” she said. “Funny thing.”

“Oh?”

“I wanted to see if I could add something in the contract about putting a crisis PR rep on call to handle whatever issues, whether social media or otherwise, come up. Do you have any thoughts on the matter, or do you have any ideas on people you think who can pull it off?”

“That is interesting,” Bruck said. “Let me shake some trees, see if we have some contacts for that. But I like the idea. I think based on the situation, that asking for it should be a bare minimum request of them.”

She nodded. “Yeah. There are a few other things, which I’ll run by you later, but I wanted to get this out first.”

“Good. What are you thinking about in regards to the deal? Terms?”

“One way, major only. You put her in the minor, and this, what she’s going through to do it, I don’t think, isn’t worth it.”

He shook his head. “You sure?”

“She would have made the team a few years ago, on an open tryout,” Leah replied, her rationale clear in her head. Not to mention her confidence in Carly. “And yes, it’s been a bit since she’s worked out heavily enough, but it was less time between her finishing the Legends season and stopping for maternity leave than her injury and the tryout.”

“Well,” Bruck said. “It’s a risk. It’s definitely a risk. Then again, as you pointed out, dealing with what she’s going to deal with to play is also a risk.”

Leah nodded. “Not to mention her brother-in-law wants to play with her as an Empire before he retires.”

“He does?” Bruck raised an eyebrow. “Is he pressuring her?”

Leah would have laughed, but family was family. And she knew how well that went; there was pressure and then there was…something else.

Which was when she realized she’d been avoiding her sister, but that was another story entirely.

“He’s encouraging her,” she said. “There are so many reasons stacked against her, but Chris is doing his best to remind her that there are reasons and people in her corner. Which is lovely.”

“That is nice,” Bruck said. “He’d be going to the media?”

“He doesn’t want to make it a circus.” She paused. “She’s also going to change her name.”

“She changing her name? Really?”

Leah nodded. “One of the things Chris has talked about, and it stuck in her head, was that a lot of the conversation in hockey are about hockey families. And as a gift or a surprise or whatever, and maybe an understanding? She’s changing the name on the back of her jersey to Emerson when she plays for the Empires.”

“I like that,” Bruck said. “Give the Empires a bit of history. First brother and sister-in-law to play on the same team. Nice. Okay.”

And as they continued to chat, Leah was excited.

And at the same time, she couldn’t wait to tell Samuel.

Which was strange. But she’d go with it.

As long as she didn’t text him.

*

Samuel fought thebattle against texting Leah for hours. He’d managed to succeed through dinner (random knishes ordered from Greenblatts) and a bunch of commission work.

Once again, he made a note to tell his brother how glad he’d been that the names of the people he was working for were left out of his notice. Because even though he wanted to know who he was doing these for, he was glad he didn’t.

But eventually, he lost the battle and texted Leah.

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