Page 75 of The Dating Contract

“I do,” he agreed.

And in the silence that followed, he heard a buzzing noise. “You have bees?”

Liam shook his head. “Nope. That’sBuzzus phonus, not any bees we know.”

Samuel nodded, before turning in the direction of the noise, only to stop at the expression on Leah’s face. She was biting her lip, and the seconds passed before he realized what was going on.

The buzzing noise had been Leah’s phone. And someone was trying to get in touch with her.

Insistently. Because the phone would stop, and then start again.

She sighed, then looked at him.

She looked helpless, and so Samuel nodded, whether she needed his encouragement or not.

Because the pattern had been repeated at least three times.

As if the nod from him was the okay she needed, Leah reached into her pocket, pulling out the device as it started buzzing again.

There was something in her expression as she turned, something that felt like an inevitability. He felt the tug on the thread between them, and he wondered what was going to happen as he watched her pull her phone from her pocket, glancing quickly at it.

Time stopped as he waited, wondering what she saw on the screen, what she needed, from him, what he had to do.

Instead of joy and relief, the surprise and annoyance in her expression as she turned back toward him told a different story. “I’m getting a call in about two minutes that I need to take,” she said.

There was resignation and upset in her voice, as if she also felt the pressure on the thread between them. He nodded, turning to Liam. “Is there somewhere she can be private?”

Liam nodded. “Office is down the hall to the left. Look for the original art Shadow Squad poster on the wall,” he said, gesturing at Leah.

She stood and headed down the hall, making his heart clench.

He hoped everything was okay. More specifically, and more importantly, he hoped she was going to be okay. After dealing with whatever this was.

“Relax,” Oliver said. “Whatever it is, you’ll deal with it.”

He nodded. “Right,” he said.

“Right now,” Oliver continued, “focus on the game. She’ll tell you what she needs when she’s done.”

Considering Oliver was happily married to a woman with a demanding creative career of her own, Samuel nodded, taking the advice. He’d be there for Leah when she was ready to talk.

*

Leah followed thedirections Liam had given her and walked down the hallway, turning into the room just to the right of the large Shadow Squad poster.

She was struck with the inevitability of the situation. The second she found herself relaxed in the moment with Samuel, believing that a future was possible, the Empires called.

She’d never been so upset to receive a work call in her life.

She’d never been so upset to be right in her life, but the foreboding held her close.

She walked into the room, turned on the light and sat down on the closest chair.

“Leah,” said the gentleman she’d been trying to get in touch with for the last week, “we need to talk. And we need to do it privately and quickly before the news gets out.”

This was unconventional, but this was Carly.

They needed an iron-clad contract before the world found out that the mystery team in the deal Carly signed a few years before were the Empires. Before the world found out that the Empires were officially signing a woman to an MHL contract. The kind of contract that would guarantee a woman would actually see minutes in net during an MHL game.

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