He looked back at the woman, someone he thought looked familiar from somewhere. He couldn't quite figure it out, but she definitely seemed to look out of place in the drab underworld of the arena. Was she a player's girlfriend or part of the other team's staff maybe? And if either of those were the case, why was she wearing his jersey?
"I know you're staring at me, and it's kind of rude," she said without looking up from her phone.
Jordan looked around wondering what kind of idiot would stand there obviously staring like that. Then he realized he was that idiot. "Sorry, darling. I thought I recognized you from somewhere."
She looked up with harsh brown eyes that seemed ready to rip into him — and then they softened a bit. "You're Jordan King."
"I am. And you are?"
She held out her hand to him. "Charlotte Stone."
Holy crap, Charlotte Stone. As soon as she said her name, he recognized her from that stupid New York socialites' reality show that Alex insisted they watch during their down time on game-day afternoons. Her mom and some other old rich women starred on the vapid program and occasionally her mother would parade Charlotte in front of the cameras. She was the only person that Jordan was ever actually interested in seeing on the television screen. And she was here in his arena wearing his jersey.
"Nice to meet you." He tried to casually shake her hand, hoping it would hide the fact that he actually recognizing her. "Sorry about the uh... staring thing."
She smiled at him, wordlessly telling him it was OK because she was used to it. But he couldn't help but feel something for her that he hadn't felt in a long time around a woman. Nervousness maybe? Anxiety? Whatever it was, it was not normal for the most eligible bachelor in the Motor City.
"So I know this may sound rude, but what exactly are you doing here?"
"She's with me!" Jack Foster came walking down the ramp towards them and gave Charlotte a quick peck on the cheek. Jordan would never admit that he was jealous of his boss at that moment, but he was. "Your tickets," he said, handing Charlotte a white envelope.
"Tickets?" Jordan asked. "So you really are a hockey fan?"
"I am," she replied. "And Jack owed me after I signed the contract to live in his building."
"Signed a contract for the penthouse," he reminded them with an amused look on his face.
Jack had moved home to Detroit after becoming a billionaire when he sold his dot-com company back in Silicon Valley. Instead of staying in California, he decided to bring his cash back to his hometown and help revitalize the city. First, he bought the city's hockey team. Then he began renovating local abandoned buildings into luxury condos. Charlotte's had just been the most recent — and the most lavish.
"So I guess season tickets aren't hard to come by when you make the right real estate deal," Jordan teased.
Jack smiled at his captain. "You know the old car dealer who sits next to my friends by the penalty box?"
"Oh yeah, that guy's wife hates coming to the games," he said. "I think she'd try to find any way possible to get rid of those seats."
"Well, he died a month ago."
"And now I feel like an ass."
Charlotte laughed at Jordan, which gave him some sort of feeling that he didn't want to explain. If he could get another laugh like that from her, he would suffer whatever embarrassment he needed to make it possible.
"Don't feel bad," the team owner said. "She apparently called the ticket office to find a way to offload the seats for the rest of the season, and I found the perfect person." Jack smiled at Charlotte and then turned to his captain. "Kick some ass tonight for me, will you?"
Jordan shook Jack's hand. "Always do, sir."
"I'm not that much older than you. Stop calling me 'sir.'"
The captain leaned closer to Charlotte, lowering his voice a bit. "Just trying to impress the lady, sir." For that little display, he got another smile from the beauty next to him. "Enjoy the game, Miss Stone."
He gave her a wink and quickly turned back towards the locker room.
Jordan was trying to play it cool as he walked away but as soon as he turned the corner and was out of their sight, he had to take a deep breath. He was supposed to be focused on the game now, on the team and their goal to win the championship. He had told himself no women this year, nothing that could distract him until the end of the season, and definitely nothing that would contribute to his less-than-stellar reputation with the opposite sex.
But if that seat near the ice was going to be occupied by Charlotte Stone for the rest of the season, he was going to have to try extra hard to keep himself out of trouble instead of spending five minutes in the box staring at her.
Charlotte said her goodbyes to Jack and made her way into the arena, unable to shake the image of Jordan King's blue eyes staring at her. Just the idea of him talking to her dredged up bad memories of the last hockey player who looked at her like that. It was two years ago, sure, but the scar Declan Reed left on her heart still seemed to be quite fresh in her mind. It didn't help that Declan was also a professional hockey player, albeit the undisputed biggest pest in the league. Some things never change apparently.
But there was something about Jordan that could make her rethink her policy when it came to dating hockey players – and that could be very dangerous.
