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Grabbing the tablet, I looked down at the news article Tom had pulled up on the screen.
Puck Bunny Princess.
How having sexual relations with one woman is the new form of team bonding.
Star defenseman River Cooper has embraced a new technique of building a rapport with his team—sharing a booty call. Publicly linked with Cooper and fan favorite forward Rigby Engman, is this woman the new queen of the Ann Arbor IceCaps, or just another indicator of the misogynistic culture permeating the IceCaps locker room? The mystery woman has also been seen with eligible bachelor and IceCaps sponsor Devan Mayson, so it seems the Caps are happy to make sure everyone feels like they are a part of the team. She has even been linked with married Captain Clint Vanmussen, having been seen leaving his home in the early hours of the morning. This whole situation flies directly in the face of the team’s supposed “family first” values…
I looked up at Tom. “Is this a company tablet?”
He nodded, stepping to the side and shutting the door. He’d been with me long enough to know what came next. I threw the fucking thing against the wall.
“God fuckingdammit!” I yelled. Why couldn’t I just get to be fucking happy? I swiped everything off the desk, throwing a full temper tantrum. When I straightened, heaving in breaths, Tom looked almost frightened.
Fuck.I’d lost control.
“I’m sorry, Tom.” I softened my voice. “Can you get the lawyers on the phone, and then probably the public relations team. Cancel all my other appointments, and reschedule the ones that can’t be emails.” With a nod, he left as fast as he possibly could.
I needed to call the guys. I grabbed my phone, but it rang before I even managed to unlock it, Rigby’s face flashing on the screen.
“I saw it,” I said instead of a greeting. “Has Nova seen it?”
The low growl of Rigby’s voice told me more than his words that he was pissed. “I don’t fucking know. She was still cocooned in bed when we left for training. But she’s not going to magically miss this. She’s going to find out. River and I are getting dragged to the owner's office now.”
“What are you going to say?”
Another low curse from Rigby. “The fucking truth. That we’re in a committed relationship, that it’s none of their fucking business, and everything printed in that article is a fucking lie that can be corroborated by at least thirty other people. Who the fuck would do this, man?”
I wished I’d looked at the byline before smashing the tablet. “I don’t care. I’m going to destroy them, and I’m going to fucking enjoy it.”
There was a loud shout and the sound of something heavy hitting the wall. River.
“Tell him to not punch the wall. He needs his fucking hands. We’ll get this figured out as soon as possible. And then whoever printed that bullshit will pay—I promise you that.”
I needed to get this shit over and done with before Nova turned on the news. She wasn’t a news lover, so I might have a little time to nip this in the bud. But I wasn’t betting that I’d be that lucky.
Tom called an emergency meeting with the lawyers and the PR department inhumanly fast. He must have made them sprint from their executive offices. I was gonna give that kid a raise.
I sat around a small conference table, a printed copy of the article in front of me. The byline wasn’t a name I knew, which was surprising. But the photos in the article were incriminating, and proof that someone had been following Nova for a lot longer than that pap in the park last week.
Her hand on Rigby’s through the glass—though me and Huey were conveniently cut from the picture—us on the kiss cam, River with his arm around her at the park. Even Nova standing in the doorway of Muss’s house, from an angle where you couldn’t see Julieta beside him.
I pushed the article into the middle of the table before I gave into the urge to tear it to pieces. “I want this squashed. Gone. And I want you to find the reporter and sue the fuck out of them—and the newspaper. Anyone who hadanythingto do with this bullshit.” I looked at Chantelle from PR. “Put out a press release.”
“What do you want it to say exactly?” she asked, eyeing me warily.
“That my relationships are no one’s fucking business would be a start,” I growled.
My lawyer, Malik, was young, and honestly a bit of a shark, but I liked him like that. “With all due respect, sir, I can only sue them for slander, or damage to the company’s reputation, if the statements made aren’t actually true.”
“She’s not a fucking whore!”
Malik raised a hand. “What you do in your relationships is none of our damn business. I really hate this tabloid shit. But if you’re all in a relationship with this woman, then we don’t have much of a leg to stand on.”
“She isn’t fucking Clint Vanmussen.”
Malik shook his head. “It very carefully didn’t suggest that she was. Only that she was seen leaving his house in the early hours.”
I slammed my hands on the table. “We were all fucking there that night. This is such a goddamn clusterfuck.” I looked around the table. “Fix this. I don’t care who you have to bribe or threaten,nothinglike this gets printed again. Buy the company and fire the fuckers if you have to. I’ll be at home.”
