The Bad Boy Hockey Collection: A Collection Of Single Daddy Romances Read online

  “Sounds good, Mr. Barrett,” I advise him, doing everything I can to avoid looking up at my ex’s brother again. “You can forward the paperwork to me that’s needed and I will get Mr. Marsh’s email address to correspond with him accordingly, Sir.”

  The way my boss’s hands come up in from of him, halting my train of thought any further, I can tell I’m not going to like what comes from his mouth next. “Mr. Marsh has requested face-to-face communication,” he explains, giving his new client an encouraging smile to let him know there’s no problem at all with that. “Book a meeting with him sometime tomorrow to go over the particulars with him, please, Corinne.”

  “Sorry, Sir, but you have a meeting with our junior associate in the morning and back-to-back court proceedings tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps next week sometime?” Nothing makes me happier in that moment than knowing Brody Marsh isn’t going to get his own way. There’s no room on tomorrow’s schedule, and no way Arnold Barrett can possibly rearrange tomorrow’s docket.

  “No problem at all, Corinne,” my boss says just as cheerfully. “He’s already been generous enough to agree to have the meeting with you tomorrow, instead of me directly. Feel free to book it in the afternoon while I’m away—if that suits Mr. Marsh’s own schedule, of course.”

  Brody gives my boss a shrug like it’s no big deal. “Tomorrow afternoon works perfectly,” he agrees. His teeth shine as he grins at me, obviously enjoying every minute that the shocked expression remains on my face. “I’m looking forward to it, Corinne. Is it okay for me to call you that?”

  He’s goading me, trying to see how far he can push. A memory niggles annoyingly in my mind—Brody Marsh always was sarcastic and pretentious. “Of course. But are you sure you want to—”

  “Corinne, I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” he quips. “Let’s book a time for tomorrow, shall we?”

  Chapter Two

  Brody

  I had no idea Corinne Hastings worked at Barrett Law Offices until the moment I entered their building.

  But it sure as hell made an otherwise unpleasant task much more interesting.

  Her surprise had been evident when she locked eyes with me the first time, but I would have gladly admitted that we knew each other from a few years ago. Sure, things happened between her and my idiot of a younger brother, but that doesn’t mean I would have pretended like I didn’t know her in a public place.

  Corinne, on the other hand, obviously doesn’t agree with that logic. So, of course, when she pretended she didn’t know who I was, I had to go along with it. I also had to play it up a little and have some fun with her.

  Now, I have an appointment to meet with her tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock. No one else around, no ridiculous pretenses. I would say I’m almost looking forward to it if it didn’t mean I have to explain my sordid life story to the woman.

  But that’s what happens when I retain a lawyer to help me gain legal custody of my son.

  It isn’t going to be a messy case or anything. Hell, my ex, Charlotte, has already up and screwed off with her latest boytoy, leaving me a signed letter that surrenders her legal rights to Spencer.

  That’s right, my four-month-old son and I are on our own because my selfish ex-girlfriend has decided having a baby wasn’t what she wanted.

  Being with me wasn’t what she wanted.

  It’s not me I worry about, though. It’s my boy. He’s my number one priority, my world.

  Just like he should have been for Charlotte. But she’s got better things to do, I guess. Or more men to do. Either way, my son doesn’t need that kind of shit in his life. He doesn’t need inconsistency, someone who is there for him one minute and decides to take a hiatus the next. Spencer deserves better than that.

  Which is precisely why I’m making it legal. Charlotte’s letter is enough for me to strip her of her rights to my son, and I can gain sole custody. Then, he and I can continue on exactly as we have been for the past month, just the two of us.

  That’s all we need, each other.

  Unless, of course, someone else wanted to be in our lives eventually. I don’t mess around, though. Charlotte might like playing games and getting it on with any man who will look at her twice, but I don’t do head games and I don’t sleep around.

  That might have been my style a few years ago, but I’ve got Spencer to think about now. And honestly, while Charlotte and I broke up just before she found out she was pregnant, I haven’t been with anyone or even tried to date anyone since I found out my little man was going to be entering this world.

  Now, he’s here, and he’s with me. And that’s all that matters.

  But I did let one of my friends, a fellow hockey player on my team, coerce me into creating an online dating profile. It’s ridiculous, really. It keeps me entertained in the evenings, though, after Spencer is asleep in his crib. I usually find myself sitting in the leather recliner I love so much, sipping on a short glass of scotch on the rocks—just one to settle my mind and wind down; Spencer doesn’t need to wake up in the middle of the night to a father who’s three sheets to the wind—and scrolling through the messages in my inbox purely for the hell of it.

  I only went out on one date since creating that godforsaken profile, and I use that term loosely. It was a disaster. Women seem to think it’s adorable that a man has a kid, but they don’t seem to understand that they will not come first because of that kid. Spencer is, and will always be, my number one priority.

  Needless to say, cutting the date short because the babysitter—who just happens to be my mother—called to tell me Spencer wouldn’t go down for the night and she thought maybe he had a fever didn’t go over well. The woman had been polite enough throughout the date, and, sure, she was pretty, but I could tell by the way she did nothing but talking negatively about her exes and kept leaning forward to make sure I was getting an eyeful of her ample cleavage that she wasn’t someone I would be vying to see again, anyway.

  She, however, didn’t seem to see our date the same way. After thirteen messages in my inbox on LookingForLove.com, each one getting a bit snarlier and a whole lot more entitled, I sent a message apologizing and explaining that this just wasn’t going to work out. Then I blocked her.

  I know, real mature. But, like I said, I don’t do games, and I certainly wasn’t going to sit by and continue to receive angry messages from a desperate woman I had no intentions of seeing again.

  I haven’t taken the leap to see anyone I’ve chatted with on the dating site since. Not only because I’m leery of what kind of craziness I might find sitting across the table from me next, but because I have very little time for anyone but Spencer.

  Trust me, I’m not complaining. Between my decision to gain sole custody and the upcoming hockey season, I have more than my fair share on my plate as it is. Having to break down and ask my mother for help in watching Spencer while I attend practices has been hard enough, but I’ve come to admit that I can’t raise him without her right now. He’s four months old, for God sake.

  The boy needs a mother. That mother sure as hell isn’t going to be Charlotte, though. For now, he’ll be just fine with my mother.

  I settle into my recliner, sighing as my back and thighs sink into the memory foam of the chair. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d been all day until I finally sat down and took a tentative sip of scotch.

  Maybe the idea of legal proceedings in the name of Spencer is having more of an effect on me than I thought.

  To take my mind off it, I pull my laptop from the floor and boot it up. Sure enough, six messages glare back at me from the dating site’s inbox, all from women with big smiles and perfectly curled hair or skimpy tops in their profile pictures.

  It surprises me more and more every day that women even pay attention to my profile, mostly because I refrained from posting an actual picture of myself, instead choosing to be more mysterious and only using a closeup of my eye in the picture.

  Ridiculous, yes. But it still gets t
heir attention. Maybe it gets more attention than if I’d used an actual picture of myself. Call it a social experiment, but the results have left me astounded.

  The profiles of the women who have messaged me, however, have left me anything but. They range from simple “Hello, how are you?” to more blatant “You have sexy eyes, let’s meet up” messages.

  I delete every one of them.

  I lean back into my chair and click the Your Personalized Matches button. This has become a pastime of mine, mostly because I usually spend the next hour scoffing at the fact that, despite using real information to fill out my profile with regard to my likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, blah blah blah, the supposedly highly accurate algorithms of LookingForLove.com still manage to somehow pair me up with a daily list of women who, for the most part, make my eyebrows furrow and make me say “What the actual fuck?” out loud to myself.

  I mean, I can’t possibly have put something in my public profile that truly signals how amazingly compatible I would be with a woman who is ten years older than me, owns thirteen cats, and states that her favorite quote is “Love is patient, love is kind.”

  No, lady. Love is far from kind. It’s a cruel bitch that makes even the strongest people break at some point...especially when that love is real.

  I don’t know that because I loved Charlotte. I had feelings for the woman, but do I think it was love that kept us together for a year and a half before she decided to move on to someone—oh, how did she put it?—less serious? No, it wasn’t love I felt for Charlotte, I know that now.

  And the only reason I do know it is because I never truly felt real love until I held Spencer in my arms. That’s love. I just didn’t realize it until that little boy made me realize it.

  The list of matches for me today is longer than usual, but just as laughable. There’s a woman who might be attractive, but I can’t tell over the six pounds of makeup on her face and the duck lips she’s sporting, and another woman who claims she is a psychic and just knows she is going to find her true love on this website.

  I can barely hold back my snickering.

  Toward the bottom of the list, there’s a profile that makes me stop scrolling. Not because it says anything overly interesting, but because the woman has also used a picture of an eye as her profile photo. If it is really her eye, then the woman has very pretty hazel eyes, with flecks of gold that make them look more like something that should be in jewelry rather than someone’s physical attribute. She’s wearing mascara, but no other makeup, which is a welcomed change from the clown faces and nightclub makeup I’ve seen on this site so frequently.

  Her profile is also refreshing. Not because of what she says exactly, but because of what she doesn’t. She’s not trying too hard, not attempting to sell herself like a car salesman. She admits to working a lot and loving her job, though she doesn’t state what that job is. She also admits to enjoying quiet nights in more than the nightclub scene. She describes herself as loyal to a fault, but not willing to play games.

  “Hmm,” I mutter aloud. She’s even listed herself as looking for a long-term relationship.

  There is nothing wishy-washy about this girl, I can tell. She states she won’t play games, and she doesn’t dance around the subject of commitment—she wants something that will last, not just “Let’s have some fun and take the casual approach” like so many others are interested in.

  It makes me wonder what she looks like. There’s a physical description—dark brown hair, average height, slender build—but that tells me nothing.

  I stare at the eye in her profile picture, taking in the slant of her eyelids and the length of her lashes. For the first time since I joined this ludicrous website, my interest is piqued.

  Maybe it’s the comfort of my own home and the scotch in my hand. Maybe it’s the quietness of my house and allure of the fireplace in front of me. As I watch those flames across the room as they dance and flicker, I do something I haven’t done since I created my LookingForLove.com profile.

  I send the first message.

  Her username is interesting, too—LaughLoudLiveQuiet. I wonder exactly what it means, but instead of asking, I keep it simple.

  Hey there. Another person hiding behind their profile picture. Glad to see I’m not the only one. Hidin’ from anything in particular?

  Even as I press Send, I know the woman behind the eye image could easily misconstrue my message or just dismiss me completely as one of the scumbags who trolls these sites looking for their next lay. But, if I’m reading between the lines correctly, I have a funny feeling this kind of girl isn’t going to miss the opportunity to tell me exactly what she’s hiding from.

  Men. Presumably men just like me. And it’s up to me to change her mind and make her see I’m different. Because I am. At least, I’d like to think I am.

  Besides, what’s the harm in sending one little message?

  Chapter Three

  Corinne

  What a long night. Just seeing Brody and his cocky grin set me on a rollercoaster of emotions I hadn’t expected. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get away from the thought of having to face him today, by myself, with no one as a buffer.

  Of all the damn lawyers in this city, why in the world did he have to show up at the law office I work at? Hell, why did he have to end up choosing Arnold Barrett as his legal counsel when there were four other equally promising attorneys he could have chosen from in that office alone?

  The answer is simple—because that’s just the kind of atrocious luck I have.

  Two glasses of wine and a bubble bath later, I still couldn’t bring myself to switch my train of thought to something more neutral, something that didn’t include someone with the last name Marsh. So, I did the only thing I could do to take my mind off that dumbass, gorgeous hockey player with shitty siblings and an even shittier, obnoxious attitude...

  Mindless entertainment.

  I settle under the covers of my queen-sized bed and hide away from the world with only my cellphone to keep me company. Absently, I open up the LookingForLove.com app with the intention of scrolling through profiles and picking out all the reasons this online dating thing is never going to work. Instead, I see the alert at the top of the screen, a little number one with a circle advising me I have a new message.

  I’m rolling my eyes even before I read it.

  Hey there. Another person hiding behind their profile picture. Glad to see I’m not the only one. Hidin’ from anything in particular?

  After reading it, however, my eyes narrow. My initial instinct is to respond back with, “Yeah, YOU, you creep.” But something stops me, and I just stay there, huddled under the blankets, staring at the screen like I could somehow read between the lines and find more meaning in the words. His username is silly, too—EyesAreEverything—but there is something intriguing about the fact that he’d made the same silly decision to hide behind an image revealing only his eye. It’s a stupid decision, I’d thought at the time that I’d done it, which shows exactly how serious I’ve been taking this online dating thing, but he’d had the same idea. Finally, after debating whether to answer the message at all, I decide to answer truthfully.

  Hey. Yeah, the world, actually. You never know who’s reading this stuff or memorizing your picture. What’s your excuse, Mr. Blue Eyes?

  I am surprised when he responds within a few minutes, making a bell sound chime from my phone. I am just as shocked that his response makes me smile.

  Hiding from all the mysterious ladies out there with pretty hazel eyes that have coffee addictions and dream of getting a bulldog puppy someday.

  So, he’d read my profile. In full. Interesting.

  I type back, You can read. I’m impressed. It’s bordering on rude, but this guy seems to have a knack for humor, so I take the chance.

  Read and write; I’m a real scholar. You should see me juggle, too. I’m a jack of all trades, believe me.

  I have to give the guy some credit; he could hav
e easily taken the chance to say something pretentious like, “You should see what else I can do,” or even called me on my shit and said it was my charming personality that must’ve kept me single all this time. Instead, he took a jab at himself, was actually kind of funny, and chose to keep the innuendo to himself.

  Yeah, definitely impressed.

  I’ll take your word for it. Really, though—what’s your excuse for the eyeball closeup instead of an actual photo of yourself?

  My interest is piqued and I know my message will let that be known. Whatever. I am curious, so sue me.

  I look like Quasimodo. No, even better, I’m a cyclops; I’ve only got one eye to show off.

  There is a pause, then a second message comes in.

  I’m kidding. Honestly? A friend talked me into joining this site, and I guess I’m not following all the rules very well.

  A slow smirk crosses my lips. This guy is interesting, even if it is just to keep me company after a crappy day.

  Wow, a rebel and a cyclops. That should really be in your profile description, you know. I can’t help myself. The sarcastic humor is refreshing. He didn’t ask me what I was wearing or vying for a chance to meet up and prove how fucking wonderful he is.

  Updating my profile now. Are you laughing loud?

  The reference to my username makes me smile wider. Not yet, I write back. But you’re getting close.

  It is undoubtedly the lamest flirting I’ve ever done. It’s also the only time I’ve ever replied with anything that announced a spark of interest in someone, the first time I’ve ever encouraged someone to keep chatting with me.

  It’s a heady feeling, spending the evening chatting with someone I don’t know, someone who doesn’t know me, but someone I feel like I have something in common with even if I’m not exactly sure what that something is.

  But we proceed to spend the entire evening messaging back and forth on the site. Until one o’clock in the morning, to be exact. I might be twenty-six, but I don’t remember the last time I stayed up until that time of night just talking with someone. Especially someone who isn’t even a friend.