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She groaned as well, and it was like gasoline on fire, making me crazy with need. I was so desperate that I barely registered the click, click, click of heels outside the door, and then there was a knock. "Mr. Marshall."
"Fuck," I said under my breath as I stepped away.
Betts jumped down from the desk, pushing her skirt down and turning away, straightening her clothes but also reestablishing that cool demeanor she wore.
"Yes, Carol,” I said once I adjusted my dick.
The door opened, and the rink’s admin, Carol Slaughter, stepped in. "I'm sorry to bother you when you're having a meeting, but your wife is looking for you. She called up at the main office, and they let her know that you were here. She's on line two."
Mother fucker. There was a reason I left my phone in the car, and it was because I didn't want to be interrupted by anyone, but especially by my ex-wife.
I turned to the desk to pick up the phone. Betts looked at me, her eyes round with a look of horror. It took me a minute to realize what she was reacting to.
"Ex-wife. She's my ex-wife." Jesus fuck. I was many things, but a cheater wasn’t one of them.
Betts’s expression didn't change, and I was moving from being annoyed at Taylor to being pissed off if she ruined things for me and Betts.
"We share a son, so I need to take this call. But don't go anywhere because we still need to talk." I picked up the phone and poked the button for line two. "Taylor, I'm in a meeting."
Betts pushed around me and out the door. Dammit!
"If you would return my calls or texts, I wouldn't have to interrupt your work. Dean is—"
"I will call you to talk about Dean when I can. But right now, I can't." I had to go after Betts and make sure she understood that I wasn’t married. I hadn’t been in a long time. Hell, I hadn’t been in a relationship in a long time.
Another part of me told me to cool my jets. For one, Betts might be attracted to me, but she clearly didn’t want to be. I couldn’t be sure whether her attitude was simply because I was her boss, but I’d be a dick to dismiss her concerns.
Then there was my pride. When she said she thought I’d forgotten about the night of Naomi’s wedding, I could see how that would have hurt her pride. It was important that I let her know that I hadn’t forgotten and in fact, it was a memory that was seared into my brain. But she was still rejecting me, and even if her reasons were solid, they didn’t feel good. Maybe I needed to let Project Betts go and just focus on my bet with Levi.
6
Betts
Ialmost had sex with my boss in my office. If Carol hadn’t shown up, it was quite possible that I would've let Todd have his way with me. My hormones were disappointed at the interruption, but my common sense told me that I had been saved from making a big mistake. What was wrong with me that whenever he got near, all my senses sizzled while my brain stopped working?
When Carol said his wife was calling, I nearly threw up. The idea that I was an indiscretion by a married man made me sick.
He insisted that it was his ex-wife, and just to be sure, when I arrived home that evening, I Googled Todd. I’d done research before, but my focus had been on business, not on his personal life. I was relieved when I found information online that indicated they had divorced years ago.
Todd hadn't been linked to a woman since then. A man who was nearing fifty years old who hadn’t had any relationships for nearly a decade suggested a man who didn't want to be tied down.
I wasn't a prude. I had no problem with casual flings, but I was at a time of my life where I was looking for something serious. I wanted a husband and kids, just like my friends had. But clearly, he didn’t want that, which gave me a whole other reason to squash my attraction to Todd.
Over the next two weeks, Todd spent more time at the rink, but I did my best to avoid him or to have other people around so I wasn't alone with him. The few times I was alone with him, my irritation at ‘Project Mikael’, as he called it, kept my hormones in check.
Mikael was handsome and strong and skated with a great deal of flair, but emotionally, he was like a teenage boy just starting puberty. More often than not, he was looking at my breasts, not my face, when I was talking to him. He frequently made inappropriate comments. The only thing that kept me from filing a complaint against him was that there was an innocence about him that suggested he really didn't understand that what he was saying could be offensive.
I couldn’t be sure if the words came out wrong because of the language barrier or if he was so sheltered growing up that he had no clue how to behave around women. Maybe he was playing a role he thought he was supposed to play, a bad boy, womanizing hockey player.
He was a hard worker, I had to give him that, but progress was slow. I'd arranged for him to take English courses and asked Connor to be his special buddy, taking him out and showing him the ropes to help him settle into life in Henderson.
When Naomi came in, I made a special trip down to the ice to talk to her about Mikael. While on the one hand, she agreed with me that he was immature and needed a muzzle whenever women were around, she seemed to agree with Todd that there was something special about him that would bring fans to the games and could help offset the loss of Max and Big Ed.
The season was getting ready to begin, and Todd had arranged with the Buckaroos’ owners, Reed Hampton and Pierce Jackson, to have a press conference to introduce the teams to Nevada fans. As much work as I had put into helping Mikael grow up and assimilate, I'd also put into Todd and his presentation, telling him repeatedly to follow the script.
“It’s not like I haven’t done press before,” he said with his usual affable smirk.
I had a bad feeling that he was just patronizing me. After all, he didn’t say he’d stay on script.
