The Proposal: Colorado Coyotes #3

They call me the Ice Queen.
I take it as a compliment, because owning a pro hockey team requires a certain ruthlessness. But my penchant for ball busting has made me political enemies, and one of them has the clout to get me deported back to my home country of Russia. There’s only one solution: I have to get married, and fast.

Enter Colby Harrison.

He’s an easygoing forward on my team who meets my only requirement: he’s a single US citizen. I talk him into a fake, married only on paper arrangement, solving my problem. That is, until we move in together, clashing at every turn. We only get along in one place, which is how I discover that my aloof new husband is a different man in bed. He demands that I give up the one thing I cherish most: control.
I own him on paper. He owns me in the bedroom. And soon, I start wondering if I’m the only one who’s not faking it anymore.

Chapter One

Mila

“You did it.” 

Peter Cline, the lead attorney for the Colorado Coyotes, picks up the glass of champagne my assistant Quentin poured for him and holds it up.

“We did it,” I say, looking around at the group of Coyotes employees gathered in my office. “I can’t thank you enough for sticking with me during the past two years. Today is for celebrating, but tomorrow we’ll get back to work rebuilding.”

As everyone else raises their champagne flutes for a toast, I lift a thick shot glass of Stoli, the celebratory drink of choice in my family. The glass belonged to my grandfather and is one of my most prized possessions.

Deda was born into a poor Russian family and he made himself into a billionaire with his own blood and sweat. No tears, though, because that would be weak.

“Sorry I’m late,” says Ron Maddox as he walks into my office. He’s the head coach of the Colorado Coyotes, the professional hockey team I own. “Did you get it?”

“We got it!” 

He pumps his fist in the air. “Yes! I don’t know how you pulled that off, Mila, but you did a damn good job. How much did you get?”

“All of it. The last twenty-five million dollars.”

It’s been more than two years since the Shapiro Center was destroyed due to multiple facility explosions, killing twenty-two people. The investigation into the explosions took nearly a year and they were eventually ruled as accidents—one caused by faulty wiring and the other caused by fire from the first explosion reaching chemicals in a storage room. 

Our team has been sharing the home ice of a local community college’s hockey team, which has eaten into our bottom line significantly because of the much smaller seating capacity. We wanted our new arena to be the biggest and the best in the league, which meant acquiring property and financial assistance from the city of Denver. It’s been a bureaucratic nightmare, every milestone wrapped in red tape.

But today, I got the call from one of our state senators that we’re getting a state grant worth twenty-five million dollars to cover the last of the funding.

“How’d you get the governor to cave?” Peter asks me. 

“He didn’t. I went around him.”

Our state’s governor, Mike Mills, was behind many of the roadblocks I ran into as I tried to secure funding for the new arena. I bet on the wrong horse in the last election, giving heavy financial backing to the incumbent governor. Now Mills wants my head. 

Coach Maddox shakes his head and grins in my direction. “Balls of steel, Mila.”

I’ll be the first to admit it was a hell of a fight. It’s well known that I’m not self-made; my father is a Russian billionaire with a well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness who gave me the money I used to start my business career.

But no matter how many times I multiply that money, I’m still seen as the entitled daughter of a criminal. I put as much distance between myself and my father as I could as a teenager, but even now, at age thirty, it’s always his reputation that precedes me rather than my own.

“Do you want me to ask the PR department to put together a press release?” Quentin asks me.

“No,” I say, remembering the caveat for receiving the grant for the new arena. “Everyone, can I have your attention for just a second? This is really important.” The room quiets. “We are not authorized to announce this. There will be a press conference held by Senator Shumaker’s office and we’ll need everyone to attend. The politicians want us to kiss the ring over this money, and we’re going to.”

“You got it, boss,” Coach Maddox says.

People start to filter out of the room, returning to work. It’s late morning, and I have a full day scheduled.

But first, I get to sneak out of my office for my favorite part of the workday.

***

There’s a corner of the press booth at the community college’s arena where I can sit out of sight to watch the team practice. The college team practices early and our team gets the ice later in the morning, but several college players usually hang around to watch or take part in drills with our team.

I’ve loved hockey since I was a little girl. I was sent to a Swiss boarding school, but when I came home for breaks, my father would sometimes play ice hockey with me and my brothers. It was the only time I saw him smile and have fun.

Now I get to sign some of the best players in the world to play on the team I own. Ford Barrett is a recent acquisition I’m especially proud of. He’s our team captain and is part of the first offensive line. Beau Fox and Colby Harrison round out the first line, and I’d put them up against any first line in the league.

“What was that?” Barrett asks one of the college players, clapping him on the back.

The kid shrugs after missing a shot by a wide margin. Barrett leans in and says something to him, then demonstrates taking the shot the player just missed. The kid nods and goes to the back of the line in the drill they’re running.

I’ll miss this. Everyone at the community college has bent over backward to accommodate us. They refused to accept the money I offered for the use of their facilities, and I had to donate it to the college foundation to get around it. We’ve honored student activity passes at our games, allowing the students here to watch professional hockey for next to nothing.

I know why everyone calls me the Ice Queen. My brash, no-holds-barred approach to business isn’t for everyone, and I’m about as warm as that rink the players are skating on.

I’m more feared than loved. Like my deda always said, though, fear gets things done. Love? Not so much.

***

I spend my afternoon in meetings, my slivers of in-between time spent reviewing the information that our PR department is providing for the senator’s press release. Though I never doubted we’d build a new arena in Denver, I also can’t believe the funding is finally secured.

I’m the youngest team owner in the league by far. Only one of two female owners. I wanted to rebuild bigger and better for many reasons, but mostly for the twenty-two people we lost in the explosions. We’ve already broken ground on the new arena, and every person who died that day is part of it. 

A fountain at the entrance is dedicated to one person. A little chocolate shop is named after another. Our team of architects and designers worked with the families on ways to honor each person lost in a way that has meaning for the family.

If there’s one thing I know well, it’s the pain of loss. I haven’t just lost family members; I’ve also had to come to terms with who my remaining family members really are. 

Now we can focus on the future, though. The future of the Coyotes organization is bright. I text a couple of close girlfriends about meeting up later for drinks to celebrate. 

Quentin walks into my office, chewing his lower lip the way he only does when he’s about to deliver bad news. 

“Well?” I prod.

“Our source in the lieutenant governor’s office says the governor is planning his own press conference to put us on blast for using twenty-five million in taxpayer dollars.”

“Fuck.” I sit back in my chair, my good mood ruined.

“He’s planning to focus specifically on you and Senator Shumaker. They want to tie him to your father, Russian organized crime, the whole bit.”

Anger churns in my chest. Mike Mills has been a pain in my ass since the day he was elected. I should have known he wouldn’t just accept defeat.

“I’m guessing he plans to do this before Shumaker’s press conference?” I say, wondering when all this is going to happen.

“His is taking place in about an hour.”

“Of course,” I mutter.

He wants to get his message out first. Then our press conference will have to be used to respond to his, putting us on the defense. 

I take a deep breath and close my laptop. “Okay. Get Peter, Brian, Jane, and Coach in here. And call Zhu Anderson. I’m not using Jack for crisis communications anymore.”

My assistant leaves to make the calls and I start thinking about a response to the governor, staring at the imperfect stone on the wall across from my desk that I always look at when I’m bored during phone calls.

The only big block of offices the college could loan us while we’re here is in the basement of one of the oldest buildings on campus. It has peeling linoleum floors and cinder block walls that are crumbling in places. The spot I always stare at looks like someone carved a little triangle out of the corner of one of the blocks.

Really, this office is perfect. I was adamant that if our players were sharing locker room and ice space with college players, the rest of us would be on campus, too. Renting posh office space downtown would separate the front office staff from our whole reason for being—hockey.

Peter is the first to walk into my office, and he looks out of breath. His office is next to the boiler room on the opposite side of the basement from mine.

“Did you run the whole way here?” I ask, standing up from my chair.

He holds up a finger, panting too hard to talk. I walk over to the refrigerator in my office and take out a bottle of water, passing it to him.

After opening the bottle and taking a sip, he sits down in a chair across from my desk.

“We have a big problem,” he says.

“You heard about the press conference? All we can do is manage our response. That vote can’t be undone—we’re getting the money. We just need to remind ev¾”

He puts up a hand to stop me, shaking his head. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but it sounds like we’ll be eating takeout here again tonight. I’m here because I just got an official notification from USCIS.”

I shrug. “Can you translate? I don’t speak acronym.”

“Mila, there’s no easy way to say this. You’re being deported back to Russia.”