Chapter 23
The big bad bear and Goldilocks
Kazimir
Harley licks her fingers. “I’m never going to have oven baked or fried chicken wings ever again.”
“I can see why,” she says, taking another bite of chicken wing. “I thought the hand-cut fries were out of this world, but these sweet potato fries, ohmyGod. I could eat a whole bucketful of these.”
I take a swig of my beer and drop the bottle on the coffee table in front of me, catching a glimpse of the row of brownstone houses.
You don’t live in Manhattan and expect privacy.
Even in Brooklyn Heights, the neighbors at the rear of my property can see my every move when I’m on the deck.
Same for when the folding glass door is open like it is right now, but on a perfect night like this, it’s a small price to pay for Harley and I to sit on the couch near the retractable glass wall.
My eyes roam to the stairs leading down to the fire pit.
Had it been a cooler night, I would’ve started a fire.
When October comes around, I’ll treat her to the unforgettable experience.
Who said she’ll be around that long, Lindstrom?
She’s no longer wearing her pretty white dress. She traded the sophisticated dress for a simple light-blue t-shirt, jeans shorts, and her fluffy, pink house slippers. The contrast between the simplicity of her outfit and the diamond necklace and earrings is striking.
It fills me with pride she’s still wearing them.
The one time I had bought Devlyn expensive jewelry, she asked me if I had kept the receipt for an exchange or a refund. The next day, I returned to the Fifth Avenue shop and asked for my money back.
That short-lived marriage was doomed well before she cheated on me.
I shake my head and continue admiring the woman sitting across from me.
She pauses as she’s about to take another bite, blonde strands framing her face like a halo. “Sorry if I’m eating like a pig.”
“Nonsense. You’re enjoying your food.”
“Why are you looking at me like that, then?”
I rub a hand over my face. “I feel guilty you weren’t able to stay and enjoy dinner at the gala.”
She drops the bone on the plate, grabs a napkin and wipes her fingers.
“I’m sure at four-thousand-dollars a plate, the meal would’ve been exceptional, but I’m certain it would be nowhere near as good as this.
” She points at the food displayed on the coffee table.
“In the end, I still get to wear the incredible bling, even if I changed into casual clothes.”
“You’re a good sport,” I tell her. “Tonight was all about image rehab. I guess that plan went down the toilet.”
“I disagree.”
I frown. “I threatened to rip Chett’s arm off his body. There were witnesses and I’m certain it was caught on camera.”
Harley gets up from the couch she’s sitting on, circles the coffee table, and comes to sit next to me on the other couch. The sweet floral scent of her perfume washes over me like a baptism.
“What was caught on camera was a man defending his girlfriend from a bully with a serious attitude problem,” she says.
I make a face. “I have a reputation for being a hard ass who doesn’t know how to hold his tongue or temper, I’m sure the media is going to latch onto that.”
“Although he was gripping me against my will, you didn’t touch him. Sure, you made a threat, but you didn’t follow through—”
“The only reason I didn’t pummel his face to the ground and send him back to his maker is because Erik showed up at the scene.” My nostrils flare. “Chett disrespected you.” Fury snakes down my spine at the memory of Chett gripping her.
Harley pulls her lower lip between her teeth and glances up at me from under her long lashes. “He disrespected your mom as well…”
“I don’t have a mom.” I scoff. “Chett disrespected the woman who was my womb for nine months. Once I popped out of her, that certified puck bunny, didn’t stick around to get to know her son.”
Harley’s eyes flutter. “She just left you?”
“You have six weeks to name a child after his or her birth. A month after I arrived into this world, the woman climbed into a taxi, with me in my baby seat, and headed to my grandparents’ house.
My dad was playing an away game at the time, so this was her window of opportunity.
She gave my grandmother a story about having to go back to Chicago for a family emergency.
When my dad returned home a couple days later, he discovered a note in which the woman he had knocked up was giving up her parental rights. She wasn’t cut out for motherhood.”
Harley blinks with her mouth open.
“So there I was, a newborn without a mother and without a name.”
She’s still staring at me in disbelief. “My chest aches for the small, motherless boy you were.”
“Nana made up for it. She was my mom. I never missed not having a mother. She didn’t stick around long enough for me to miss her.”
Harley purses her lips. “I guess.”
“In any case, you won’t read any of this in the press. I never talk about that woman.”
She frowns. “How did Chett know?”
“In a moment of sheer stupidity, I confided in Devlyn.”
“And she spilled your secret to her son––which she had no business doing.”
“It’s only after I married her, I discovered she had never cut the umbilical cord.”
She nods. “You’re a big deal. She must’ve been aware of your success. Did she ever reach out?”
“Once.”
“Did she want to make amends?”
“She didn’t track me down so she could make up for the fact she was a shitty human being. Since she had given birth to one of the best NHL players to ever grace the ice—her words, not mine—it didn’t make sense that she was struggling to make ends meet.”
“She’d lost her job?”
“She’d picked up a gambling addiction.”
“How did you know?”
“I had hired private investigators to keep tabs on her. From the moment we got drafted in the big leagues, Erik always warned me my mother would come out from under the rock she lived in and ask for money.”
“Did you cave?”
I shake my head. “When she threatened to go public for a quick payday, I told her to go for it.”
“You did?”
“A mother who abandoned her newborn child before even naming him so she wouldn’t lose her puck bunny status—so many cocks, too little time—wasn’t going to garner much sympathy from the public.”
Harley nods.
“She didn’t have a leg to stand on, so she crawled back under her rock, and I never heard from her again.”
Harley shakes her head.
“Here’s the irony, the woman who gave birth to me when she was twenty-one and Dad was twenty-three, was a flight attendant for the Boston Bandits team. She cheated on me with the captain of the Boston Bandits.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“I always hated playing that team.”
A beat of silence passes between us.
“I’m guessing your dad named you,” Harley says, breaking the silence.
“Nana Saoirse did,” I say. “Since my grandfather was Norwegian, my grandmother wanted a name that fits my last name. My middle name is Beckham. She liked the name.”
Harley angles her body on the couch so she’s facing me, in the process her pink, fuzzy slipper falls off a foot. She removes the other one.
“A few articles online suggest you and your dad…”
“Aren’t on speaking terms,” I finish for her.
“It’s as if he has a vendetta against you.” Expectant green eyes stare up at me.
“I’m lucky I had grandparents who were only too happy and eager to shower me with love and devotion.”
“Message received,” she says.
I reach for my beer, take a swig, and grimace.
Fuck, it’s warm.
I drop the bottle on the coffee table.
“In the short time I dated Chett, I always had the impression there was some kind of weird power-play game he wanted to exert over you,” Harley says.
If the idiot had kept his filthy paws off her, none of this would’ve happened. The asshole came after her to antagonize me. To rattle my cage. “Chett and I shouldn’t breathe the same air.”
“Why is there so much bad blood between you two?”
I rub a hand over my face. I’ve had my quota for the day of talking about my ex-wife and her spoiled brat, but after today’s brawl, Harley’s question doesn’t come as a surprise.
“He always wanted to play for the New York Blazers instead of playing for the New York Supersonics. He assumed once I tied the knot with his mom, I’d be championing his cause.
I told him that’s not how it works. He had to earn his position on the team by getting drafted.
He wasn’t going to get any preferential treatment.
” I shrug. “He resented me for not going to bat for him. No way was I going to put my career on the line for a guy with such a sense of entitlement.”
“That was a smart move on your part,” she says. “Imagine divorcing his mom, but having to have him on your team.”
I shake my head. “I dodged that bullet.”
“Speaking of dodging a bullet,” she says, with a coquettish shoulder shimmy. “As far as addressing your concerns, you might’ve made a threat, but Chett is going to come out looking like the aggressor.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“There were people recording when that guy stated he was a predator who was intimidating me. That’s not the best label for a guy who wants to become the greatest hockey player of all time by pulverizing every one of Kaz Lindstrom’s records.
” Harley deepens her voice to say that last part, mimicking Chett.
“Good call on kicking him.”
“I was willing to do anything to prevent you from looking like the bad guy in the story.”
“Such a protective fake girlfriend.”
She lifts her chin up. “I take my role as fake girlfriend to the great Kazimir Lindstrom very seriously.”
“You played the part to perfection, Goldilocks. You sure as hell looked the part.”
She tilts her head to the side. “Well, it helps when my fake boyfriend makes me look like a princess, with accompanying bling.” She points both index fingers to her necklace.
I reach out and caress her earrings and then trail a lazy finger across her necklace.
Her gaze lowers.