Chapter 3ROBBIE

CHAPTER 3

ROBBIE

F uck all the way off.

Fran fucking Keller?

After a day like today, this has got to be some sort of sick joke.

I look over the head of my old high school nemesis, spearing Andy who’s suddenly far too busy tapping away on his phone to notice my predicament.

Stepping around Keller, I storm into the apartment which, by the way, is pretty fucking sick—but that’s not important right now. I grab my agent by his shoulder, pushing him to the other side of the room, as far away from her as we can get. Naturally he looks up at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“Is this a joke?” I hiss, my voice deathly quiet.

Andy blinks at me.

From my periphery, I see Keller still standing in the foyer. Arms folded over her chest, hip popped, high-heeled foot tapping obnoxiously on the shiny floor. I seethe. How one person’s existence can be so fucking annoying, I have no idea.

“What the hell are we doing here?”

Andy’s brows knit together at my question. “You—I… this is the apartment you wanted to look at,” he says as if I’ve forgotten.

I glance over at Keller to find her inspecting her nails, clearly trying hard not to give away the fact that she’s totally eavesdropping. I lean in closer to Andy. “I can’t be here with… her .”

He looks from me, over his shoulder to Fran, and back again, one of his brows arching slightly higher. “You know her?”

A derisive snort comes from the foyer. See? Eavesdropping. Snake .

“From prep school,” I mutter under my breath. “Remember how I told you I literally shit myself during my first game at Belmont?”

Andy just stares at me, evidently confused.

I fold my arms across my chest, my jaw clenching painfully tight at the memory. “Yeah, well—” I jut my chin in her direction only to find her watching. “It was all her fault.” I narrow my eyes in a glare, and she’s suddenly storming toward us, heels clacking on the tile with every determined step.

“Ex- cuse me?” She stops right beside me, hands on her hips, looking up at me like I’m the delusional one. “Are you forgetting about the shampoo incident?” She glares at me. “I looked like a deranged Smurf in my yearbook photo thanks to you !”

I look down my nose at her. “You laced my Gatorade with laxatives !”

“In retaliation!” She’s shrill and pitchy, pointing a finger at me. “You’re the one who started it.”

I step closer, effectively closing the distances between us, using my height advantage to stare her down. “Well, if you hadn’t ratted on me about the party in the boat shed, I wouldn’t have even known you existed. Should’ve kept your preppy mouth shut.”

She rolls her eyes in response, another huff added for good measure as she looks away.

Shaking my head, I turn to Andy because he’s on my side. At least, I think he is… right now it looks as if it’s taking all he has not to laugh.

“There was shit all over the ice,” I say incredulously. “Men in HAZMAT suits came. Closed the arena for three days.”

“Okay,” Andy finally interjects, holding his hands up like a parent placating a toddler. “So, you two do know each other.”

“What are you even doing here?” Fran interrupts, ignoring Andy completely. “I thought you were in Michigan.”

“Minnesota,” I bite back, correcting her dumb ass.

“ Minnesota ,” she mutters some immature imitation of me.

I’m about to let her have it, when Andy chooses that moment to take control of the situation. And with the money I pay him, it’s about damn time.

“Ms. Keller,” he says in that business-like way he’s perfected over the years of being one of the top sports agents in the country. “My client has recently signed with the New York Thunder.”

Keller just blinks at him as if she has no idea what he’s talking about. And it doesn’t shock me. I’m the biggest name in the NHL right now, but her head’s always been too far up her own ass to care about anything that doesn’t involve her.

“New York is unfamiliar to my client, so we’re looking for a centrally located apartment that’s close to his gym, the team’s training center, Madison Square Garden, and—” he casts me a furtive glance before tentatively continuing, “—and close to NHL headquarters on Ninth Avenue.”

I spear him with a warning look because I swear to God, if he so much as hints to her the reason I need to be close to league headquarters, I will drop his ass faster than a cocky rookie who thinks he’s on the verge of a breakaway.

Keller turns from Andy to me, the icy look in her eyes thawing some.

She studies me, lips pursed, arms folded across her chest, and I’ve never been able to stand her rich-bitch holier-than-thou attitude. She was like this at school, and it’s safe to say not much has changed. It doesn’t matter to her that I’m no longer the hood-rat kid from Dorchester, picked up by her fancy prep school and given a scholarship just because I was good on the ice. It doesn’t matter that I’m now a professional hockey player with three championships, multi-million-dollar contracts, and major sponsorship deals. She’s still looking at me like I’m beneath her. So you know what? Fuck her.

“Look, forget it.” I snap, throwing my hands in the air. “This place fucking sucks anyway.” That last part’s a flat out lie but, again, fuck her.

I spin around, heading directly for the door.

Andy hurries behind me, lowering his voice as he says, “Will you stop and think of the terms to your contract.”

And, yeah, I need to have secured a permanent place of residence before game one, but I’d rather do a deal with the Devil himself than Fran fucking Keller.

“Wait!”

I stop. Not because she told me to. It’s the tone in her voice that causes me to pause mid-step. A little less self-assured than usual.

Intrigue sufficiently piqued, I turn slowly, clocking her where she stands with one hand gripping her phone, the other toying nervously with the thin gold chain that sits around her neck. Her throat bobs with a swallow and she takes a moment, as if the words are hard for her to say, before finally speaking.

“At least let me show you around first?” she says hopefully, posing it as a question, and it’s that uncharacteristic vulnerability that doesn’t make me immediately flip her off and storm out.

I feel Andy glance in my direction, and I really wish I had a choice. But frankly, he’s right. The terms of my Thunder contract are strict, to say the least. If I fuck this up, I can wave goodbye to the NHL, because no matter how good a hockey player I am, no other team will touch me.

I’m about to relent, but before I do, Keller speaks again.

“Ninth Avenue is literally right down there,” she says, pointing out one of the glass walls. When she turns back to me, her face is suddenly fraught with panic.

Wait a second. Is she desperate?

Call me an asshole, but I decide to play hard to get, setting my jaw even tighter, staring at her long and hard because she’s about to break. I can almost see the telltale cracks in her otherwise gleaming armor.

Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, Keller glances down at her phone, staring at it as if it holds all the answers, her mind obviously working overtime. And suddenly, I realize the tapping of her shiny blue stiletto isn’t her being obnoxious, it’s nerves. I’m forced to bite back my shit-eating grin because oh, how the mighty have fallen.

“Come on, Andy,” I say pointedly. “Let’s go see that condo in Brooklyn.”

Andy looks at me again like I’ve lost my mind. For the record there is no Brooklyn condo. I’m bluffing, but it seems to be working when Keller’s head snaps up, eyes comically wide and full of dread.

“Please don’t go!”

Both Andy and I gape at her outburst; I try not to laugh while Andy looks between Keller and me, like he’s wondering what the hell is going on.

Keller seems to consider her words, looking down at her phone once more, shoulders falling a little. I’d almost feel sorry for her if I didn’t know first-hand what an A plus asshole she is.

“Look,” she begins tentatively, avoiding my eyes. “I really need to sell this place.”

And there it is. What do you know, she is desperate. And I can’t say I hate it.

She releases a breath, and I don’t miss the way it tremors. “I have until Friday. If I don’t get a signed deal, my boss is going to give this listing to my… asshole ex-boyfriend, and I’m effectively going to lose my job because there is no way in the nine circles of hell that I am working with him again.” She snaps her mouth shut as if she’s said too much, and I catch an unexpected fragility in her gaze as her eyes flit from me to Andy and back again before dropping to the floor.

And I’m a lot of things, but a heartless prick isn’t one of them. So, after a brief pause, I huff, rolling my eyes like I’ve never been more inconvenienced in my life. “Okay, fine. Show us around,” I say with a bored sigh.

Her eyebrows climb high, the dark cloud above her lifting just a little. “Really?”

I nod, remaining stoic so as to not give myself away.

She spins around on her heel and immediately transforms back into a self-assured woman who clearly knows what she’s doing, taking us from room to room, pointing out useless shit like what kind of plaster is on the walls, and where the marble in the bathroom is from. And I must admit, I don’t really care about all that stuff, but I’m quietly impressed by her knowledge, although I’d never admit it out loud.

By the end of the tour, I’m sold. This place is perfect for me. A secure building to stop the unhinged puck bunnies from breaking in, which unfortunately happened more than a few times back in St. Paul. Two bedrooms, so my mom has her own space if she ever comes to stay. Kick-ass views of the city. A patio. A parking spot. And close to everything I need to be close to, as stipulated in my contract.

Keller stops at the sprawling island counter, looking across at Andy and me with her chin held high in a show of confidence that doesn’t fool me one bit. “So, what do you think?”

“They’re asking six even?” Andy speaks first.

She nods. “Yes, but my client is willing to negotiate if presented with the right terms.”

Andy looks down at something on his phone, probably texting my finance manager.

“Okay, we’ll be in touch,” I say.

I feel Andy shoot me a look which I ignore, holding Keller’s gaze. And frankly, I don’t even know if that’s something people say in these types of situations, but the way I see it, Keller deserves to sweat a little given the trauma she put me through back in high school. I know I’m not entirely innocent, but she didn’t shit herself in front of the entire school, half the town, and a whole squad of college scouts.

She glances at me, lips twitching like she wants to say more, but she doesn’t. Instead, her shoulders sag, and she tries to conceal the look of defeat in her big blue eyes with a tight smile. And I realize then that she’s clearly not much of a sales person. No wonder she’s desperate; I can see why she’s on the verge of losing her job.

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