My Icy Hot Rebound - Book 1 Boys of Winter series (Sample only)

Chapter 2

Allie dreaded the mixer mostly because she only knew Eddie and Kyle, and she had no intention of sticking to either one. The last thing she needed was a billboard advertising that she was the boss's niece.

She arrived late, but not too late. Most everyone was there, milling about, carrying glasses of wine or champagne. Others were stationed near the buffet tables which looked pretty meagre. Cheap cold cuts, some cubed cheese and other mangy hors d'oeuvres. The vegetable platters looked a few days old, the carrots with white on them, the poor cauliflower browning. The tiny tray of cheap supermarket desserts was barely touched. She had no idea who was in charge of this, but they should have been fired. Eddie would never think to serve this crap to his business colleagues, so why serve it to elite athletes?

Allie swiped a white wine from one of the few servers. She sipped it, recoiling at the bitterness but getting her senses again and scanning the crowd for anyone she might know. Eddie was chatting with some higher-ups, and Kyle and his security crew were fawning over a couple of players who were ignoring them in return. No friendly faces available. Then she saw Cavallo, standing at the opposite end of the room presumably talking to a teammate. She took a long look at him. He had the broody exterior going for him, complete with unkempt hair, penetrating dark eyes and a shadow of a beard. She could see how women would fall all over themselves, but not her. She needed and wanted him, but not in any way he'd like.

Should she interrupt them? If she didn't, would there ever be a good time to approach him? If he was as useless as Kyle made him seem, she wanted to know now instead of waiting to find out later. If he was a dud, it was better to write him off as quickly as possible. Maybe next year she'd quietly have him removed and try and find a player rep who cared, who was ready to get his hands dirty. For now, she was stuck with Cavallo.

She downed her wine and set across the room. The closer she got, the more her stomach grumbled. School was easy. Getting great marks, studying, coming up with ideas, implementing those ideas, she excelled at all that, but talking to people? Not so much, especially the male variety who were pumped up with far more testosterone than they needed. Before Yale, years before, she'd interned with the Falcons. She couldn't remember a guy who'd been nice to her. They didn't know who she was and that's the way she wanted it. Sure, they would have been more pleasant, maybe even more respectful to a wide-eyed nineteen-year-old with the last name Stewart, but they looked down on her and her dowdy clothes, enormous glasses and the bit of pudge. That old self-conscious Allie was gone, but some of the self-esteem issues remained.

Thankfully, that was nine years ago. None of those players remained.

By the time she reached Cavallo, her heart was pounding so hard she could barely organize the thoughts racing through her head. She stood a few feet from the two men and both turned to look down at her. They towered over her five-foot-five frame and since she didn't like to wear heels, at least to bridge the gap, she found herself looking up into the big brown eyes of Will Cavallo. His expression didn't change, just a blank but hard look as if to ask her what she could possibly want with him. She took in a breath, refusing to be intimidated, to be laughed at like that nineteen-year-old. It didn't help that Cavallo had a rugged handsomeness about him that made her shrink even more under his gaze.

"I'm Allie Stewart," she said, extending her hand. Her voice held its own.

He looked at her hand and reluctantly shook it. His calloused grip held hers firmly, but not too tight. She thought to pull away, but she kind of liked her hand where it was.

"Will Cavallo," he said.

"Yes, I knew that," she said with a nervous laugh. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

"Nope, I'm shoving off," his teammate said. Allie recognized him to be one of the forwards. Patterson? Lindholm? She couldn't remember. "Will, we'll talk," he said and wandered back into the fray.