Hooking - Kristine Allen Page 0,64

had good feeling about our game that night.

“What was that all about?” He nodded over his shoulder toward where Halvorson and several of our teammates had left the ice.

“I have no fucking clue,” I said. We both started skating toward the exit to hit the locker room.

Except as soon as I stepped off the ice, Coach, Simon Drake, and Scottie Schuester were waiting for us. Simon was the team’s lead attorney; Scottie was the general manager. By the way they held my gaze, I knew they wanted to talk to me.

McGregor patted my back and kept going.

“Alex. Nick, Simon, and I need to talk to you as soon as you get changed,” Scottie said to me.

“What’s this about?” I asked warily. They exchanged a look, then returned their attention to me. There wasn’t anything I could think of that I’d done wrong.

Except for Sydney.

Fuck. What if they’d found out about us? I could handle the ass-chewing, but if she lost her job it would devastate her.

“We’d rather discuss it in private. You’re not in trouble, but there’s been a situation. Come to my office when you’re done.” Simon was the head of our legal team and handled the serious shit.

I nodded, and they walked off.

It was the fastest shower I’d probably ever taken. Within fifteen minutes, I was standing outside Scottie’s office, knocking on the door. Someone hollered for me to come in, so I opened the door and stepped inside.

All three men stood and motioned for me to have a seat.

Wary, I made my way to the chair. Before I sat, I shook all of their hands and looked them all in the eye. They weren’t giving off any hints about what this could be about. Simon spoke first.

“Alex. Last week while the team was on the road trip, I received some… unsettling news. I didn’t want to stress you out while you were on the road. Especially since I didn’t have all the details yet.” He folded his hands and paused.

“Okay?” I prompted.

“After I was contacted, I did a little research into the timelines. It seems to check out, so I wanted to give you what I know so far.” He held my gaze as my heart began to hammer. Nothing about this felt right.

“What do you know?” I asked.

“We were contacted by a Misty Moore. Does that name ring a bell?” Simon asked.

Wishing he would cut to the chase, I raised my brow and shook my head. “Should it?”

“I’m not sure. Her attorney contacted me on her behalf with the claim that you fathered her child.” I wasn’t sure what he said after that, because the blood was rushing in my ears, and panic clawed up my throat. I jolted to standing, knocking the chair over.

“No. No way. No fucking way,” I began to argue.

“She claims that last season when you were still playing for Montreal that you had a hookup on an away game to Pittsburgh. The time frame is accurate that you were indeed in Pittsburgh for an away game in the time she would’ve gotten pregnant. Mid-December. The baby was born early September, which also follows that timeline.” Simon ran a hand across his mouth as he waited for my response.

It seemed like the world was spinning, and I wasn’t keeping up.

I hadn’t been a Boy Scout. I’d probably been with an obscene number of women over the years. There was no way to remember all of their names or faces. Looking back on the way I was in the past made me slightly ill and filled me with more than a little self-loathing.

As I stood there breathing too damn fast and unable to think clearly, I finally looked up at the men in the room with me. All I could do was shake my head in disbelief.

“I don’t want to be tied to a woman I don’t even know,” I said like an irresponsible idiot. As I said, not my most brilliant moment.

“Well, son, it would appear that’s possibly irrelevant. Now what I can say is that from what I’ve uncovered, there have been four other men who were already eliminated as the father. Three of those are other NHL players.” Simon sighed.

“What does that mean for me?” Nothing seemed to be sinking in.

“It means that she enjoys herself too. With a lot of different men,” Scottie said after he cleared his throat. He was always trying to be political. It was his way of nicely saying that I’d been a man-whore and