Chapter 5 — The Owner Wears Red Lipstick

The boardroom smelled like fresh coffee and old money.

It was a good looking room. Long table, leather chairs, windows that looked out over the city. A Renegades logo, the size of a dining table, was etched into the far wall in frosted glass. Below it, eleven men sat in various states of impatience.

Sienna stood in the hallway for exactly four seconds and looked at all of it through the door’s narrow glass panel.

Then Sienna put her hand on the door and walked in.

Richard Cole noticed Sienna first.

He was at the far end of the table, silver-haired, with the easy posture of a man who had been the most important person in every room he’d entered for forty years.

He looked at Sienna like she had wandered into the wrong room.

“The owner’s assistant?” he said pleasantly, to the room at large.

“The owner,” Sienna said.

Sienna set her bag on the table. Then pulled out the chair at the head — Hank’s chair, the one closest to the frosted logo — and sat down. Then folded her hands.

“Sienna.”

Grant’s voice. Sienna had prepared herself for that.

Sienna turned her head, found him in the third chair on the left, and looked at him the same way Sienna had looked at the frosted logo coming in — noted it, moved past it.

“Grant,” She said in equal tone.

His coffee cup was in his hand. Color left his face in sections — first his jaw, then the rest of it — and his hand went slack enough that the cup tilted and coffee hit the white tablecloth splashing around him.

Nobody moved to clean it.

Cole recovered faster. Forty years in business had taught him to spot a change the moment it happened.

“Sienna Bennett,” he said, with a smile that reached his eyes. “Hank’s granddaughter.” He nodded slowly, like he found this charming. “Welcome. Truly. This must be overwhelming.”

“Not particularly,” Sienna said.

“Well.” He spread his hands. “There’s a great deal to learn. The team is—”

“Seventh in the conference,” Sienna said. “Twelve and fourteen. We’re giving up too many shots from the slot and our penalty kill is ranked twenty-second in the league. Our captain is on an expiring contract and nobody has talked to him about renewal in four months, which is frankly an embarrassment.”

A pause.

“I did my homework over the weekend,” Sienna said.

Cole’s smile changed. Even though he still managed to keep it.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Then you’ll appreciate that there are decisions already in motion—”

“Tell me about them,” Sienna said.

He reached for a folder. “We have a trade package that—”

“For who?” Sienna asked.

“Our captain. Dean Maddox.” He said it lightly, not looking up. “Attractive return. Boston is offering two first-round picks and a roster player who—”

“No,” Sienna said.

Cole looked up.

The room looked up.

Grant had gone completely still in his chair.

“The trade isn’t happening,” Sienna said. “Not now, not this week, not this season. We don’t trade Dean Maddox while I’m here.” She let that settle. “Bring him up here.”

“Bring him—” Cole blinked. “He’s in practice—”

“Then pull him out. He should meet the person who just blocked his trade.” Sienna looked around the table at eleven faces doing different versions of recalibration. “He should meet his new owner.”

Cole looked at Sienna for a long moment with something behind his eyes Sienna couldn’t name yet.

“Of course,” he said.

He nodded to someone and the person left.

The room waited.

Grant stared at the coffee stain in front of him. He hadn’t said anything since Sienna’s name.

Sienna knew this before looking at him.

The door opened.

Dean Maddox walked in still wearing his practice gear, his hair damp and a towel slung over one shoulder. He carried himself with the easy confidence of someone used to being the center of attention.

“Whoever pulled me out of practice had better have a good—”

He saw Sienna.

Everything stopped.

His eyes found Sienna’s face and the towel on his shoulder went still and the sentence he’d been finishing died somewhere in his chest.

The blood left Sienna’s face and came back. Slowly.

The bar. The rain. No names. His hand at Sienna’s jaw and the warmth of him in that hotel suite at three in the morning while the whole city slept.

He was Number Nineteen.

He was Sienna’s captain.

He was the stranger Sienna had spent a night with and believed Sienna would never see again.

Because around his neck, on a chain that disappeared under his practice jersey, a ring-shaped object caught the light.

Sienna’s ring.

He hadn’t left it at the hotel. He’d kept it.

Grant was looking between them. Cole was watching the room. Everyone at the table could feel something alive and current in the air between Sienna and the captain — without knowing what it was.

The silence went one second past professional.

Dean looked like he had something to say, lost it, and searched for it again.

“You’re—” His voice came out wrong and he stopped and started over. “You’re the owner.”

“Fifty-one percent,” Sienna said. The words came out steadier than Sienna felt. “Which is enough to block a trade.” Sienna held his gaze, and in it was the whole night — the whiskey, the rain, to fools who let queens walk away — and the impossible, catastrophic fact of him standing here. “No one is trading you, Mr. Maddox. You’re going to be right here when this team makes the playoffs.”

The room held its breath.

Dean looked at Sienna for a long moment. Then he looked around the table, taking everything in. Sienna’s ex-husband in the third chair. The ring against his chest. The woman sitting at the head of the table. His boss.

The realization hit him all at once.

“Then trade me,” he said.

His voice was quiet. Wrecked at the edges, like he had wanted very much to say the opposite.

“Trade me to Boston. Right now. Before any of this—”

“No,” Sienna said.

“You don’t understand—”

“I understand completely.” Sienna kept her voice steady. “Sit down, Mr. Maddox. We have a season to plan.”

The room breathed again.

Dean stood at the door for one more second.

Then he pulled out a chair.

And sat down.

  And season began.