CHAPTER 1: BAKING FOR MY RIVAL

MILA'S POV

"Are you actually trying to murder me?"

Spencer, my desk neighbor and work rival stares at the box on his desk as if it contains live rattlesnakes.

Which it really doesn't.

I look down at my handiwork. Eight beautiful lilac cupcakes sit in two neat rows. The frosting is swirled just right, each one topped with a tiny edible flower I found at the fancy baking supply store in Cambridge.

I woke up at 5:30 this morning to make them. Spent an hour and a half dealing with batter, my landlord's ancient oven that runs twenty degrees hot, and a piping bag full of frosting in the cramped kitchen of my Boston apartment. My curls are still slightly damp from the shower I rushed through, and there's probably flour somewhere on my plum colored blouse.

"No, Spencer." I smile, as sweet as the sugar in the cupcakes. "For the last time, I'm not trying to commit any sort of crime. They're just freshly baked cupcakes. For you."

Spencer gives me a look of disdain, but I'm not discouraged.

It'd be hard to ruin my mood on a day like today. Bright morning sunlight floods through the enormous glass windows of the sleek Prime Sports office. Outside, I can just see the blue glint of the harbor, and the pops of burned orange and gold leaves on the tree lined streets.

It's fall. The best time of year.

Fall means hockey season.

"These are definitely poisoned." Spencer leans back further in his desk chair, folding his arms across his navy Sports Bro Puffer Vest. His blond hair is gelled back in that way that screams I peaked in college.

By now, I'm used to dealing with Spencer and men like him in the agency office. They all make a habit of condescendingly mansplaining hockey to me as if I don't also work in the business, and they all dress like a Kennedy decided they weren't quite preppy enough.

"Can't I do something nice without there being an ulterior motive?"

He snorts. "We work at a sports agency. No one ever does anything nice unless they have an ulterior motive."

And yes, okay, I do have an agenda.

But it's nothing to do with sabotage or poison.

When life hands you lemons? You make lemon flavored cupcakes, of course. People always say the secret ingredient to their cooking is love.

For these cupcakes, the secret ingredient is hate.

I'm known around the office for being peppy and positive..."sunshine and rainbows," as my roommate slash bestie Kira likes to refer to me, usually with an affectionate eye roll. Well, mixing the hell out of cupcake batter is how I stay that way. If I can pour all my negative feelings into some beautifully baked and aggressively mixed cupcakes, then the feelings usually stay beneath the surface.

If life has handed me lemons, one lemon-personified is definitely Spencer. We're both junior agents at Prime Sports, where I've been working for the past five years. We both report to Rick Hernandez, our boss and big shot hockey agent Rick, who informed us last week that a new, fully fledged agent job is opening up at the agency.

I want this job more than anything, and Spencer is my biggest competition.

For the last five years, I've put the work in. Long hours, calls from Rick at all times of day and night, staying in the dark office poring over paperwork until my eyes ache. Drinking in everything I can possibly learn about how to be a sports agent.

People who say love is the most important thing in the world. Well, I agree with them wholeheartedly. It's just that my love is my work and the beautiful, chaotic sport of ice hockey that stole my heart as a kid.

But often it feels like the job doesn't love me back. And only a masochist enjoys unrequited love. At least, I imagine so, because I've been way too busy to even open a dating app for years.

Spencer slowly peels back the paper on a cupcake and takes a bite. "It's okay," he mumbles, crumbs littering his blue polo shirt.

"Okay? Yeah, right." I smile brightly at him. "It's delicious, and you know it."

Before Spencer can give a jerksh response, Rick bursts through the office doors. He's wearing an expensive gray suit with a bright orange tie that's bordering on: one, neon, and two, a fashion offense. His phone is pressed to his ear, yelling something at full volume, which to him is regular speaking volume.

"I don't give a goddamn shit, we are getting the kid into arbitration and that's goddamn final...."

So, a typical morning entrance for our boss.

He hangs up, and as he blusters by our desks, I hold out a takeout coffee for him. "Good morning, Rick."

"Mila. You're a lifesaver." Rick grabs the cup before disappearing through the door into his office.

"Kiss ass," Spencer hisses as I sit back down at my desk.

"Just being nice. You should try it sometime." I give my most sunshiny smile, which I know irritates him.

The truth is, I like getting coffee for Rick. Despite his slick talking agent veneer, he's been a great mentor to me, and I'm grateful for him giving me my shot. Rick is one of the very few self made men at the top of the agent business, which is packed full of wealthy nepo babies.

But the business is slow to promote, and being a woman in a boy's club doesn't help.

The day I passed the NHLPA agent certification exam was the best day of my life. Now it's a year later and I'm still waiting to be given a real chance. Until then, I'm just an overqualified junior agent doing everyone's unwanted work. For every challenge other junior agents like Spencer face, I have to prove myself ten times over.

But the worst part? It's more than that. Part of me is scared I'll never truly belong here. Part of me is terrified that the whole hockey world would kick me out if it ever knew the full truth of who I am and where I came from.

Part of me is scared my long estranged father will one day make sure of that.

I've barely opened my email when Rick sticks his head back out of his office. "You two," he barks. "Listen up, kids. Who's free tonight to help me with a special assignment?"

Spencer sprays crumbs across his desk, his mouth too full of cupcake to answer.

"I'm free." I shoot to my feet so fast I nearly topple over, which would be embarrassing, but I'm long past being embarrassed by my overenthusiasm for my job.

Rick grins, wide and wolfish. "Great. Meet me at the Bay Blades game tonight. I have to meet with Jax Kingston and I want a junior agent there as a note taker... and as a human shield."

Rick slams his office door shut before I can form a reply.

I sink back down into my desk chair. "Did he say... Jax Kingston?"

Spencer finally swallows his mouthful of cupcake and snorts. "Lucky you. Have fun spending your evening with the crazy goalie."

My stomach is suddenly a pit of nervous energy.

Jax is the veteran goalie for the New England Bay Blades, the NHL team that plays here in Boston, named for the wild storms that crash into the Northeast coast every winter.

But Jax Kingston was the last name I wanted to hear.

I know Jax's face by heart. The sharp jaw always shadowed with stubble. The way his emerald eyes glint when he frowns under dark brows. Intense and simmering and painfully gorgeous.

And those tattoos, I've only ever seen glimpses under his jersey, but I've spent way too many late nights wondering what they look like up close.

I'd never seen eyes that deep, dark shade of green before. Not until the first time I met him five years ago and...