The Hockey Contract by Riley Keenan

I made a deal with the devil, and he smells like ice and trouble.

What started as a transaction ignites into something hotter than any oven in my bakery. Suddenly, faking it feels dangerously real.
As the clock ticks down on our fake marriage deadline, I’m terrified that the only thing I might lose isn’t my bakery, but my heart to the hockey player who might be thawing my frozen defenses one stolen kiss at a time.
My grandmother always said that good things come to those who wait. Turns out, all that waiting landed me in a financial mess I needed to escape if I wanted to keep my family bakery afloat.
Desperate times, meet even more desperate measures. One day I run into Jax, the notoriously brooding hockey player.
Jax isn’t just known for his killer slap shot and intimidating presence on the ice. Rumors of his icy demeanor and off-ice escapades precede him everywhere. We clash, but there’s also sparks.
He’s the last person I’d ever want to be associated with, but fate, or rather, my dwindling bank account, has a cruel sense of humor.
He needs a wife to secure a lucrative endorsement deal that requires a wholesome family image. I need a financial miracle to save my bakery from closing.
A marriage of convenience seems like the perfect, though insane, solution. The agreement is simple. Three months of pretending, staged photos, fake smiles for the cameras, and then we go our separate ways with my bakery debt erased, and his image polished.
But living under the same roof as Jax blurs the lines of our arrangement. His surprisingly gentle touch when he helps me in the kitchen, and the quiet comfort he offers when my bakery stress peaks, it all chips away at my resolve.