The Enforcer's Reluctant Assist
A Closed-Door Hockey Romance

About this book:

She's armed with kale, spreadsheets, and a mandate to modernize a dinosaur franchise. He's a six-four mountain of scar tissue and penalty minutes who fuels himself with cheesesteaks, donuts, and pure spite. When sports nutritionist Harper Hayes walks into the Ridge City Blades' kitchen, she expects resistance. She doesn't expect Mikhail Petrov—thirty-two, surgically reconstructed, and utterly immovable—to treat her anti-inflammatory protocols like a personal declaration of war.

The battle lines are drawn over green juice and hidden butter, but every clipped argument and stolen glance cracks the enamel on both their defenses. Harper sees the man behind the enforcer's reputation: the midnight stiffness in his knee, the quiet calculation behind every hit, the exhausted pride of a player watching his window close. Mikhail sees the woman beneath the blazer: the ruthless competence, the refusal to flinch, the strange, terrifying way she makes him *want* to be better. In a league that chews up bodies and spits out careers, they're both fighting for the same thing—one more season, one more shift, one more reason to stay on the ice.

*Enemies-to-lovers, grumpy/sunshine, forced proximity, and a nutritionist who won't back down from the scariest man in hockey. Closed-door heat, open-heart stakes.*