This contemporary romance seems to be a "what if" scenario based on Anna Nicole Smith’s life.  What if the late stripper, Playboy playmate, and incredibly wealthy widow had gone on to find true love and live happily ever after (instead of suffering an early tragic death)?

When 81-year-old billionaire Virgil Duffy dies, 30-year-old Faith Duffy inherits a penthouse, a fortune, and an NHL hockey team.  Even though the trash-talking players have passed around copies of the Playboy issue in which she appeared several years ago, they do their best to forget the tempting photographs and accept Faith as their new team owner.  That is, all but the team captain, Ty Savage, who can’t seem to get those photographs out of his mind.  Ty immediately feels resentment toward the buxom blonde who takes over his team, but that resentment is mixed with desire.

Having maintained a Platonic relationship with her elderly husband, Faith finds herself drawn to Ty’s professionalism on the ice and virile aggression off the ice.  Ty’s father and Faith’s mother also have an affair with each other that strangely parallels their grown children’s budding relationship. In addition to Faith’s concern over what her mother, the team, and the community will think about her romance so soon after being widowed, she must contend with Virgil’s vicious son, Landon, who feels that the gold-digging stripper cheated him out of his rightful inheritance. It’s therefore essential to keep the affair (or whatever it may turn into) a secret from everyone else. If only it were that easy.

Much of the ripped-from-the-headlines story and its characters feels overly familiar, but the exciting sports action and passionate encounters provide nice distractions. Ultimately, however, Faith and Ty may not be sympathetic enough to keep some readers fully engaged for 345 pages.