Hat Trick
The Black Jack Gentlemen Series by Liz Crowe
A city and a sport with something to prove—Meet the men who take that challenge.
The Black Jack Gentlemen—Detroit’s expansion soccer team.
They play hard. And live harder.
Hat Trick
(The Black Jack Gentlemen – Book 4)
~~~
Detroit’s expansion pro team has a hot star forward, fresh from the English Premiere League. Thanks to a series of fatal misunderstandings coupled with his famous temper, Declan MacGuire only has one thing left to him—soccer—and he’s determined not to make the same mistakes in his new life stateside.
Emily Keller, an accidental low-level PR flunkie for the team watches as Declan gets sucked into a whirlwind romance with Cassandra Dean, the team’s Queen Bee groupie, trying not to be jealous while the woman maneuvers him into a sickeningly familiar situation.
When things escalate, the team is forced to take sides, and Declan faces the toughest choice of his life.
Hat Trick
(The Black Jack Gentlemen – Book 4)
Copyright © 2015 by Liz Crowe
Cover Art and Design by Lindee Robinson
All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
About Liz Crowe
Other Books by Liz Crowe
Chapter One
Declan
It was a match like any other. The crowd roared. The heat baked his skin. He heard nothing but the breathing of the defenders—the men he had to break through to get to the goal, his goal, to winning the game. Because that was what he got paid to do—win soccer games.
Never mind they were playing some kind of lame-ass friendly, preseason bullshit.
“BJs! BJs! BJs!” the raucous fans chanted, having latched onto the shorthand version of their team name—the Black Jacks—in a way that fit, considering what a soap opera of an operation it had turned out to be. He blocked the noise, set his jaw, and kept moving through the thin wall of protection, planting the ball in the upper left corner of the net, giving the flat-footed goalkeeper a little salute and a smile as he jogged past him.
Too fucking easy.
His teammates joined him in a scrum near the edge of the pitch, already celebrating the now-guaranteed victory over the Pittsburgh Arseholes or whatever they were called. Declan didn’t know or care. He accepted the kudos, trotted to the middle of the field so the arseholes could start over, and immediately snagged the ball from one of them and played keep-away for the final five minutes of the match.
Game over.
Detroit Black Jacks: 2.
Pittsburgh Arseholes: 1.
Not that it mattered.
“Declan! Declan! Declan!” The crowd had a new cry now, and one that made his face hot. No matter how famous he might have been at one time, he never adjusted to being the center of attention, especially since that, in turn, brought on a distinctly female squeal of embarrassingly loud delight. He whipped off his uniform jersey, a stupid ploy the team’s marketing geniuses had forced on the players. It earned them endless internet press for being the Expansion Team With The Most Naked Flesh award or some other important designation.
Whatever sold tickets.
After wiping his streaming face with the jersey, he heaved it into an apoplectic crowd of fans—mostly girls.
It was a buzz, he’d give it that.
He smiled, the nearly perpetual blush still warming his face. How they built the cost of all those new uniform shirts into the team’s budget, he had no idea. Seemed like a waste to him, but he was a tightwad Scot as his teammates liked to remind him, usually after he’d passed on yet another opportunity to throw his hard-earned cash onto a poker table or tuck it into a stripper’s G-string.
Declan glared at his friend and teammate across the hood of the car. “You know I don’t like to—”
Jason climbed behind the wheel of his Shelby Mustang, a royal blue monstrosity of Detroit rolling iron, and fired up the engine, cutting off his sentence. Declan trudged around to the passenger’s side and dropped into the soft black leather seat. “I don’t like these clubs, you know that. I—I had plans for tonight. I’m…I was…” He gripped the dashboard when Jason peeled out of the garage.
“You are a lame, tight-fisted, boring motherfucker and I have taken it upon myself to get you laid, hard. Maybe more than once.” Jason glanced at him as they idled at a stoplight. Declan frowned at him. “No, don’t thank me yet. I’m sick and tired of you wasting all your God-given goods sitting around and counting your money or whatever the hell it is you do when we aren’t practicing or playing.”
Declan blew out a breath, determined not to argue since it would be fruitless. He did have a life. He liked his routines and he was perfectly happy. Declan MacGuire didn’t do nightclubs, strip joints, one-night stands, or groupies.
Not that he didn’t have ample opportunity to try them all.
His mystery man persona only seemed to make the @DecMac Ginger Lover Brigade on Twitter louder and more determined to do exactly what his friend on the team had stated he would do tonight. His scalp tingled in spite of himself. He hadn’t gotten laid in a damn long time.
For good reason.
He’d left that life behind, including the woman he’d loved when he’d moved here, determined to focus on his career. He left romance for the saps.
“My goal-scoring friend, you are gonna get your ginger world rocked tonight.” Jason laughed and screeched away from the intersection.
Deciding that silence was the better option, Declan stayed that way. By the time he and Jason entered the penthouse nightclub in some random Detroit suburb, he’d resigned himself to tolerate the party experience, have a couple of drinks, and get the hell home.
He was on his second beer when he saw her, or more precisely, her hair—the gold satin curtain of it hid half her face as she sipped some kind of drink through a straw. Her bright red lips puckered just enough to make the skin on the back of Declan’s neck prickle. She looked bored sitting next to some other girl he hardly even registered. A drop of sweat formed on his temple, but he had frozen in place—pinned to his spot by the woman’s eyes, which met his the instant before he looked away.
They were an odd, purp
lish shade of blue, a night sky color that shocked him to his toes. She blinked slowly, as if processing him and his gawping stare. Something alarming clambered up his spine and into his brain.
After avoiding her most of the night, he finally worked up the nerve to buy her a drink, immediately falling under a strange sort of spell. Parts of it were familiar, but nearly forgotten in his recent years of female-company avoidance.
“I think I might love you,” he marveled, more than half drunk, as she sighed into his lips when they finally kissed out on the dance floor.
“Well, I know I’m in lust with you.” She giggled as she pulled away and made him walk her to her car. “Call me, Scotty. I added my number.” She tucked his phone into the front pocket of his dress shirt, letting her fingertips trail up to his jaw before turning away.
“It’s Declan,” he said, hands in his pockets, heart somewhere up in his throat.
“No. To me, you’re Scotty.” She blew him a kiss.
He watched her pull into the near-empty downtown street in a crappy-sounding car and then she was gone in a puff of exhaust. “I’ll buy her a car,” he thought, apropos of nothing. “Tomorrow.”
In a daze, he made his way into the crowd, found Jason, and shouted above the noise that he was getting a cab and going home. He leaned his forehead against the cold window and imagined her…Cassandra.
He glanced at his phone as he felt a vibration, then frowned at Jason’s text message.
“Saw you left with the queen of groupies.”
“What are you talking about?” he responded, his head still full of her voice, her smell, the brief taste of her lips.
“Just watch yourself, Declan. Cassandra Dean is a no-holds-barred maneater.”
He shrugged, turned off the phone and smiled, already planning their first date.
Chapter Two
Emily
“You know what, Marcus? You can go to hell.”
Emily held her husband’s phone with the incriminating text message glowing, nearly blinding her in the darkened living room. She kept her voice low and calm, belying the raw panic skittering up and down her spine. The device, slick with sweat from her palm, dropped to the overpriced carpet covering the maple hardwood floors. It landed face up, drawing her eyes once more to the glaring, overtly sexual text. An obvious continuation of some kind of tryst her husband—the handsome, rich, older banker whom she hated with every fiber of her being at that moment—apparently had the weekend before with someone named “Steph.”
“Em, it’s not—I mean…shit,” Marcus stammered. “This looks—well…”
“Stop trying to come up with anything resembling an excuse.” Emily glared at the man she’d fallen so quickly for, but had spent the last ten years learning to despise.
Memories of skin that was not Marcus’s grazing hers and of the young, firm flesh of the man she’d spent the entire afternoon with not two weeks ago bombarded her, making her squeeze her eyes shut. Rage mixed with deep, dark remorse at her own behavior once she’d discovered Marcus’ infidelity made her face burn.
What had she done to make him behave this way?
The same thing he did to make you turn to the cute college kid who mowed the neighbor’s lawn and cleaned their pool, and fuck him like a sick, depraved cougar.
Emily shook her head. Marcus’ gaze was on her now. His gray eyes took her right back to the moment she made her first ill-advised decision about him at a United Bank offsite event. She blew out a puff of air.
Yep, that’s me—queen of the badly timed dirty screw.
The one with Marcus had netted her a daughter, a marriage to a twice-divorced alpha male, and a firm place in the ranks of “trophy wife.” This last decision…
Emily bit her lip and tried to keep from flushing red at the memory of the pool guy’s amazing energy and enthusiasm. And how much she had been looking forward to another round. Mainly because she was going bat-shit crazy with boredom, now that she had the whole revenge fuck thing out of her system.
She swallowed hard, turned on her heel, and walked out of the living room of her over-the-top, obnoxious mini-mansion. The kitchen mocked her with its expensive perfection. The granite countertop felt ice cold against her palms. The spotless, echoing room gleamed even in the dark. She had cleaned it after eating the dinner she’d made, after dragging her daughter Michelle home from soccer practice –all after a long day reading books, practicing yoga, and pretending to give a fuck about her garden.
“I want a divorce,” she said.
“What a coincidence. So do I,” he said from the doorway before turning away.
“Wait.”
He stopped, then turned and faced her, his jaw set, which brought all the anger and frustration rushing back.
How in the hell had she ever believed she loved the man, she had no idea. He was a walking, talking, compartmentalizing liar of the first degree. Loved to spoil her on the surface but neglected her emotionally and physically once he had her and the child he’d fathered ensconced in the McMansion, leaving him free to pursue the other females in his immediate universe.
“What?” He glared at her, his expensive dress shirt–clad arms crossed over his obsessively gym-toned chest.
She swallowed. “I, um…I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. But I love our daughter and will take care of her. And you, because the law says I have to. I’ll be at the condo. Downtown. After I talk to Shelley.” He raised an eyebrow, as if expecting her to try to convince him otherwise.
She started to, mainly because she thought it was her responsibility to at least attempt a marriage-saving comment. Then she closed her mouth, unable to conjure anything that resembled a plea to stay, to continue their usual shitty, yet well-funded lives. She shook her head and heard him suck in a breath. That sent a shaft of self-righteous fury straight through her.
She marched around the island and stood inches from him. “I’m the one sitting here like a stupid cow while you fuck every random pussy between here and Auburn Hills. I’m the one who doesn’t work anymore because you didn’t think I should have to.” She hooked her fingers around the words. “I’m the one who has to tell our daughter lies about why her daddy works late nearly every night.” She leaned in closer. He stood his ground, his eyes snapping with amusement. “I’m the one—”
He grabbed her arm and yanked her close, lips hovering over hers. “You’re the one fucking the pool boy.” He kissed her lightly, then shoved her away hard enough to make her stumble. “Hypocritical cunt,” he muttered almost pleasantly as he shot his cuffs, turned, and walked upstairs, calling out for their daughter.
Gripping a kitchen chair, calculating where she would go if he came downstairs and demanded she vacate the house and leave her daughter behind with him, Emily tried hard not to panic. She plucked her phone out of her purse, swiping the tears out of her eyes. Determined that this was the right thing to do, she tapped out a text, and hit send.
“OK, I’ll take the job.”
The response was nearly immediate. “Great! You’ll be an amazing addition to the team’s PR department. See you Monday?”
Emily blew out a breath. She’d had lunch with some friends a few weeks ago without realizing that one of them worked in public relations for the new Detroit soccer team. Their conversation had drifted into work backgrounds and Emily’s as manager for a bank branch had come up, making her blush with embarrassed fury at herself over giving that up in favor of the loveless marriage with the bank’s seducer-in-chief.
By the time she’d gotten home that day, she’d received a text from the soccer team’s PR director, requesting a meeting. Emily had put her off for a few days, not sure why she should need a job. Now, however, she was never more grateful for that fateful lunch. “Yes,” she typed out. “Thanks.”
Just as she shoved the phone into her bag, Marcus emerged from the back stairwell, suitcase in hand. He grabbed his keys and opened the door to the four-car garage. Just when she figured he was l
eaving without a word, he turned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you so hard earlier.” His voice was low, the voice she’d fallen in mad lust with years ago.
She stood, heart pounding. “I loved you.” She said it simply. Because she had, once.
“I know,” he said. “Let’s let the lawyers talk now. It’s for the best. You and Shelley can stay here as long as you want.” He turned and shut the door behind him, leaving her mad, sad, disappointed, relieved, and exhausted, all in one thick clot of emotion. She got up and watched as he backed his Jaguar out, did the turnaround and squealed onto their quiet, suburban street.
Chapter Three
Declan
He hated first dates. They were always such a letdown, no matter how hard he tried. His dating history was positively littered with first-time disasters. Including this one, it would seem.
As he sipped his beer, Declan observed Cassandra, she of the silky blond fall of hair and piercing deep blue eyes, as she tapped on her phone more or less nonstop. Sighing, he signaled for the check.
“So,” the supposed woman of his dreams declared, setting the device facedown on the table for the first time since they’d entered this godawfully expensive place. “Let’s go dancing.” She downed the last of her red wine and flipped her hair over her shoulder.
“No thanks,” he said, dropping his credit card in the server’s hand, eager to get the hell out of there. Anxiety over his decision to actually ask the woman out still made his skin crawl. The fact of their actual shitty time together made it worse. They’d exchanged maybe six full sentences in the last hour and a half.
“Aw, come on, Scotty. I bet you can really tear it up on the dance floor. I love watching your moves on the pitch.” Her smooth, honeyed voice oozed into his brain just as it had the first night they’d met.