Hat Trick, page 13
“It’s gonna be all right. She’s a bitch. Bitches never win, not at this game.”
Declan blinked at him, floored by the guy’s pure, unadulterated…
“Idiot,” Rafe said, loud and clear. “Hit the pitch, Coop, before you fucking hurt yourself.”
Metin moved aside, shaking his head as Coop ran out behind them. “We traded Rollings for that piece of crap?”
Rafe sighed.
Desmond looked from coach to coach, clearly confused. “Come on, Declan. We have to talk.”
“So I gathered,” he said, shuffling out behind them.
That was the beginning of the longest week of Dec’s life, or perhaps the second longest. He’d already told Desmond the Erica story, a little at a time. Des had received most of it from the police in Kelso, back home.
Desmond tented his fingers and regarded Declan in scary silence. “Ms. Dean is getting released tomorrow.”
Declan shifted in his seat.
“She’s pressing charges.”
“Fuck,” Metin muttered under his breath.
“So what happens now?” Rafe leaned forward, elbows on the desk.
“Now, we fight.”
Declan frowned at him. Metin and Rafe exchanged glances.
“I’ve already talked to four teammates and three, um—” he glanced at his ever-present legal pad. “Members of the girlfriends club.”
“WAGs,” Metin said. “Closing ranks, are they?”
“Actually, no. The three I talked to gave me a fair bit of evidence against Ms. Dean. They’re all willing to talk in court.” He glanced up at Declan’s sharp intake of breath. “She’s bringing full charges. Rape, assault with intent to—”
“Son of a bitch.” Declan jumped to his feet and started pacing. “Son of a bitch.” He put his hands on the glass window, letting it cool his palms.
“Your past history is not going to help, even though you were fully acquitted of the final murder charge.”
“Murder?” Metin’s voice was low, unruffled, belying his shock.
Declan turned to the group of men, hands stuffed in his pocket. “I was engaged, in Scotland. Her name was Erica. She was a family friend. We were sweethearts for a while, drifted apart for a few years, then came back together when I started playing for the Scottish national team after my first year in the EPL.”
Desmond held up a hand. “I don’t think it’s necessary to go into it now.”
Declan assessed the mood of the men arrayed in front of him. His legal eagle’s eyes were neutral, his stance that of conviction. Rafe sat, legs crossed, ankle to knee, his fingers threaded together over his head. Metin was staring at him, eyes wide with shock.
“Wait just a fucking minute,” Metin said. “You knew about this?” He turned to glare at his second in command.
Rafe nodded. “So does Sophie. We had to agree to sponsor his visa, which came with a bit of a cloud, you could say.”
“Why in the hell didn’t anyone tell me?” The tall Turk, once one of the shiniest stars in the European soccer constellation, felled by one of the most godawful tragedies anyone could experience, looked livid. Declan swallowed hard. His coach in full-throated rage was a thing well avoided. “Do I even want to know the whole story?”
Declan glanced at his lawyer, who shook his head. “Gentlemen, if I may, I’d like to lay out the strategy I’ve come up with.”
Declan processed the man’s words. “You just left my house yesterday at what? Three o’clock in the afternoon?”
Des raised a dark eyebrow and pulled a fresh folder from his case. “Yes. Your point is?”
“Nothing,” Declan said. “Guess the club would hire the best.”
“Sophie and I went to law school together. We shared some similar interests. Now, if you don’t mind, we need to review this. I’ll be in front of a judge tomorrow setting terms of the final bail and trial.”
“Trial,” Declan said, shoulders sagging. “Fuck me.”
Metin shot him a dark look. “If you did what she said you did—”
Desmond held up a hand. Declan marveled at the size of it for a half second.
“This is my player,” Metin said, not taking his eyes off Declan. “I’ll be damned if I don’t get the truth from his mouth. Now.”
“I didn’t, Metin. I would never…” he gulped. “I wouldn’t rape her. We had sex, yeah. She likes it rough. Shit, ask anyone on the team, apparently.”
Metin leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Go on.”
“I was going to ask her to marry me. I have the ring, had it on me after the match. When I got in my car, I saw…heard and saw her with that bastard, Horst. He was…fucking her next to his car.”
Rafe ran a hand down his face.
“Yeah, so the naïve player falls for the slutty WAG. I catch her in the act of cheating, finally. I get mad and go home. She shows up and starts ranting and raving and calling me a pussy. We have rough sex. She keeps at it, telling me she’d never marry me, after I confront her about Max. Even after I hadn’t confronted her about…about…all the others.”
Declan stopped and had to look down at the floor to collect his thoughts. “Anyway, I pushed her off me. I pushed her too hard and she tripped and hit the back of her head on the door. It was bleeding all the hell over the place. So I freaked out, I left her in the living room, and called Gabe. I sat in the kitchen by myself for, I don’t know, maybe ten, fifteen minutes? I hear a scream and a kind of a thudding noise. I run to the living room and find her—she’s beat all to hell and I don’t know how. All I know is I didn’t do any of that.”
“I have a theory that she used some kind of blunt instrument on herself,” Desmond said.
“You think the girl took a hammer or something and beat her own face?” Metin asked, obviously incredulous.
“Not a hammer, no. That would have caused different types of injuries.”
“You have a million baseball bats rolling around still? Since you moved?” Rafe leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Uh, yeah, they’re in a box in the laundry room. Or they were.” He squeezed his eyes shut, picturing it…the thing that was totally out of place and just outside his line of sight, under the couch that seemed so strange it rolled out of his consciousness again.
“I’m really sorry but I just don’t see how she would do that—to herself, I mean.” Metin shook his head.
“It’s been done before,” Desmond said. “I’ve seen a lot worse in the way of self-inflicted wounds.”
Declan leaned against the windowsill, floored by this possibility.
“But I have to build a case against her. I have to tear the woman down, all the way down in front of a lot of people in order to make her unreliable, a liar, a faker. Why would she do this to you anyway, Declan?”
“I have no earthly idea. I treated her very well. I loved…her.”
“And you never once laid a finger on her in anger? Like she’s saying you did? Never threatened to kill her if she left you? If she got pregnant?”
“Oh Jesus, bald-headed Christ, man. You knocked that bitch up?” Metin practically growled at him.
“Yeah, listen, gentlemen, we have to stop calling her ‘that bitch.’ It’s starting to sound like the team is ganging up on her. That’s not only bad PR, it won’t make the judge look very favorably on Declan.”
Declan shook his head and started rocking back and forth as the darkness closed in on him again. “Can we…take a break?”
“Sorry, no. Hold it together, man. This is gonna get worse first. Then it will be better.” Desmond consulted some notes on his pad.
“I have a team to coach,” Metin said, getting to his feet.
“I’ve got this,” Rafe replied.
Desmond nodded. “Fine. But the cops are gonna want to talk with you both pretty soon.”
Metin rolled his eyes but when he looked at Declan, his gaze was less anger, more pity. “For the record, MacGuire, I think she’s an evil cunt on wheels. But this…” He held out his hands. “This is not gonna fly. You have to stay away from the team for a while. It’s too distracting. As much as we need you, we don’t need all this extraneous shit. I’m sorry.”
Declan nodded, even as his throat closed up in panic. Without soccer, what in the hell would he do with himself? How would he keep the raging monster contained?
Metin clapped him on the shoulder. “It’ll be all right. You’ll be back soon enough.” He glanced over his shoulder at the man sitting at his desk. “Right?”
“That is what I’m getting paid to ensure, yes. Declan, please take a seat. We have work to do.”
Chapter Thirteen
Emily
Dawn rolled its slow way over the horizon as Emily made her way through the fresh crop of social networking rumors. She took several screen shots of replies made to trolls, journalists posing as trolls, and other random annoyances. They’d had two meetings with both the men’s and women’s teams already this week, trying to drive home the importance of not responding to or in any way baiting the rumor mill. Not only could anything they say online land them in court as a witness, it did not help Declan’s cause if everyone kept referring to @CassieDean as #WAGWhore when tweeting using their team-designated profile.
She kept snapping pictures and compiling them into emails to send off to the coaches, marketing director, and Sophie, like she was assigned to do. But the process made her so upset, after twenty minutes she had to turn it off and go sit out on the deck. Clutching her huge mug of creamy coffee, she stared off in the distance, replaying all she’d experienced in the past few days. Much of it made her shiver with disgust. Some of it made her shiver for other reasons—reasons that were so illogical, given her current state of affairs with her ex-husband, it bordered on the farcical.
Emily had no real illusions about Marcus’s sudden return to their home. She supposed all the time she’d spent without him, pondering life alone and how strange everything turned out for her, had made her a bit of a cynic. She used to adore his over-the-top gifts, lavish pronouncements of his adoration for her, her body, her very soul. Now, it fell flat.
She no longer trusted him. That much was true. The other half of that truth was that she no longer loved him. But after their first, admittedly very pleasant return to the marital bed, he’d more or less moved himself into the house and into her and Michelle’s lives in a way that made Emily feel railroaded.
Her phone buzzed with a text. After ignoring it for a few seconds, she sighed and swiped the screen. A message from “Declan” appeared:
Hi. Thanks for listening last night.
She smiled, and sipped and pondered how very badly this could go before answering. No problem. I’m really sorry you had to live through all that as a boy.
Declan: It’s no excuse.
Emily: No, but it helps explain some things. I sent you the therapist’s number. Might as well get going on that now. It can only help.
Declan: I’m not a serial abuser. I’m really a nice guy. I swear it.
That gave her pause. She’d admit to being horrified by the scene at his house that morning. She’d focused on her assigned task: getting him fed and ready for his meeting with the lawyers. But the carnage from whatever had happened between him and Cassandra had been hard to ignore.
Emily: I’m going to say something that my super feminist friends from college would use to take away my Gloria Steinem fan club ring. No one, man, woman, or child DESERVES to be hit or shoved or abused. Unless it’s in self-defense. But Cassandra is not a good person. And I believe it when you say you didn’t hit her, even though she might have—you know—
Declan: Deserved it? Yeah. I know.
Emily: I think you have a problem, Dec. And you should deal with it now, instead of running from it like you’ve been doing.
She stared at the screen; pulse racing at her own assumption. She didn’t know the whole story of what, exactly, he’d been running from. But she knew it was bad and involved an ex-fiancée of his. She’d been asked to leave when he’d had to spill those details to his attorney. The hand holding the coffee mug shook when she put it to her lips.
“Morning, sunshine,” Marcus said from behind her.
She closed her eyes, trying not to think bad things about the man who’d been nothing but great to her for the last few weeks.
“Morning,” she said, sipping and not looking at him. He dropped her tablet into her lap.
“This thing is buzzing so much it almost fell off the island. Sounds like the trolls are up and at ‘em.”
She stared at it, resisting the urge to say she’d been “up and at ‘em” for over an hour and was trying to take a break from it.
Don’t be a bitch, Emily. Give the guy a shot. You did marry him once, and he is a great father. It’s stability—that thing you always craved growing up, remember?
“Yeah. The damn players can’t stop responding to all the baiting, no matter how many times we tell them not to.” She began scrolling again, taking more screen shots, her pulse racing at the sight of so much vitriol, much of it directed at Declan MacGuire. The sensation of her quiet phone made her heart race faster. Had she been out of line?
“Well, the guy did manhandle her, right?” Marcus squinted through the steam coming off his coffee cup.
“It’s more complicated than that,” she said, keeping her voice as even as possible. They’d had this conversation already. She wasn’t interested in having it again.
“There’s no controlling that online shit,” he declared in his Marcus has spoken way that infuriated her. “It’s why the bank has one Twitter account and not just any employee is allowed to use it. Only two people, I think, sitting around thinking up random crap to post so potential customers think we’re cool.”
“It’s different for us. We had to use social networking to establish the team. You know that.”
“Yeah, honey, I know.” He bestowed one of his benevolent smiles. “You’re doing a great job.”
“Whatever,” she said in lieu of standing up and cussing him out for being so patronizing. It would have been how she’d have handled it before, a mere eleven months or so ago. Now, she’d been trained not to rise to any bait, not even Marcus’s.
“So, is there a game this weekend?” He stretched his long legs out on a lounge chair.
“Yes. Declan’s not playing, of course.”
“We going?”
She glanced over at him to gauge his sincerity versus the sucking-up feeling she kept getting about all his sudden interest in the Black Jacks. “I am,” she said.
He held out his hand. She took it on reflex. “I’ll come with you, if you want.”
“No need,” she said, giving his palm a squeeze and letting go. “It’s gonna be a circus anyway. I’ll be dealing with low-level media BS the whole time.” Feeling antsy and hemmed in—confused about Marcus, worried about Declan—she got up and headed inside. Before she could reach the French doors, Marcus grabbed her and pulled her onto his lap. “Hey, cut it out,” she said.
“Nope,” he said into her neck. “I want to ask you something.”
“If it’s ‘what’s for breakfast,’ the answer is ‘Zingerman’s Roadhouse.’ “ She set the tablet on the deck, letting him kiss her, enjoying the moment despite her earlier aggravation. The man had to be the best kisser in the known universe.
The kiss took a serious edge and she shifted so she was straddling him, her hands on the lounge chair back. He lifted her wrinkly, slept-in T-shirt and cupped her breasts, then dipped down to flick her hardening nipples with his tongue. She closed her eyes and smiled at the sensations it created. It was nice to resume the sort of physical intimacy they’d shared so well for so long.
“Mmm…” He reached into her silk shorts. “Nice.” He sucked harder and pressed his thumb against her clit, rubbing and stroking and giving her a lovely little climax. Shivering, she pushed away from him and took his stubble-rough face between her hands. “I love you so much, baby. I’m so…” He stopped, frowning.
“What,” she asked, not really wanting to know the answer. “What did you want to ask me?”
“I forget,” he said with a wicked grin before leaning forward and turning the two of them so his feet were on the deck. He stood, hand on the huge tent in his shorts. “Oh, now I remember.” He took her hand and pulled her up. “Will you marry me? Again?”
Before she could respond he’d tossed her over his shoulder and they were heading inside, him giving her little smacks on the butt all the way into the family room. After dropping her down on the large leather sofa, he yanked off her shorts and went to work using lips, tongue, and fingers, working her into a writhing, yelling frenzy before looming up between her legs, the head of his cock touching her now-eager flesh. “Well?” he whispered before stroking into her once, and again, making her groan and lift her hips, wrapping her legs around his waist. “Will you? Emily?” He kept thrusting hard.
“Oh God, yes! Marcus!” Her vision dimmed, her mind calmed, and her body released a burst of orgasmic energy that made them both groan.
His hips kept moving and she felt him inside her, filling her as her body thrummed around his. He lifted his face to hers and kissed her at the same moment she realized that she’d very possibly been bribed into making the wrong choice.
She stared at the ceiling as their bodies calmed and cooled. He stayed draped over her, then pulled out and sat up, dragging her legs across his lap. “Damn,” he said. “That was nice.”
“Yes,” she whispered, near tears for some reason. “But…”
He reached into a side table drawer and pulled out a ring box, then slid out from under her legs and got on his knees. She tried not to but couldn’t help her giggle at the look on his face. It was a mixture of nervousness, satisfaction, and flat-out triumph.
“I’m not ready for…”
“Wait,” he said, opening the box and putting in her hand. She took it and sat up. “Just open it.”
