Game For Love: Love Games (Kindle Worlds) (3 page)

Coat check girl, valet parking when they had come in…Marlee had also seen several wait people circulating around the living room with trays of food and drink. The man spared no expense. Of course not. Though the home was much more modest than she would have thought, he was still an NFL star, and thus would be dripping with money, and eager to show it off.

Cole helped both women on with their coats. Anna a sensible parka and Marlee’s long camel hair coat that she wore to the university most days over her suits. Anna had told her to dress warmly, but this was the heaviest coat she owned. She had never been outside for four hours in one sitting in a Boston January. She was a Boston native, though she’d spent several years in California, first at Stanford and then San Diego. But she’d been back in Boston long enough that she should have known better.

 
“How can you not know who Declan Tate is?” Anna asked Marlee. Cole held the same incredulous expression as Anna handed the valet her parking stub. “We watched him all day. It was Tate Day at the stadium because of it possibly being his last game; how could you not have noticed it? They were giving away Tate bobble heads, for goodness’ sake.”

“So…he’s a football player?” was Marlee’s weak reply.
 

“Not ‘a’ football player,
‘the’
football player. Sixteen-year pro career, the last five with the Pumas. Two Super Bowl rings, one in which he was the MVP, ten Pro Bowls, four-time league MVP…he’s Declan Tate!” Cole was listing off Declan’s stats, but Marlee had ceased to listen.

He was a professional athlete. Dear God, not again.

The attraction Marlee had felt slid from her like a snake sheds a layer of skin, and she felt just as slimy. A sports star, sure to have a groupie in every city, and a different one every night. She wondered how many nerdy boys he had pushed into lockers during his lifetime.

As she settled into the car, wrapping her arms around herself to try to stay warm, her mind wandered back to her stint as tutor to a football player when she was in high school. The first time in her life she’d had any kind of contact with an elite athlete.

Marlee had tutored Troy Stepovich the fall of their junior year in an attempt to keep Troy eligible for football. When their sessions first began, he flirted outrageously with the then-shy Marlee, taking great delight in making her blush. Toward the end of their sessions, he had toned down his style, if not his intentions. He was sweet and sensitive with her, holding her hand under the table as they studied in the privacy of the coach’s office. She knew Troy could barely read beyond a seventh-grade level, but that didn’t matter to Marlee. Not when Troy would rub her back as she tried to explain the different triangles to him. They never saw each other outside of their sessions—Troy had said he needed to concentrate on football, that with Marlee’s help he could get a scholarship to play Division One football. She didn’t care; she only wanted those sessions with Troy to never end.

But end they did, right after the football season. Elated with the idea that now that football was over they could spend more time together, Marlee waited for Troy at his locker the first Monday morning after the last game. He came toward her and she saw he was holding hands with Nicole Baranski, the head cheerleader. Marlee wasn’t in the loop with the social crowd, didn’t know how long they had been a couple—if indeed they were a couple—and then she noticed Troy’s class ring on Nicole’s hand. Well-worn red yarn wrapped around the band making it fit on her petite fingers.

Marlee stood in front of his locker, searching his handsome face, waiting for an explanation. None came. He only said, “Excuse me, that’s my locker,” and waited for Marlee to move. She did, going numbly through the rest of the day, and crying to her older sisters that night in the privacy of her bedroom.

 
The rest of the year and her entire senior year, Marlee did everything to avoid Troy, which wasn’t too hard, as they shared none of the same classes or extracurricular activities. When she did have the misfortune to see him in the halls, he’d inevitably have his huge arms draped around Nicole. Either he didn’t even notice Marlee as he made his way past her, or he pretended not to know her. She wasn’t sure which idea hurt more.
 

And as if she hadn’t learned her lesson, she’d had an even more catastrophic experience with a professional athlete two years ago. She still couldn’t think about that without her heart—and pride—taking a beating.

The blast of cold air as they left Declan Tate’s house brought Marlee back from her thoughts of the past, and back to Declan.

She couldn’t believe that she was so attracted to a football player. She felt as if she had been duped, misled by Declan’s comparatively smaller stature, his attire, and what Marlee interpreted as a keen intellect. Right. Exactly what part of him screamed intellect? His gorgeous chestnut hair? The perfect white teeth in his perfect white smile? The eyes so green they looked like…
Enough!

All thoughts—however brief—of Declan and her emulating the family she’d seen at the game went up in smoke. There would be no hot chocolate and Wet Ones for Declan and her. She simply would not settle in her quest for a man with whom to share her vision of family. Outwardly, Declan appeared ready for the starring role. But he was a football player. He had to have women everywhere, some willing to do anything to be with him. She could never be comfortable with that kind of man.
 

She would not go through that again.

She reluctantly slid Declan Tate from the “Lots of Possibilities” to the “Don’t Go Near Him With a Ten-Foot Pole” column in her mind.
 

Still, Marlee couldn’t shake the feeling of regret as the valet pulled up the car and they got in. Anna sat in the front with Cole, while Marlee entered the back. Her regret rapidly turned into resentment. She knew it wasn’t logical, but she became mad at Declan Tate for being a famous football player, and obviously a major
playah
if the array of women in his home was any indication. She’d had a momentary flash of—a future?…a relationship?—
something
with this man, all to have it dashed away with the knowledge that he was a huge sports star surrounded by women.

Yeah, she knew it was crazy, but that was how she felt. The cold must have seeped into her brain at the game.

They only had to wait a moment until Declan came from behind the house and joined Marlee in the back seat. He gave her a smile, put his hand over hers that had been resting on the seat between them, gave it a quick squeeze, and released it.
 

Marlee’s breath caught, but she quickly regained her composure. She pulled her hand to her lap and turned her head away, looking out the car window as they headed off to the restaurant. Her hand tingled. She was deluding herself if she thought it was from the cold and not Declan’s touch.
 

 
She needed to convey the message to him that their mutual attraction had ended as quickly as it had begun. At least on her part. Marlee decided that if she told herself that as many times as possible before they reached the restaurant, she might actually start to believe it.

What the hell happened, Declan wondered? He’d had enough experience with women in his life to know when there was chemistry. There had definitely been chemistry with Marlee, and it hadn’t been all on his side, either. He knew she’d felt the same thing he had when they’d shook hands. He had been reluctant to let hers go. It fit so nicely in his, a complement to his own. He could easily envision holding her hand, how they would fit together. Also, he could have sworn she’d made some kind of little sound just now as he squeezed her hand. A pleasurable sound.

 
He was about to put his arm around her when she took her hand away and turned her head to stare out the window. It was pitch black out, for Christ’s sake—what was she looking at? Or did she just not want to look at him? Shy? Declan didn’t think so; he hadn’t read that about her from the way she carried herself. She seemed very confident, in control of herself. She had met him head on, reaching for his hand to shake first, before he could react to her. No, not shy. What, then? Why the about-face from when he left her in the living room until he got into the car with her?

Declan mentally retraced his steps. All had been fine until they had separated at the party, she to go out the front, he to go out the back. Could she have met someone in the short time it took him to get to the car? Unlikely. But what could have happened? She had been surprised to learn he was Declan Tate. No, that wasn’t it. She had been surprised to learn who Declan Tate
was
—a football player. Could that be it?

Declan tried a different tack, determined to re-stoke the fire that she’d so abruptly extinguished. “So, Marlee, what do you do for a living?”

Marlee didn’t turn her head toward Declan, but she at least turned away from the window to stare straight ahead. “I’m a professor at Boston College.”
 

“Marlee, don’t be so modest,” Anna piped in from the front seat. She turned around to face Declan as she expanded on Marlee’s brief description. “She’s one of the most respected professors at Boston College. She teaches communication theory. Particularly speech. In addition to that, Marlee has worked with some of the top politicians on speech behavior. Taught a bunch of famous people how to give effective speeches. People in the tech field who might not be so good at public speaking. That sort of thing. I guess you could say she’s the Declan Tate of speech gurus.”
 

“Except I don’t have groupies,” Marlee added, a little too sharply for Declan’s taste.

“Aahh. So that’s why the deep freeze? Because of the groupies?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Marlee answered. She put as much conviction behind it as she could, but it still sounded lame to Declan.

Cole and Anna exchanged glances and Anna turned to face the front once more. Cole shot him a look in the rearview, and Declan gave a slight shake of his head. They didn’t know what was happening in the back seat, but they knew they were better off staying out of it. And Declan was grateful for that.

Shit, Declan didn’t know himself what was going on in the back seat. But part of him was enjoying it.

He’d tried the diversion tactic, asking about her work, and he was impressed, but he needed to get back to the game at hand. If she was still playing dumb, he’d bring on the full blitz.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about with the deep freeze. We had, I don’t know…a moment…back at my house. Something happened and I know you felt it too. Then I get in the car and you’re the Ice Queen. Is it because you realized I play football or because you realized all those women are groupies and they’re at
my
house?”
 

He did slide his arm around her shoulders then, but not in the soft, cuddling way he had intended earlier. This time he used his arm to propel her into facing him, curling his powerful forearm to hold her tight. He wasn’t one for strong-armed tactics, and certainly not with women, but this situation called for it.

“You can have whomever you choose at your house. It’s no concern of mine. I don’t even know you.”

“That’s right, I can. And you don’t know me. But had I known I was going to meet you, and that we’d have this…connection, it would never have been under those circumstances. I’m not interested in those girls; they just come with the team, I didn’t invite them. It’s been a long time since I was a rookie, interested in that kind of stuff. I just wanted to have a little party to thank my linemen for all they’ve done for me. But the after-game parties are never little. I don’t know why I was hoping this one would be.” And it was true, what he’d said about not inviting the girls, and also what he’d said about it being a long time since he’d enjoyed that sort of thing.

 
Declan had been wild his first few seasons, taking advantage of the beautiful women—girls, really—who followed the NFL players. He had indulged in all the excesses the league had to offer, many of them with Cole Taylor as his sidekick. In his fourth season, after being benched for most of the year, his coach had told him he was being traded.
 

“If you could just be as focused as I know you could be, you’d be one of the greats, Declan, but you love the partying and the girls too much. I’m just not willing to bet that you’ll grow out of it.” Declan had been traded to the worst team in the league, and it had been the wake-up call he needed.
 

His focus became solely football. He spent his off-seasons at his parents’ farm in Ohio, getting up at the crack of dawn, working out, throwing footballs through hung tires for hours on end, working side by side with his father in the fields, and going to bed at dusk. Alone.

He shunned the nightlife that went along with being an NFL star. He turned down all endorsements, thinking they’d take away from his focus of the game. He steered clear of the fast women, preferring to date quietly, never getting serious with any one woman.
 

They were always available, and they weren’t all as trampy-looking as the women who were presently at his house. But the majority of women Declan met, he met through some facet of the game. The hangers-on, the cheerleaders—though that was a league no-no that never stopped Declan—the friends of teammates’ wives, looking to become a player’s wife themselves.
 

His desire for women hadn’t waned, and he had more than his fair share, but it wasn’t as decadent and debauched as it had been his first few seasons. No more twins. Or triplets.