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  GAME ON

  Cat Johnson

  In the game for love, only the winners walk away with their hearts intact…

  Trent O’Shea is a superstar athlete on the football field, but for one week each year he escapes into anonymity at an exclusive resort in the Florida Keys that caters to the rich and famous. Armed with a fake identity, he’s happy to sit by the pool and do nothing except enjoy some breathtaking scenery—and maybe ask her if she needs help putting sunscreen on her back.

  Laurel Burnett never met a bad boy she couldn’t catch. Cheating spouses. Deadbeat dads. Scammers. Once the determined PI sets her sights on them they all fall, and the next alleged perpetrator in her crosshairs is none other than the San Francisco Outlaws’ Trent O’Shea. The super-sexy linebacker who Laurel’s client hired her to track will be her biggest trophy yet. She’ll do anything to bring him down, even follow him to a resort paradise and use herself as bait.

  But things aren’t always as they appear and Trent and Laurel both learn that sometimes even perfectly planned plays can go wrong when love and lust are involved. Then it’s game on!

  CHAPTER ONE

  “To the end of another season.” Cole raised his beer in a toast.

  Trent would gladly drink to that. He clanked his longneck bottle against Cole’s and added, “And here’s to having a break from it all for a little while.”

  A cold beer. A corner table in a dark bar. His good friend and teammate Cole Taylor seated opposite him. That right there had all the makings of a good evening in Trent O’Shea’s opinion.

  Of course, how long it would last was up for debate. It was only a matter of time before the damned reporters tracked them down. Or one of the other patrons recognized that two of the San Francisco Outlaws defense were among them.

  Then they’d either come over and ask to take a picture—which Trent didn’t mind—or they’d start trying to sneak one by holding their cell phones up and pretending to search for signal. As if he didn’t know they were really taking a picture to share on whatever the hot new social media site was this month.

  That pissed Trent the hell off. It made him feel as if he was being hunted like some sort of human prey. Back in Texas, years ago when he’d been a normal guy, he would have pummeled a guy for less. But that was before the full-ride football scholarship to the University of Texas put his face on every television in the country. Before he’d lost all semblance of privacy and a personal life. Back when he could see a pretty little thing in the local honkytonk, take her out to his truck and not worry she’d sell the story to the papers the next day. Or make a play for a wedding ring and his millions.

  A hottie with more boobs showing than he’d seen outside of a strip club sauntered by the table and shot him a heated glance.

  Yup, that was just the type he knew would say she wanted to have his baby. . . and then take all his money.

  With a sigh, Trent yanked his gaze back to the safe zone. God, he missed the old days when he was a poor nobody. And he really, really missed sex.

  A crooked grin tipped up the corner of Cole’s mouth. “You really do hate it, don’t you?”

  “Hate what?”

  “The game.”

  “The game? No. I love to play football and you know it. Hell, I’m from Texas. You don’t love football from the time you can walk, they run you out of town on a rail.” Cole laughed as Trent continued, “The other bull that comes with it though? Yeah, that I could do without a’ight.”

  Just thinking about the paparazzi and the press had Trent turning to look for the waitress to order another round and see if he could spot any tabloid photographers who might have snuck in while he wasn’t looking.

  He got the server’s attention and raised two fingers, then turned back to Cole. “You can stay for another round, can’t you?”

  “Yeah. Anna’s baby shower should be going on for a couple of hours and I was warned it was girls only and to steer clear of the house.” Cole absolutely glowed when he talked about his wife and his impending leap into fatherhood.

  Trent was torn between feeling scared and envious at the thought. Still, it must be nice to have someone to go home to, especially during the off season. “You have plans for the time off?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be spending twenty-four/seven keeping my very pregnant wife happy.”

  “Is Anna feeling okay?”

  He figured she must be nearing the final stages of the pregnancy. She had to be. She was huge. She was still beautiful, but yeah, there was no doubt there was the baby of a linebacker growing in that belly. Poor little thing looked like she’d topple over if her front side got any heavier.

  “She’s doing good.” Cole’s gaze cut to Trent and then away. “She’s in the stage where she’s, um, more demanding than usual. It’s supposedly all the hormones.”

  “You mean like bossy?” Anna seemed as sweet as usual to Trent last he’d seen her.

  “No, demanding in the bedroom.” Cole had dropped his voice low for that revelation, but not low enough for Trent.

  “Dude. No, I don’t wanna hear that. TMI.” Trent buried his head in his hands trying to block his ears from the information he didn’t want.

  Cole laughed. “What? It’s no secret. It’s in all the pregnancy books.”

  “Well, I don’t happen to be up on my baby book reading so keep that shit to yourself, please.”

  “Okay, sissy boy.” Cole rolled his eyes. “You’d probably crawl right under the table if I told you about mucous plugs and afterbirth—”

  “Ugh. Cole, I swear to God, don’t make me knock you right out of that chair.”

  Trent had pulled his share of calves during calving season back on his granddaddy’s ranch. He’d been elbow deep inside some pretty gross shit that Cole wouldn’t even be able to imagine, but hearing this kind of stuff about his friend’s wife was too much. He had to look Anna in the face next time he saw her and when he did he didn’t want to think about any of the things Cole was putting in his head.

  Thank God the waitress appeared with their beers and gave Trent a reprieve from more talk of birthing horrors.

  When the waitress had left them alone again, Cole eyed Trent. “What are your plans for the break? You headed home to Texas?”

  Trent wobbled his head. “Eventually, yeah. But first I’m taking a week away from everyone, including family and friends. Someplace where no one knows me.”

  It sounded horrible, but he really did need some time completely alone to decompress from the demands of the season. Especially a season when the Outlaws hadn’t made the Super Bowl. It seemed the press was even more vicious and relentless in pursuing the losers of the final playoff game, than the winners. That he and Cole had made it out of the team meeting and to the bar without fighting a throng of paparazzi was a miracle.

  Cole snorted out a laugh. “Where do you think you can go that no one knows you? You buy a ticket to the space station? Because I’m betting the guys at NASA are fans too, so that plan could backfire on you. You’ll be floating around in zero gravity, running over game plans with a bunch of astronauts who’d wanted to play pro football when they were a kid.”

  “Ha, ha. And no, not the space station. I got a place.” Miles of sandy beaches. The prettiest wa
ter he’d ever seen. Sunsets amazing enough to make even a jaded man like himself slow down long enough to take notice. An entire week of nothing but a cold drink in his hand and the warm breeze at his back.

  “Really?” Cole raised his brows. “Do tell. If this paradise really does exist, I want in.”

  Cole was right. It was paradise. Trent’s paradise and he wasn’t sharing.

  “Nope.” Trent shook his head. “Sorry, man. It’s secret.”

  A furrow creased Cole’s forehead. “What do you mean it’s a secret? You won’t even tell me?”

  “Especially not you.”

  “Why the hell not? Don’t you trust me?”

  “Hell yeah, I trust you.” It was most everyone else in the world Trent didn’t trust. “But if you show up people are gonna recognize you. Once word spreads that the Outlaws vacation at this place, I’ll never be able to go there again.”

  “Come on. You’ve been there and no one recognized you, right?”

  “Because I take extreme precautions to make sure they don’t. And I go alone, not with a wife who’s been in the press as much as you lately.” Trent shook his head again, more adamantly this time. “Nope. I can’t risk it.”

  When Trent said extreme precautions, he meant it. Fake name. Adding blonde highlights to his normally brown hair. He was so careful he kept a tank top on even at the pool to hide the Texas Longhorns tattoo he’d gotten on his chest senior year.

  Two years ago he’d even considered brown contact lenses to cover his green eyes. That plan had fallen through before it even got off the ground. Day one in the eye doctor’s office Trent had found that though he could face the biggest meanest opposition during a game, he was too scared to stick a piece of plastic in his eye. Luckily, he’d gotten away with sunglasses during the day and fake eyeglasses at night for two years running with no problem.

  Letting Cole in on the deal knowing his fame? Nope.

  Including his friend would be the end of Trent’s annual retreat. Cole’s longtime infamy with the press had only been escalated by the notorious bad boy’s recent marriage to and pending child with Anna. A superstar couldn’t marry a completely unknown first grade teacher on a whim in Vegas without causing some pretty big ripples in the press.

  “I can’t believe you.” Cole scowled.

  “Sorry, Cole. I love you like a brother, but you’ll have to find your own hidey-hole. This one is mine.”

  “Fine.” Looking pissed, Cole took a swallow of his beer as Trent laughed at his expression.

  His friend would get over it by the time he finished this bottle. Trent, on the other hand, might just lose his mind completely without his annual weeklong escape from the hell of being famous, and that price was too high to pay even for friendship.

  He was heading to Florida and he was going alone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Laurel Burnett handed the very pregnant and sobbing woman seated on the other side of her desk the box of tissues she kept in her office for instances just like this one. “Here.”

  The client, a Ms. Becky Langley, thanked her and then blew her nose loudly.

  To give the woman the time she needed to get herself together, Laurel made a show of reading over the file on her desk.

  “You’ve tried contacting Mr. O’Shea about the . . . situation?” Laurel glanced at what she could see of the woman’s protruding belly before yanking her gaze back up.

  “Yes. Over and over from the moment I found out I was pregnant.”

  “And what was his response, if any?”

  Becky let out a snort. “I have no idea. I’ve never been able to get past his ‘people’. They protect him like he’s some sort of god. Meanwhile, who was there to protect me from him that weekend he got me pregnant and then disappeared? Hmm?”

  Speaking of protection, the client probably should have used some, but that ship had long sailed. Laurel glanced down at her notes and confirmed that the incident had occurred in July. Six, soon to be seven months ago.

  “Did you know who he was when you two were, um, spending time together?”

  “Well, no I didn’t recognize him until he told me his name and that he played for the San Francisco Outlaws. Then, of course, I recognized him immediately.”

  “Can you describe him to me?”

  “You can do an internet search yourself. There are pictures all over the web.”

  Since Laurel wasn’t a football fan she would have to do that, on top of more in-depth searches that her resources allowed her to access. Things the average layperson couldn’t get to.

  “Though, he does look a lot different online,” the client continued.

  Warning bells went off in Laurel’s head. “Different how?”

  “Well, he was a lot heavier when I met him, but he explained that. He’d been injured in practice and couldn’t work out, so he’d put on a lot of weight. The extra weight even made his face look different than his team picture. Besides, that was taken the year they recruited him when he was much younger, so of course he looked different. And he said the Outlaws airbrush all the guys’ photos so they look better.”

  “Of course.” Seriously doubting the bullshit this guy was spewing, Laurel sighed at the gullibility of some women. “What about specifics? Hair color?”

  “His hair was shaved real close to his head when I saw him. Because, you know, he was on vacation and didn’t want anyone to recognize him. So I couldn’t tell what color it was then. He told me that when he’s playing, he lets it grow longer so the helmet doesn’t hurt his head. In pictures on the internet it’s brown.”

  “Okay.” Laurel wrote that down but was beginning to think some guy had pulled the wool over this poor girl’s eyes. Told her a tall tale about being a football star just to get into her pants, and it had obviously worked. “Eye color? Height?”

  “His eyes were dark brown, and he was just a little taller than me. Like five-foot-eight maybe.”

  “Any distinguishing features? Tattoos. Scars. Eyeglasses.”

  “He had a skull and crossbones tattoo on his chest. You know, like the kind you’d see on a pirate flag.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  “Nothing that I can remember. And I would have seen any scars or other tattoos since you know, he was naked when we were in his room.”

  “His room where?” Laurel asked. The man played for a team in San Francisco but the client was a Florida resident and had sought Laurel out in her office in Homestead.

  “The Travel Inn in Miami.

  “The Travel Inn?” The place that charged eighty-nine dollars a night didn’t seem like a hotel where a man who owned a Super Bowl ring—at least he did according to the information on the computer screen in front of her—would choose to stay.

  “Yes. I was staying there for a high school reunion. I met him at the bar in the hotel afterward.”

  “Okay.” Laurel had pulled up Trent’s stats on her computer and was looking over his page on the team website. They had him at six-foot-two and two hundred pounds of what looked to be solid muscle, not fat, judging by the picture. One site had him listed as making a salary so high she could barely count the zeroes. Things just didn’t add up. “I have to ask you, are you absolutely certain it was him?”

  “Yes! He told me so.”

  “I’m sure there are a lot of men who say they are who they aren’t.” A good number of Laurel’s cases turned out to be exactly that.

  Thanks to the internet, a playground for those with evil intent, there seemed to be a rash of men, women, children even, all pretending to be who they weren’t. Some did it for money. Some for attention. Some to be just plain mean or get revenge. It was so prevalent nowadays it even had a name—catfishing.

  “No! Not this time. I saw the name on his credit card when he paid for dinner. Before the waiter took it to run it I got a good look and it said clear as day Trent O’Shea.”

  That piece of information hit the pause button on Laurel’s doubt. It was more proof than most of
her clients had when they came to her looking for answers. And she could very well believe an athlete would go a little wild on vacation and then run from the consequences.

  Laurel looked at her distraught client and couldn’t say no. “All right.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’ll take the case?”

  “Yes. No guarantees but I’ll do some digging and see what I can come up with.”

  At the very least Laurel should be able to get the guy’s private cell phone number. Then they could bypass the cadre of publicists and agents and managers insulating him and confront him directly. He should be made aware of the mess he’d left behind him. And if by some miracle she could actually come up with proof, some leverage, they could get a court order for a paternity test. If it came back positive, they’d threaten to expose him publicly and make him pay support for the child he’d help bring into the world.

  Hopefully, that would prevent him from doing this again to some other unsuspecting girl, of which there seemed to be far too many in the world. Laurel thanked God that she wasn’t one of them.

  Better to trust no one than to trust the wrong person. Sad but true.

  “So what are you going to do?” Becky asked, looking a bit calmer now.

  “I’ll have to see if I can find any witnesses who remember him being here in Florida. Then, I’m going to flip every rock in San Francisco until I find the one Trent O’Shea is hiding under.”

  It wouldn’t be easy. The trail had grown cold over the months. If only the client had come to her earlier. Nothing she could do about that now. Laurel had to work with what she had. “If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to expand my search a little farther. Dig a little deeper.”

  Laurel had contacts. Some legitimate, some a little less so. She’d likely have to use them all for this case.

  “I can’t thank you enough for helping me.” The tears started anew and Laurel made a mental note to get another box of tissues out of the supply closet.

  “Don’t thank me yet, but if he’s guilty and I can prove it, we’re going to make him pay. I promise you that.”