The Beauty's Groom

by Taylor Hart

  The Beauty’s Groom

  Last Play Christmas Romances

  Taylor Hart

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Her Protector Billionaire Groom by Taylor Hart

  Also by Taylor Hart

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Forest Hightower, backup quarterback for the Denver Storm, blinked into the bright lights and ignored the cameras. The Storm had just beaten the Los Angeles Wave in a huge upset that would have the Storm playing the Texas Rebels in the Christmas Eve playoff game.

  “Forest!” a reporter called out. “Since Will Kent went down last month, you’ve won three crucial games for the Storm. You seem to have a knack for the Hail Mary. Do you think you can keep this up with the huge amount of pressure on you?”

  Will Kent was out for at least the season, maybe longer. His shoulder had taken a bad hit. Forest had filled his shoes and, if he did say so himself, done a dang good job.

  He pasted on his press smile, the one he’d been practicing while he’d waited for his chance to rise up from the sidelines. Will Kent was a good dude, but Forest wouldn’t complain about getting his shot. “I got this. Don’t worry.” He widened his grin and put his fist into the air. “Go, Storm!”

  “Go, Storm!” his fellow players hollered back from the sidelines.

  At his side, Cameron Cruz, owner of the Storm, leaned over to the microphone. “I’m confident Hightower will lead us to a championship victory this year, beginning with the Christmas Eve game against the Texas Rebels.”

  More clapping from the players.

  “Forest, your old girlfriend, actress Kerry King, takes credit for helping you get to where you are. Was she pivotal in helping you climb to the top?”

  Irritation pricked at him. Kerry had told him last year that he wasn’t ambitious enough. She’d told him his career was going nowhere as long as he insisted on staying with the Storm as backup quarterback to Will Kent. When he’d told her that he would never leave the Storm if he didn’t have to, she’d dumped him flat. Strike that—she’d very publically broken up with him on Instagram.

  “No comment,” Forest said, keeping his tone even. The press always wanted to stir up a story, and he wasn’t going to be part of it.

  Others shouted a plethora of questions at him.

  Mr. Cruz took the microphone. “I want to talk about our defense. Let’s focus on that for a second.”

  The press fed into his distraction, and Mr. Cruz spent time fielding the questions about how he was planning to win a championship for the Storm this year and make the people of Colorado proud.

  Satisfied, Forest gazed out at the press and at the other players. Things were going so well. Everything was coming up sixes for Forest, and not just with football—in three days, he would be going to an exclusive mountain home next to a ski resort in Frisco, and he’d hang out with his younger brother and sister for six days of the league break. It was a big deal for him and his siblings to be together for Christmas, and he was looking forward to it.

  “Hey, Forest, your dad wants to say something!”

  His father? Blindsided, Forest searched the crowd. He hadn’t seen his father in thirteen years—not since the day of his mother’s funeral.

  The area cleared, and his father was pushed through the crowd. It took Forest a second to recognize the man in front of him; he looked hollow, pale, and his once thick black hair was now in a bad comb-over. His eyes still had that fire in them, though.

  His dad pointed at him. “You won’t win under pressure. You couldn’t even save your mother when she needed you!”

  On impulse, Forest sprang from the platform into the crowd of people. There was only one target in his sights: his father. He drew back his arm and punched the guy clean in the jaw.

  His father stumbled and fell, hitting his head on the turf.

  The crowd of reporters erupted, and a sea of hands pulled Forest back, taking him away from the man he would hate the rest of his life.

  Chapter 2

  Dr. L.C. Lane sat with Cameron Cruz in her office in downtown Denver.

  “Guess it’s been a while since I’ve been in here, hasn’t it?” Cameron glanced at her, but he kept his focus on the floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the hub of the city.

  She allowed herself a moment of satisfaction. “The best compliment a doctor like myself can receive is when their patients no longer need to see them.”

  The side of Cameron’s lip tugged up. “True.”

  Lu had helped him work through some big issues after his first wife had passed away three years ago. He’d been one of her first patients, and her father had insisted that he come to her.

  “That view of Storm Stadium is a good one,” Cameron said, smiling.

  Her good mood dissipated. She didn’t want to talk about Storm Stadium; it’d been a sore subject since her father had passed away. “I’m not taking on new clients, Cameron. You know that. I’m completely swamped, and I don’t appreciate you just dropping in like this.”

  Cameron faced her. “Lu, I’m sure you’ve seen the press. I’m sure you know what the Storm is facing right now. The only break we got is that the judge granted an immediate hearing and ruled that no charges could be filed because of the ‘fighting words’ precedent, but—and this is a big but—Forest is required to have nine anger management sessions before he steps back on that field. Christmas Eve. Nine sessions.” He blew out a long breath. “To have a player get ordered to anger management isn’t something to trifle with, especially going into playoff games. I need him, Lu, and you’re the only one who can help,” he pleaded. “Can you do it?”

  Lu turned her gaze toward the cityscape. The only reason she had let Cameron into this office was because she’d grown up with the man, in a way. When he’d been the star quarterback of the Denver Storm, she’d been a teenager, hanging out at her dad’s office every day after school. “Do you know that my father actually bought this building because of this view?”

  Cam nodded and relaxed back into the chair. “He told me the first time he brought me here to see you.” He grunted. “Your father was one of the most persistent people I’ve ever met. He was so proud of you.”

  Pain stabbed the center of her chest. She’d learned over the past year, since losing him to cancer, that she wouldn’t know when the pain would hit, but it always managed to take her breath away.

  “I remember when your father stopped outside your door and pointed to the name on it—L.C. Lane,” he said. “‘One day, she won’t be afraid to use her real last name.’”

  Lu winced. She hadn’t wanted to be known as Lucinda Chaos while building her career as a practicing psychologist. If people were coming to her, it wouldn’t be because of Pete Chaos’s larger-than-life influence.

  “I miss him, too, Lu,” Cam said, not looking at her.

  Slowly, she sucked in a breath, trying to relax her muscles and release the pain. She felt so much guilt for how she’d cut her father out of her life before she’d known he was sick. Now, all she could do was live with her actions, which she regretted more than anyone could ever know. “The day my father brought me to this office, he said Storm Stadium represe
nted all that was good in the people of Denver. Hopes, dreams, triumph, winning. And it could represent those same things for myself when I counseled people. He said that when I was down, I could look out and remember that.” She blinked, and emotion surged inside of her chest. “But all I see now when I look at the stadium are the memories of the things I did wrong.”

  “Lu,” Cameron said in a patient tone. “Are you okay?”

  Lu bristled at her own self-pity. She’d been careful not to deal with people who had a lot of it, and now it was seeping into the edges of every memory of her father. “I let Jeffrey come between us, and that’s my fault. I have to accept my consequences.”

  Cameron cursed and clenched his hand into a fist. “That guy deserves to rot, Lu.”

  Jeffrey. Her ex-fiancé. Six months ago, she’d caught him cheating—in her apartment, no less. The girl was her personal trainer, and Lu had come back home because she’d forgotten her laptop.

  “Daddy told me he was a fake,” she said, looking out at the stadium. “But I wouldn’t listen.”

  Cam sighed. “I want you to know that the Storm doesn’t do any business with his firm any longer. I made sure of that.”

  It consoled her a bit that Jeffrey would be blackballed by the Storm. Recently, she’d been wondering if that was why he’d dated her—to get more access to the team.

  He leaned forward. “Do you remember the thing you helped me work through when Kat passed?”

  She didn’t answer. Her mind was already winding up with self-doubt just thinking about everything she should have done differently before her father passed.

  “You helped me forgive myself. Could you forgive yourself?”

  Her heart kicked up a notch. The last thing she needed right now was counseling from a football player. “I …” She couldn’t discuss this, so she stood. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you out right now, Cam.”

  Her phone buzzed with a text from her older half- sister, Lorin. Call me. Stat.

  Ha! That was laughable. No, Lu wouldn’t be calling her. She and Lorin had never been close. Lorin was five years older and the daughter of their father’s first wife, who had divorced him and run off with her chiropractor. Whenever Lu and Lorin had been forced to be together in the summer, Lorin had been mean—especially a year ago at her father’s funeral. Recently, and confusingly, Lorin had been texting Lu nonstop, asking her to fly out to New York for Christmas and spend it with her, her husband, and their eight-month-old twins.

  Lu turned her phone back over.

  “Everything okay?” Cam asked.

  She nodded. “A patient,” she lied.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Yes.” Why was he looking at her like that? Anxiety surged inside of her, and she stood, moving toward her desk. “I’m sorry, I have a full caseload today. I don’t have any more time.” Since her father passed and since the end of her engagement almost six months ago, she’d been in a funk. She was sure she would get out of it soon, but she’d been turning patients away for a couple of months.

  Cameron followed her to her desk, standing in front of it. “Lu …”

  His concern frustrated her. She met his eyes, glaring at him. “I’m sorry, but I’m too busy at the moment, and I can’t help.”

  Placing his hands on the front of her desk, Cam leaned down. “Forest Hightower watched his mother die of a drug overdose when he was thirteen.”

  This caught her attention.

  “His father took off, leaving Forest and his eight-year-old brother and six-year-old sister to fend for themselves. Of course, they were put in the system. Forest rallied the court to try to get them to all stay together. Wrote letters to the judge for two years. When I first watched a college interview of the guy, he was asked why he had become a football player, and he said it was the only thing he was good at that might help him make something out of himself so he could help his brother and sister.” Cameron rapped the desk. “Lu, your dad always said, ‘Gamble on goodness.’ Do you remember that?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Listen, I care about this kid. Not just as another player, but because he’s a good man. He’s a good man who has risen up out of hard, hard things, and he’s done well. Forest is a good brother to his siblings; in fact, they’re coming for Christmas to be with him this year. The guy gives back to after-school programs focused on foster kids. He spends time with kids. He cares.”

  Cameron painted a vivid picture. Even though Lu didn’t want to think about a case right now, she was beginning to feel invested.

  “Did you watch the footage of the news clip?”

  She nodded. “I always watch the footage on the Storm for Daddy.” It was stupid, maybe, but it was true.

  Cameron crossed his arms. “Then you know he’s not a typical case.”

  “He’s not, but I’m busy.” She opened her drawer and dug inside for the card of another stellar therapist, right down the street. She found it and offered it to Cameron.

  He shook his head. “No. Lu, you and I both know that you have a snapshot of what it really takes to be part of pro football playing from another angle because of the way you grew up.”

  Cameron was right. She’d grown up as Mr. Chaos’s daughter, the owner of the Storm, the man who literally put chaos in Chaos, who’d exploited his last name for Denver’s great love of football. It had been a crazy scheme, and it’d worked.

  She’d been by her father’s side every step of the way. Her mother had passed when she was a baby, and her father was a hands-on type of man. She couldn’t count how many football practices she’d observed and how many meetings she’d sat in on.

  After she’d become a therapist, it only felt natural to help football players, and that had led to all other sports professionals who needed her help. For the past three years, she’d been part of many college and pro teams, getting them in peak performance and taking them back to the zone. She loved it. Or she had, until everything felt out of control. Like all of the surety she’d once had couldn’t return.

  “Lu, it’s time to get back in the game.”

  She scoffed. Her father had loved sports sayings like that one. “I can’t.”

  Cameron cursed and paced in a circle, coming back to her. “Lu, I’m not just here for Forest. I’m here for you. Your father asked a favor of me before he went on that experimental surgery trip to Mexico.”

  “Don’t toy with me, Cameron.” Tears filled her eyes. “Don’t do this.”

  He held his hands up in surrender. “I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t true. He asked me to make sure you were okay, no matter what. No matter what happened.” His own eyes misted with tears. “And I’ve been letting you ride out all this crap, but no more. It’s time, Lu. It’s time for you to get a chance to run the ball.”

  “Stop it!” She stood, her hands on her desk. “Stop it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and the tears fell.

  Cameron strode around the desk and hugged her.

  She cried. She hadn’t been planning on it, but once she started, she couldn’t stop.

  He held her, rubbing her back. “Shh, dang it. I should have come sooner. I know that you don’t have any patients. I know that many days you just sit in here.”

  The jig was up. She bit her lip and pulled back. “I have just been in a funk. I’ll get through it.”

  “I know you will.” He said it with the same determination and strength she’d seen in her father. “I know it’s been so hard for you, but you know that the only way to heal is to do what you’re made to do. And you’re made for this.” He gave her hand a squeeze, and a small smile played at his lips. “You fixed me.”

  She grabbed a tissue from her desk and wiped beneath her eyes. “No, I think Isabel gets most of the credit.”

  “Fair enough. She’s a good woman, that’s true.” He sighed. “Lu, I need the best on this. And that’s you.”

  It was flattering to hear, and she knew she was good, but she hadn’t exactly been at the top o
f her game. “I don’t think I can,” she whispered, unable to see a way out of this tunnel of darkness that she’d been in for so long.

  “For your father.”

  The trump card. Chills rushed through her. Her father had always said that a sudden chill was how God talked to people. Unable to bear it, she pressed her hand against her chest and closed her eyes. A memory flashed through her mind: her father’s hand holding hers when she was little, and her fingers tracing the rough calluses that had formed from countless football throws. She could even smell tobacco pipe smoke and peppermint from the mints in his pocket. Daddy.

  She sucked in a breath and looked up at Cameron. “You’re not fighting fair, ya know, using my father,” she said.

  A look of compassion crossed Cameron’s face. “You know I never fight fair. I fight to win. So you’ll do it?”

  She pulled back, smoothing her clothes. “I’ll meet with him,” she said noncommittally.

  A small smile played at his lips. “Good, ’cause he’s coming here in an hour.”

  “What?” Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like that he’d just played her, but she wasn’t surprised, either.

  “I knew I could count on you when the chips were down.”

  “So he needs nine sessions before December 24th?” She thumbed through her calendar. “That only leaves us six days.”

  “Actually, five days. Because I need him at practice on Dec. 23rd.”

  She shook her head. “That’s two sessions a day.”

  “I’m sorry. We just saw the judge at eight this morning. I didn’t even know if he’d be allowed back.” He put his hand to a fist. “But we can rally. We’ve got this.”