Poker Face: A Small Town Romance (The Beaufort Poker Club Book 1) Read online

  POKER FACE

  A SMALL TOWN ROMANCE

  MAGGIE C. GATES

  Copyright © 2021 Maggie C. Gates

  All rights reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 9798737115630 (paperback)

  Cover design by: C. L. Book Services

  To the asshole chef who said a little girl couldn’t run a kitchen.

  I ran the damn kitchen.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  EPILOGUE

  Want More of the Beaufort Poker Club?

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Books By This Author

  Author's Note to the Reader

  1

  ———

  MADELINE

  "What a pompous ass," I muttered as I choked down the bile bubbling up in my throat. Seeing one short clip of Chef Luca DeRossi on my phone was enough to snap me out of my mindless scrolling. The way he sneered at the competitors from his throne of judgement made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Ugh.

  Life was unfair. Why were complete jackasses always handsome and rich? Why couldn’t they be as ugly on the outside as they were on the inside? Being struck with the Pinocchio effect would go a long way.

  My stomach growled. Maybe I'm just hangry.

  I looked down at my leather purse and wondered how far removed it was from beef jerky. The bag of pretzels and Coke on the cramped flight from North Carolina to Los Angeles did nothing to cure my growling belly. The complimentary air-condition-on-the-fritz made the middle seat feel like a microwave. Luckily, the old man asleep by the window next to me hadn't stirred since take-off, and the floppy-haired teen in the aisle seat was too engrossed in his phone to notice the sound of my stomach collapsing in on itself like a dying star.

  Hotel, food, gym, shower, meet and greet.

  I mentally ticked off my to-do list as I spotted my Uber outside the airport. I loaded my suitcase and slid into the back seat.

  Palm trees lined the sidewalks, tourists snapped selfies, and I swore that every hot guy in sunglasses looked exactly like Ryan Gosling. There had to be something in the water out here in California because these beach boys looked nothing like the ones on my stretch of sand. I yanked the elastic ponytail out of my hair and gave it a run through with my fingers. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and fired off a quick text to my neighbor–slash–landlord–slash–best friend, Steve.

  Maddie: Made it to L.A. How’s Heather?

  Steve: Same ol, same ol. Mel’s gonna drop by to check on her while I’m on duty. Have fun out there, Mad Dog. The left coast isn’t gonna know what hit them.

  Maddie: See you Monday night. It’s your turn to bring the beer to the poker club.

  Steve: Good luck tomorrow. Give ‘em hell!

  God bless Melissa Jacobsen. She was a saint. Even after pulling a twelve-hour shift at the hospital, I had no doubt that she’d show up at Steve and Heather’s house with a casserole dish and some kind of baked good—probably some of the ones I kept stocked at Queen’s Coffee. She always stopped there on her way over to Steve’s.

  The Poker Club, as we called it, was my group of friends who met every Monday to blow off some steam, get a little tipsy, lose a few dollars to each other, and make sure everyone had somebody to lean on. That last thing was more of an unspoken agreement. At the moment, it was all-hands-on-deck to make sure Steve could keep his schedule as a detective with the Beaufort Police Department while Heather went through chemo again.

  Sometimes life didn’t make sense. Steve and Heather were high school sweethearts. They were the picture perfect couple—the football star and the head cheerleader living happily ever after. He spent his days protecting and serving and she shaped young minds as a second-grade teacher at Beaufort Elementary. Well, she did up until the beginning of the year when her cancer came back with a fiery vengeance.

  I felt guilty for flying to California for a few days, but if I was able to win a little prize money and bring home bragging rights to Revanche, it would be worth it.

  The driver pulled up to the front of the hotel and gave me a dismissive nod. “Thanks,” I smiled as I got out and dragged my bags onto the sidewalk. California wasn’t nearly as humid as North Carolina, but the May heat was sweltering to say the least.

  A blast of chilly hair pummeled me in the face as I walked into the air-conditioned lobby. I flashed the front desk clerk a smile, “Madeline Dorsey. I have a reservation for two nights. It’s in the block of rooms reserved for the Pastry Throwdown competition.” The clerk began furiously typing, searching for my reservation. I never understood why it took so long. I could have an FBI-level dossier drawn up on my friends’ exes in the time that it took for the front desk to pull up a reservation. My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out to read the message.

  Hannah Jane: Good luck, Mads! You got this! (If you get nervous, just think of all the things you could say about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named).

  God, I had the best friends a girl could ask for. Hannah was the event coordinator at the Taylor Creek Inn. It sounded quaint, but the inn was a four star hotel on the Carolina coast that sat right on the water. She handled everything from luxury weddings to corporate retreats. We didn’t grow up together, but seeing as Revanche, the restaurant I worked, for was right next door to the inn and I did most of the wedding cakes for her events, we were thick as thieves. She was another part of The Poker Club. I mean, dealing with insane brides for a thousand hours a week earns her the right to a few stiff drinks every Monday.

  Hannah’s mention of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had me thinking that it had been a while since I had thrust my personal opinion into the Twitterverse. I tapped on the screen and opened up my Twitter feed, firing off the first thing I could think of.

  * * *

  @XOMaddieLeeDee - 05/27/21 - 2:46 PM

  At least @ChefLucaDeRossi has a nice face and lots of money. That sure helps hide the fact that he doesn’t know the difference between a bouquet garni and a bouquet of flowers.

  * * *

  Okay, so it was childish, but before I had the sense to delete the tweet, the desk clerk slid my room key across the counter and pointed me in the direction of the elevators. Hotel room–check. Now, onto the rest of my to-do list.

  2

  ———

  LUCA


  My feet slapped hard against the treadmill. I punched up the incline and increased my speed. I nearly tripped when the music pulsing through my ears faded and the robotic chirp of Siri’s voice echoed in my head. “New mention on Twitter. At-Chef Luca DeRossi, maybe if you spent as much time in the kitchen as you do taking selfies in expensive suits, you’d be a better cook.”

  Kiss my James Beard Award-winning ass, I thought to myself. I didn’t even know why I still looked at Twitter. The whole thing was a cesspool of cowards who hide behind their phones because they’re too scared to say things in person. I wanted to delete my social media presence entirely, but Astrid—my agent and overpaid gopher—would’ve butchered me faster than I could have said mise en place.

  I slowed down to an easy jog to gently lower my heart rate before moving to the free weights. Yeah, I was a chef that ate like a chef, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to get lazy and blow up like a balloon just because my job centered around food. I was a good looking chef who made 30 Under 30 and I wasn’t apologizing for it, either. Seven years after making that list, I managed to double my net worth and began acquiring boutique, fine dining restaurants for my restaurant group rather than starting them from the ground up. I was smart, not lazy. Suck it, Twitter assholes.

  I’d barely caught my breath when ten miles of blonde hair in a reckless ponytail waltzed by me, carried by long legs with an ass like a dream. She stepped onto the treadmill directly in front of mine, and bent in half to tie her shoe. Hell-fucking-yes. I could run another mile—or twenty—with a front row seat to the glory of her spandex-covered cheeks.

  She flashed me a smile over her shoulder and all the blood rushed away from my head. She set her water bottle in the cupholder and turned on the treadmill, gradually increasing her speed. I lowered the incline on my machine and ran faster. Her blonde hair swished back and forth like a metronome, and I matched my speed to hers. She glanced back at me again and I grinned as she picked up her pace. So that’s how you wanna play it. I adjusted my ball cap and grabbed my towel to soak up the sweat on my face. I wasn’t about to be shown up by a damn mermaid.

  ✽✽✽

  “Impressive,” I said with a grin as I slumped over the front of the treadmill at the end of my cool down. Blondie laughed as she began to wipe down her machine with sanitizer.

  “My endurance or my cleaning skills?” She asked, tossing her hair to the side with a laugh and nudging a bead of sweat off of her neck with the corner of her shoulder. I would have licked it off for her, I thought. Damn—I really need to get laid.

  “Little bit of both,” I chuckled. She gave that thing a white glove treatment. It was so clean a health inspector would eat off of it without a second thought. I cleaned mine thoroughly—I wasn’t a total asshole—and draped my sweat towel over my shoulder. “I smoked you on that last mile, though.”

  “Um, my incline was all the way up and you were running flat, thank you very much,” She said with the slightest southern drawl. It was irresistibly adorable.

  “Maybe, but I was already five miles in when you showed up, so I win.”

  I followed her across the gym toward the locker rooms. Sure, I could afford to work out somewhere private with a trainer, but with as much as I travelled, a nationwide membership to a chain gym made more sense. She smiled and I caught a glimpse of her dimpled cheeks. “And what is it that you won exactly? This was just a little friendly competition with a stranger.”

  “Well, you could give me your number, and we could lose the stranger bit. I mean, I did win and all. I think that’d make us square. It’s only fair.”

  She lingered outside the door of the women’s locker room and crossed her arms. The motion pushed her sports bra-covered breasts up and I wasn’t subtle when my eyes took notice. She didn’t cower away, instead choosing to rake her eyes up my shirtless torso. “I’m not local,” she soothed. “Wouldn’t do you much good.”

  “How long are you here for?”

  “Three days,” she said, “But I’m here for work, not pleasure.”

  “Do you have time for a drink? Maybe turn your work trip into a little bit of work and pleasure?”

  She tapped the screen on her phone to check the time and I stole a peek at the photo. She was with a brunette on the beach. They each had one arm wrapped around the other and she was throwing a shaka sign with a smile that made her look like she didn’t have a care in the world. Her silvery blonde hair was almost white against her tan skin and nearly hung down to her hips. It didn’t quite hide the teeny black bikini that left very little to the imagination and my dick stood at attention, saluting her beauty. I shifted my weight between my feet and held my towel in one hand over my crotch to hide my raging hard-on.

  “Any other time I’d say yes, but I have a prior engagement tonight” she said, looking back up at me with a smile. “I should probably head back to my hotel to get ready.”

  I nodded and backed away. I wanted to see her again, but I didn’t want her to think I was a creep. “Alright, fair. Well, uh, how ‘bout your number? If your schedule frees up, shoot me a text and we’ll get that drink or a slice or something.”

  “You from New York?”

  “Grew up in Brooklyn. Why?”

  She smiled, “Because you called it a slice. I’ve only ever heard New Yorkers and folks from Jersey call pizza that.”

  “Perceptive,” I said, cracking a smile. Beauty and brains. I respected that. “So, what do you say, out of towner? Give me your number? I’ll make it worth your while.”

  Uncertainty hung in the hair until she finally typed in her passcode and relinquished her phone. My fingers brushed hers as I took it from her and filled in my contact information.

  “Hot Guy from the Gym in L.A.?” She laughed when she read the name I’d entered. “I don’t get a name?”

  “Luke,” I said, extending my hand.

  “Maddie,” she shook my hand and held it for a moment, turning my hand left-to-right and assessing my sleeves of tattoos. “I like your ink.”

  “You got any?” I asked. From the picture I saw on her phone, there weren’t many places she could’ve been hiding a tattoo, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to search every square inch of her just to see for myself.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she teased. Her lips curled into a devilish smile. She had a wild gleam in her eye that should have scared me off, but it didn’t.

  “Well, Maddie-who’s-not-a-local, I gotta work the next two days,” I said, “but I’m free tonight.” She wasn’t much shorter than me, which was surprising considering I was six foot two. I stepped forward until our tennis shoes hit each other and I leaned down, my voice dropping into a low rumble. “I’d like to collect on my winnings, so if you’re up for it, I know a little spot not too far from here that has great late night food. My treat, even though I won our little race.” Her eyelashes fluttered shut as my lips brushed the corner of her ear.

  She placed her hand on my chest and took a step backward. “I’ll think about it, Hot Guy from the Gym in L.A.”

  “Luke,” I corrected as she turned to go into the women’s locker room.

  “Luke,” she confirmed with a pointed finger gun and a smile I wouldn’t soon forget before disappearing around the corner.

  I trapped my lower lip between my teeth and scrubbed the beard along my jaw. I loved her confidence. Maddie’s self-assurance was sexy. I wasn’t usually one to get wrapped up in a girl, but hell—I’d give my left arm to see her again.

  3

  ———

  MADELINE

  I followed the producers through the studio kitchen like an obedient puppy, taking note of where all the equipment was, what types of ovens they had for us, and where the blast freezer was hiding. I should’ve thanked my lucky stars that the contestants could scout out the competition space the night before the big day rather than flying blind when the clock was ticking.

  The older lady to my left was pawing through the dry ingred
ient shelf. What a sweetheart. She looked like Betty Crocker reincarnated. She will be eliminated first. The sweet ones never last.

  I sized up the cocky loudmouth to my right and just rolled my eyes. Nevermind. Betty Crocker will make it to round two. The stand-up comedian will probably get stuck in the walk-in fridge if he doesn’t shut his mouth and pay attention.

  I rolled my shoulders back and forth to get the nerves out as I took it all in. Pastry Throwdown was a televised baking competition that had a cash prize of $50,000. I never cared much for cooking shows, but one of the producers had reached out and recruited me personally. I was going to turn it down, but only a fool would say no to a one-in-four chance to win fifty grand, right?

  The Poker Club practically signed my name on the dotted line for me. Steve and his detective partner, Chase, threatened to escort me to L.A. to make sure I actually got on my flight. Of course, when I put up a fuss, Hannah Jane went and said those three little words to which I never say no:

  I dare you.

  And that’s how I ended up on a film set side-eyeing and mean-mugging the other three competitors. Sweet Betty and Loudmouth didn’t stand a chance. If I had to put money on it, I’d say that Charissa Miles and I would be going head to head in the final round. I would win, of course. If you didn’t enter a competition thinking you’re going to win, you’ve already lost.

  I knew Charissa from pastry school. Every semester we’d be top two in the in-house showcases. To say we were competitive was an understatement. It wouldn’t be easy, but the purse was worth it. Rubbing my win in Charissa’s smug little face would be the icing on the cake.

  The producer quickly marched us out of the kitchen and into the large dressing room. Waiting for us were sets of chef whites embroidered with each of our names and branded with the competition logo. She droned on and on about tomorrow’s schedule, what to expect, and passed out stacks of papers with all the pertinent information.