Chapter 136: [136] "21yr old Beaumont"
Luc looked at the veteran. "So how do I catch a guy who doesn’t have to work for his chances?"
"By doing exactly what you have been doing," Klaus replied smoothly. "You do not complain about the difficulty of your goals. You simply score them. Fontaine is arrogant and angry. Fresko is just arrogant. That is your advantage. A starving man will always bite harder than a man who is being hand-fed."
The pneumatic compression cycle ended with a sharp hiss of releasing air.
Klaus added, standing up. "Rest your mind, American. You cannot control what happens in Marseille or Paris. You can only control what happens when the ball is at your feet."
As Klaus left the room, Luc’s phone vibrated on the counter next to the magazine. He reached over and picked it up.
A text from Valérie Laurent:
The GQ issue broke sales records for the quarter. The board is ecstatic. Do not let the Phocéen striker keep the lead. I don’t want you as a runner-up —V
Luc locked the phone and tossed it back onto the counter. The pressure was compounding from every conceivable angle. The club, the media, and his own relentless ambition were all pushing him toward an absolute breaking point.
---
February 28th.
The night air carried the sharp, biting chill of cold dew, the kind that seeped right through the fabric of a coat and settled into the bones.
Luc Beaumont stood on the pavement, adjusting the collar of his dark wool overcoat. He checked his watch for the third time in ten minutes. It was exactly eight in the evening. In one hour, he had a table waiting at an exclusive, ridiculously overpriced restaurant across town.
A reservation that had taken a solid two weeks of leveraging his rising status in Ligue Alpha to secure. It was his twenty-first birthday, and he had intended to spend it entirely removed from the chaotic orbit of Sporting Club Valois.
But football rarely respected personal schedules.
The text from Henri earlier that afternoon had been brief, cryptic, and carried the undeniable weight of a summons:
Lounge on Avenue Marceau. 8 PM sharp. Mandatory sponsor appearance. Do not be late.
"A sponsor appearance on your birthday," Juliette said, stepping out of the black town car and onto the curb beside him. "Your coach really has a gift for timing, doesn’t he?"
Luc turned to look at her, and for a fleeting second, the incessant pressure of the past month completely evaporated from his mind. He was used to seeing Juliette in her element...clad in tight, functional tracksuits, her dark hair pulled back into a severe, strict high ponytail that practically screamed professionalism. On the training pitch, in the physio room, she was a mechanic of the human body, diagnosing muscle fatigue and joint strain with a terrifyingly accurate eye.
She wore her work clothes like armor.
Tonight, she wasn’t wearing armor. She was wearing a dress.
It was an emerald green dress...exactly how she liked it...that clung to her athletic frame, featuring a subtle slit up the side of her leg that allowed for an easy, fluid stride. Her dark hair was loose, falling over her shoulders in slightly wild, natural waves. The crisp night air brought a flush to her cheeks, making her piercing green eyes stand out even more.
She looked dangerous.
"I’m starting to think Henri just hates the idea of me having a personal life," Luc said, offering her his arm. "We’ll be in and out. Thirty minutes, shake a few hands, take a photo with whoever is paying for the club’s new training bibs, and then we leave. I promise."
Juliette looped her arm through his, her grip firm and warm. "I’ll hold you to that, Beaumont. I skipped my evening yoga for this. I needed that to ease the tension of overworking."
They approached the entrance of the lounge. The place was marked only by a neon geometric shape and a pair of massive bouncers who recognized Luc instantly, unhooking the velvet rope without a word.
Luc guided Juliette inside, the heavy bass of a steady, rhythmic track vibrating through the floorboards.
He braced himself for the sterile environment of a corporate meet-and-greet. He expected middle-aged men in tailored suits holding champagne flutes, waiting to ask him about his goal tally...or something along that line.
Instead, as they stepped down into the main floor of the lounge, a roar of voices hit him.
"SURPRISE!"
Luc blinked, his vision adjusting to the dimly lit, amber-hued space. There were no sponsors.
The entire lounge had been rented out, and it was packed with the roster of SC Valois.
The starting eleven, the reserve squad, the coaching staff, and a handful of the club’s backroom employees.
Before he could even process the bait-and-switch, he was swarmed.
"Look at his face!" A teammate laughed, shoving a half-empty glass of sparkling water into Luc’s hand. "The American actually thought Henri would make him do PR on his twenty-first!"
Henri was standing near the bar, nursing what looked like a neat whiskey. The coach offered Luc a fractional nod of approval before turning back to his conversation.
"I have to admit," Juliette murmured near his ear, a knowing smile playing on her lips, "they got you. You looked like you were walking to the gallows outside."
"I was mentally preparing to talk about sports drinks for twenty minutes," Luc muttered, though he couldn’t fight the grin spreading across his face.
The pressure of the last few weeks had been suffocating. Valérie’s demands were a constant weight on his shoulders. The tactical shift to a 4-3-3 system had forced him into a grueling target-man role, operating with his back to the goal, absorbing punishing hits from towering center-backs every single match.
His body was aching in places he didn’t know existed before arriving in France. And looming over all of it was the Golden Boot race. Fresko was sitting pretty at the top with twenty-five goals, benefiting from Stade Phocéen’s high-line possession game that served him chances on a silver platter.
Luc was right on his heels at twenty-four, bleeding and fighting for every single inch. And then there was Olivier Fontaine, furious, relentless, and trailing at twenty-three.