by A. Rivers
She speaks first. “Hey, baby. You had time to think about my offer?”
I cross my arms. “My answer’s the same as last time you asked. When are you going to quit this pathetic grab for the spotlight?”
“Pathetic,” she spits, brown eyes blazing. “That’s what everyone will think of you when I’m done.” She sneers, and unlike with Lena, there’s nothing sexy about it. “Whether or not you win the championship, you’ll just be the chump who hits his girlfriends.” Her lips curl up. “Even better, I could stop your championship fight. You can’t compete from prison, Jase.”
“I’m not giving in to you,” I tell her. “I’m not taking you back, or giving you money just because you’re blackmailing me.” I’ve worked too damned hard to let a bitchy ex ruin my career. I’ve come a long way from the shitty neighborhood where I grew up, and I won’t let a woman with an addiction to headlines get in the way. “Why don’t you move on to the next guy? Surely there are heaps of other stupid fuckers out there who’ll give you what you want.”
Erin’s hands drop from her hips and she crumbles in on herself. At first I think I’ve gotten through to her, but then I spot the guy across the road with a camera. She’s playing the victim for a photographer. Fuck, just what I don’t need.
“Know what, baby?” she asks, staring at the ground as though she’s terrified of me, though her tone gives her away. She’s loving this. Every fucking second of it. “I’ve had reporters calling me all day.” Her eyes flick up and catch mine. “Even some from E News. Maybe I’ll return their call. I’ve always wanted to be on TV.”
“You do that, and you’re never getting anything from me.”
She flinches, like I’ve yelled at her. She’s a piece of work, but she’s a first rate actress. “Jase,” she says softly, “I have nothing to lose.”
She’s got me, and she knows it. She has plenty to gain and I have everything to lose. Swearing, I turn and thump my fist into the wall. A light flashes.
Erin leaps away from me, wrapping her arms around herself. “You’ll change your mind.” She scuttles off, giving a damned good impression of a wounded puppy, and my heart sinks to the soles of my shoes. I played right into her plan, and I have a feeling I’ll be facing the consequences tomorrow.
Hunching my shoulders, I pull the hood over my head and hurry away.
Lena
Despite my best efforts to persuade Adrian to hand Jase Rawlins to another member of the team—because we clearly aren’t a good fit for each other—Tuesday morning rolls around and I’m stuck with him. I’m on my second coffee of the day, a hazelnut mocha whip, when Breanna, my favorite person in the building, marches into my office and drops a tabloid on my desk.
I greet her with a smile. “Hey, Bree.”
At a smidge over five feet, with flawless brown skin and more curves than an hourglass, Breanna is basically my opposite, except when it comes to levels of sass. In that, we’re equal.
“You see the news, Lee?” she asks, wasting no time with pleasantries. Smoothing out the magazine, she points to the headline. “Your latest pet project won a front page spot. I hope you have an appetite for damage control because that’s all that’s on the menu today.”
I lean over to get a better look at the headline, which reads, “Scared into silence? Jase ‘The Wrangler’ Rawlins stalks battered ex-girlfriend outside her workplace”.
Oh. Fuck. No.
That idiot. That monumental, moronic, miniature-brained man. Champion fighter or not, I could kill him with my bare hands.
“Tell me he didn’t,” I say, going straight to the damning photograph of Jase towering aggressively over the petite blonde I know to be Erin Daley. The date in the corner shows it was taken yesterday. Shit. I scramble to order my thoughts. Breanna is right; this will take an act of God to counter, and I don’t have a direct line to the man upstairs.
“That’s one of three mags I’ve seen today with different takes on the same theme,” Breanna tells me, sliding into the chair opposite and giving me time to read. It seems Jase took it upon himself to pay a visit to Erin at her work yesterday after I returned to the office. The article says he was overheard speaking to her with a raised voice and threatening her if she didn’t keep silent.
I finish reading, flip it shut, close my eyes, and groan. “This is bad.”
“Worse than any frat boy crap your usual clients pull,” Breanna agrees. “What are you going to do?”
Straightening, I tug a hand through my hair, grateful I decided to wear it loose. “I don’t know. Give me ten minutes, I need to think on it.”
She eyes me dubiously. “Don’t take too long. You need to start putting out those fires.”
“I know.” I’ve been trying to put out fires ever since Jase Rawlins sauntered into my life, and it seems like I’m only adding fuel to the flames. Was it my conversation with him that prompted him to confront his ex? God, I hope not. “On second thought, sitting around here isn’t going to fix anything.” Standing, I shove my chair back and grab my purse. “I’m going to track him down and demand to know what the hell he was thinking.”
“Atta girl.” She slaps my butt as I pass her on the way out. “You tell that big alpha fighter how it is, Lee.”
“Oh, I plan to.”
Jase Rawlins doesn’t know what’s about to hit him. Fuming, I make my way through the office and give the stink-eye to the cute security guard when he tries to flirt with me, then stomp all the way to my car. It’s a good thing I’ve been wearing heels since the same age I developed boobs, otherwise I’d have broken an ankle by now. The drive to Crown MMA Gym only worsens my mood because I hit traffic the moment I leave the parking building and it doesn’t let up the whole way, giving me plenty of time to stew.
Pausing, I reapply my lipstick and smooth my hair, which, thanks to my nervous habit of messing with it, is no longer sleek and professional. Satisfied I don’t look as frazzled as I feel, I snatch the magazine from the passenger seat and stalk across the asphalt. Someone whistles, and I snap around, my gaze landing on a guy who’s leaning out of a car window. I flip him the bird.
“Aw, don’t be like that,” he calls, but I step inside and slam the door.
A dozen men swivel to face me, possibly curious who has the audacity to interrupt their workout. Most of them resume training a few seconds later, but Jase’s eyes widen and he falls back a step. Gabe is holding pads for him, and he gives me a slight nod. I start forward, only remembering to remove my shoes at the last moment. When I try to tug them off, the buckle-up pumps don’t cooperate, and I have to sit, my skirt riding up my thighs. Both Jase and Gabe watch the show without offering to help. Jackasses. Finally free of the shoes, and unfortunately several inches shorter, I cross to them and slam the magazine against Jase’s chest.
“Want to tell me what the hell you were thinking?”
6
Jase
All the frustration I’ve worked off over the past two hours comes flooding back at the sight of Lena—furious expression, sassy walk, and all. Her cheeks are flushed with anger and her eyes may as well be shooting laser beams straight at me. Her lips move, but I don’t hear the words. My blood has redirected from my big head to my generously proportioned smaller one. Fuck, she’s hot when she’s mad.
She thumps me in the chest, and I scarcely notice. Her fists are tiny. She could probably punch me in the nose and not even crack the bone. Her eyes narrow, and she gets up in my face—a hard ask when she’s several inches shorter than me.
“Do you think this is funny?” she asks, jabbing me in the chest with her free hand. I glance down and see she’s holding a magazine. With a sinking sensation, I take it from her and hold it up so I can see the cover. It’s a photograph from yesterday, of me standing over Erin like a brute. The headline screams at me, and I show Gabe, then shove the magazine into Lena’s hands, sick to my stomach. I won’t read it. I already know it’s full of vitriolic bullshit, and I don’t even blame the reporter for spouti
ng it. I handed the media a gold mine by going after Erin. I’ve made her the poster child for standing up in the face of domestic abuse, with me cast in the role of monster.
Jesus. Fuck.
Lena was right all along. This is serious.
“There are others,” she says, in case I’m holding out any hope that the story has been picked up by a lone tabloid. Closing my eyes, I mutter a stream of curses, growing more creative with each one.
“Hey, brother.” Gabe claps me on the shoulder, which nearly knocks me over since his forearms are covered by heavy kick pads. “You can get past this.” He turns to Lena. “You can fix this, right? That’s what he hired you for?”
Lena releases a long, slow breath. I can sense her hesitation, and it fuels a desperation deep within me. I worked fucking hard to get to where I am. It’s not possible that a selfish girl with a taste for the spotlight could take it away so easily, is it?
“Please.” I grab her free hand between both of mine even though she has a perfect manicure and my gloves are soaked with sweat and completely disgusting. “You’ve gotta try.”
She stares at me, some of her hostility fading, and nibbles on her lower lip. Finally, an excruciatingly long moment later, she says, “You just made my job so much more difficult. I hope you understand that.”
“I do.”
“Trust me, Lena,” Gabe adds. “He may come across as a douche, but he’s not a stupid one. He knows he fucked up.” He shucks his pads and stands shoulder to shoulder with me, the both of us facing her down. This doesn’t seem to intimidate her as it might others. It fires her up. She flicks her sexy red hair over her shoulder and gives us a single, firm nod.
“Well, okay then. Glad we know where we stand.” There’s a brief moment when I think she’s going to move on without rubbing salt in the wound. Then the moment passes. “For the record, I’ve met mushrooms with more forethought than you.”
Should have known she wouldn’t let me off so easily. I suppose if she wants to compare me to fungi, at least it’s a tasty one.
“If we’re going to do this, you need to be a whole lot more open with me. I want no-holds-barred access to your life, Jase. I ask a question, you answer it immediately and truthfully. I make a suggestion, you do everything within your power to make it happen. If you want to climb out of this hole you’ve dug, I need your complete and total commitment. Think you can manage that, fighter boy?”
“That’s fighter man to you.” I can’t resist needling her, and her face screws up the way I knew it would. “But yeah, I’ll do what you say and I’ll accept any help I can get.”
“Good.” Her lips purse, and she seems to have run out of steam. I can see her mentally switching from bulldozer mode to thinking mode, calculating our next steps, figuring out how to get ahead of this, and for the first time, I feel like maybe she’s on my side. Maybe she’s actually invested in me.
The next question out of her mouth is one I don’t see coming. “Is there any truth to Erin’s story?”
“No,” Gabe and I answer at the same time.
“Okay,” she nods, accepting our reply at face value, and I can still see the information running through her mind and being processed. She has a shit poker face, but that’s beside the point. This woman is actually listening to what I have to say and taking it on board. Is she for real?
Her belief in me—if that’s what it is—feels good. Like, unreasonably good. I want to grab her around the waist and twirl her in the air, or take her face between my palms and kiss her irresistible ruby lips. When another ten seconds pass without her saying anything snarky, I’m halfway tempted to strip her clothes off and bang her on the floor, audience be damned.
Finally, she comes to a decision. “There are some things I need to take care of. I’ll be in touch with you later.”
Her hand is still in my grasp, and I squeeze it. “Thanks.” My voice is raspy with emotion, and I cough to clear it. Goddamn it, I am not a pussy.
She studies me, and I’m not sure what she sees, but she seems to like it. “You’re welcome, fighter man.”
My lips quirk up. “You know what I think?”
She tugs her hand away and places it on her hip. “Do I want to know?”
Ah, there’s my mouthy girl. “I think you like me.” She starts to scowl, but I barrel on. “I think you care what happens to me.”
“Do not,” she says, a deep blush traveling down to the neckline of her shirt. With a complexion like that, I bet her entire body blushes, and I want to tear her blouse in half to find out. “I care about keeping my career on track.”
“Uh-huh.” I give her a cocky grin that I know will rile her more. “You tell yourself that, cutie pie.”
She huffs. “You’re insufferable.” Then she whirls around and marches away, the curve of her butt bouncing with each step.
When she’s gone, Gabe whistles under his breath. “Man, she’s something.”
I punch him in the gut, hard enough to sting but not hurt. “Eyes to yourself. She’s not here for your viewing pleasure.”
He guffaws. “That doesn’t stop you.”
“I don’t need you pointing out my hypocrisy.” I stretch my legs and shake them, refusing to analyze why the thought of anyone else checking Lena out makes me want to wrap my arm around the asshole’s throat—friend or not. “Let’s get back to training.”
Lena
I find Erin Daley at the salon where she works—incidentally, the same place Jase tracked her down to yesterday. After my conversation with him and Gabe, I’m fired up and determined to get to the bottom of this. I’m not certain I believe what he said about being entirely innocent, but I’ll admit he was convincing, and I want to know, once and for all, what actually went down between him and his ex. I need to hear her side of the story and weigh it against his. Once I’ve deduced the truth—which I don’t doubt I’ll be able to do—I can decide on our next steps. Guilty or not, it’s my job to help Jase, but I’ll need to tread more carefully if I discover there’s any truth to the accusations against him.
Entering through a glass door painted with pink script, I pause and look around. The salon is nice, probably out of my budget, with high ceilings and shiny surfaces for all the beautiful customers to admire themselves in. An array of expensive hair and skin products occupies the shelves beside the receptionist’s desk, and I scan the labels, wishing I could afford to take a few bottles home with me.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asks politely.
“I’m looking for Erin,” I say, scanning the room, my gaze landing on Jase’s ex as she paints dye onto a young woman’s hair.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.” I turn back to the receptionist. She’s pretty, wearing a pale pink blouse, emblazoned with the logo of the salon. “I was hoping for a private moment with her. It’ll only take a couple of minutes.”
She lifts an appointment book onto the desk and runs a fingernail down the page. “Sorry, hon, she’s booked full today.”
Leaning closer, I drop my voice, hoping I sound like a gossipy airhead rather than the astute professional I generally prefer to be perceived as. “It’s about her ex, the MMA fighter? I’m hoping to get a few words.”
“Oh,” she replies, a wealth of understanding in her tone. Even though I haven’t technically lied, she’s mistaken me for a reporter and I’m happy for her to continue under that impression. “In that case, if you wait for five minutes she’ll be finished with her client and take a short break.”
“That’s perfect. I’m happy to wait.” I smile like she’s made my day. “Thank you for being so understanding.”
“No problem. I’m just glad that asshole is paying for what he did.” She props her elbow on the desk and rests her chin in it, her face only inches from mine. “Did you know he came here yesterday? I mean, the nerve.” She tuts. “It’s always the hot ones who turn out bad.”
I laugh, and this time it isn’t the slightest bit fake. “Trust
me, I know.” We exchange a conspiratorial look, one hard-done-by single woman to another. “I wish the looks made up for the personalities.”
Although with Karson, it had been more than his personality that led me to end things so swiftly and decisively. The fucker had thought he could punch me and I’d stay with him. I was smart enough not to fight back at the time—the guy is a pro—but sometimes I regret that I didn’t key his car or smash a window in his ridiculous mansion of a home.
“Hey, some are just boring,” she says, drawing me out of my thoughts. “And a boring hot guy isn’t so bad.”
I nod in agreement, straighten and gesture to the sofa just inside the door. “I’ll just wait over here.”
“Go right ahead, hon.”
Ten minutes pass before Erin joins me. I flip through one of the magazines on the coffee table and listen to the chatter in the salon. When she reaches me, I ask if there’s somewhere private we can talk. She smiles, looking far more pleased with herself than I expect, and leads me out the back to a staff kitchenette.
The bright indoor lighting emphasizes the ugly mottled skin around her eye and the puffiness in one corner where it’s swollen partially shut. It occurs to me that for a woman with a lot of makeup on—lipstick, brow pencil, eyeliner, mascara—she doesn’t have any over the bruise. I wonder if that’s because it hurts to apply makeup there, or whether she enjoys the attention it attracts. If Jase is to be believed, it’s the latter, but my natural inclination is to assume the former. After all, I know better than anyone how much a man’s fist can hurt.
“You wanted to talk to me about Jase?” she asks, and there’s a glint in her eye I don’t like. It’s greedy. Excited. “Where are you from?”