“What are you talking about?”

“He came in and asked for Caden. I was about to tell him Caden didn’t work here, when the door opened and Caden walked in. They left together right after.”

“Did Caden touch you?”

“No. They were only here for a minute. What do you think the two of them have to talk about? It makes no sense.”

“I have no idea.”

***

“Sparring is about practicing, firming up your technique, not actually knocking your partner out,” Marco says as he lifts himself from the floor for the third time this session.

“Sorry. Guess my adrenaline is still flowing.” Raging might be a better word, flowing would imply smooth sailing, but the torrent that courses through my veins is more like a lethal tsunami threating to surge.

He raises the oversized sparring pads one more time. I hit him with a quick left jab and then the power of my right. He takes two steps back. “Caden’s f**ked in the ring with you,” he smiles at the thought. We’ve never spoken about it, but I get the feeling most of the guys in the gym aren’t Caden fans. He’s arrogant and overconfident, traits other fighters detest, unless it’s found in their opponent in the ring.

We train for longer than scheduled, but nowhere near what it takes to release the years of pent up anger that my father’s visit bubbled to the surface. Marco throws a towel at me and shakes his head, smiling. “I’m going to need a good soak tonight. Haven’t had that good a workout in a while.”

Sweat drips from every pore of my body. I wipe my face and grab a water, chugging half in one long gulp and pouring the rest over my head. “You coming to watch?”

Marco grins. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. You come in one tenth as ready as you were today, Caden won’t make thirty seconds.” He grabs his gym bag and climbs out of the sparring ring. “Think I might run a pool. Find a picture of you from the paper dressed in your fancy suit and tie and post it next to the sign up sheet. Boys in here that haven’t watched you train will underestimate your pretty face.”

“You think I’m pretty?” I tease as Marco walks away. He gives me the finger and shakes his head without looking back.

Not yet ready to call it a day, I run for close to an hour, my feet pounding the deck of the treadmill as I go over my father’s visit again in my head. What is he really after? And what could he possibly want with Caden?

The only thoughts able to shed light on the darkness overshadowing my mind are those of Lily. The way she lights up the entire room for me when she walks in the door. Her smile, her face, her body…the way she loves so deeply that she can’t even let go after the person is gone. She’s dedicating so much of her life to carrying out her father’s dream, even after he’s not here to share it with her anymore. I didn’t even know what true love was until I saw the love for her father in her eyes. It makes me sad to know what I’ve missed out on in life, but inspires me to work to be lucky enough to have her feel that way about me someday.

I hit cool down on the treadmill, finally burning away enough of the bad energy to be able to stop running in place. I’ve spent six months harboring so much anger and resentment that it left no room for anything else. But now I’m ready to make way, to find a way to channel those feelings in the ring, but leave them behind at the end of the day. Because at the end of the day, all I want is to go home with Lily.

Chapter 26

Lily

Tension hangs heavily in the warm late summer night air. We’ve been together every night for the last week. There was never a question we were spending the night, the only unclear fact at the end of each evening seemed to be where…my apartment or his hotel suite. Yet tonight as I lock up the door to the gym after closing, there’s an awkwardness. Jax’s father’s visit obviously still weighs heavily on him. We walk a block in silence, until we reach a fictional fork in the road…my apartment is to the left and his hotel is to the right.

“Can we stay at my hotel tonight? I have my laptop there and I need to send a few emails in the morning,” Jax asks.

“Ummm…sure.”

“What’s wrong?” He stops in his tracks and turns to me.

“Nothing. It’s just. I wasn’t sure if we were going to stay together tonight.”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

I shrug. There is no real answer. It was more of a feeling. “I don’t know.”

Jax’s eyes search mine and he’s quiet for a moment. He takes my face into his hands and focuses on nothing but our connection. There’s an unmistakable intensity in his eyes, but there’s something more. Something hidden beneath the surface. Hurt? Sadness? Worry? “I’m nothing like him.”

At first the statement is so seemingly out of place, I’m not sure what he’s even talking about. Then realization dawns on me. He’s concerned I might believe what his father said. That he’s like his father. “I know you’re not,” I whisper, my eyes locked to his.

He closes his eyes and nods. When he reopens them, there’s still hurt and pain, but some of the tension seems to be relieved.

***

Jax was quiet all night and this morning he had to head out for a day of meetings he had planned. He says he’s fine, but I can tell his dad’s visit is still bothering him. So I leave Ralley’s a little earlier than usual and stop at LaPerla on my way home to buy something I think will cheer him up. Spending a few hundred dollars on sexy lingerie isn’t something I do on a regular basis. But I’m excited to see his face when I describe what I have on underneath my clothes during dinner tonight.

I’m just about to hop in the shower when my cell phone buzzes. The name on the screen surprises me and I almost hit REJECT. But in a moment of weakness I answer the call from Caden.

I regret answering it as my trembling finger disconnects the call. My eyes sting as I fight back tears, throwing the phone on the table harshly. The screen shatters but it’s the least of my problems. I stand staring out the bedroom window for a long time, the tumultuous grey sky opening up with a crack of thunder making way for the pelt of heavy rain that follows.

I shouldn’t have answered the phone. I’m not even sure why I did. Maybe because some part of me feels badly for hurting Caden, he wasn’t always a jerk. It was all I could do to breathe after the death of my father, until Caden swooped in to take care of me.

I know what he did to me is wrong, a good man never puts his hands on a woman…no matter what. One of the many life lessons my father taught me growing up surrounded by men who use their hands to survive. There’s no excuse for what he did, yet a pang of guilt still keeps me connected to him somehow. Guilt for not loving him back the way he loved me. So I answered the phone, even though I knew no good would come from it. And I wasn’t wrong. I can only hope he was spewing lies, but there’s a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that won’t go away no matter how hard I try to tell myself nothing he said was true.