2
Jules rushed past Deb’s desk on her way to her dad’s office, sure she was late because it had taken her so long to get over seeing— Nope. She wasn’t even going to go there, he didn’t matter. Deb was on the phone, but covered the mouthpiece to whisper, “You can go on in, dear.”
Her dad looked up when she walked in and waved her over before transferring his cell phone to his other hand and running his hand over his head, slightly mussing his short hair, the same dark blond as hers. Standing, he walked to the wall of windows in his corner office to stare out at the parking lot below as he talked. “Relax, Bill. He’ll show up at the meeting next week. We have an excellent card this weekend. He’ll watch on TV just like everybody else and be begging us to give him a chance on Monday.” Apparently that didn’t satisfy Bill, because her dad sighed as he propped an arm against the window to listen. Bill’s tinny voice echoed through the silence of her father’s office, and Jules drummed her fingers against the back of the tablet clutched in her hands.
Left with nothing to do but wait, Jules set her tablet on a pile of papers on his messy desk and sat down in one of the chairs facing it. The spacious room was devoid of anything personal. Despite the fact that he’d been in the building for over six months now, a pile of boxes were stashed in a corner. He didn’t look settled in at all, as if he’d hung the pictures showing him posing with various sports figures on the wall behind his desk and work had taken over.
She recognized a few of them from his boxing days—him with Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Mike Tyson—because they’d hung in the den of her childhood home. As a kid, she’d stared at them for hours when he was gone training or traveling for a fight. There were others too, from when he’d moved into mixed martial arts. She didn’t recognize those, because by then her mother had stopped allowing her to go to the fights and he hadn’t been home much. By the time she was a teenager and had been sent off to boarding school in upstate New York, they’d barely been speaking.
She almost smiled when she stopped on the final picture, a poster of him with his welterweight belt from when he’d won his first championship in the 170-pound weight class. He’d given her that poster on one of his last visits home before the divorce, but she’d been an angry twelve-year-old and had stuffed it into her closet. He looked good in it, though, happy, even, as his ocean blue gaze stared out fiercely. As far as she knew, fighting was the only thing that made him happy. She and her mother hadn’t been enough, and even now, with an entire league to run, she knew he missed the thrill of it.
It had taken her a long time to understand his drive. She still didn’t completely, but she was proud of what he’d accomplished, and that’s not something she could have said even five years ago. He’d come from nothing in South Boston and worked his way up as a boxer. Then he’d moved into MMA when the sport was still young and had become the welterweight champ of the WFC’s predecessor, the Ultimate Cage Championship. He’d retired as champ with an impressive 33–4 record, and she was proud of him for that.
Prouder still that when the UCC had filed for bankruptcy, he’d stepped in and bought the organization, becoming president and owner. Now the WFC was a force to be reckoned with, giving bigger organizations like Imperial something to be worried about.
He’d sacrificed his family in the process, but he was trying to make amends. Besides, Megan was right—she might never get this chance to know her dad again, so she’d try not to dwell on the past anymore. And maybe working with him was a way for both of them to move forward.
“Christ!” He startled her as he ended the phone call and moved back to his chair. “Save me from investors.”
She knew that he’d originally sought out investors to pay off the UCC’s debts, but that had been years ago. “I thought you bought them all out.”
“All but one. Bill Davis—he’s the biggest leech of them all. He’ll be out as soon as the endorsements I’ve been working on come through.”
“What endorsements?” she asked, picking up her tablet. Was this how it was going to be? Her having to chase him for scraps of information?
He shrugged. “I’ll fill you in, along with—” He broke off and waved his hand toward the empty chair next to her as if he couldn’t be bothered to say the person’s name. “The UCC didn’t have a middleweight division. Well, they did, briefly, but there was that whole doping scandal. Every damn one of them was handed a lifetime suspension to satisfy the commissioner, but we’re adding a new middleweight division to the WFC. It’s something I’ve been working on for a while now. We’ve had four come over from other leagues and three more moved up from welterweight. And you met Giannakis today. He was Imperial’s reigning middleweight champ.” He rolled his eyes. “Among other things.”
She froze at his name. An image of him smiling as he pulled her into his arms, his mouth hot and gentle against her— No, she wasn’t going to remember. It was over. Anything between them was in the past, and had to stay there. Swallowing hard, she managed to nod and maintain eye contact as she focused on her father. This was good. She could totally do this. After a few days, it probably wouldn’t even bother her that Nick was here. There was no point in telling her dad about their history. It wouldn’t matter, and there was a chance it could make things tougher for Nick. Not to mention the absolute horror of having to discuss her sex life with her father, whom she barely knew. Yeah, no thank you.
“Since I’m already spending a metric fuckton getting this new weight class up and running, I figured it’d make sense to have our new promotional campaign focus on it. The fighters, the new additions to the league, all of that.” He frowned slightly before continuing. “This new middleweight class needs a champion. We’ll have a tournament over the July Fourth weekend, something we’ve never done before. The tournament will decide the inaugural WFC middleweight championship.”
She frowned. “July Fourth? That’s less than three months away.”
“Yeah.”
“And you want this new campaign—the one your former marketing guy never even started—to focus on that?”
“Right.”
She sighed heavily. “Do you have anything started on it? Anything at all?”
“I’ve already bought TV slots, so I’ll need you to work on a couple of commercials. The first day of the tournament will be on cable, but the final day, the fights that determine our champ, is pay-per-view. We need commercials promoting both.”
She nodded and made notes on her tablet. “We’re really behind. Shit.”
“That’s why I called you. You’re the expert, right? If we can pull this off, if we can get the viewers, we’ll be primed for more airtime, and more advertisers later in the year. It’s an important fucking fight.” He paused and sat back in his chair, tenting his fingers. “There’s more.” His voice had lost its excitement.
“Of course there is.” She met his gaze, fingers poised over the tablet.
“Giannakis.” He grimaced a bit, his brow furrowing as he rubbed his temple.
Her breath caught. He didn’t know, did he? For a brief second, her heart began to gallop out of control, and she took a breath. She was being ridiculous. Of course he didn’t know about those weeks in Chicago. He couldn’t. She forced herself to not react, but she knew she wasn’t going to like whatever he was about to say.
A knock on the door made her shoulders stiffen, and a knowing sensation prickled down her spine. “Come in,” her dad called, forcing his grimace into something only slightly more neutral.
“I didn’t realize I was late.” Her stomach dipped and swirled at the sound of Nick’s voice.
“You’re just in time.” Her dad waved him in. “I was getting Julian up to speed on the tournament.”
She didn’t turn to acknowledge him, but she could feel his eyes on her as he walked over to the vacant chair. He paused right beside her, and for a split second, he was all there was for her, the weight of his presence filling up her consciousness. The words on her tablet went blurry and she closed her eyes to breathe in his scent. He’d showered since his workout. She could smell his soap, but underneath that was all him. That scent she knew so well, because when he hadn’t been inside her, she’d slept pressed against him every night. His scent had been on her skin constantly, making her crave more of him. Even now, her body was awakening, recognizing him after such a long absence and begging for his touch, his voice, anything he’d give her.
Shifting in her seat, she forced herself to open her eyes and focus on her dad. He was talking and it took all she had to make sense of his words.
“—she’ll be in charge of that campaign.”
Her dad raised a brow as if he expected her to jump in, and she knew she should. This was her job, she was supposed to be brimming with ideas. And usually she was. It was how she’d quickly become one of the most sought-after consultants at her old marketing firm. Even before she’d finished grad school, she’d made small startups great because she had so many ideas. But one day with Nick and she was flailing.
He’d already taken his seat and, as the silence stretched out, she knew it was weird that she hadn’t actually looked at him yet or acknowledged him in any way. The last thing she needed was for her dad to get suspicious, so she clenched her hands in her lap and forced herself to look over. He’d changed into a black ribbed T-shirt that hugged his chest, and jeans. His hair was loose now, hanging in damp waves just to his shoulders, longer than it had been in Chicago. He’d worn it longish then, but still too short to pull back. She wasn’t sure she liked it this way. It made him . . . different. Less hers. Though she had no right to claim him. Not after the way she’d left.
Before she could stop it from happening, Nick’s gaze caught hers, hungry and fierce, and desire clenched tight in her belly, settling low in her core. Sucking in a breath, she glanced at the few notes on her tablet. “If the slots are the standard thirty seconds, we’ll have to be creative. We don’t have time for anything elaborate, but we can still put together something that hits all the right notes. Off the top of my head, we could do some quick shots with the guys. I’m thinking a dark background, maybe some artistic, slow-motion shots of them hitting a punching bag, kicking, wrestling, maybe even something subtler, like putting on hand wraps, sweat dripping off of faces, off of arms. A voice-over to hype up the whole ‘clash of titans, there can be only one, this is gonna be crazy, this is the event MMA fans have been waiting for’ angle, and as the commercial progresses, the speed of the action progresses too, driving the message forward. We want people feeling amped up after seeing the commercial. We’ll need to pick official music that will play in the background. I’m thinking something along the lines of ‘How You Like Me Now?’ by The Heavy, or maybe something more classic, like ‘25 Miles,’ by Edwin Starr. Maybe have each of the guys saying the same catchphrase, and we can overlap them all saying, ‘It’s my time,’ or something. Again, I’m just spitballing here, since this is new information to me.”
She glanced up and saw her father was nodding his approval, a small smile curving his lips. Finally drawing in a deep breath, she chanced another look over at Nick. He was still watching her, an elbow resting on the arm of the chair, fingers tracing his chin. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and he wasn’t giving anything away. She looked back at her dad, safer territory.
“Sounds great, Julian. Work on that and we’ll meet again early next week with the production company. Right now, I need to talk to you both about another campaign. With the fights this weekend and the upcoming tournament—which by the way is the biggest MMA event ever televised—we’ve got a real chance here to gain momentum. I want us to finish out the year with an even stronger television presence and dedicated spots going into next year. We have to have solid, consistent advertising to keep us moving.
“That’s where you come in, Giannakis. I know we talked about this a bit, but I want you to be the face of WFC, for now.”
“The face of WFC?” The words were out before Jules even realized she’d said them. If he was the face, they’d be spending a lot of time working together. There’d be no avoiding him, no pretending he wasn’t here. Not with the marketing campaign and promotional events and everything that would go along with Nick’s role. How was she supposed to function working with him when she couldn’t even be in the same room with him without her body going into hypersensitivity overdrive?
Her dad gave her an odd glance before giving a short nod and continuing as if she hadn’t spoken. “You have fans from Imperial that’ll follow you over, and you have the personality to draw in new ones for us.” Her dad’s nostrils flared slightly, as though the last few words tasted bad in his mouth.
“I’m happy to help.” Nick sat up straighter as his attention shifted to her dad. Without even meaning to, her gaze dropped to his left hand, his long, graceful fingers clenched tight around the padded arm of the chair. Before she could stop herself, she remembered how that large, strong hand felt on her body, easing its way between her thighs that time in the cab. When they’d arrived at his apartment, she’d barely been able to walk upright thanks to the almost painful throb between her legs. She’d never done that in a cab before, but with Nick all of her boundaries had disappeared.
Focus. That was the past. You have a job to do now. Don’t let him distract you.
“We need print ads and general commercial spots. Julian, I also want you to set up some interviews—radio, TV, podcasts, sports websites, whatever you can get for Nick. We need someone out there besides me talking about how we’re growing. We need to start creating our own content too. Short spots we can upload to promote upcoming cards. A little buzz and excitement to get things rolling. Nick, you like to talk. Figured this shit was right up your alley.”
“Just tell me where to stand and what to say and I’m there, boss. I’ll even bring my hair.”
“Settle down. This isn’t a fucking L’Oréal commercial. Just be yourself.” He paused, frowning for a second. “Well, the self that Julian coaches you to be for the media.”
She couldn’t coach him. She couldn’t even talk to him.
Deb’s voice came through the phone system on his desk. “Craig, Tim’s on line one, said the arena is refusing to open early enough on Saturday. Something about a private event.”
“Okay, give me a minute, Deb.” Looking back at Jules, he continued. “Look, bottom line is that this project is already weeks, if not months, behind schedule. It’ll be tight, but I know you can get it done. I’ll have Deb send you a list of the ad space we’ve managed to buy so far. I’ll leave it to you and Giannakis to work out the details.” Then he turned to Nick and, taking a deep breath, said, “I appreciate you doing this.”
Realizing they’d been dismissed when he picked up the receiver, Jules quickly gathered her tablet and rose to her feet. “I’ll have my assistant be in touch. If you could forward her your schedule, that’d be great.” Then she made for the door before he had the chance to stop her.
She was running again. Nick watched as Jules scrambled for the door, amazed there wasn’t a little cartoon puff of smoke trailing behind her.
He pushed out of his chair and ate up the distance between Darcy’s desk and the door in long strides. A year ago, she’d run. Earlier today, she’d run. And both times he’d let her. But he wouldn’t this time, not when they had unfinished business.
He stepped into the hallway just in time to see Jules take a corner down the hall to the right, and he set off after her, memories and emotions tumbling through him, clashing like metal on stone, hard and sharp and abrasive. Three amazing weeks, forever tarnished by the way she’d left. He’d fallen for her, hard, and he’d been a fool.
And fool that he was, he wanted answers. Wanted to understand why she’d left, why she’d pulled the plug just as they were getting started. Wanted to know why she was avoiding him now. He had a hard time believing it was because she didn’t want anything to do with him. Not after the way they’d connected, physically and emotionally. Yeah, it had only been three weeks, but they’d been the best damn three weeks of his life.
He’d been surprised at how hard he’d fallen. She’d seemed to understand him without even trying, as though everything about him had made perfect sense to her. He’d dated plenty, but he’d never experienced that before, that sense of just . . . coming home to someone, the right someone. No other woman had ever gotten under his skin the way she had. But Jules had crawled right in, wrapping herself around his heart right before she'd ripped it out and kicked it to the corner.
He knew from past relationship experience that fighters weren’t the easiest guys to date. Training took up so much time and energy, took so much focus and ego to succeed. There were injuries, emotional highs and lows, travel, and most fighters didn’t have much money. For a lot of women, once the allure of dating a ripped guy with stamina wore off, they were gone. But not Jules. From the first night he’d met her, she’d just got him, got the fighting, got what it meant to him.
He knew now that part of that came from the fact that she was Craig Darcy’s daughter. But knowing that didn’t change that she’d seen him, understood him, supported him. She’d given a shit, and that was worth something.
He rounded the corner and watched her walk down the hallway, taking in her long legs made even longer by the sexy black pumps she was wearing. An image of Jules walking toward him, wearing nothing but a pearl necklace and a pair of heels just like those, seared through him like a jolt of electricity, both hot and painful.
He’d gotten the news that his upcoming fight might be canceled because his opponent had been injured in training. It had been a stressful day as he’d waited to find out who would take his opponent’s place, or if the fight would still be happening at all, and when he’d come home, Jules had been in his apartment, waiting for him. She’d walked toward him, biting her lip and toying with the pearls. She’d leaned into him, brushing his ear with her lips as she spoke.
“I’m sorry about your fight. Anything I can do to make you feel better?”
He’d wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against him, his entire body waking up at the feel of her bare skin under his hands. “You already have, sweetheart.”
She’d kept the pearls and heels on for the next couple of hours, soothing him with soul-shattering sex and something else, something harder to put into words. It was the fact that she’d been there, waiting for him, knowing he’d had a tough day. The way they’d laughed together, the way she’d made him feel that no matter what happened, as long as he had her, he’d be able to conquer the world. And he’d thought she felt the same way about him.
He kept his distance, willing himself not to run down the hallway, but instead walk at a leisurely pace as he followed her to her office. Finally, after another turn, he watched her push open a door and slam it closed.
A smile crept across his face. If she was slamming doors, maybe she was affected by seeing him again.
A big maybe, but still. It was something.
He didn’t knock, just walked into her office and closed the door behind him. Jules stood with her back to him, her hands braced against her desk, her head bowed. She hadn’t heard him come in, and he took advantage of his momentary invisibility, watching her for several seconds as she stood there, her slender shoulders rising and falling with each breath. He expected to feel angry, or hurt, or even confused, but if those emotions were there, they were all being eclipsed by his satisfaction at how rattled she was, and the almost overwhelming need to wrap his arms around her.
“Jules.” His voice startled her and she let out a small shriek before whirling around, one hand clutched to her chest. He held up his hands. “Hey. It’s just me. It’s okay. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Her gorgeous blue eyes slammed into his and his heart beat a furious tempo in his chest.
“Jules.” He repeated her name, and she slowly lowered her hand. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and glanced between Nick and the door, her shoulders rigid.
“What . . .” She cleared her throat and started again. “What are you doing here?”
Her tone wasn’t what he’d hoped for, and he frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. “I thought we should talk.”
She took a breath and paled slightly as she once again met his gaze. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
He quirked his brow, tamping down the impatient anger flooding him. “How could you possibly think we have nothing to talk about?”
She shrugged, and then wrapped her arms around herself, her eyes locked on the floor. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
He fought the urge to scoff. “Oh, I don’t know. ‘Hi, Nick. Nice to see you, Nick. You look great, Nick. Sorry for walking out on you, Nick.’ Any of those would be a fantastic start.”
She looked up at him, and something in her expression softened, giving him a glimpse of his Jules, the one he’d fallen for. “Hi, Nick.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up and he took a step toward her, hope slowly filtering its way through him. “Hey, Jules.” He took another step toward her, and she scurried behind her desk.
That small gesture, her putting her desk between them, pissed him off. She was the only woman who’d ever broken his heart, and she was looking at him as though he was the enemy here. A spark of resentful anger flared up, burning a path through the center of his chest. For several long seconds they stared at each other, and emotions, one after the other, crashed into Nick, rocking him like waves. Anger. Hurt. Sadness. Hope. Lust. All of them swirled together in a confusing eddy that threatened to drag him under. Finally, after several seconds, he managed to pull himself to the surface, to ask the question he’d wanted to ask since she’d walked out of his apartment.
“Why, Jules?”
She glanced up at him and then down at her desk, her fingers twisted together. “You know why.”
He let out a strained laugh. “No, I fucking don’t. We had a good thing. An amazing thing. And you walked. You wouldn’t even give us a chance. Tell me why.” It wasn’t a question this time, but a demand, and her head snapped up at his tone. But she didn’t say anything, just stared at him, emotions swirling in her pretty eyes.
“I’m not doing this with you, Nick.”
“I’m not leaving until you explain what happened in Chicago.” He braced his hands on her desk, leaning toward her. The scent of her skin hit him like a punch in the stomach, lavender from the pricey French lotion she loved.
Something in her expression shifted, and her mouth hardened. “We had fun. It was time for me to go. I’m sorry you got the wrong impression, but I don’t do relationships. You know that.” She sniffed and wrapped her arms stiffly around herself.
He clenched his jaw, his teeth grinding together. “I don’t believe you.”
“Why would I lie?”
“What the hell is wrong with you? You’re different, Jules.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. My Jules wouldn’t lie to me like this.” He jabbed a finger into his own chest.
Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared. “I’m not your Jules, Nick.” She sniffed again and straightened her shoulders, her spine ramrod straight.
He stared at her for a long, hard moment, trying to figure out which Jules was the lie—this one, or the one he’d fallen for in Chicago. “No. You’re not.” He sucked in a breath, trying to force some calm into his system.
“We’ll be working together, and we need to leave the past in the past. We had fun, but Nick, that’s all it was. This is my job. Please don’t make this difficult for me.”
He felt as though his veins were filling with ice water at her words, and he forced himself to smile. “That’s all it was? Right. My mistake,” he said, his words heavy with sarcasm as he tried to hide the fresh wave of pain crashing into him.
“Please go.” Her voice was quiet as she cut her eyes from him to the door behind him.
“Fine.” He stopped halfway to the door, jamming his hands into his pockets as he turned to face her. “You know what?” Once again, her eyes met his, and he couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. “I thought you were the best thing that ever happened to me. But I guess I was wrong. So we can work together. We can coexist, but just know there’s a small part of me that will always hate you for the way you left.” She flinched, and although he knew he should feel bad, he didn’t, because it was the truth.
He spun and walked out of her office, pissed that even though she’d pushed him away, he still wanted her. Still cared. Furious that he’d have to see her every day, knowing what they could’ve had, and knowing she didn’t want it. Knowing she’d moved on from Chicago, and he hadn’t.
He stopped several feet down the hall and leaned against the wall, trying to figure out a way to breathe through the hurt threatening to swallow him up.