Fighter's Kiss: An enemies-to-lovers MMA romance (Irish Kiss Book 3), page 8
“No shit,” Miley said. “It was all over the news.”
I covered my mouth in horror as I scrolled through paparazzi pictures of a terrible car crash. If I hadn’t touched Declan and felt how solid he was, I would have guessed I was working for a ghost. Because no one should have walked away from that mangled mess of iron and flames.
“Ended his career, obviously,” Miley continued after I heard her take a drag of a cigarette. “It was all over the news. Pretty sad it had to end that way.”
I frowned at the phone. “He’s training.”
“What?”
I nodded. “Yeah, he’s training to fight again,” I said.
Miley paused. “Are you sure it’s not just physical therapy?”
I remembered the ferocity with which he attacked the dummy in the cage. His face read murder, not healing. “No,” I answered. “No, he wants to fight.”
Miley laughed. “Sounds like he’s delusional.”
“He’s not,” I quickly insisted. “He’s strong. He really is.” I wasn’t sure why I was defending Declan all of a sudden. I hadn’t meant to. It just…came out.
“River…” Miley said my name with heavy implication.
I stared at the phone and huffed. “What?”
“You know.”
I rolled my eyes. “No, I don’t know,” I said grumpily. “So you better just go ahead and tell me, Miley.”
Miley sighed. “You can’t get close to this guy, River.”
I knew that was coming. Of course I did. “I’m not.” I was becoming defensive and that should have scared me more than anything that Miley said.
“That’s not the way it sounds.”
“He’s just my boss,” I argued, my tone biting. “An arrogant, asshole boss who gives me a paycheque and who I feel nothing more toward than slight disdain and occasional irritation.”
I imagined Miley holding up her hands as she said, “Alright, alright. Don’t bite my head off, dude. I’m just saying.”
“There’s nothing there,” I insisted a little too strongly.
“Fine, fine,” Miley said, clearly trying to calm me down. “I believe you, okay?”
I stared up at the ceiling, chastising myself for reacting like that. That’s not the way someone reacts who doesn’t have feelings for someone. “Sorry,” I finally said.
“We’re cool,” Miley replied. “I just wanted to warn you so you don’t get hurt. Man’s got a wife, you know?”
Her words sent ice running through my veins. I felt paralysed as I stared at the phone. “What?”
Miley sighed. “If you hadn’t been living in the same building as me for a year in one of the biggest cities in the world, I would assume you’ve been living under a rock, River,” she paused. “Or some hippie commune, I guess.”
I appreciated her trying to bring levity to the situation, but all I could focus on was that one word: wife.
“Everyone in the world knows her but you, obviously,” Miley explained. “Her name’s Giselle and she’s some super-hot model, you know, bikinis and wings and all that shit.”
I remained silent, still unable to speak.
Wife?
Declan has a wife?
“Listen, dude,” Miley continued, “he’s got baggage. And lots of it. That chick ditched him for his biggest rival. It wrecked him, literally.” She laughed darkly.
I stared unblinking at the phone.
“Yo, you still there?” she asked after a silent moment.
“Yeah, yeah,” I tried to sound casual, nonchalant. I tried to sound like my throat wasn’t tightening and my heart pounding. “Just got caught up in checking out this camera again. It’s amazing.”
“Good,” Miley said. “I really didn’t want to upset you or anything. I just thought you should know, you know?”
I forced a laugh. “No, no, I really don’t care.” I smiled even though I didn’t want to smile at all. “I don’t have feelings for Declan.” I hesitated a moment before adding something else, more to convince myself than to convince Miley: “I really don’t.”
River
I tried a quick cup of chamomile tea.
I tried focusing on the gentle wind through the trees outside my window.
I tried the old classic of closing my eyes and counting sheep.
Nothing was working. As I blinked up into the darkness at the ceiling of my bedroom, my fingers twitched toward my phone on the nightstand next to my pillow. I wasn’t going to look, I told myself. I wasn’t.
Rolling over with a frustrated exhale, I folded my pillow over my ear and squeezed my eyes shut.
Lavender…periwinkle…lilac…amethyst… Listing my favourite shades of a particular colour always helped. If I listed enough colours, I’d forget about my phone, ready and waiting just inches from my head. Mulberry…magenta…boysenber—
It wasn’t working.
Pushing myself up onto my elbow, I reached for my phone, squinted at the brightness of the screen, and opened Google. My fingers hesitated over the keypad. This was a bad idea. Nothing good could come from it. I was only asking for trouble. Nodding to myself, I reassured myself I had enough self-control not to look.
After placing my cell phone carefully back on the nightstand, I put my hands into prayer, pressed my thumbs against my third eye, and repeated a calming mantra as I inhaled and exhaled deeply. My mind stilled, I slipped back under the cocooning warmth of the covers, ready for a restorative night’s rest, and closed my eyes.
They popped back open approximately 3.2 seconds later.
Snatching up my phone, I again winced at the glare, opened Google, and typed into the search bar. My thumb pressed Go, but before the page could load, I tossed my phone away like it suddenly burned my fingers.
I growled in frustration as I tugged at my hair and flopped back onto my pillow. I shouldn’t look, I told myself. It would be much better if I didn’t look, I reassured myself. I can totally not look and go back to sleep right now, I fooled myself.
Still staring up at the ceiling, I stretched my hand down and patted around the comforter until I found my phone. I squeezed one eye closed before looking the way children do when they’re watching a scary movie for the first time; as if that would help.
Holding the phone up above me, I finally looked at the screen and immediately groaned. It wasn’t as bad as I expected; it was worse.
Way worse.
I had searched what I knew I shouldn’t have searched…Declan’s wife, Giselle. As I scrolled down through the image results, she only grew more and more beautiful, more and more stunning, more and more perfect. She was a professional supermodel, and I could see why.
She was tall with long, thin limbs, but still somehow had a full, perky ass and massive tits that defied gravity. Self-consciously, I tugged at the opening of my tank top and glanced down at my own breasts in the light of my cell phone screen. I squeezed my arms together to create cleavage and frowned. It certainly didn’t look like Giselle’s, that was for sure.
I clicked on a photo of her at a beach shoot and my eyes moved from her smooth tanned skin—cellulite-free, of course—to her flat, toned stomach, all the way up to her prominent clavicle and elegant neck.
Did I have an elegant neck?
It was a question I’d never considered in my entire life, but suddenly it was all I could think of as I patted the shape of my own neck in the dark while comparing it with Giselle’s in the photo. Despite seeing my neck daily and not noticing anything out of the ordinary, I was then convinced that it was impossibly short and awkwardly wide with a horrifically prominent oesophagus.
If Giselle’s body hadn’t made me feel thoroughly inadequate, one glance at her face up close finished me off for good. Her features were sharp and defined, while I was certain mine were lacking and unremarkable. Her makeup was flawless, just like her smooth, long, shiny golden—not blonde, but golden—hair.
I tugged down a kinky curl between my eyes and went cross-eyed assessing it. Little flyaways made it slightly frizzy, despite running my fingers over it to tame it. My hair was wild and I thought I liked my curls just the way they were, bouncy and free. But maybe it was just because I hadn’t seen Giselle’s sleek, not-a-hair-out-of-place locks.
With a sigh, I sagged against the pillow and let my phone fall from my hand haphazardly onto the floor. So that was who Declan fell for.
It made sense. Obviously, it made perfect sense. He was a successful, rich, famous fighter and of course, he could get anyone he wanted. When you could get the chocolate fudge brownie with multi-coloured sprinkles and a cherry on top, why would you settle for a vanilla cone, single scoop? My stomach grumbled at the prospect of ice cream and I laid a hand over it. There was no six-pack here.
As I stared up again at the ceiling and found it impossible to close my eyes, I wasn’t sure why I was letting all of this affect me the way it was. I chastised myself for looking, but I was really more upset at myself for caring.
What did it matter if Declan’s wife was gorgeous? What did it matter if that was Declan’s “type”? And what did it matter if I wasn’t that, wasn’t even close to that?
I already promised myself I wouldn’t get involved with my boss. I wasn’t even sure I had feelings for him, I tried to tell myself. None of this should matter. I was Declan’s employee. That was it. He surely didn’t see me as anything more than that.
Which was great.
Just great.
Because I wasn’t falling for him. I wouldn’t fall for him.
That way I wouldn’t get hurt when he obviously didn’t feel the same way.
It was great.
Everything was great.
Just great.
Sapphire…indigo…cerulean…cobalt…navy… I sighed. It was going to be a long night.
Azure…
Sky…
Turquoise…
The blue of Declan’s eyes…
Declan
My phone vibrated in the pocket of my workout shorts as I climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Seamus: Where are you?
I frowned and checked the time…our training session wasn’t for another five minutes.
Me: Why?
Seamus: You’re not here.
Pausing at the top of the stairs, I sighed in slight frustration. It’s five to.
I waited for his response, drumming my fingers along the railing impatiently. My eyes skimmed over his message when it popped up on my screen.
You’re ALWAYS in the gym AT LEAST a half hour before training.
ALWAYS.
Are you sick?
I rolled my eyes as I sent my reply. No.
In pain?
I was always in fucking pain. No.
Is it the arm?
My arm was still fucked, but that’d never stopped me before. The arm’s fine.
Hungover?
Of course not.
There was a pause between Seamus’s replies before a flurry came through.
Kidnapped?
Shit. Did someone kidnap you?
Are they asking for ransom?
If they are, it’s coming out of your pocket, not mine. I hope you know that before I agree to their terms.
I sighed. I’m upstairs. I’ll be down in a minute.
Seamus: Seriously, are you kidnapped?
Ignoring Seamus’s last text, I continued on my way to... A few steps down the hall, I paused. Where was I going? Why was I up here on the second floor in the first place instead of down in the gym already training? I stared down the hall with the same confused expression as someone who walked into the kitchen and promptly forgot why.
That’s when I heard the humming.
Sweet, cheery, loud, it could only be coming from one person: the girl. I realised with surprise that I was just around the corner from her bedroom. I wasn’t coming to see her. I wasn’t. I knew that for certain.
I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I was up here for…but it wasn’t her.
It wasn’t.
At that point, I should have turned around, marched back down the hall, hurried down the staircase, and got down to training. But I wanted to go see her, the girl. There was a driving need inside of me to see her that I couldn’t explain.
Maybe I was irritated by her humming.
Or I wanted to complain about my breakfast smoothie that morning.
Maybe I had to make sure she’d finally finished reading the complete Job Manual I provided her with on the first goddamn day of employment.
Or maybe I just wanted to see her.
Rounding the corner, however, the first thing I saw at her open bedroom door was not her at all, but a horrendous, godawful, assault-on-the-eyes horrific, irreparably burn your retina it’s so terrible, bright-ass yellow paint all over my walls.
“What the fuck is that?” I demanded from the doorway, staring unbelievingly at the monstrosity.
With a paint roller in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, the girl turned around in surprise at the sound of my voice and at least mercifully stopped that incessantly happy humming. “Oh, hey there!” She smiled at me before assessing her own handiwork. “You like it?”
I couldn’t look away from how ugly the ’80s yellow was as I shook my head a definite no. “It’s awful.” I stepped inside and groaned when I found it already on three of the four walls. “It’s the worst colour I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, good thing we agreed that I would get to paint my walls whatever colour I wanted,” she said.
I expected to look over and find her wearing a neon headband, a spandex one-piece, and leg warmers. But the girl stood across the room barefoot with baggy vintage jeans and a light blue lace top that was tied dangerously loosely between her tits. With one side already hanging off her shoulder, it appeared ready to slip off of her entirely, leaving her exposed in front of me with nothing on but a smear of yellow paint across her chest.
The thought turned me on more than I was willing to admit.
The girl wiped the back of her hand across her brow, spreading a smear of paint over her forehead.
I found her eyes on mine with the quirk of an amused smile on her pink lips. Had she caught me staring at her chest? “You’re not keeping it this colour,” I quickly commanded with my usual gruff, all-business, no-nonsense tone. I needed to address her as an employer speaking to his employee. Because that was our relationship. And that could not change.
Heedless of the paint dripping on her jeans, her wine nearly spilling onto the floor, and her blouse slipping further off her shoulder, the girl placed her hands defiantly on her hips. “We said I could paint it,” she argued, stubborn as fucking usual.
I pointed to the garish yellow colour. “I thought you meant cream or light grey or beige.”
The girl mimicked throwing up.
I stared at her in confusion. “What?”
“Beige?” She said it like the word itself caused her pain.
I crossed my arms and levelled my gaze at her. “Don’t you think you’re being just a little bit dramatic?”
The girl looked me straight in the eye and said as if it was a simple matter of fact, “Beige is, without a doubt, the worst colour in the whole spectrum of colours, seen and unseen, discovered and undiscovered, dreamed and to be dreamed. There will never in the history of colour be a worse colour than beige.”
She stared at me and I stared at her and the only sound in the room was a dollop of paint falling from the roller onto her jeans with a loud smack.
“The yellow stays, I say,” she finally said with a curt nod. “If the yellow goes, I go.”
Well, I was in quite the fucking dilemma, wasn’t I?
Because I wanted to tell her just how badly I hated the colour and how much I wanted her to paint it something else. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t like her meddling with my house. I wanted to tell her that this was too much change, too fast. But if I said all of that and still allowed her to keep this hideous yellow, I would be admitting I wanted her to stay more than I wanted my house my way.
I would be admitting that I could change for her.
I would be admitting that there was hope for me.
And I didn’t want that.
“I don’t give a fuck what you paint your room,” I grumbled before storming out of her room.
As I made my way back down the hall, I pulled out my phone to a string of missed texts.
Seamus: You’re officially late to training.
You’ve never been late before.
What are you doing?
Hello?
Are you dead?
You always get on my case for being late.
Now you’re late.
What are you always telling me?
“This is the most important thing in the world to me.”
“Nothing is more important than fighting again.”
“There is nothing else.”
I stared at the last missed text on my phone when I arrived at the doors to the gym.
Do you still believe that?
River
While I waited for Declan to arrive for dinner, I stood near the centre of the long dining room table instead of taking my seat for two main reasons.
One, I brought out a beautiful, multi-coloured glass vase I found tucked in the far back of a top cabinet in the kitchen. Then, after filling it with the brightest yellow flowers I could find in the garden, I wasn’t entirely certain that Declan, upon entering the dining room and seeing it, wouldn’t merely walk over, snatch it up, and hurl it promptly out the window.
So it was mostly precautionary that I was standing and holding onto the vase.
But the second reason I was standing when Declan arrived for dinner that night was one…I was less willing to admit to myself. Before coming down, I took nearly an hour getting ready. I stood in front of my full-length mirror with my nicest lavender sundress on, the one with the sweet butterfly sleeves I liked so much because of how they fluttered softly when I moved. I stared at myself and then took it off.
