by E. M. Gayle
It had been months since I’d seen him last, but the pain still lingered like it was yesterday.
“We had a fling. Or an affair. Whatever you want to call it. "
Too anxious to sit, I stood up and returned to the window where I could see the billboard again. Why this hotel? Why me? Surely this was a nightmare and I would wake up any minute.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again.
There it was again, taunting me in big bold letters that flashed on the screen, the same announcement I’d seen earlier.
In two weeks.
The Destroyer versus The Irish Bull
The fight of the century.
“Now he’s here and he is going to destroy me.”
Chapter Two
VINCENT
"Fuck you and the horse you rode in on." Apparently I wasn't in the mood to be questioned by my manager who'd been riding my ass for what felt like weeks now. "I've already accepted the challenge and you need to get over that. It's done. It's happening. I'm fighting Callum Murphy. Suck it the fuck up."
"Charming as always," Brian frowned across my iPad, his smirk only making things worse.
"Look. We'll be touching down within the hour. Have you made the arrangements I requested?"
"Yes,” Brian said. "Although why the hell you need a suite at The Sinclair this week when you have a perfectly good private house to go home to is beyond me." If not for the video I was forced to look at, I would have tuned my manager out by now and missed half of Brian's shitty quips. Then maybe I wouldn't be half tempted to fire him right now.
Somewhere along the line in our relationship my manager had gotten too comfortable. He inserted his personal thoughts and comments too much. It was time he was reminded who he worked for and not the other way around.
"My motives are not for you to question. I want the suite for convenience and that is all that should matter. And the other request?"
"Look, Vincent. We need to draw the line at the suite. Now is not the time for a catered party for dozens of people. If you are going through with this farce of a fight then you need to keep your head in the game between now and then. That means less pussy and booze and more time at the gym."
I ground my teeth to hold back from telling him to fuck off.
I actually didn't blame the man for jumping to that conclusion. Before my extended trip to Italy, I'd pretty much fucked and drank my way through Vegas and any other city I happened to be in. I'd had a reputation as a total playboy manwhore and it was well deserved at that.
My manager had no reason to believe anything had changed. But it had. And all because of some five foot nothing hot tempered chef who I'd made the mistake of my life with.
A mistake I planned to rectify as soon as possible. Under my terms.
"The party is happening. And I want that hot new chef everyone is talking about to cater it. That is non-negotiable and has to be part of the contract with The Sinclair. Either she cooks for me or this fight will move down the strip to the MGM where my requests are never questioned. Is that understood?"
Brian sighed long and loud. "I can see this latest vacation of yours did nothing to improve your mood. But yeah, I got it. I'll make sure it happens. Just don't forget that interview you have tonight. The press is up my ass over this fight and you've got to get out there and do the circuit as soon as you get here. Deal?"
"Sure." Not that I liked it. It seemed that what I used to consider half the fun had lost some interest for me. The blustering dog and pony show before a fight was a great way to drum up interest from the fans, but it also got things even more heated with your opponent. Something I didn't need to amp up. I'd been listening to that punk ass threaten me for months now and I'd had enough. I was more than ready to hand him his ass—again.
"We've also got some new interest from Hollywood I need to run by you. A script they want you to read. I read the cliff notes version and it sounds like a good opportunity. I mean if you don't fuck up this fight."
My teeth ground together again. At this rate I'd need dental work by the end of the week. I wasn't fucking up anything. I was still at my prime and in better shape than ever. In fact, I'd worked out more in the last few months than in the entire year before. I'd had to blow off steam and since I couldn't fuck it out of my system, I'd attempted, without a lot of success, other ways.
As for the Hollywood thing. That did sound promising. I'd been waiting for the right offer to come along to start taking my celebrity career in a more diversified direction and I hoped to God this was finally it. I wanted more options than the offer I'd received while in Italy.
"Email me the script and I'll take a look at it tonight after the interviews. Anything else?"
"Nothing that can't wait until tomorrow. I'll meet you at the gym around eight."
That worked. Especially since I planned to be there by five. The pent up frustration and the knowledge that I would soon see Zia again had me on edge. It had been too long since I'd seen her face and internet pictures weren't cutting it. Although I did enjoy stalking her on social media. While the majority of her posts centered around food, I'd gotten a decent bead on her life in New York City. She spent the majority of her free time with her best friend Harper and her wild looking Bengal cat named Claudio. The rest of the time it was work related or work related travel. It all looked glamorous, but I was anxious to dig deeper into what made this woman tick. I was going to have to work extra hard to deal with that so I didn't do something stupid.
Like kidnap her.
My dick perked up at the thought. I couldn't wait to be alone with her again. I had every confidence that once we talked through this mistake, we could move past it and strike some sort of deal. One where I fucked her whenever and however I wanted and she got all the orgasms she could handle.
I had a lot of kinks, but orgasm withdrawal wasn't one of them.
Much the opposite exactly. I'd make her come for me so many times she'd either beg me to stop or pass out. That thought made me chuckle.
These last months of abstinence were not going to end well for my pretty little chef. If she was going to ruin me for other women, then I'd be damned sure she paid for it—with her body.
"I am pretty sure I don't want to know what crazy ass shit has you looking like you are right now. In fact, on that note I'm hanging up. I'll see you in the morning."
I nodded as I too hit the button to disconnect the call. When the screen went dark, I pulled up the file I'd been compiling since I'd started putting my plan into action.
It had all started when The Sinclair announced they were opening a new restaurant in conjunction with the hottest new celebrity chef to hit network television in a decade.
The picture that accompanied the article made it plain what made her so appealing. Her dark beauty pulled you in, but it was the smile and sweetness underneath it that entranced you.
Of course she could cook. That seemed like a given. According to interviews I'd combed through I'd learned that her skills came directly from her maternal grandmother. I'd even found pictures of her on the internet as a young girl standing on a stool in her nana's kitchen stirring giant pots of food with a look of pure joy on her face. That image was as burned into my brain as the curve of her bare heart-shaped ass tilted up in front of me as I slid into her.
Fuck. I was ruined and she didn't even know it. I only hoped that she could see past our differences.
Our childhoods couldn't have been more different. We were from two different extremes and I found it hard not to compare them. Her well known family with a slightly murky past, that I knew from experience probably had some distant mafia connections, had managed to keep Zia sweet, innocent and happy throughout her childhood.
Although she'd lost her father some years back and when her mother remarried less than a year later it changed the makeup of her family to such an extreme, it seemed she'd fallen out of touch with them.
That was a far cry from my upbringing. If
I could call raising myself that.
My mother had disappeared from my life at the tender age of nine, leaving me with a brand new stepfather from hell as my only guardian. My biological father was a mystery that my mother had refused to discuss. And now I knew why.
On the outside my life with my stepfather had appeared average. We lived in the lower class suburbs of Las Vegas in a rundown, but functional rental house. The same house we'd landed in after leaving Italy for the United States.
My stepfather, a genius with computers, had been offered a job and a work visa he couldn't refuse.
But underneath the simple and ordinary appearance lurked a monster. A man who spent all his money on alcohol in order to drink to the edge of death every single night, only to somehow pull himself back together again each morning.
For years, I'd tried to hide during what I referred to as the witching hours. The time between when my stepfather started drinking and the moment he finally passed out for the night. Sometimes that went fast and he went straight to bed after dinner, and then others it took hours.
Those were the nights that meant trouble.
Unfortunately, I didn't always hide well enough and when the alcohol mixed with his anger over his shitty life to the point of breaking, I always had to pay the price.
A price my stepfather extracted in the darkest way possible. Yeah, I'd grown up ugly.
Yet, somehow in the midst of all of that, I'd found a local boxing gym and the course of my life had changed for the better. At age ten, the owner of the gym let me hang around as long as I promised to clean the place every night after closing. By age twelve, I'd self-taught myself some of the basic boxing skills I picked up from watching nonstop after school. And at age fourteen, the owner caught me using the equipment after hours with a multitude of bruises and contusions covering my back and torso.
Nino, the owner, had thankfully never asked me what happened. I was sure he'd known and I was far too scared and mortified to talk about it. Instead of making me confess, he'd started training me to fight back. And if I couldn't fight back, then I learned how to take a beating without dying in the process.
The old man never offered anything else. Although as far as I was concerned, he didn't need to. At that time of my life, and now, that gym was everything to me. It's all I cared about.
Maybe my formative years could have gone better under different life circumstances, but shit happens the way it happens until you figure out how to make them better.
When I turned sixteen, I faked my stepfather's signature and I stepped into the ring for my first real match. It definitely changed my life. It had brought out the best and worst of me.
That was the first and last fight I lost. Humbling for sure, but life lessons were meant to be. It was also the last night I tried going back home.
I shook some of the memories out of my mind and refocused on Zia's information. If not for the past I would not be who I am today, and while it was important to remember that, there was a time and a place.
Now was not it.
I wasn't a scared kid anymore and my life agenda had steered off course again the day I met her. My first instinct had been to deny what stirred inside me. At least beyond the lust. Lust I understood well, and happily succumbed to when the timing was right.
To the rest of the world, I appeared as a hot headed boxer who often lost his temper and struggled with discipline. Because that's what I wanted the world to see. It fed the publicity machine that I had learned to use well.
Nino didn't know it, or maybe he did, but he taught me the value of discipline. Facing life wasn't all that different from facing an opponent. One simply had to size up the situation, analyze the various outcomes and then pursue the one that suited best. Obtaining the desired outcome was the most important part of dealing with any obstacle.
Winning Zia would be no different. Once I mapped out my strategy, I could attack the plan with everything I had. Starting with reminding her what had drawn us together in the first place.
Chemistry. Lust. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was a solid place to start and build from there.
Satisfied that I had a solid plan in place for the upcoming week, I settled into my seat with my iPad to review some more fight footage. I'd be arriving back in Vegas soon and I would hit the ground running. Until then, I would seek information to arm me for the coming battle.
Because make no mistake. Taking this fight with Callum Murphy was going to be a battle in more ways than one.
Chapter Three
ZIA
"They want me to do what?" My head throbbed as I stared at my assistant Julie as if she'd grown horns and a devil face. That's how ridiculous her words had been.
I had just woken with the hangover from hell when she'd handed me my agenda for the day. Something I already regretted looking at.
"Cater a private party. Tonight. I tried to tell them that was impossible, but Mr. Michaels insisted. Have you talked to him? He is so—so persuasive."
I fought not to shiver at her question. I was well aware of Gabe Michaels charms. It was one of the reasons I'd agreed to this deal. The man didn't seem to take no for an answer and the confidence oozing from him had made me want to succumb to his wishes.
He and Nina were the perfect couple. Although had I thought about it before I met them both, I would have expected Mrs. Michaels to be somewhat more— Finding the right word to describe it wasn't easy. Not meek. I could never imagine Gabe happy with a timid woman. But maybe someone who didn't seem to be hiding a wild streak a mile wide.
It took one to know one after all.
"Who is the party for?" I had learned from experience that the host made all the difference in the world. Although it could be the President and I wasn't sure I could handle it right now.
Nina and I had plowed through two bottles of wine as I babbled on about meeting Vincent in Italy and the nightmare it had turned into. I still couldn't believe I'd confessed everything to her. Well, not everything. I'd left out the resulting blackmail from my ex-husband and the results of that mess.
I'd, however, been pretty open about the sex and the cameras that had recorded it all. Heat began crawling up my neck and I shoved it away. I had no desire to drum up some almost false sense of embarrassment over it.
I'd been an idiot in Italy and I could admit it.
I'd also enjoyed every last second of it right up until—
"He refused to disclose the VIP’s name. Only that we all had no choice but to accommodate the request."
I frowned as I padded across the room and slipped into the opulent bathroom. I had to admit I was fairly thrilled at my accommodations here at The Sinclair. No expense had been spared when it came to the luxury touches for guests.
It was also clear that unless I wanted to contact Mr. Michaels myself and throw a fit over the inconvenience of this last minute party, I would have to get this done.
Not that I was in any position to fit throw. While my position here seemed secure, I knew all too well how the tables could turn against me in a blink. My ex had proven that. I frowned at my reflection in the mirror as I banked the resentment that never seemed to be far from the surface.
As I got ready in the bathroom, first scrubbing my face clean, I mentally reviewed my agenda for the day. When I rinsed, I glanced up to see Julie appear in the doorway.
"I really did try to tell them no. Your schedule for today and every day for the next four weeks is jam packed. I honestly have no idea how you're going to squeeze this in."
I nodded, acknowledging the fact that she had tried her best. We both knew what my schedule would be like while I was here in Vegas. Between the filming of the final episodes of my show's first season and the first half of the second season that would actually center around the preparations for the new restaurant and the actual opening and every detail that entailed, it was going to take a miracle and twenty-hour days.
But my future was riding on all of it and I couldn't afford to screw th
is up.
"Go ahead and tell him yes, but make sure he realizes that he will owe me for this. And then pull up the timeline I worked up for the restaurant. He's lucky the kitchen is in somewhat of a working order. Although it's still bare bones." As Julie frantically worked on her tablet to accommodate my rapid fire requests, a possible menu for this private party began to form in my mind.
There were several new dishes I wanted to experiment with for the restaurant and this actually, could be the perfect opportunity to do so. When it came to opening night, I needed it to be nothing short of sublime. Not only because the critics would be standing by to knock me down a peg or two, but because my entire career could be riding on this success.
Not to mention my financial future.
"What about your meetings for today? Should I attempt to reschedule?"
I shook my head. "No, to do so would only put us further behind. However, we should plan on working through both lunch and dinner. It's definitely not going to be easy. But this kind of thing is not completely unexpected. Part of the reason they brought me here was to show off what I could do to their most important guests. The point of the arrangement after all is that they draw people in and in return, I am exposed to a wide variety of influential people who may have never heard of me. So it's my job to deliver a dining experience they will never forget."
Julie snorted. "Well, they could've at least waited until the restaurant was open. How the hell do they expect you to get everything done on time if you have to drop everything to cater a party for some spoiled celebrity or worse some rich gazillionaire with more money than sense?"
I laughed. She wasn't wrong about that and I once again wondered who the host of this impromptu party would be. Gabe and Nina both understood my tight schedule so it must be pretty important for them to have thrown this at me.
"We'll make do. We always do. Besides, as long as they don't mind being my guinea pig I guess we will both benefit. But I'm going to need you to stay on top of everything while I deal with this today. We can't afford to drop the ball on the tiniest detail. Not even for a second."
