Sweet Victory (Fighting for Love)

by Gina L. Maxwell

  He laughed lightly. “The only time we have to work all day is during a training camp, which means we’re getting ourselves ready for a fight. And the younger guys don’t necessarily have to train as much even then. But by MMA standards, I’m practically a dinosaur so I have to work twice as hard to get the same results and be twice as careful so I don’t injure myself.”

  “If you’re so ancient for it, then why are you just now getting into the sport?”

  “I’m not. I’m actually getting back into it. I had a great career on the semi-pro circuit and the UFC was looking at bringing me on as a new middleweight.”

  “A middle-what?”

  “Sorry,” he said with a grin. “Middleweight means you weigh in for fights at no more than a hundred eighty-five pounds. Now I fight as a light heavyweight, which is max two-oh-five.”

  “So you got fat and had to go up a weight class, huh?”

  “Gorgeous, the only thing on my body that can be called fat is my d—”

  “Okayyyyy,” she interrupted on a peal of laughter. “I set you up for that one a little too well. Back to your story.”

  He gave her a crooked grin. “Spoil sport. Anyway, I had an accident on my motorcycle and tore up my fucking knee. Doctors said it would likely never be the same again and chances of getting it into fighting shape were even less. Took two surgeries and enough physical therapy to last five lifetimes, but I kept at it until I could finally walk without a limp. I started training hard, bulked up some, entered underground tournaments to fight my way back up from the bottom, and now I’m here. I might not have many years left before my body ends my career for me, but I’m determined to be a UFC champion before then.”

  “That’s incredible, Xander. You had the drive to start all over from the beginning, even though the odds were against you. I really admire you for that.”

  “Thanks, but I only did what I had to in order to get me closer to my goal. People do it all the time. Doesn’t make me special,” he said as he dropped his eyes to the water bottle in his hands and—

  Sophie wondered how many pigs had just taken flight because the perpetually cocksure Xander James appeared to be blushing. Wonders never ceased.

  Deciding to give him a break, she didn’t tease him. “Agree to disagree, then,” she said as she resumed her position of head back against the cage and eyes closed.

  They sat in companionable silence while they rehydrated and the exhaustion from the workout spread though her as the adrenaline and endorphins started to wear off. Given a few more minutes, she probably would have fallen asleep like that, but she felt it when he turned his gaze in her direction…and kept it there. Instinct told her to leave it alone; don’t ask what you might not want to know. But when it came to her curiosity, she was all feline.

  “What?” she asked, not moving.

  “What, what?”

  “I can feel you staring. Like you want to say something, but you’re not. What is it?”

  She expected him to deny it or make a sexual joke of some kind, but he did neither.

  “How did you get started in the cupcake business? I mean, I know that it was your grandmother’s, but what made you want to continue it?”

  Sophie brought her knees up to her chest and rested her arms across the top as she thought back over the years. She had fond memories from her early childhood, and great ones of her and her grandmother from around her senior year in high school and on. It was the span of years between that she hated remembering. The years where a happy home had turned to one of sadness and isolation, and eventually…abandonment.

  So she focused on the early years.

  “My grandmother loved to bake. My dad talked about having a different dessert after every dinner because she always tried new recipes and even came up with her own. But the desserts she was famous for were her cake truffles. She perfected her batter recipes, incorporating—or sometimes even inventing—new flavors and textures. When they were just right, she covered them in everything from melted chocolate to powdered sugar to crushed candy.” Sophie sighed. “They were amazing. Everyone thought so.”

  “So she opened up a bakery.”

  “Not right away. People told her all the time that she should open up a shop and sell her desserts. That she could make a fortune on her truffles alone. Even Gramps encouraged her to do it, knowing it was a secret dream of hers. But Grams was old-fashioned and happy in her role as a housewife and mother. She said she didn’t have any desire to complicate something she loved doing by making it into a business.”

  “What changed her mind?”

  “Gramps died,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, Sophie.”

  She gave him a small smile, thanking him for his sympathy. “I was only two at the time, so I don’t remember him, but Grams always talked about how much he spoiled me. My dad and Richard were their only children and me their only grandchild. Anyway, Gramps had made Grams promise that she would try her bakery after he was gone. That she wouldn’t have any excuses left and if she didn’t, he’d come back and haunt her until she did.”

  They chuckled. “When did you come in?”

  “Not until I was a teenager. I had a few encounters with the law until at the age of seventeen, a judge was ready to throw the book at me and send me to juvie. My grandmother requested that it be turned into a shit-ton of community service hours so she could put me to work at the bakery.”

  “Didn’t the judge think she was trying to get you off? Why would he expect that you’d actually do the work?”

  “Because if it’s a court order, I’m legally bound to show up, and my grandmother promised the judge that if I didn’t, she would pack my bags herself.”

  “Tough lady.”

  “She definitely could be,” she said.

  “I think I can guess the rest. You worked endless hours at the bakery, and while you probably bitched more than not, you secretly loved it. O’course, being the highly intelligent woman your grandmother is, she knew this and started teaching you all her secrets without you knowing it until one day you woke up and realized you had a great relationship with her and loved the bakery every bit as much as she did.”

  Sophie stared at him and briefly wondered if he wasn’t some sort of psychic. Or maybe a spy. Yeah, because your life is so the epitome of danger and intrigue. Life had taught her a cruel lesson at an early age, and after that, she’d done her best not to care about anyone or anything. She may have acted like she hated it, but secretly she’d loved working at the Sweet Spot. A fact that, looking back, Grams probably knew from the start.

  Giving him a noncommittal shrug, she said, “Something like that. Then, when her Alzheimer’s got bad enough that she had to move to Golden Ages, I took over like we planned.”

  “She must be right proud of you, Sophie.”

  Swallowing thickly, Sophie turned her head away from him as her eyes filled with the evidence of her guilt and defeat. She’d failed Grams. The only blessing was that she wasn’t cognizant enough to know it. But somehow that only made Sophie feel worse.

  “Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said, rubbing her cheeks on her arm to wipe away the hot tears she’d been unable to blink away. The sparring session may have rid her of the burning anger, but it couldn’t eviscerate the hurt and desperation twining with every cell in her body. “Soon it won’t be anything more than a memory.”

  “Can’t you take the money and open up somewhere else?”

  “It wouldn’t be the same. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I grew up in that place. I was a military brat and we moved around so much when I was a kid that nothing was ever a constant in my life. Except Grams. When I was little, whenever we visited, I spent all day with her. Helping pour ingredients, listening to her tell stories about Gramps and my dad. I even helped her out front with customers. Her regulars would spoil me with candy when they knew I was in town, and those regulars are still my customers today.”

  Finally, she met his gaze, no longer c
aring if he saw her tough exterior flayed open and raw. “That place is my grandmother’s legacy, where she turned her dream into reality. It’s my home, Xander, and not only because I live above the shop.”

  “I know,” he said, turning his body so he sat facing her. His hand lifted and he tapped above where her heart lay in her chest. “It’s where your heart lives.”

  She nodded, unable to force anything else past the golf-ball-sized lump in her throat. He opened his arms and invited her with his soft blue eyes to take the comfort he offered. Normally Sophie would have scoffed and told him she didn’t need to be coddled or cared for. That she could handle things on her own.

  So she surprised herself when she didn’t hesitate to lean in and let him gather her into his side. She tucked her face against the front of his shoulder and let out a shaky exhale when he tightened his arms around her and rested his cheek on top of her head. Though she managed not to sob or even really cry, she did let the tears fall freely. And they did, soaking his shirt where she’d failed to cause him to work up even the slightest bit of sweat during her bout of attacks earlier.

  They sat like that—her curled up and tucked into his embrace, him holding her and rubbing a hand up and down her arm—for an undeterminable length of time. His comfort gave her a rare feeling of safety that allowed her to let her guard down enough to drift into that place between lucidity and the land of dreams.

  “Sophie?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Let’s get married.”

  Her eyes snapped open on a bark of laughter. “Sorry, all the exertion must’ve affected my hearing, because there’s no way you said what I thought you just said.”

  “I said we should get married.”

  Sophie sat up to face him, lingering disbelief still swirling in her brain. “Okay, yeah, no, that’s what I heard the first time.”

  “I know it sounds completely mad, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes.” His handsome face split into a mask of amused confusion; smile on the bottom and furrowed brow on top, as though even he isn’t sure what to make of his BS.

  “I’ll need you to draw me a map to get to that whole ‘makes sense’ conclusion. You don’t even know me, Xander.”

  “If a legal marriage is the only thing standing in the way of saving the bakery, then let’s get you hitched proper.” One of his hands came up and trailed the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “Come on, Soph, let me help you.”

  She traced her fingers along the black chain-link fence, using the sensations on her fingertips to keep her grounded in the moment. “Xander, we’re not talking about you helping me repaint my apartment or change the oil in my car.”

  “And your point is…?”

  “My point is that you don’t just marry someone because it benefits them.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not suggesting we remain married. Once you have control of the trust and your uncle’s deal falls through, we can fake break up and get real divorced. No harm, no foul, yeah? Besides,” he continued, looking around at all the equipment in the room, “it’s not just your place at stake, but everyone on this block. I might not have the same sentimentality about the location as you do, but it would be a huge inconvenience to move TLP2; one I don’t have time for. So if it makes you feel better, you can think of it as sacrificing yourself for the rest of us.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Like a beautiful virgin being flung into an angry volcano so that the rest of the village may live.”

  She laughed, the sound a little wobbly from the nerves mixed in. “Oh my God,” she said, the idea turning itself over and over in her mind. It actually sounded like a viable plan. “It’s so crazy—”

  “It just might work,” he finished for her with a sly grin. The kind of sly grin a person got at the thought of “cheating the system” (whichever “system” was respectively screwing them over).

  “C’mon, Soph. We can pull this off. Trust me.”

  Sophie’s stomach dropped. Trust me. He’d had to go and throw that in. The last time she’d heard that it’d been from a self-serving asshole who was fucking anything in heels behind his fiancée’s back.

  Unease settled in her stomach like a brick as she remembered finding Jared with another woman. After two years of building a life and planning a future together—and thinking she’d finally found someone who wouldn’t leave her behind like everyone else—it took less than two minutes for it to collapse into ruins, like a sand castle at high tide.

  As much as it hurt, the betrayal had been a badly needed reality check for Sophie. There were only two types of people in her life: the small handful of “good ones” who were taken from her for one reason or another, and the myriad “bad ones” who screwed her over and hightailed it far and fast. The Jared Situation was a reminder that more often than not, people were selfish creatures by nature. She needed to stop assuming the world was filled with benevolent Glindas when the sky was clearly dotted with flying monkeys.

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

  The gym suddenly felt like an oven set to broil. Sweat rolled down her spine and gathered between her breasts. She needed to get some air. Curling her fingers into the cage, she pulled herself up on shaky legs.

  Xander rose to his full height. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, I’m fine,” she said as she took a step back in an effort to gain space. But he only followed and turned into her, his large frame telling her that a retreat was pointless.

  “Bullshit. Something’s drained the color from your beautiful face, and I want to know what it is.” She opened her mouth to deny it a second time, but he stopped her with a finger to her lips. “If you’d rather not discuss whatever it is, I’ll respect that and let it drop. But don’t lie to me by saying it’s nothing when it’s obviously something.”

  Strong hands gripped the fence right next to hers. He had her trapped between his arms with nowhere to go. The heat from his body radiated around her and made her hyperaware of him in an intimate way she couldn’t ignore, but she shoved it to the back of her mind because a physical attraction to Xander wasn’t what needed her focus right now. She had to know if she could believe in his intentions. The desire to save his gym was the obvious one, but there had to be something else. If it was for that reason alone, he could have just as easily offered to get her profile set up on eHarmony to help her find her perfect matrimonial match.

  Staring up into his eyes, she said, “Earlier, when you said you wanted to talk to me, was this what it was about? Were you planning on suggesting this marriage thing even then?”

  He shook his head. “I wanted to talk to you about the deal, to see how you felt about it and see what we could come up with if you wanted to stick it to him, but marrying you never crossed my mind, no.”

  “Then why?” she asked softly. “Why did you do what you did?”

  His eyes softened. “I did what I did in your office because I overheard that tosser say things to you I didn’t like. I hated that he made it sound like someone would have to be crazy to want to marry you. That because you couldn’t or wouldn’t get married you were going to lose everything. I just—”

  Xander blew out a heavy breath and gave the fence a quick shake. “I couldn’t stand how bloody smug he sounded. But what absolutely gutted me was how utterly defeated you sounded.”

  The steel band around her chest started to ease at the sincerity she heard in his voice. He’d barged in and announced himself as her fiancé in an attempt—misguided as it was—to help her save face in front of her dick of an uncle. She might not know much about the fighter Xander James, but she did believe he had a big heart with good intentions.

  Taking a deep breath, Sophie gazed up at him. “I appreciate what you did, Xander. Both in my office and bringing me here. But you’re sure you’re okay doing this?”

  “Well, I can check my calendar to be sure, but I don’t I believe I have plans in the near future to wed anyone else so I guess that makes me a free
agent.” Sophie smacked him playfully in the chest as he laughed. “Besides, this is Vegas, or damn near. I hear it’s actually a thing here to have spontaneous and ill-planned marriages. So why not join the fun?”

  Sophie dragged her bottom lip through her teeth and squinted her eyes in embarrassment. “I have always thought it would be pretty awesome to get married by a horrible Elvis impersonator in a cheesy, stereotypical Vegas wedding.”

  “Wait here.” He opened the cage door and jogged down the steps. She lost sight of him when he left the main gym area, but it only took a minute before he was bounding into the room and back in the cage with a self-indulgent smile.

  “What are you—”

  He stopped her with a finger to her lips. “Hush now, it’s not your turn.” Then he cleared his throat…and dropped onto one knee.

  Her brain’s knee-jerk reaction was to send a signal for “panic and flee!” but when he held up a rudimentary ring fashioned from medical tape, she instantly calmed. Drawing in a steadying breath, she smiled down at him as he reached for her left hand.

  As he tried—unsuccessfully—to keep a straight face, he said, “Sophie Caldwell, from the moment I saw you behind the counter of your bakery, all fit and tatted and shoving a cake ball into your mouth—”

  “Cake truffle.” She laughed. She’d forgotten all about that. It hadn’t been one of her finer moments.

  “—I knew I’d spend months thinking about how to get into your knickers. And, in all honesty, my balls in your mouth.” She punched him in the shoulder and he laughed. “Okay, okay. I’d at least like to take advantage of this situation so that maybe I’ll at least get the chance to see your knickers. Like maybe in the laundry or if you leave them on the bathroom floor.” He frowned. “But preferably in the laundry because I keep a neat flat.”

  Sophie couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard, but it didn’t deter the man in the least.

  “So, Sophie Caldwell, I’d be the happiest man-with-a-permanent-set-of-blue-balls-alive if you’ll agree to marry me in the cheesiest Elvis wedding Vegas has ever seen and promptly divorce my arse when I’ve outlived my usefulness.” Then in a dramatic stage whisper, he added, “Now it’s your turn.”