She made her way down the south wing, trying to be unobtrusive as she glanced into rooms with open doors to look for him. He wasn’t there and she started to worry that maybe he’d left somehow without her knowing. She was halfway down the hall in the north wing when she noticed a group of nurses and volunteers hovering outside one of the rooms near the end of the hallway. They each carried a bouquet of flowers or balloons, and one by one they disappeared into the room, only to emerge without them. But instead of leaving, they stood near the doorway, murmuring to one another and smiling as they looked at what was going on inside.
“He is so hot,” one of them said.
“It shouldn’t be legal to be so hot and so sweet,” another answered.
Ashlynn smiled as she realized she’d found Leandro. “Excuse me,” she whispered as she brushed past them to get into the room. She wanted to gently suggest it was time to leave before they overstayed their welcome, but she came to an abrupt stop at the sight before her. Every surface in the room was covered with bouquets of flowers with balloons attached to them.
“I can’t believe this is all for me!” A little girl who looked to be around ten sat in the bed wearing a purple robe. Her skin was pale, but her cheeks were rosy with excitement. Her mother sat on the bed next to her, wiping her eyes as she smiled.
“You said you wanted flowers, so I bring you flowers,” Leandro said from his place in the chair next to the bed.
“You must have bought out the entire gift shop.” Her mother laughed and gave her daughter a hug.
“It’s the least I can do.” Leandro shrugged. “No one should have to be in the hospital on their birthday.” He smiled as he plucked one of the pink roses from a vase and put it behind the little girl’s ear. “Happy birthday, minha flor.”
She grinned and put her arms around him. “Thank you, Leandro.”
Much to Ashlynn’s surprise, he held the girl close in a hug, his eyes closed as he tightened his hold. “You’re welcome.” When he pulled back, he gently touched the girl’s chin to hold her gaze. “Remember, never give up. You’re a fighter like me.”
The girl smiled and nodded, and Ashlynn felt a lump well in her throat.
“Thank you for this, Leandro. You’ve made her day so special. We’ll always remember this,” the girl’s mother said.
Leandro nodded and rose to his feet. “Get some rest, minha flor. I’ll come check on you again someday, okay?”
“Okay,” she said and laid down, pulling the blanket up. “Bye, Leandro.”
“See you soon.” He smiled and ran a gentle hand over the hat she wore.
He seemed surprised when he turned to see Ashlynn there, but didn’t say anything as he made his way through the crowd to the hallway. She quietly followed him, waiting until they’d left everyone behind before saying, “That was very nice of you.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t much. Just some flowers.”
“I know, but it meant a lot to her. It was nice of you to take that time with her.”
He stopped walking and looked down at her. “You say that as if you’re surprised.”
She swallowed, a little alarmed that he’d picked up on that. “I might have misjudged you. I didn’t expect you to get so personally involved.”
His eyes darkened somehow as he dropped his gaze to her breasts and then lower. “Hmm . . .” Heat swept over her skin as the sound of his voice moved through her body. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Ashlynn.”
He took a step toward her, invading her space and bringing his maddeningly enticing scent with him. “In fact, I think I can read you a lot better than you can read me.” He took another step, and her back hit the wall. She let out a small, undignified squeak, too caught up in being surrounded by Leandro to move. He trailed a hand up her arm, leaving tingling goose bumps in his wake. “You doubt me, you make assumptions, you think you know me when you won’t even admit to yourself how much you like me.”
Keeping up her string of undignified noises, she snorted softly. “I don’t like you.”
“I guess it’s just cold in here then, hmm?” His gaze dropped again to her breasts, and her nipples tightened almost to the point of aching.
No! She wasn’t going to let him get to her.
“Positively frosty.” She glanced down at his sweatpants and the monster they contained. “Which would explain . . .” She let her voice trail off and raised one shoulder in a casual shrug.
He grinned. “Call me if you ever want to know more.” He dropped his head, his breath brushing over her ear. “About anything.” Then he walked away with his typical Oliveira swagger.
She watched him go, certain that she would not be calling him no matter how much her body wanted her to. Some things were best left unknown, and Leandro was one of them.
4
LEANDRO GLANCED IN the mirror, his eyes raking over his reflection. Straightening the knot of his silk tie, he brushed a tiny bit of lint off of the lapel of his navy Armani suit and checked his watch. For once, he was on time. Normally, he did things on his own schedule and had no qualms about making people wait for him. But not this morning, because something actually hung in the balance today.
In less than an hour, he’d find out what his future held. All he had to do was get into his car, drive to the MGM Grand, and take his seat at the press conference where his next fight would be announced. After weeks of feeling like an impostor, a fraud, he’d have a new opponent to focus on for his first light heavyweight title defense. His next obstacle would have a name and a face. He didn’t know who he’d be fighting, but he hoped whoever it was was the toughest motherfucker he’d ever come across. Someone who’d actually fight back when he got punched. Someone who wouldn’t just limply hand the championship belt to him.
“Hey, man, you got a minute?” asked Thiago in Portuguese from where he stood in the doorway. His attention was on his phone, his thumb moving back and forth across the screen. Swiping right and left, most likely looking for women.
Leandro turned and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Sure. What’s up?”
Thiago sighed heavily and put his phone away, then ran a hand through his hair. “You know I wouldn’t ask you this if I had other options.”
Leandro frowned, noticing the dark circles under Thiago’s eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his friend look so stressed out. “Ask me what?”
Thiago shrugged, suddenly looking unsure of himself. He shuffled his weight from foot to foot, not speaking.
Leandro approached him, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Thiago, you’re like a brother to me. You can ask me anything. What’s wrong?”
“I . . . Things are tight right now. Financially. And I wouldn’t normally ask this, but—”
Leandro cut him off with a wave of his hand and crossed to the desk on the other side of the room. Relief trickled through him—this was an easy problem to fix. He pulled a checkbook from the desk.
“How much do you need?”
Thiago’s eyes met his, and he could see how much it pained his friend to have to ask for a handout. “Ten thousand?”
Leandro wrote him a check for twenty and tore it free of the leather-bound book. Folding it in half, he extended it toward Thiago, who took it with a grateful smile.
He glanced at the check and his shoulders slumped. “I’ll pay you back. Some investments didn’t pan out, and I can only access my trust fund once a month.”
Leandro just nodded, not caring if he ever saw the small sum of money again. Thiago was one of his oldest and most loyal friends who’d been by his side and supported him through family fights, public scandals, adventures both good and bad. Hell, he’d even followed him to Las Vegas to support him while he fought in the WFC, which was more than he could say for most of his family.
Thiago tucked the check into his pocket. “Can we keep this between us?”
Leandro arched an eyebrow. “Who would I tell?”
Thiago’s lip curled. “That woman
.”
Leandro didn’t need to ask who Thiago meant. After the event at the children’s hospital last week, he’d gotten an earful from Thiago about how Ashlynn was trying to control him, and was using him to further her own career, and that he didn’t need her help. That she was probably a gold digger, the way she’d paraded around in that tight cream-colored dress. That he shouldn’t trust her, not for a second.
He wasn’t sure when Ashlynn had found the time to piss in Thiago’s cornflakes, and frankly, he didn’t care. He had his own tangled shit to deal with when it came to her without adding Thiago’s opinions to the mix.
Did he resent having to work with her? Yes. A hundred times yes. Did his dick do a happy dance every time he looked at her? Also a hundred times yes. And he knew that very enticing parts of her were happy to see him too. His mind flashed back to the way her nipples had beaded when he’d backed her up against the wall. He knew, without a doubt, that if he got her in bed he’d make her come so many times she couldn’t even remember her name, let alone that she was supposed to be babysitting him. Just the thought made his cock heavy.
But he had to admit, the PR event at the children’s hospital had done exactly what she’d hoped it would do. The local news had carried the story, which had spread to bigger news outlets. Then BuzzFeed had picked it up, focusing on the “hot dudes and cute kids” aspect of the story. From there, it had gone viral. The positive spin had worked, and the press were now paying less attention to the other stuff. And while he was happy that the event had been successful, he also felt a melancholy tug deep in the center of his chest every time he thought about those kids, especially the little girl he’d met at the end. He’d shown up at the event because he’d been expected to, but he’d stayed because he’d wanted to. And now something about those kids had stuck with him. He wanted to do more. It seemed like hanging out with them for a couple of hours wasn’t enough.
Apparently Craig Darcy had been pleased, at least according to the text he’d gotten from Ashlynn—one of the few times she’d contacted him since that day. And everyone knew that a happy Craig Darcy was a very good thing.
Which led him back to the question he’d been contemplating for the past few days: Did he want her in his bed so he could control the situation? Or was it because he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her?
Maybe it was both. Maybe it didn’t matter. Fuck, he didn’t know. He couldn’t even quite figure out what it was about her that had him all twisted up. Sure, she was gorgeous, but something about her had gotten under his skin.
“Ashlynn and I only discuss WFC matters. I wouldn’t tell her about this, Thiago.” He clapped his friend on the shoulder as he passed, heading downstairs with Thiago following behind. Leandro grabbed his championship belt off the table in the front foyer, along with his keys, and headed out, ready to see what his future held.
He maneuvered the blue Ferrari 488 Spider out onto the road, the buildings of the Strip just visible in the distance, tiny compared to the mountains protruding against the horizon. On a good day, it took about twenty minutes to get from his place to the Strip.
Today wasn’t a good day. Construction on the 215 slowed traffic to a crawl, and as Leandro’s eyes darted back and forth between the time on the dashboard and the traffic boxing him in, his frustration grew. By the time he was free of the congestion, he was running fifteen minutes late. He wondered if he should text Ashlynn to let her know he was stuck in traffic, but as quickly as the thought had come, he dismissed it. He had a feeling she wouldn’t believe him anyway, so there was no point.
After he’d gotten pulled over for speeding and had shoved a $200 ticket into the glove box, the fifteen minutes had stretched into thirty and his heart hammered impatiently against his ribs. The one fucking time he’d tried to be on time. Merda.
“Anyone asks, I was late on purpose,” he murmured to Thiago as he tossed his keys to the valet. He wanted to run into the hotel, go tearing into the conference center, but he forced himself to move slowly, leisurely even, through the lobby, his belt slung over his shoulder. Heads swiveled in his direction as he neared the conference center, and as he closed in on the doors, he could hear the amplified voices coming from inside. Leandro went in through a side door and slipped backstage. Two long tables were set up on the stage, with a podium—where Craig Darcy currently stood—separating them. Three fighters sat at the table to the left of the podium, while two sat at the table to the right, an empty spot left for Leandro. Maybe being late wasn’t so bad. He could make a big entrance this way, make sure he had everyone’s attention. After all, he was the champ. He deserved to have all eyes on him. Maybe he’d feel like less of a fraud that way.
“Where the hell have you been?” Ashlynn hissed as she came running toward him in a black-and-white blouse, tight black pants, and shiny black pumps. Spots of color rose up on her cheeks, her nostrils flaring slightly as she looked at him. He could almost see her grip on her patience slipping.
God, she was beautiful.
He lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant half shrug, knowing it’d piss her off. “I’m here now.”
“I think it’s a bloody disgrace that my opponent couldn’t be bothered to show up today,” said a familiar Irish-accented voice. “How embarrassing is it for the country of Brazil that their golden boy doesn’t seem to give a good goddamn about representing them?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Leandro growled, his fists clenching tightly at his sides. He knew that that voice belonged to Declan Murphy, newly signed to the WFC’s light heavyweight division. The same Declan Murphy who’d left MMA years ago to pretend to wrestle for National Wrestling Entertainment, a popular sports entertainment company. It wasn’t fighting; it was stunt work.
So much for getting the chance to prove himself.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ashlynn, laying a hand on his arm as though she could sense his anger.
“He’s nobody. I don’t want to fight a nobody. Craig Darcy’s wasting my fucking time with this shit.” Clearly, if this was who he was supposed to fight for the belt, Darcy thought Leandro was the nobody. The thought burned, feeding into his anger.
Declan’s voice continued from the stage. “I guess I’m fighting unopposed, and I’m not going to sit around waiting for him. If he shows up, give me a call.” The crowd—made up of journalists and fans alike—cheered as Declan walked offstage, into the wing opposite from where Leandro stood.
“Craig, what do you think about Leandro not showing up?” asked someone from the media, and Ashlynn nudged him forward, urging him onto the stage. He felt like a monkey being asked to dance for scraps. No respect. Entertainment only, and he was expected to eat shit, play along, and be grateful for the opportunity.
What was the point of trying to behave if Craig Darcy thought he didn’t matter? What could he take away from Leandro, really? This fight was a joke.
Fuck Craig Darcy. Fuck behaving. Fuck it all.
He plastered on a cocky grin and strode out onto the stage, waving at the crowd as they erupted in cheers.
“Speak of the devil,” muttered Darcy, but Leandro didn’t even acknowledge him. The roar of the crowd got louder, and Leandro raised both his arms in a here I am gesture.
He picked up his microphone. “So nice of you to start without me,” he said, lacing the words with sarcasm, and then laughing as the crowd cheered even more.
“You were late,” said Darcy, the microphone barely picking up his words as he leveled his icy blue gaze at Leandro.
Leandro shrugged. “If only I gave a fuck.”
A wave of satisfaction crashed over Leandro as a vein pulsed in Darcy’s forehead. As Leandro took his seat, he caught a glimpse of Ashlynn, her eyes closed, her thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of her nose.
Poor woman. He’d have to find a way to make it up to her.
“Wouldn’t have come at all if I’d known Murphy would be here. That has-been isn’t worth my time. He knows that we fight fo
r real in this league, right? No pretend kicks while running around in our underwear.”
“You son of a bitch!” yelled Declan as he came charging back onstage. Leandro pushed up out of his chair as Darcy leaped in between them. Declan strained against Darcy, trying to get at Leandro. The crowd went nuts, and Leandro smirked at Declan. Darcy’s face was red as he barked at Declan to sit down. Darcy scowled at Leandro, who took his seat once Declan had retreated to his side of the podium.
Leandro leaned forward, speaking into his mic. “This fight is a joke. I don’t have time for this shit.”
“You’re the joke, you entitled cock weasel!” Declan’s lips curled back and he leaned around Darcy. Before Leandro could react, the gob of spit Declan unleashed hit him in the cheek. White-hot fury churned through him and he sprang up from his chair, lunging for Declan. This time, security swarmed the stage.
Once the situation was calmer—although the crowd was electric, eating up every second of it—Leandro turned to Darcy and said into the microphone, “You going to fine him for that? Or am I the only one who has to pay?”
To his credit, Darcy actually chuckled, then motioned for them both to sit down. Leandro unbuttoned his suit jacket and sprawled back in his chair. Ashlynn emerged onto the stage, holding a small towel. She extended it toward him, an unreadable expression on her face. He took it, their fingers brushing, and wiped the spit from his cheek.
A female journalist stood at the mic at the base of the stage. “Leandro, before you got here, Declan said that Brazil should be embarrassed to have you as their representative. What do you have to say to that?”
He waited a beat and sent the crowd a cocky smile before answering. “Do I look like I give a fuck about anything he has to say?” He craned his neck, catching Declan’s eye. “Keep chirping, little bird. Show everyone how scared you are.”
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