by Teagan Kade
“Man, it’s insane how these women will drop their panties in two seconds flat if you just say the magic word,” Jake said in a sarcastic tone at my shoulder. “They act like you’re God’s gift or something.”
“Far from it,” I replied, eager to get to the table. A petite woman in sky-high heels stepped directly into my path. I could tell by the expectant look on her face my forward trajectory was about to be interrupted.
“Mr. Nichols. Can I have your autograph?” she purred.
“Sure,” I said, even though the last thing I wanted to do was get stuck signing a bunch of autographs. But Nigel said if I wanted people to love me, I had to act “somewhat loveable some of the time.” Especially given people had been acting more afraid of me than anything else lately. You’d have thought I was Frankenstein’s fucking monster, and all because of a couple of viral news stories.
She pulled a felt tipped pen from her purse and handed it to me. Her hands were otherwise empty. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she pushed her long hair aside revealing far more of her ample cleavage than was probably appropriate. She moved in closer to me and brushed her hand across the vee at the top of her cleavage. “Right here is just fine.”
It was hard to believe, but I had been asked to sign far more intimate places. “Name?”
“Coty. C-O-T-Y,” she spelled, adding a wink I figured was meant to be sexy but really made it look like she had something caught in her eye.
I swirled a practically illegible scrawl across her breastbone, signed my signature swirl of an ‘S’ and handed the pen back to her. “Have a nice evening, Coty.”
I moved past the woman not bothering to notice if she was put out or not at my abrupt dismissal. I laughed mirthlessly at how jaded I’d become. My friends gave me endless shit about my lack of interest in the fairer sex these days, but after the incident in Tulsa, it was better to keep a safe distance. Random hook-ups were better left in the past.
As I expected, Coty’s request sparked a swarm of autograph-hungry patrons. Over the next fifteen minutes I barely made it three feet toward our reserved VIP table. Jake disappeared, and when I looked over the sea of heads surrounding me to find him, I saw he was back at the bar talking to fucking Sheryl again. She cut a look in my direction several times. All I could do was shake my head and keep signing.
“Okay, everybody, I need a drink. Maybe I’ll sign some more later,” I said, the line in front of me not about to get any shorter.
“Aw,” came a collective groan of disappointment.
“C’mon, pal, just a few more,” the guy in front of me said. “My dad thinks you’re the best boxer since Ali.”
“That’s great, but I’m pretty tired, buddy,” I said. I started to push around him, but the man placed his hand on my shoulder. Big mistake.
“Look,” he continued, “I don’t mean to be an ass, but it’s just one more. It would mean a lot to my dad.”
I felt the first twinges of anger start to rise in my chest. Everywhere I went, it was the fucking same. Just one more. Just one more. Everybody acted like they deserved a piece of me, like they thought they owned me or something just because I won a medal for the U.S. What twisted fucking logic was that?
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m here with friends, and I’m going to have a drink. Maybe later,” I said, attempting to move past him again.
The man blocked my path and gave me a small shove. “You know what? You’re an asshole, man. That’s what I’m going to tell my dad. Shaun Nichols is nothing but a fucking asshole with a big head. You should have been disqualified before that last fight. Everyone knows it.”
Now I was officially pissed off. I took a deep breath because all I wanted to do was deliver a swift sock to the guy’s rib cage and enjoy the look of pure surprise when he doubled over. My fists clenched further, and that was when I saw the pop of flash directly in front of me. My eyes focused on the face behind the camera lens. The guy gave me a goofy smile with a thumbs-up sign. He wasn’t using a phone. He had a DSLR.
Fuck. He wasn’t some random guy at the bar. He was paparazzi.
I’d done it again. I’d let my temper get the best of me, and unless I kicked it into reverse quickly, I could just imagine the news headlines tomorrow—another supposed bar brawl they’d say I started. This jackass with his big mouth and cabbage patch hair simply wasn’t worth it.
“You’re a fucking loser,” the guy said. He took a step in my direction, but I pushed backward. It took everything I had to turn on my heel and march back toward the entrance of the bar. I didn’t want to let a loudmouthed prick like that get the last word in, but this wasn’t the ring. It was bar on a Friday night. I’d had more than enough experience with things escalating out of control recently.
I jostled through the crowd and heard several exclamations of displeasure, but I brushed them off with a murmured apology. I had to get out of the bar. I made it out onto the sidewalk and headed toward my apartment.
I’d walk. God only knew how bad I needed to blow off some steam. When I arrived home an hour later, all of the bottled-up emotions inside me had dwindled to nearly nothing. I patted myself on the back for being the bigger man and keeping a lid on my emotions. It was fucking close, but I’d taken the high road. Maybe I was growing up or some shit like that.
After hitting the shower, I turned on Netflix and crawled into my supersized bed—one of the first things I’d blown my cash on after the Games. It could easily hold three or more people. I’d filled it with more than one set of twins in my day. I shook my head ruefully at that memory. It wouldn’t have taken more than a drink and an invitation to get Sheryl on her back, thighs spread wide for me in bed, but that whole scene had gotten old even before Tulsa. Now that everyone wanted a piece of me, I just wanted to be left alone.
I closed my eyes and focused on remembering everything Hammer told me about the upcoming fight. That was the priority.
I drifted off to sleep thinking of jabs and punches and moving my feet, the ‘dance’ of the sport that consumed my life and soul.
An insistent buzz from my phone woke me up the following morning. I stretched and pulled it off my nightstand. A text from Jake. I never even bothered trying to connect with him or the rest of the crew after I left the bar. His interest had obviously been elsewhere, and I wasn’t in the mood to try to party anywhere else.
Expecting a cryptic message about how he’d gotten lucky the night before, I was surprised to see the message was nothing more than a hyperlink to a website. Just like that, a pounding began behind my eyes and I clicked the link. A browser window opened the story.
“Another Night, Another Bar Fight—Boxer Shaun Nichols On The Ropes!” the headline screamed. My mouth twisted up in a snarl as I read the short article just beneath a picture of me from the night before. I looked angry, my clenched fists up by my sides ready to brawl. From this angle, it looked like the guy I’d had a run-in with was about to get clocked. Maybe I should have rearranged his face a bit and teach him a lesson in civility.
The article had quotes from several people who had supposedly been at the bar. They all said the same thing. A guy had asked for my autograph and I had gone off on him about leaving me alone. That was right before I hit him. There was even a goddamn picture of the guy with a bandage on the side of his face.
“Give me a fucking break!” I shouted out to my empty apartment. I promised my sponsors to keep my nose clean after the recent string of salacious articles, especially after Tulsa.
Every last story was exaggerated, and they’d all appeared in the press months ago. Last night was the first time I had ventured out in weeks.
It had seemed like things finally settled down. Clearly, I miscalculated. The paparazzi must have staked out my apartment and followed me to the bar. Fucking animals.
Someone seriously had it out for me and I was sick of letting it happen. It had to stop. Somebody had to stop it.
I speed-dialed my manager, Nigel Ross. He answered on the first ring. “S
hauny. How are you this fine morning?” His tone was even and neutral. I had no way to read it, especially over the phone.
I rubbed my face. If Nigel hadn’t seen the article yet, maybe there was still a chance to save face on this one. “I just woke up. Look, there’s something I wanted to tell you…”
“I already saw the article, if that’s what you’re about to say. I thought you said this stuff was over?”
I huffed. “I didn’t even touch the guy. It was hardly a brawl. At most, it was nothing more than conversation that got a little heated.”
“That’s not what this article says,” Nigel continued. “Jesus, Shaun, the look on your face says ‘I want to fucking kill this guy.’ It’s the same one we all see in the ring every time you fight. Plus, he has half a dozen witnesses corroborating his story. I’m not going to lie. This looks bad. Very bad.”
I took the phone away from my ear and stared at it in shock. It took a full ten seconds before I could put it back to my ear. Nigel was still talking.
“…hope there isn’t a suit filed. That would be a damn shame given all the hard work you’ve been doing to clean up your act.”
“A suit for what? I never touched the guy!” My voice raised several decibels. “You’re supposed to be my business manager, my agent. I’m telling you what happened. The article’s bullshit. You have to get them to correct the story, retract it… whatever.”
“It would be your word against his, Shaun, and given the last round of articles, it’s only going to make you look worse. People think you have an anger management problem, in addition to… other things.” I wanted to hit something hard. He was talking about Tulsa, again. Those ‘other things’ were reported rumors I’d roofied a woman’s drink and coerced her back to my hotel room to have sex. None of it was true. Smoke and fucking mirrors to sell papers.
We’d had one drink. She’d been all over me. I had given in mostly because it had been a couple of months since I’d gotten laid. I wasn’t feeling it, the whole thing was over in less than fifteen minutes, and then she’d left. I should have known something was up when she didn’t ask for my number, or try to give me hers.
“It’s like the press is twisting everything around to make me look bad. For Christ’s sake, I don’t even feel like I can leave my apartment these days.” I got out of bed and began to pace the room.
On the other nightstand, there was a card sitting next to the lamp. I had considered throwing it away at least half a dozen times, but now I picked it up and stared at it.
It read Kommen and Russell Management with a phone number. That was it.
Nigel sighed, always ready with a solution, a calming word. “Look, I’ll manage the sponsors. It’ll be okay. At the end of the day, your name is still out there. People still care about you. We’ll get it turned around. Go to the gym. Knock some bags around. You’ll feel better.”
I wasn’t so sure. “I think it’s time I took matters into my own hands, Nigel.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I am going to go the gym, but I have some other things to do first. I’ll talk to you later.” I tapped the screen to hang up. Screw Nigel. As the adage goes, if you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself. It was time for me to take back control.
I picked up my cell and tapped in the number on the card.
Chapter Two
Tori
I looked at my watch and grimaced. If the driver didn’t figure out a way to get around rush-hour traffic soon, I was going to be late for my first meeting with my newest client, Olympic gold medalist, boxer Shaun Nichols.
I took his file out scanned it again for what seemed like the hundredth time. The details were sparse, but the general gist was that Nichols had a PR problem and he needed help to fix it. Of course, that was typical reason superstars retained the services of Kommen and Russell.
“Guy needed help six months ago,” I mumbled, letting my finger drift down the page listing all of the recent headlines tied to Shaun. When a client engaged with Kommen and Russell on this type of service, the first thing we did was track down all of the viral social media content. In Nichols’s case, the list would have been impressive if it wasn’t almost wholly negative.
So, he was fairly high profile. That was good. But his name was getting dragged through the mud on a regular basis. That was bad. When the balance was that out of whack, it almost always required an expert to turn things around, and that was what I did best.
A glossy 8x10 slid out of the file and into my lap. I had deliberately kept that at the back because regardless of how professional I was, Shaun Nichols’ deep blue eyes were magnetic in a way that caused all sorts of strange, heated sensations to swirl through my body.
It was stupid to not look a picture, but every time I did, I felt as if he was staring directly into my soul. I picked the picture up and held it up in front of me.
“So you’re a good-looking SOB. So what? You’re not the first handsome sportsman I’ve met in my career.”
If the articles were to be believed, Shaun was one big asshole in addition to being a major manwhore. So, no matter what ‘come hither’ messages I felt like I could read in his eyes, the guy was bad news—literally. “Brawling and broads? Could you have tried to be more original?” I sighed as I crammed the picture back into the file.
Most Olympians don’t make a lot of cash, but Shaun had accumulated quite a handsome bank balance from his fights prior, not that money means anything… least of all happiness.
It seemed like every pro athlete who contracted with Kommen and Russell had the same story. They thought they were getting unfair treatment by the press. Like making a shitload of cash and being forced to live out their lives in the public eye entitled them to different privileges than the rest of us. That was how I saw the core of their complaints. They thought their fame meant they didn’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else. Then they’d get caught, usually with their pants around their ankles, with a mistress, another man’s wife, a hooker, or a nubile, underage fan. In Shaun’s case, the rumor was he drugged the women he zeroed in on to get them into bed. Given his reputation and mouth-watering physique, that seemed illogical, but who knew what got a guy’s rocks off. I had run into some pretty weird shit in my day.
But the story of before didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was how we spun the story from here on out. Because now he was a client of Kommen and Russell and it was my mission to ensure we turned the tide and made America, and the rest of the world, swoon for Shaun all over again. It happened once. It could happen again.
My forehead creased as I frowned at the file in my lap again. I brushed my fingers across the wrinkles as a mental reminder I wasn’t getting any younger. I was only twenty-eight, but I didn’t need to speed the aging process with my serious, usually dour facial expressions. Unfortunately, the majority of my time in this job was spent either deep in thought trying to get threads of the story to line up, or having a stern talking to clients because they had fucked up again and made my job ten times harder.
Shaun’s ‘story’ was that he was being set-up to look bad. It was one I’d heard a million times. In the end, it didn’t matter one way or another if it was true. I was getting paid to make him look good again, whether he was a true blue Boy Scout or not. It was my job to understand the nuances of perspective and how to play that to my advantage.
I glanced at my watch again and leaned forward to tap on the glass separating me from the driver. The window slid down, the driver looking at me in the rearview.
“Yes, Ms. Ellis?”
“How much longer?” I asked, tapping my foot on the floorboard. I hated being late.
“It’s only another two blocks, but it’s bumper-to-bumper.”
“It’s fine. I’ll walk. Meet me at the front door of the address in thirty minutes. I want to be back in the office before the afternoon traffic starts.” It seemed impossible looking at the sea of cars in front of us, but it would g
et worse as the afternoon wore on. Once Shaun had agreed to my plans, I needed to get started as soon as possible.
The driver didn’t bother arguing. He’d learned long ago there was no point. I pushed open the door and slid out into the bright light of the afternoon sun. It was warm, and I felt a momentary flash of regret, leaving the cool air-conditioned interior of the car. Despite wearing a designer suit and Louboutin heels, I was tomboy at heart. My daddy hadn’t raised a girl who was afraid of walking a couple of blocks on a summer afternoon. Besides, I had someplace to be.
I absently waved at the driver and made my way toward the address I pulled up on my phone. Although I felt a little wilted ten minutes later, walking up to the impressive high-rise condo building, I gave the doorman a cool nod as if I had just emerged from the backseat of a limo.
Once inside, I checked the condo’s number and hit the button for the tenth floor. I looked around the lobby as I waited. It was clean, neat, a bit bare perhaps. The building was in a part of the city undergoing what officials called a ‘cultural transformation.’ Read: Cleaning up the neighborhood’s image. I couldn’t help but smirk. It seemed a fitting location to find my newest client.
The elevator took me to the tenth floor. I stepped out into a small hallway. There were only two doors, one to my right and one to my left. I turned toward the one on the left and straightened my collar before sliding my damp palms down my skirt. I told myself it was the heat of the afternoon that had my heart racing, but I knew I was lying to myself.
I was about to meet the one and only Shaun Nichols. My dad had been an amateur boxer back in his day. He stopped fighting in the circuit shortly after I was born when my mother threatened to leave him. Her biggest fear was that he would suffer one too many hits to the head and wind up a vegetable. But he never stopped loving the sport.
It was a ritual in our house to always watch the big fights together on pay-per-view. The summer Olympics were like a holiday that lasted a glorious sixteen days. My dad would take off work just to be sure that he could watch all the boxing matches no matter what time of day they were televised. He was obsessed.
