“I know.” Connor had stood and moved toward him. “You were always the good one. I won’t bring you down with me. I’ll be out of here in ten minutes.”
Connor had disappeared into the bathroom, where his freshly washed clothes waited for him. Then his cell on the counter had beeped with a text message.
When Tyson reached for it and saw the words scrolling across the top, his heart stopped. It wasn’t the threat from his brother’s drug dealer that made him pause, but the screensaver pic of him, his brother, and their mother taken when they were in junior high, before life got complicated and messed up, before they’d taken different paths, before they’d lost her. That was the thing that made him pause.
He set the phone down and placed his palms against the counter as Connor came out of the bathroom. “How much do you owe?” Tyson asked, not looking at him.
“Really Tys, it’s not . . .”
“How much?”
“Five thousand.”
He closed his eyes. He had nowhere near that amount. All of the money from his fights went right back into the gym—into his fighters, into promotion, into his own training. “How much will they settle for?”
His brother nervously licked his lips. His knees shook as he sat on the couch.
He was coming down—the drugs no longer having much effect after years of abusing them—and soon he would need his next fix. If he meant what he said about getting clean, he was in for a rough road, starting any minute.
“Two, maybe three, but it won’t hold them for long.”
Five thousand dollars all gone into his brother’s veins. “I’ll have it in a few hours . . . In the meantime, stay in the apartment. Do not go out, do not open the door to anyone, and do not come near the gym.”
Connor had nodded eagerly. “Yes, okay . . . yes. I promise, I’ll figure this out. I’ll pay you back. I mean it this time, Tyson. I want to get clean, fix the mistakes . . .”
He held out a hand, not interested in hearing false promises, false apologies, or any sort of claim about fixing the past. There was no fixing the past. “Just stay put and away from me. That’s all I’m asking you to do.”
“Okay. I will. You won’t even know I’m here.”
The words echoed in his mind. Hadn’t he heard those words from a different kind of trouble just the day before?
He sat staring at the office phone. And now he was about to invite that trouble right back into his life as well.
* * *
An hour later, after several other attempts at the exercises listed in the issue of Women’s Health magazine she subscribed to but never read, Parker sat on her pool deck, her feet in the cool water. The early October sun was high in the sky, but the air had a definite trace of fall coolness and she knew that within a month it would be time to close up the pool for the winter months. She hoped she’d be back in LA soon. Being away from the glamour and glitz of the bright lights, the shopping trips on Rodeo Drive, and being apart from the moviemaking process was torture. But it was even harder to be in LA when she wasn’t filming. Watching the excitement from the sidelines was worse.
She picked up her cell phone and stared at it, willing it to ring. She hated the idea of having to reconsider training at Cage Masters. She shivered, remembering the way the sleazy-looking owner of the run-down, dirty gym had looked at her. Desperate or not, she couldn’t go back there.
With a sigh, she dialed Punisher Athletics. It couldn’t hurt to see if Tyson had changed his mind. Persistence had always been her friend in the past.
Three rings, then an out of breath, “Hello. Punisher Athletics.”
“Hi. Can I speak to Tyson Reed please?” She’d offered him two thousand for the week but at this point she was ready to pay him anything he wanted for his help.
“Looks like he just picked up another call, would you like to hang on a sec?” the guy asked.
“Yeah, I’ll wait . . . thanks.”
As he placed her on hold and heavy metal music blared in her ear, her phone beeped with an incoming call. Pulling the phone away from her face, she saw the Punisher Athletics number lighting up her screen. Huh? Had she somehow gotten disconnected? The hold music still played.
Hitting “Accept” on the incoming call, she said, “Hello?”
The sound of throat clearing made her move the phone away slightly. Gross. “Hello,” she said again when there was silence on the other end.
“Hi . . . uh . . . Ms. Parker?”
“Ms. Hamilton. Parker is my first name. Who is this?”
“Tyson Reed.”
“I was just . . .”
He interrupted. “You still looking for a place to train?” he asked grumpily, his voice gruff.
He’d been calling her the same time she’d been calling him. She smiled. She wouldn’t have to beg. “Um . . . well, I was considering a different gym . . .” she lied.
“Oh, okay, never mind.”
“No! Wait, Tyson . . . yes, I still need a place.”
“Shit,” he mumbled.
Nice.
“Fine. You can train here.”
“You’ll train me?”
“That’s not what I said. For two thousand for the week, you can train here under the guidance of one of my coaches. I won’t be training you. Let’s be very clear about that.”
She frowned. “But . . .”
“Forget it,” he said quickly.
“Wait!” Geez, the guy was annoying as fuck. “Okay, one of your coaches is fine.” She really had little choice.
“Also, I’m not guaranteeing results. As I told you, your body is . . .”
She gritted her teeth. “Yes, yes, I remember. I just need to learn some basic moves. That’s all.” Anything she could learn to at least appear as though she could be ready for the role in three months would be beneficial.
“Okay. Well, you can start today if you want,” he grumbled.
“And if I get the part next week, I can continue training there?” She wanted to be clear that this wasn’t a one-week-only offer.
He hesitated. “Fine. But if I were you, I really wouldn’t hold my breath about getting the part.”
So now he was an expert on Hollywood. “I recall you saying a similar thing about me training at your gym.”
The line went dead.
Chapter 3
Shit. She came back.
Tyson watched as Parker entered the gym and, unfortunately, so did every other man in the place. Dressed in a pair of tight, pale pink leggings that reached just below her knee and a black spaghetti strap tank top that dipped low across her chest and provided little coverage of the ample breasts beneath, her blonde hair curled and tied back in a high ponytail, she looked ready for a photo-shoot for a fitness magazine, not for a grueling, intense fighter’s workout. The professional fighter and trainer in him scoffed at her; the hot-blooded man in him was semi-hard already. What the hell had he agreed to? “Did I say you could stop warming up?” he yelled to the group of fighters doing circuit training in front of him. “Push-ups, then up for squat jacks. Go!” He checked his watch as she stopped beside him.
“I’m here.”
No shit. In less than three seconds she’d already disrupted things. He ignored her. “Full push-ups, nose to the floor¸” he told the guys who were all craning their necks to stare at Parker.
“Tyson,” she said and he cringed. He didn’t like the sound of her voice saying his name. He didn’t like that he was in a position where he needed her money. Correction—his brother needed her money. And he didn’t like that his body was reacting as though it had never seen a beautiful woman before. He finally turned to her. “It’s ‘Coach,’ and you’re late.”
“Well, you just called me an hour ago and you didn’t exactly tell me when classes started . . .”
“Classes are all the time. Real fighters train all the time.”
“Should I join them?” she asked, looking nervously at the men now on their twentieth push-up.
He doubted she’d be able to complete one full one. “No. I told you, I’m not training you.” He pointed across the gym, where Dane worked with the new members of the club, guys who wanted to fight, wanted to train, but lacked the natural potential Tyson could assess within minutes of meeting an eager young wannabe. He focused only on the fighters who could win.
“But I paid you to train me.”
Had she not been listening? “You paid to train here. My personal coaching fee would have cost a lot more than two grand.” His jaw tightened thinking about where her money would go. Keeping his waste-of-space brother alive a little longer. There were far better uses for the funds for which he’d been crazy enough to take from this train wreck, but he’d agreed to bail his brother out once. Then it was up to him to stay clean.
“How much?” she was saying.
“What?”
“How much for you to train me?”
There wasn’t enough money in the world that could entice him to take on that disaster. “I’m not for sale. Dane’s waiting for you.” He hit the timer on his stopwatch. “Okay, everybody up!”
The men jumped to their feet, and Parker stayed exactly where she was.
Now she was just pissing him off. “Look, Ms. Hamilton, either go work out with your trainer or leave. No one stands around in my gym.”
She looked about to argue, but he turned away. “Bobby and Walker—in the cage. You’re up first,” he said.
From the corner of his eye a second later, he saw her join Dane, who’d been watching them and now greeted her with a smile. “Hey, Ms. Hamilton, great to see you.” Dane was dubbed the gentle giant of the group. One of the biggest middleweights in the division, but the nicest fighter on the planet. He was a fan favorite despite an inconsistent fighting record, and if anyone was willing to train Parker, it was Dane. “Ready to work?” he asked her and she smiled, the blonde ponytail bobbing up and down eagerly.
Tyson clenched his jaw. She wouldn’t be smiling by the end of the day. But then, he suspected, neither would he.
* * *
What an asshole. Tyson Reed had to be one of the worst men she’d come in contact with . . . ever. He was arrogant, cocky, and rude. He was the one who’d called her and told her she could train there and now he was acting as though her being there was the most inconvenient thing in the world. She didn’t get it. And he’d sure accepted and cashed her check awfully quick.
As she ran the laps outside the gym, she struggled to breathe. She was the only one still out there in the hot afternoon sun, as everyone else had already finished and were rehydrating inside. Her legs were turning to jelly and her lungs hurt. Ten laps? Yeah right. She’d be lucky to survive a fourth. As she neared the gym on her fourth pass, Dane walked toward her.
“How’s it going?”
“Ask . . . me . . . when I can breathe . . .” She stopped and bent at the waist to catch her breath.
“Running’s not easy if you haven’t done it in a while,” he said with a smile.
“Try never . . .”
He laughed. “Water?” He extended a bottle toward her.
“Thank you.” She was careful not to choke on it as her body competed for the cold refreshing liquid and lifesaving air at the same time. Dane was so nice. “I’m sorry you got stuck training me . . . but I have to say, you’re a lot nicer than the alternative.”
“I’ll take that compliment even though my competition wasn’t tough. Don’t mind Tyson—he has a disability.”
She frowned. “Really?” Suddenly, she felt a little bad for calling him an asshole in her mind during the entire run.
“Yeah; it’s called major prick syndrome.” Dane winked. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and led her back inside. “He’s not that bad. He just needs time to warm up to people.”
The man they were talking about turned to look at them as they entered and the expression on his face was a mix of disdain and annoyance.
“How much time?” she mumbled. “Cause I’m not sure ten years would be enough.”
“Well, he’s not training you. I am and I actually think this is really cool.”
Such a great, helpful guy . . . then why couldn’t she stop her gaze from drifting to the not-so-nice one across the gym? “What’s next?”
Dane smiled. “Can you still feel your legs?”
“Barely.”
“That’s a yes then. Let’s hit the circuit.”
Circuit. Just the name sounded painful. She suspected the workout would be torture.
She was right. Leaving the gym, she could no longer feel her legs, and the next morning she wished she couldn’t. “Ow . . . ow . . . ow . . .” Each stair was more impossible than the last. Every muscle in her body screamed when she moved. She couldn’t lift her arms, she couldn’t bend her legs, and breathing too deeply caused her to wince. As a kid she’d broken a rib falling from a set of monkey bars at a playground as a kid. This immobilizing pain was similar.
What the hell had happened to her body the day before?
She was in good shape. Or so she’d thought. She really shouldn’t be struggling to move like this.
Going into her kitchen, she poured a cup of coffee, the weight of the pot making her forearms ache. She hadn’t even known there were muscles in that part of her arm . . . or that she’d been working them. She opened her medicine drawer and struggled to open the bottle of painkillers. Finally succeeding, she took two with a mouthful of hot coffee, then shuffling her feet forward slowly, she went outside. On the deck, she swore under her breath as she lowered herself into a chair and let her legs fall out in front of her.
She may never move again.
A quick glance at her phone revealed it was after seven already. The gym opened at nine and it just might take her two hours to get there . . . but despite the fact that she’d never been in so much pain in her life, she would be there as soon as the doors opened. Show Tyson Reed she was serious and she wasn’t giving up. No matter how tempting it was. Massaging her aching thighs with one hand, she picked up the script she’d left on the table the night before. She flipped to page one and started reading. She hadn’t put herself through this torture for nothing. She was getting this role.
* * *
“You’re doing great. That’s it—swing and duck . . . just like that,” Dane was saying outside the office door.
Tyson watched as Parker did as she was instructed. Not bad, he reluctantly admitted, but not good enough. Not if she hoped to get this part she hadn’t shut up about for the last five days, making him want to implement a no-talking-rule in the gym. As he studied her, instantly he saw flaws in her stance, a lack of tightness in her muscles and damn if the woman looked like she’d actually lost weight in the last few days, instead of putting on any kind of bulk to turn her Victoria’s Secret model shape into a fighter’s frame.
He wondered if Dane had given her a meal plan . . .
He shook his head. He didn’t give a fuck.
Getting up, he closed the office door and ran a hand over his head. The truth was, he was surprised to see her back after the first day of training. Watching her hobble out of the gym after Dane had put her through the workout of her life, he’d assumed—prayed, really—that that would be the last he saw of her. He’d had bigger, stronger athletes quit after their first day in his gym.
Instead, she was back every morning as soon as the gym opened. That morning she’d even been standing outside the gym waiting for him to unlock the doors. “You’re early,” he’d said.
“Didn’t want to catch shit for being late again,” she’d said with that too-gorgeous smile of hers, which he tried to avoid being the recipient of at all costs.
He’d grumbled some unintelligible reply as he’d unlocked the door and moved back to let her enter, forbidding his eyes to check out her ass as she passed.
Of course they had betrayed him—just like every other part of his body.
And then when they both reached for the light switch on the wall and
his hand brushed hers, the spark between them had been enough to send him walking quickly as far away from her as possible.
She too had fled, jumping immediately into a warm-up . . . One he’d tried desperately not to watch from the office window.
She was determined, he’d give her that, but he doubted her efforts were going to pay off.
There was no way Parker Hamilton could pass as an MMA fighter. No amount of Hollywood magic could make that happen. He felt guilty taking her money when her results were probably not going to be what she’d hoped . . .
Again, not his problem. He’d warned her.
The front door opened and his father walked in. Shit, he was back from Japan early.
And of course, his gaze landed immediately on Parker, dressed today in a bright blue training top and white shorts. Short shorts that hugged her ass cheeks and accentuated her long, tanned legs.
Shorts that he would probably recall later . . . alone in the shower.
The look etched on his father’s face as he came toward the office shook any inappropriate thoughts from Tyson’s mind. “Who is that?” he asked as he opened the office door, loud enough for the woman in question to glance their way.
At least she knew she was causing a disturbance in the atmosphere. “Parker Hamilton. She’s an actress.”
“Does this look like a movie set to you?”
“No, sir. She just needed a place to train for a week before an audition, that’s all,” he said quietly, hoping it was the truth. The last three days, he’d been unable to stop his gaze from drifting toward her frequently. When she ran on the treadmill, her breasts bounced up and down in a mesmerizing rhythm that locked him in a trance. When she did the circuit, her body bending and twisting, usually in improper form, tempted him to place his hands on her and help guide her motions . . . And when she disappeared into the female locker room, sweat glistening on her skin, her hair disheveled, it took all his strength and discipline not to follow her.
His father looked ready to tell him how stupid this was, when his expression changed as he caught sight of the display case.
Shit.
“What the hell happened to the glass?”
Fighting the Fall Page 4
