Outmatched

“Now, wait a minute,” I began. But he cut me off by turning his back to leave.

“Forget it, Rhys,” he said as he walked toward the door. “You got your way with Parker. I’m doing this and you can’t stop me.” He paused and grinned. But his eyes were cold and angry. “As you keep telling me, I own half the gym. It’s time I start taking care of my end.”

He was going to do his damnedest to make my life hell. The promise was right there in his expression. He let me see it, made sure I understood. Then the door slammed, and I let out a bark of incredulous laughter. Damn if I wasn’t proud. The other half of me was filled with dread because we’d eventually have some hard conversations, and I wasn’t exactly good at communicating.

Didn’t matter, though. I’d overslept and it was getting late. Parker would be coming by soon and frankly, I needed to prepare myself for dealing with her, let her know who was in charge here.

Dream on, Morgan. She’ll have you by the balls before you know it.

Why did I look forward to that?

Five

Parker

A selfish bonus to being “green” (other than the awesome eco-warrior status) was it kept me active and fit. To my parents’ frustration, I refused to accept the Mercedes-Benz Cabriolet they’d bought me as a reward for earning my PhD. Maybe if it had been a Tesla I’d have been swayed, but, unfortunately, despite me yelling the word “green” from the rooftops since I was fourteen, my parents couldn’t wrap their heads around what that meant.

As far as they were concerned, every young woman would love to drive around in a luxury convertible. Plus, the Mercedes had an “eco” stop/start button so why wasn’t that green enough?

I gratefully declined the car and splashed out on an electric hybrid bike when I got the job at Horus. For journeys to the office I used the bike at full power, so I didn’t arrive sweaty and out of breath. Today, however, as I rode the six and a half miles north to Chelsea, I reduced the power, meaning it took me the normal forty minutes to get there.

The truth was I was dragging the ride out, reluctant to step inside Lights Out. For the past few days, I’d lied to Jackson and my colleagues, and it was not fun. Jackson had informed our small team about the dinner date with Fairchild and how the big boss waxed lyrical over Rhys Morgan. Thankfully, only one guy on the team knew anything about boxing and recognized Rhys’s name, and even then, he wasn’t a fanboy.

However, they all wanted to know how Rhys and I met, a subject that didn’t come up at dinner because Fairchild had monopolized the conversation. Prepared for those kinds of inevitable questions, first I’d googled Rhys and then I’d learned as much as I could about his career.

He’d been a heavyweight fighter. A champion. From my research I’d discovered there were four major professional boxing organizations that held bouts. The International Boxing Federation, the World Boxing Association, the World Boxing Council, and the World Boxing Organization.

When Rhys was twenty-eight years old, he became the WBC heavyweight champion. Some other guy was the heavyweight champion that year for all three other associations, so I wasn’t sure how that worked. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how any of it worked. However, I was smart enough to realize that Rhys Morgan had been an awesome boxer. It was a mystery to me why he’d retired at thirty-one, until I’d found an interview Rhys had given explaining how he’d lost his passion for boxing after his father died.

The boxing community seemed to mourn the loss of Rhys and I came to understand why. There was a YouTube video of the fight that garnered him his heavyweight title. It was brutal but fascinating to watch. Rhys Morgan was built like Hercules, all muscles and gleaming skin, and he was fast. As I watched him move around the ring, impressively light on his feet despite his size, I’d felt those butterflies in my belly again.

He was beautiful in a primal way.

I knew nothing of his sport, and we came from very different backgrounds.

Moreover, Rhys was determined (which was a polite way of saying he was a bit of a steamroller) and vibrated with this passionate energy I’d never experienced before.

He might not be my type, but he was a catch. Many women would want to be in his orbit, and I was sure he’d have his pick.

And I was going to pretend to date this guy.

Would anyone really buy it?

A car horn shook me out the memories of watching Rhys fight. Those images were currently playing in a loop in my head. Yet, it would be safer while cycling if I concentrated on getting to Lights Out in one piece.