Fighter's Kiss: An enemies-to-lovers MMA romance (Irish Kiss Book 3) Read online

  Yanking the door closed behind me required more strength than I expected, and so I had to hurry to keep up, backpack bouncing off one shoulder as we crossed the expansive grand entrance to the mansion.

  “Name’s Seamus and I’m far too busy training Declan to hold your hand as you learn the ropes, alright?”

  I barely heard a word as I craned my neck to stare up at the ornate moulded ceiling of the two-story foyer. Two wide staircases descended on either side, the kind a princess would know how to hold on to just so as she daintily floated down.

  My prince, however, was barking at me as he marched away. “Declan likes his help to look presentable, right?” Seamus grumbled. “So we’ll get you fitted right away for a new suit. It’s a waste of time in my opinion because none of the others have made it past a week, but what the hell do I know? Mate, do you know your inseam?”

  I hurried after the blunt Irish man, my thrift store sneakers echoing against the polished hardwood floors beneath the antique chandelier high above. “Um, I usually just grab whatever fits from the bargain bin at Goodwill.”

  Seamus stopped so abruptly that I almost ran into him. He whirled around, his thick red eyebrows raised in surprise. He looked me over from head to toe in shocked silence. Finally, he said, “You’re not a man.”

  I glanced down at my cleavage before looking up at him again. “You’re not wrong.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Seamus muttered as he circled me while I tried to peek down the hallway of the mansion. “You’re supposed to be a man.” He stopped again in front of me, crossing his arms over his stomach as he assessed me. “You’re not supposed to be a—a…”

  I lifted an eyebrow as he wiggled a finger at me. “A woman?”

  Seamus scratched at his thick ginger beard. “The agency said your name was River when I approved you for the gig,” he said. “What kind of woman is named River?”

  “Um, this woman.” I placed my hands on my hips, pushing back my rain jacket.

  Seamus immediately groaned and threw his arms up in exasperation. “You have tits.” He glared at my chest like they’d mugged him in some dark alley. “You’re not supposed to have tits!” He groaned. “You’re supposed to be a middle-aged balding man from Kentucky or some shitehole like that with a Blackberry and no fucking tits that look just like hers.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “At least you don’t wear makeup like her.” His tone was hopeful as he studied my bare face. “And you clearly don’t care what you look like the way she did.” He eyed my mismatched tie-dye tank top and floral skirt.

  “Hey!”

  “She would never be caught dead in those…things.”

  I followed his eyes to my sneakers. “I like these,” I protested.

  “Might just escape this,” Seamus muttered to himself. “Might just escape this.”

  I glared up at Seamus.

  He noticed and immediately shook his head. “But those eyes…” His head dropped back and he stared at the ceiling. “Those are her eyes.”

  I glanced around the empty foyer. “Umm…whose?”

  “He’ll know those eyes, those wild eyes a man can’t resist.” Seamus gave me a pointed look. “She almost ruined him, you know? With those wild eyes just like yours.”

  “Who?”

  He buried his face in his hands.

  “Listen,” I said, staring at him in utter confusion, “I didn’t fly all the way from New York to—”

  “And you’re American like her,” he muttered through his fingers. “He’s going to lose his fucking mind.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  Seamus ignored me as he pulled his hands away from his face, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me back toward the front doors. “He shouldn’t see you,” he said quickly as he glanced nervously over his shoulder. “I’ll get a room for you at the inn in town.”

  “Who shouldn’t see me?”

  “We need to hurry. He’ll be finishing his training any second.”

  “You need to tell me right now—what is going on?” I demanded as I tried to tug my arm away from his strong grip.

  Seamus he held me in place as he managed to get the massive door halfway open.

  “Who is that?”

  The voice made him freeze.

  With Seamus’s fingers still digging into the flesh of my upper arm, I craned my neck around. From the shadow of the hallway, a man emerged.

  So here was the Beast.

  His broad, toned chest riddled with white jagged scars heaved as he stopped and assessed me with blue eyes, narrowed, dark and angry. He wore exercise shorts and sneakers with a white towel slung over his muscular shoulder. Tape bound his knuckles, and I thought I could see patches of red. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he pushed back his dark auburn hair and sucked in a shaky breath.

  I pushed away the sudden thought that I wanted to fish through my bag, pull out my camera, and take his picture, just as he was there in that moment: raw and unfiltered and animalistic. He intrigued me. And the glare of those piercing blue eyes with a scar just above the left one both unnerved me and thrilled me.

  Don’t get attached.

  Don’t fall in love.

  Those were the rules. They’d served me well all my life and I wasn’t going to start breaking them now, especially not for my boss. This was just a job. A job I needed.

  “Declan, listen,” Seamus almost sounded fearful as he clearly fought to keep his voice calm. “There’s been a mix-up with the agency, okay? I’ll get it all sorted out.”

  Taking advantage of his distraction, I finally wrenched myself from Seamus’s hold, straightened my jacket, and confidently strode toward Declan. I extended my hand. “I’m River,” I said, suddenly feeling nervous so close to him. “Not any specific river. Just a river. Any river, really. Just River. Yeah, that’s it. River.”

  “I think her name is River,” Seamus muttered sarcastically from behind.

  Declan remained silent, his eyes daggers of ice.

  “I’m your new personal assistant,” I explained, trying not to cower before him.

  Why was he so angry with me? Why did it look like it was taking everything in his power not to push me away from him with those muscular tree trunks of arms?

  When Declan finally spoke, his voice was as if from the grave: rough, haunting, lifeless. “Get her the fuck out of here.”

  Declan

  It wasn’t the first TV I’d broken. It certainly wouldn’t be the last.

  But as I finished my training in my personal gym, I couldn’t handle listening to a single syllable more of some “expert” discussing how unbeatable Dominic was in the ring. Sweat stung my eyes. Pain consumed my arm and blood seeped through my white hand wraps as I pummelled the flat screen I tore from the wall.

  It should have been easy. Before my accident, I would have been able to wrench that TV from the wall like a magnet from a fridge. But after the accident and even after months of physical therapy, it still took my whole weight several times to rip away the cords and mountings. I heaved it to the ground and drove my fist through the screen. Glass sliced at my skin, but I couldn’t stop. Stopping was death.

  I punched it again and again and again till I finally fell back, exhausted in every possible meaning of the word. I gasped and drank in the agony of my body as I lay there. I deserved it, after all. I wasn’t where I needed to be in my training. I needed to push myself harder, train longer, heal faster.

  I needed to beat Dominic “The Spider”.

  I needed to show her.

  Dragging myself up from the floor, I held onto the pain that coursed through my veins as I walked toward the kitchen for Chef’s lunch. I squeezed my knuckles and the cuts tore. As I crossed the foyer, I was nearly shaking.

  It was an entirely new kind of pain seeing the woman standing in the corridor with Seamus. It was the kind of pain that made the cuts on my knuckles look like paper cuts. It was the kind of pain that was more dangerous than any car crash. The kind of pai
n I couldn’t bear.

  She looked at me over her shoulder, and it was like a punch to my gut. On her face, freckles dotted her nose between wide, doe-like brown eyes. Wild, kinky hair fell across her rosy cheeks as she stared curiously at me, a gypsy child brought in by the wind.

  And she needed to leave.

  Now.

  It only got worse when she moved to stand right in front of me and held out her hand, enticing me to touch her. My chest tightened.

  The girl looked like her.

  She sounded like her.

  She intoxicated me with her eyes like her.

  I had to hold myself back from tightening my bleeding hands around her delicate throat covered in string necklaces.

  “I’m serious, Seamus.” I finally managed to tear my eyes from her. Looking at her was painful, but her absence left me numb. I wasn’t sure which was worse. “I want her gone. Now.”

  “No problem, Declan. No problem at all. She’s gone.”

  Seamus stepped forward and tried to grab her arm.

  She shook him loose. “Gone?” The girl’s eyes were fire as she spoke.

  I wondered briefly if she’d ever been in the ring. She didn’t have the frame for it, but she sure as hell had the spirit for it.

  “I’m not some stray that showed up on your front steps in the night.”

  Seamus again stretched out his arm for her.

  She spun around and pinned a finger to his chest. “That doesn’t mean, of course, that I won’t bite.”

  I had to hold back a grin as Seamus eyed me over her shoulder, silently asking me what he was supposed to do.

  “You haven’t even given me a chance,” the girl said, turning back around to face me. “You need to give me a chance before booting me.”

  It was already too much, being this close to her. “The position is closed.” I kept my voice monotone, unemotional. “We no longer require your services.”

  “Bullshit,” she said before quickly covering her mouth. “I mean, with all due respect, Mr Gallagher, you need me.”

  I almost spit out a wicked laugh. Need her? Need her? I needed to stop wasting my time with her and get back to training. I needed to get back into shape and defeat Dominic. I needed to win back my title and my fame and my reputation. That’s what I needed.

  I needed her like a shot in the head.

  “Please,” she continued.

  I said nothing, only stared at her blankly.

  “I’m hardworking and I’m smart and I’m resourceful. Anything you need from me, I can do. I promise I’m worth it. Just give me a chance. That’s all I’m asking for.” Her eyes were earnest, almost desperate as she stared up at me.

  “It’s not going to work out. Sorry.” I’d wasted enough time. I turned to leave when she surprised me again by rushing in front of me to block my way with arms crossed over her chest.

  “I want a chance.” Her shoulders were squared, feet planted wide. She looked like she was ready to stand her ground in the ring. “I’m not leaving without my chance.”

  “You need to leave.” I tried to step around her, but she swerved to the side.

  “My visa will be revoked if you fire me.”

  Yes, there was definitely desperation now. Why did she want this job so badly?

  “I’ll have to go back to the States,” she pleaded. “And I can’t do that.”

  I pressed my fingers into my eyes to ease the throbbing pain in my head. “Seamus will arrange payment for your flight back.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that, it’s just…”

  I saw something in her eyes that I couldn’t quite describe. Pain? Fear? ...Terror?

  “I just…please.”

  Hope filled her eyes as I hesitated, silent for a moment. Hope is for fools. The sooner she learned that, the better.

  “No.”

  I moved past her.

  She then shouted, “Wait, wait!”

  When her hands grabbed ahold of my arm, I flinched. Her touch seared my skin, branded it, tattooed it, permanently and irrevocably changed it. My eyes, nothing more than slits, moved from her hand on my arm to her eyes. My voice almost quivered as I whispered in a low, dangerous tone, “Most men that try what you’re doing right now come to regret it very quickly after.”

  She did not flinch from my imposing glare. “Good thing I’m not a man.”

  My eyes ghosted over the curves of her body, her hips, her long, slender legs, her chest. She might have been a nuisance, a pain, an irritant. But she was certainly not a man.

  “Just give me a week,” she pleaded. “Give me one week. If you want me to leave after a week, I’ll go. No questions asked.” Her fingers squeezed my arm just slightly.

  I sighed. “A week?” I asked.

  “A week.”

  This was a bad idea. I knew it was. I knew it was a terrible, horrible, life-ending idea. I was jeopardizing my body, my title, my reputation. Everything. I was risking everything.

  And yet I couldn’t say no.

  “Some rules then,” I said.

  “Fine.”

  “No personal questions.”

  She frowned. I lifted an eyebrow.

  “A problem already?”

  “No, no,” she answered in a rush. “I got it. No personal questions.”

  “No more of whatever this is.” I gestured toward her hideous, colourful shirt.

  “Tie-dye?” she asked, pulling at the fabric to better see it.

  “I don’t care what it’s called,” I said. “Don’t wear it.”

  “Alright…anything else?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked up at me.

  “No touching me. Ever.” I wrenched my arm from her touch and marched past her without another word.

  “Declan, where are you going?” Seamus called after me.

  His rushed steps to keep up with my long, aggravated strides irritated my ears as I turned down the hallway. I wanted to be alone. I needed to be alone.

  “Declan?” he shouted again.

  “I’m going to train.”

  “You just finished training.”

  I scoffed. “No shit.” It wasn’t like I couldn’t still feel the sweat on my brow and the ache in my sore muscles.

  “You’ll kill your body if you hit the gym again so soon, Declan.”

  I ignored him.

  “You need to eat and sleep and rest. Chef has lunch ready.”

  “Leave me alone, Seamus.”

  “I’m your trainer,” he shouted, running to catch up with me. “I don’t have the luxury of leaving you alone.”

  “I want to be alone, Seamus.”

  “You’ll never beat The Spider and show her that she picked the wrong guy if you kee—”

  I wheeled around, caught Seamus by the throat, and pinned him against the wall. Old paintings in gold frames rattled on either side of his wide, fearful eyes.

  “I’m going to train,” I growled. “And you’re going to fuck off.”

  I could snap his neck in an instant. I saw in his eyes that he knew that, too. I gave his body another slam against the wall for good measure before stalking away.

  He should have listened.

  The girl in the tie-dye should have listened, too.

  River

  In the suddenly empty foyer, I gasped as if I had just emerged from the rapids of a freezing, dark, churning river. My lungs burned as if I had been drowning, my mouth sucking in relieved breaths. My fingers felt numb.

  This close. I had been this close to being fired not even two minutes into the job. I would have had to go back to the airport. I would have had to fly back to NY. I would have…

  No, I wouldn’t think about it. I had a week. One week to prove to Declan that I was worth keeping around. The details of exactly how I was going to convince the angry, anti-social, irritable man were still a little foggy. But I wasn’t lying when I said I was resourceful. I’d figure it out.

  Somehow.

  “No, no, he only wants
organic,” a new voice echoed from somewhere close. “He doesn’t care if it costs triple. He wants organic.” A man wearing a white chef’s jacket and burgundy silk loafers stepped from the hallway, pausing when he saw me. He covered the bottom of his phone with his palm and leaned toward me. “You’re the new one?” he whispered.

  I nodded.

  He frowned as he looked me over from messy airplane bedhead hair to my universally adored baby-blue high top Converse sneakers. “Has Declan seen you yet?” he asked before pressing the phone back to his ear. “Yeah, yeah. I’m still here. Still waiting.”

  “Just met him,” I answered when he again covered the phone. “Charming man.”

  He grabbed me gently by the chin and turned my face back and forth. He twisted a finger around a particularly kinky curl. “And he’s letting you stay?” he asked, doubt obvious in his voice.

  I nodded.

  “Girl, you must have brought some Louisiana voodoo magic with you to manage that feat.”

  “I’m from New York.”

  “Well then, some Brooklyn voodoo magic, baby.” He laughed. “The strong stuff.”

  I smiled. If I did have voodoo magic I wouldn’t use it on some rude, arrogant boxer or whatever it was Declan did.

  “I’m Declan’s personal chef.” The man balanced his phone against his cheek as he extended a perfectly manicured hand. “You can call me Oisin or Chef or Cat.”

  I frowned as I shook his hand. “Cat?”

  He winked. “Cookies Any Time, my little voodoo queen.”

  I narrowed my eyes as I maintained my grip on his hand. “Mint chocolate chip with rainbow sprinkles?”

  He grinned and swept into a low bow. “Your wish is my command.”

  Awestruck, I dropped his hand and whispered, “Maybe I am Sleeping Beauty.”

  “Don’t you fall asleep yet,” Oisin said. “We have to get you to your room. Come along, I’ll show you the way.”

  I slung my backpack back on my shoulder and followed.

  Oisin returned to his phone call. “I’ve told you a hundred times now. I need the limes by Friday. I’ll stay on hold all day long if I have to.” Oisin pointed to a swinging door to my right. “There’s the kitchen, aka where I live. It’s state of the art. Anything and everything you’ll need you can find in there and if you can’t, you know who to ask.”