It was going to be an ugly autumn, but she’d better just accept that.
Her body had been tight as a fist, but she felt the grip softening, relenting. “We’re not going to see eye to eye on this.”
“No.”
“And I mean what I said—I haven’t decided for sure I’m closing the gym when New Year’s rolls around. But don’t…”
“Don’t get my hopes up?”
“Exactly. I’m not trying to be a cold-hearted bitch. But I’ve seen the books. If things don’t change, and fast, there’s no justifying keeping the place open.”
Mercer blew out a long breath, leaning back on the desk to blink up at the ceiling.
She pondered this naked display of angst from a man whose job it surely was to camouflage his emotions behind a wall of strength, real or affected. Before they met she’d prepared herself to be intimidated by his anger, but it was Mercer’s openness that had her stymied. She glanced at his arms, at his fascinating, heavy-knuckled hands. Very odd breed, these fighter types. Her body warmed in a way that had alarmingly little to do with conflict.
Bad, bad, bad.
Romances were like candles. Lust was the flame, and passion the wick. Lust was important of course, but it was the practical compatibilities that made up the wax—shared goals, harmonious personalities, a healthy overlap of values and interests. The more wax you had, the thicker and taller a pillar you could make, and keep that wick burning nice and slow, keep the flame alive years after that initial spark.
With Mercer’s body this close, she felt the scrape of the match head across the striker, but that was the end of it. An invitation to get burned. Nothing more.
“Four months,” Mercer muttered.
“Four and a half.” She hazarded a smile. “Hope you like a challenge.”
He met her eyes. “I do. But this fight would be a hell of a lot easier if I had any control over the accounts and could fund even a few of the improvements this place needs to get profitable again. Your dad never even shelled out to have a website done.”
“I noticed.” If you looked the gym up on Google, eight of the first ten hits had to do with Monty Wilinski’s criminal trial. PR was not on Mercer’s side.
“If you’re honestly willing to give the gym a chance during these next few months, I hope you realize change costs money. Maybe not a lot, but something.”
“It’s my intention to be reasonable.”
Mercer exhaled mightily, seeming ready to put the argument to bed for the moment.
She softened her voice. “I think it’s best for everyone if we keep this between ourselves. This whole trial period thing.”
“On that, we’re agreed…. You want a tour of the place while you’re here? Quick look at your inheritance?”
“No, thank you. Some other time, maybe.”
He nodded, seeming unsurprised. “You know, I forgot to say it, but I’m sorry for your loss.”
His words tugged something in her middle, a pang of sadness she didn’t know how to process. “Well, thank you…. I’m sorry for yours. It sounds like you two were really close.”
“We were. It probably won’t elevate me or him too much for you, but your old man was the closest thing I ever had to a father. Sorry he wasn’t the same to you.”
“Yes. Well.” Jenna stood, trying her best to seem calm and businesslike, stern but not hurt. In her everyday life she wasn’t stern or serious at all, but this place was far from the everyday. She had to keep her game face on, her dukes up, lest she back down too much with this man. If only she’d had training in such things.
She wheeled the chair back to its corner. “I’ll come by and talk to you tomorrow, after I’ve gotten settled.”
Mercer slid from the desk. “I’m usually around here someplace while the gym’s open. If I’m not in the office, you can find me downstairs.”
He offered his hand and Jenna shook it, thrown once more by the feel of it, rough and confident. Rough and confident. She felt a shiver, a little show of approval from a lamentably primitive bit of her female machinery.
* * *
MERCER WATCHED JENNA exit and walk past the office window. He laced his fingers behind his head and exhaled a long, ragged breath.
Glancing around the office, he felt as though he were seeing the brick walls and worn furnishings for the first time. This building might have saved his life as a teenager, drawing him away from the choices that had gotten his best friend killed and landed a few others on a path straight to prison. It’d been the only constant he’d known in a life full of endless moves and evictions and instability, the place where his angry, volatile butt had been put in its place, where he’d learned being strong had jack-shit to do with acting tough.
He’d see the gym close over his dead body.
But four months wasn’t going to cut it. If he could get Jenna to agree to postpone the execution, maybe through the next year… An extra twelve months to start turning things around could make all the difference. There was a tournament fast approaching, and if all went well, a couple of their homegrown fighters could land pro contracts as a result. That would boost membership. They could shed a bit of their black-sheep rep as an old-school boxing gym gone to seed, and start proving they were an up-and-coming force to be reckoned with in the MMA scene.
But that was a big-ass if.
And if Jenna’s word was any good, she’d maybe approve a few hundred bucks here and there to replace old equipment, but for a contractor to build a women’s locker room, for serious advertising, for anything that’d bring in enough new members or the sponsorship to drag them out of the red…? Yeah, right.
Mercer needed some aspirin—Jenna was promising to be a royal pain in his ass. If a rather good-looking one.
And she looked roughly how he’d expected. More stylish, maybe. More grown-up. And sure, she was hot—sort of uptight, college-grad hot, and way out of Mercer’s league. He wondered what Rich would make of her. Then again, his shameless right-hand man would hit on a fire hydrant if you perched a nice enough wig on it.
Mercer—and more than a few of his fellow fighters—had held theoretical candles for Jenna. Monty had spoken about her often and flashed her latest school portraits around, and she was like a celebrity inside these walls. Mercer had built her up as some exotic creature, his mentor’s mysterious daughter off in California, moving to college in Seattle, living some exciting West Coast life, all blue eyes and pink cheeks, shiny brown hair, like a girl from a TV show.
He’d heard nothing but praise about her from Monty since he’d been a teenager, and he’d always assumed they were close, or at least speaking. It wasn’t until the man was dying that he’d confessed to Mercer how much he regretted the way he’d treated Jenna’s mom when they’d still been together, and how deeply it broke his heart that he and his only child had been out of contact for twenty-five years. Nearly her entire life.
Emotional crap had never been Mercer’s strong suit, and Jenna made him feel way too many things for his comfort. Threatened, fascinated, confused, annoyed. Plus a strong and completely inappropriate attraction—like the AC had broken, the office suddenly filled up with muggy August heat.
He shook his head, banishing all that sultry bull. There were pressing crises that demanded his focus, thanks to Jenna