Mercer had absolutely no issue being pitted against someone, provided that someone was his physical match. Could even be a man six inches and fifty pounds bigger than Mercer, no problem. Bring it on. But this…
He was used to proving himself with fists and knees and elbows, not the business acumen he frankly didn’t possess, despite the title he’d grudgingly inherited. He was a trainer, not a general manager. Not an accountant or promoter or a secretary, though all those jobs had fallen to him since Monty had passed. Why the old guy had thought Mercer was up to the challenge, he had no clue. Monty had always given him more credit than he deserved, and in the ring it was a pressure he’d relished. But this just sucked.
He was up against a woman, a stranger beloved by the man Mercer had considered his own father. The conflict weighed heavily on his heart, confusing and complicated, not a dynamic he knew how to process. Nothing so simple as stripping down and climbing into a ring to let his fists do the proving.
Though it didn’t change one fact—nothing got Mercer’s blood pumping quite like a good fight.
CHAPTER TWO
JENNA RETURNED THE next morning. Her gaze panned the foyer once more, but the uncertainty of the coming months cast her daydreams in shadows. She’d barely slept at the hotel, tossed around between excitement about her new venture and dread regarding the one she’d been saddled with…and some other curious, confusing feelings about the man at its helm.
The office was locked and dark, so she had no choice but to head for the wide set of steps in the rear and search for Mercer in the gym. She glanced at her clothes, one of a dozen new outfits she’d bought, needing a wardrobe that said competent young business owner. Clothes that might convince a professional man or woman to trust Jenna with their love life, though the choice would probably look stuffy and prim to a concrete basement full of bloodlusting boxers. Her new neighbors, for better or worse. Her new employees until the New Year arrived. Thank goodness their management was Mercer’s territory.
She descended the steps, and the stairs doubled back at a landing with a watercooler and a framed vintage fight poster, Marciano v. Walcott. What struck Jenna first was the smell. Sweat. Rubber and leather. Disinfectant. The odd, pungent potpourri of her father’s legacy. Not a fragrance that softly whispered blossoming romance! But a well-placed fan could probably keep it from wafting into the foyer.
The sounds came next, slapping and grunting and the squeak of equipment joints. Jenna took a final breath and stepped through the open double doors and into the gym.
It wasn’t quite what she’d expected—not the shadowy, smoke-clouded drug-and-gambling den old newspaper articles had so vividly conjured. Roomier, brighter, even orderly. But the rest was as she’d imagined.
A dozen fighters worked out at punching bags and on mats. A pair of men in one of two elevated rings carried on a practice match, tapping one another, not hitting. Her heart hurt, as she’d expected it might.
There was something about fighting she found upsetting. A sport that put so much emphasis on the physical—on hurting people—and whose glory went to individuals. Jenna believed deep in her heart that people needed each other. They needed family and friends and partners and teammates, support systems and tribes. At the end of the day, fighting was about establishing who was the best, standing triumphant in some sweaty ring with your fist in the air, the loser cast aside, all alone.
Jenna had always gravitated to the opposite. As a teen she’d been a camp counselor during the summers, in charge of building communities out of groups of nervous strangers. In college she’d majored in social psychology and enjoyed it, but all the theorizing in the world didn’t give her a fraction of the satisfaction that working with actual people did. In the end, she’d proudly framed her diploma and abandoned her intentions of becoming a therapist in favor of taking a job on a cruise ship as activities director. She was great at that stuff—bringing people together.
She looked around the gym. It’s a lonely sport, she thought. For lonely, distrustful people. Give her a softball league, any day.
It was looking as if she’d come down into this gloomy den for nothing, that Mercer wasn’t here, that she’d have to come back later and feel this awfulness all over again—
“Hook, hook, hook!” The voice jerked her head to the left.
Mercer was shouting at a beefy young man, who dutifully doled out the punches he was ordered, thwacking the padded targets Mercer held between them. Both were shirtless, Mercer as pale as his student was dark, as lean as the young man was bulky. Jenna got distracted by Mercer’s body. Like his nose, like his knuckles, his bare torso was fascinating, attractive in a way that made her wince. She’d never seen a man’s body quite like his, toned and utterly stripped of fat. Efficient and dangerous. Her own body stirred, but surely that was just a weird chemical reaction, panic about being down here mixed with airborne testosterone or something.
As she approached, she donned her best impression of an unaffected, professional businesswoman.
“Mr. Rowley.”
Once a fresh punch landed, Mercer dropped his guard to turn to her. “Jenna, hey.” He spoke to his trainee. “Ten minutes on the rope, then go through those flexibility drills from yesterday.”
The young man nodded and let the two of them be.
“Glad you came by.” Mercer slipped the pads from his hands and set them aside, recinching the drawstring of his warm-up pants. “Bet you’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Should I be hopeful or terrified about this visit?”
She nearly smiled at that. “Pragmatism’s probably wisest. Could we talk someplace less…”
“Feral?”
She nodded.
“Sure. Can you spare five minutes so you don’t have to smell me?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ll meet you upstairs.” He jogged to the locker room. Jenna watched as he went, surprised by how many muscles comprised the human back.
She loitered in the ground-floor entryway, pretending to browse the equipment case until Mercer came trotting up the steps, dressed in a T-shirt and different pants.
He unlocked the office. “Thanks for waiting.”
Jenna followed him inside, noting his wet hair and a clean, manly smell—soap or deodorant. She sat in the guest chair, thinking this would be her future clients’ view as they awaited her guidance with their romantic goals. Maybe her own Mr. Right would make an appointment in the coming months, walk across this very floor, take a seat before her and suck the breath straight out of her lungs. Okay, maybe not months…not given her track record. Sure, it sounded bad, a matchmaker not being lucky in love. She could admit that. But she wasn’t afraid of commitment or anything. Just cautious. People could stand to be a bit more cautious, a bit more logical, when choosing a partner. Her mom sure could’ve been, back when she’d hooked up with Monty Wilinski.
Mercer sat on the desk, clasping his hands between his knees. “So, what’s going on in that brain of yours? Prepared to give us Neanderthals a fair shake?”
“Yes, I am. My father cared about me enough to leave me this place. The least I can do is offer you guys a chance to prove me wrong. And as much funding as I can reasonably spare.”
He sighed his relief. “Thanks.”
“No need to thank me. It’s not like I had much choice.”
In her periphery, she sensed gym members crossing the foyer. She just hoped her future clients wouldn’t be too put off by the curious human traffic marching past the office windows.