Faking It To Survive
Chapter 2

Ryan

I watch her leave with her name ringing in my head. Rose Bloom. It fits her perfectly. Her stunning features look just like a flower ready to bloom. Her simple outfit, plain dark hair pulled back tightly into a bun, and total absence of makeup can’t hide how stunning she is.

My whole world came to a standstill when I looked into those tortured dark eyes of hers, and I couldn’t resist turning on my irresistible charm. I expected at least a smile, a blush—anything but that cold, harsh stare. She was totally unfazed by me, and that never happens. Women always throw themselves at me, yet she didn’t give me the time of day.

I didn’t believe Travis was serious about hiring her as my new trainer. Not until he actually handed her the contract. I might have treated her like a jerk at first, but she looked nothing like I expected.

She has a firm, tight body, but she can’t be more than five-foot-seven which, compared to my six-foot-four, is incredibly short. She looks unassuming and completely out of place. How can she handle training a guy as big as me?

Travis brings me back to reality by shutting the door behind her. Then he comes back over to his seat, still smirking with glee. “I can’t believe she said the exact same thing Connor told you.”

Connor, my mentor and one of the best veteran fighters in the world of MMA, let me know in no uncertain terms that losing my fight against Khalid was no one’s fault but my own. I huffed and puffed about Rick selling me out, and Travis pulled out all the stops to replace Rick, but Connor said it didn’t matter. He made the exact comment Rose did. He said I lost my head … and he was right. They both are.

I could have won if I hadn’t been so reliant on the same old moves. The minute Rose said the same thing, I knew she was smart enough and capable enough to train me.

“That’s how you know a good trainer,” Travis burst into more chuckles. “And the way she said it … phew! You should have seen your face!”

“Oh, shut up!” I roll my eyes at his antics, but I can’t stop thinking about her intense gaze locked on me when she said those words.

She wasn’t one bit impressed with me, and that irked me. It still does. I ache to prove her wrong, to turn her opinion of me around and get those eyes of hers to look at me with anything but cold calculation.

“Are you sure she can handle this?” I ask again. “There’s a difference between analyzing a fight and knowing how to fight.”

Travis leans forward. “You should have seen her at the gym, man. She just kept throwing men twice her size out of the ring without breaking a sweat. There’s just something about the way she moves … It’s organic. It’s like her life depends on overpowering whoever is in the ring with her.” He nods toward the door. “Forget about her appearance, dude. She’s a beast when she fights.”

My gaze follows his toward the door. Not much impresses Travis, and after the whole Rick saga, he got even pickier and harder to please. He went through one potential candidate after another and still couldn’t get me a trainer that satisfied him.

I had to endure Connor’s rigorous drilling for a while, not that I don’t love having Connor train me just like the good old days, but the man shows no mercy. He can pound me into the ground. And besides, the injury that ended his fighting career limits how much he can move in the ring.

Then, without warning, after weeks of trying and failing to replace a replacement, Travis stopped by my house and wouldn’t stop talking about the trainer he’d met at the gym. I had no idea he was talking about a female, much less one as insanely hot as Rose Bloom.

The way he talks about her, even now, there’s no denying she must have blown his mind.

Curiosity gets the better of me. I really want to see what he saw at the gym that day. I have a feeling seeing her show off her skills in a ring would drive me crazy … in a really good way.

“If I wasn’t happily married to Trina, I could have a thing for this woman.” Travis’s grin widens when he mentions my sister. His eyes twinkle with that sickening puppy love he always reserves especially for her. “Rose might be hot, but she’s got nothing on Trina.”

He’s wrong. My sister is a beautiful woman—not that she’ll ever hear me say it—but Rose is a goddess. I picture her seated in front of me, staring at me with pursed lips and those cold, tortured eyes, and all I want to do is collapse at her feet. No other woman compares to her, and I’ve had my fair share of women.

“Hey,” he says to get my attention. “Don’t you trust me?”

I snort. “Do you even have to ask? Of course I do.”

Travis has always been family; since long before he and Caterina got married. He and I practically grew up together. We did everything from partying, drinking, flirting with girls, racing cars, to getting into fights together and realizing how incredibly good I am at winning.

Travis was the one who discovered an underground fighting club and introduced me to it. He’s acted as my manager ever since. He gathered the money I made off the audience’s bets, and we split it fifty-fifty.

He rebelled against his parents’ wishes and refused to take over their multi-million-dollar insurance company. Instead, he used his trust fund to build an agency, with me as his first client. He bet practically everything on me, and today, his agency represents celebrities, from actors to singers and fighters like me.

“So, trust me now. Rose Bloom is going to change your life.”

She’s going to change my life all right. I can already tell that her existence is going to be one hell of a ride.

Travis studies me for a second then turns away. “Now, about your scandal …”

I g***n as I stretch out on the couch and throw my arm over my face. “What did I do this time? It’s always one thing or the other with these entertainment blogs. Last week, they wrote that I had an affair with a visiting Arabian oil magnate’s wife.”

Travis’s head snaps up. “What—you mean you didn’t have an affair with her?”

“Of course I didn’t! She attended the same charity event I went to. That was all. I swear it. I never even spoke to either of them.”

“I know, man. I’m just messing with you. I was the one who buried the whole scandal, remember? You would probably be hanging in the man’s backyard right now if I didn’t.”

“Don’t do that to me, man. It isn’t funny. If I so much as smile at a woman, the blogs start blaring, ‘Travis Baker’s New Flavor of The Week.’”

“You love the attention,” he counters. “Admit it.”

“I’m not saying I don’t. All the coverage just gives me more publicity and more money, but it gets old real quick when everything they’re saying is a lie. The whole public perception of me is one big lie.”

He barely hears me, digging out his phone and starting to read off it. “According to the latest tabloid report, you hooked up with Tammy’s best friend at a club the other night.”

“Just great,” I snarl. “They must really be struggling for news, because that’s ridiculous.”

He looks up at me, his eyes sparkling with a different kind of fire. “Are you sure about that?” He turns his phone around to show me the page. “Seriously? Your ex-girlfriend’s best friend?”

I push myself up to see what he’s looking at and immediately collapse again. “Great. They aren’t exactly best friends, anyway. For someone who claims to be Tammy’s friend, Jennifer practically jumped me that night.”

“Oh my hell, Ryan, have you no self-control at all? You know how the public is going to spin this, especially when everyone thinks you and Tammy broke up because you cheated on her.”

“She’s the one who cheated on me! Do you think I asked to catch her riding her bodyguard in the back of my Bentley? I was nothing but good to her for the whole six months we dated. Maybe I should release a statement of what really happened.”

Travis chops his hand through the air. “No, absolutely not. We should have done that immediately, but you said to leave it alone as long as no one bothered you. Changing your story now will only make it look like you’re trying to weasel out of the accusation. If we aren’t careful and the reporters have some other evidence, you’re going to end up looking like the a*****e in this.”

“So, what do I do? You always have a solution to everything. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“Just lie low and focus on working with your new trainer for now. This might be hard considering who I’m talking to, but try not to pick any more women up at the club, okay? In fact, stay away from clubs altogether until I tell you otherwise.”

“Fine,” I grumble.

I wouldn’t call myself a party animal, but I’m only human. I like to have fun once in a while. Okay, maybe I like to have fun a lot, but what else am I supposed to do with my life? I have a boatload of money and zero responsibilities, so what is there to stop me from enjoying everything life has to offer?

I have an incredibly active social life, but the truth is that being around people in a bustling environment distracts me from how lonely I really am. In those moments, I don’t have to think about how empty my apartment will be when I get home. I don’t have to think about the longing I feel when I see my best friend and sister so in love that they forget everyone else in the room. I don’t have to think about how much I want that, too.

I can’t think about that right now.

Pulling myself off the couch, I force myself to face Travis. “I’m getting out of here. Do you need anything else from me?”

He’s still scowling at his phone, but he waves me off. Then, when I reach the door, he calls out, “Hey, Ryan.”

I turn around. “Yeah?”

“Keep your hands off the trainer, okay? Getting involved with her will only complicate things, so leave this one alone.”

My lips curl up in a smirk before I walk out of his office. Staying away from Rose Bloom is going to be difficult as hell, and it’s the one thing I have no intention of doing.