Faking It To Survive
Chapter 4

Ryan

I barely dodge my head out of the way in time to avoid Rose’s punch aimed straight at my face. I can’t believe the impossible speed of her coming straight for me. I don’t even see the kick to my side coming.

“Shit,” I g***n, stumbling to take a step back as she zeroes in on me.

Travis was right. She fights like her life depends on it.

Rose looks nothing like the cold, distant woman who walked into Travis’s office. Now she looks feral—just like a predator hunting down her prey.

She’s in front of me again before I can blink, landing a punch to my gut. I double over, and she nails her elbow into my back. Then she grabs me by my hair and yanks me upright.

“What did I say about going easy on me, Ryan?” she whispers in my ear before she releases my hair, backs off, and takes a fighting stance again, bobbing around me, waiting for me to make the next move.

I straighten up and stare her down. I have to get myself under control. I will admit, though, that admiration at her skill mingles with rage that she can beat me so easily.

I can’t let her get away with this. She doesn’t want me to take it easy on her, so I’ll give her exactly what she asked for.

I don’t hesitate, going straight for her face. but she sprints out of the way. Face, middle, leg—I try every trick in the book to tackle her or at least land a blow, but she’s too fast. What she lacks in bulkiness, she makes up for with speed.

A grin spreads across her face as I dance around her. That grin pisses me off even more. She’s toying with me. She wants to see what I’ll do when I’m backed into a corner. She’s doing the same thing Khalid did during our fight. She’s using my own moves against me.

I take the hint and do the one thing she told me I should have done. I think on my feet.

I feint left but go right at the last minute. She checks herself for a split second, and I tackle her to the mat. Grabbing her around the waist, I lift her before slamming her down hard. But, just before her back hits the floor, she squirms out of my hold. How is she doing this?

She takes advantage of her smaller size, twists out of my grip, and use my weight to pull herself onto my back. Her sharp elbow slams into the base of my neck, and I buckle to the floor, but she doesn’t let me go. Nope. Instead, she scrambles up my body and locks her legs around my neck before grabbing my arm and pulling it hard enough to make my eyes water.

I stare up at her, struggling to breathe, and only one thought crosses my mind. She’s stunning.

She has me in a chokehold with her legs wrapped around my neck and her hand clamped on my arms. Even then, all I can think is how amazing she is. She landed me flat on my back without even trying.

She yanks my arm again, and my shoulder pops. She’ll dislocate my shoulder if she keeps going this way.

I g***n and tap the mat twice with my other hand. “Tap! tap!” I yell then heave a sigh of relief when she finally lets me go.

A loud clap echoes throughout the gym, and we both look up to see Travis applauding from the sidelines. “Bravo!” he yells. “I can’t believe you got Ryan to tap out. He’s usually pretty stubborn about things like that. Once, he actually passed out while training because he refused to tap out.”

Rose stands up and pulls her braided ponytail out of its bun while she glares down at me with a raised brow. “That’s a pretty stupid thing to do. There’s no shame in tapping out, Ryan. This is MMA, not WWE.”

“I was wondering why you put your hair up.” I raise my arm and extend a hand to her.

“I wasn’t going to give you that obvious advantage.” She grabs my hand and starts to pull me up.

I get halfway off the mat before she gasps, yanks her hand away like she got burned, and lets me fall flat on the floor.

“Hey! What the hell?” I snap. Then I notice her standing off to the side. Her eyes smolder with something … something I’ve never seen in any woman—ever.

She breathes heavily through her mouth, and I notice her glazed eyes don’t seem to recognize anything in front of her. She doesn’t even see me. Her breathing stayed pretty even during our fight, and she never looked like this even when I was swinging at her.

I place my hand gently on her shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”

She jerks away and smacks my hand back. “Don’t touch me!”

Her furious eyes slice across my face, but I can already see that she doesn’t even recognize me. Her mind is gone—gone somewhere else.

She acted weird the other day in Travis’s office when he shook her hand. At first, I thought she was only apprehensive about starting a new job, but now it all makes sense. She doesn’t like to be touched. That makes no sense considering she was all over me during our spar just now.

She has so many different layers, and I can’t wait to peel them back one by one until I discover the beautiful bud hidden underneath. She must be even more stunning underneath it all.

She recovers instantly, passes her hand across her eyes, and lets out a shaky breath. “I’m okay. Sorry about that.” Her voice sounds so small suddenly. She looks fragile and scared, unlike the way she looked during our fight.

She clamps her eyes shut, gulps, and then shakes it off. She throws back her shoulders and faces me with all her old fierce determination. “Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, maybe you can see your way to stop doubting my capabilities. What do you think, Ryan?”

Damn, I love the way she says my name in that stern, strict tone of hers.

She’s right; I’ll never underestimate her again. She proved beyond all doubt that she deserves this job.

“You bet,” I reply. “I’ll never doubt your capabilities again.”

“Great. Now we can move on to lifting weights and running laps. That’s what you wanted in the beginning, isn’t it?”

I can’t tell if she’s trying to make a joke or not, but Travis interrupts us before I get a chance to figure it out.

“All right, I’m going to leave you two to it.” He waves at me. “See you later, man.”

My phone lights up the moment he leaves. I walk over to the bench where I left it and frown at the screen when I see a notification from Tammy. What the hell does she want?

I don’t bother to read it. I power off my phone, turn back to Rose, and turn my charm up to eleven when I grin at her. “Where do you want me, mistress?”

She purses her lips, glaring at me, and points toward the heavy weights. “Never call me that again.”

I refuse to give up. I wink at her and head over there.

For the next hour, she tests my fitness and endurance levels with an intensity almost rivaling Connor’s. I meet and surpass each obstacle with hardly any effort, but she still shows no sign of being impressed.

I’m exhausted and cranky by the time we’re done, but that doesn’t stop me from asking, “Want to get a coffee at the café next door?”

Rose settles her duffel bag strap on her shoulder and levels me with that hard stare of hers. “Let me save you the trouble, Ryan. I know your type. You’re attractive and arrogant. You think you can get whatever you want with the snap of your fingers. Your type sickens me. You love the chase—the excitement of getting rejected so you can wear her down until she finally gives in. It’s a game to you, a game you’re very good at.” She takes a threatening step closer. “Let me tell you something. You won’t be winning that game with me, Ryan, so why don’t you head on out and go after one of those brainless dopes you usually chase instead?”

Before I can open my mouth, she turns on her heel and walks out the door, leaving me staring after her, completely speechless.

Should I be offended or ashamed that she has me completely figured out? She’s right; I do like the chase. But what she doesn’t know is that I’m not trying to play a game with her. She’s attractive, but there’s so much more to her that I want to figure out.

She’s different. I’ve only spent a few hours with her, but she intrigues me like no other woman I’ve ever met. Something pulls me to her. I want to explore her, not just physically but in every other way, too.

I’m still standing in the middle of the gym, staring at the closed door when it flies open. Tammy rushes in with Travis’s receptionist, Billie, trying desperately to stop Tammy from breaking in here. Tammy easily rebuffs Billie’s efforts and charges straight for me.

“My best friend!” Tammy roars in my face. “Out of all the women in New York City, it had to be my best friend? What the hell is wrong with you, Ryan? You’re shameless!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Billie pants out. “I tried to stop her—”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You can go back upstairs.”

Only when she leaves do I face off against Tammy. “Are you really in any position to question me about what I do? The last time I saw you, you had your skirt pulled up over your a*s while you rode your bodyguard. Do you really want to talk about who’s shameless and who isn’t? Because only one of us will come out the winner, and it sure as hell won’t be you.”

Tammy gasps, and her brown eyes pop out of their sockets. She’s never seen me like this. She’s only ever seen the fun, flirty side of me. I never stood up to her while we were together, and this is the first time I’ve seen her since we broke up. I didn’t confront her, even when I caught her with her bodyguard. I had my lawyers contact her to let her know our relationship had come to an end and why.

Of course, that didn’t stop her from blowing up my phone. She only stopped after months of message-bombing me when she finally got it through her thick head that I wasn’t going to pick up. She tried waiting for me at my apartment, too, but I made sure the concierge knew to take her off my guest list. Seeing my latest scandal explains why she decided to come after me again.

She blinks at me and then wilts. She reaches out for me, but I pull away. I don’t want her hands on me.

“You’re obviously still upset about what happened between us,” she begins in a much calmer tone. “If you had just let me explain instead of freezing me out—”

“You can explain,” I reply. “Go on and explain. Explain to me why you banged your bodyguard in my car when I was escorting you to an event you invited me to escort you to. I can’t wait to hear this. I’m listening. How do you explain that?”

She opens and closes her mouth like a fish, but no sound comes out.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

Her bottom l*p starts to quiver and tears spring to her eyes. “I still love you, Ryan,” she whimpers.

I throw my head back and laugh at how ridiculous she sounds. “You are unbelievable, Tammy!”

She lunges for me. “It’s true! I never stopped loving you. Can’t we just pretend that none of this ever happened and go back to the way things were before? Please?” She throws her arms around me and buries her face in my chest. “I miss you, Ryan.”

I push her off me and g***n in disgust. “Get out,” I snarl. “Get out now. Don’t ever come near me again.”

She stares up at me with tears streaking down her cheeks. “You don’t mean that, Ryan!”

Travis bursts in at that moment. Billie must have told him what was going on. He freezes in his tracks when he sees me nose to nose with Tammy.

She still doesn’t move. That leaves it up to me.

“Fine,” I snap. “If you won’t leave, I will.” I walk away and wave at Travis.

“Do whatever the hell you want with her. Kick her out, give her some damn tissues while she cries crocodile tears—I don’t care. Just make sure she never comes near me again.”

I storm out of the gym and, just before the door slams shut behind me, I hear Tammy screech out, “You’ll be sorry, Ryan! You’ll regret treating me this way! You’ll see! You’ll be sorry!”