The Brawler Read online

“Hiding this man’s child is the same as lying. But I can’t persuade you otherwise. You wouldn’t be in this hell if you valued my opinion. Just give me his name.”

  “Jackson Batiste.”

  Disappointment and a snap of resentment flooded Joan’s expression. “A man who’s part of our family—who’s like a brother to you?”

  “It’s not dirty. It’s not wrong.”

  Resentment made way for cold satisfaction as Joan turned Aly to face the man filling the doorway. “Well, Jackson Batiste, it seems you and my daughter have something to discuss.”

  * * *

  Aly was pregnant.

  Jackson’s soul all but fragmented when he heard her name him—him!—as the father of her baby.

  He’d been in this place before, with his ex-fiancée, India. India had rushed to him with the news and started planning a baby shower right away.

  Aly had hidden her pregnancy until she found herself manipulated into revealing the secret with her back turned to him.

  India had lied. Trusting her had been a pitfall.

  He walked ahead of Aly to the patient suite’s waiting area. “Waverly, Veronica, I need this room.”

  Veronica glanced up from a tablet. “Um, no.”

  “Please get the fuck out. Aly’s pregnant.” He turned to look her square in the face as he stripped her secret bare. “It’s mine.”

  “What?” Waverly and Veronica shrieked in unison.

  Aly stared at him through those misty eyes that had nearly unraveled him before. This time, the tears spilled over, and he felt like the exact same bastard he’d been four years ago when he’d yelled and ordered her out of his uncle’s gym.

  “I asked if you and Jackson were hooking up,” Waverly persisted. “You said no.”

  “We weren’t then.” Aly pointed at the door. “Besides, don’t ask me to spill my secrets when you’re not willing to spill yours.”

  “We were careful,” he said when her sisters left the room.

  “We weren’t. Not at The Grey Crusade. Or countless times after that. We like it bare, when it’s just your flesh inside mine.”

  Damn it. He hadn’t protected her. They wanted each other, had taken what they wanted, and never apologized.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “After the fight.”

  “After I’d left Las Vegas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long after, Aly?”

  Her jaw tightened. “I wasn’t going to trap you the way India and Ciera tried to.”

  “No, you were going to keep my kid a secret. You say you trust me and feel so safe with me. Then why hide your pregnancy?”

  “I can’t be okay with the violence. I’m not scared of you. I’m scared for you. No one is invincible.”

  “I’m going to beat Brazda.”

  “After Brazda, there’ll be another opponent, then another. And you’re so addicted to violence and winning that you’ll keep setting these matches until someone stops you the only way you can be stopped. He’ll destroy you. And I’m terrified that fighting means more to you than anything else. A baby deserves better than that. You should want me to have more than that.”

  “I do! I love you, damn it, Aly. I keep telling myself that you deserve a better man…more than I can give you. The fucking fairy tale you talked about.”

  “The fairy tale is exactly that. It’s not real. If you want me, you should be fighting to show me that life with you surpasses a stupid fantasy. It’s not going to be a pleasant husband, then baby, then dog. It’s all out of order and it’s fucking messy and I’m glad.” Aly stopped batting at her tears. “This baby doesn’t have to be a problem for you. He or she can be mine alone—”

  “Hell, no. It’s mine—”

  “Hey,” she snapped. “You won’t stand here and start paring down my choices.”

  “And you won’t steal mine.” Jackson stopped, rolled his shoulders. “Why can’t we be an option? You. Me. Together.”

  “You can’t walk away from the fight.”

  “Is that what you want? Me to throw the fight? Throw my integrity? Give Brazda my championship?” He was silent, but silence didn’t pierce the tension. “Fuck, what does it mean that I’d actually consider it…for you?”

  “Don’t consider it.”

  Jackson drew her close, held her shoulders, felt her grip his elbows. And their mouths met, bypassing any gentleness or hesitation. Both knew what they sought; both feared they wouldn’t find it even in a kiss.

  “God, Aly. I love you. I fucking need you.”

  “Love shouldn’t tear us up. We should want this.” She sighed. “Step back from this right now, okay?”

  His hands slipped from her shoulders. Now he knew what defeat was.

  At the door, he turned to her when she whispered his name.

  “You didn’t ask me to prove it’s your baby.”

  “Because I fucking trust you, Aly. That’s what this love is.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Aly didn’t think she’d be the first visitor her father would request once discharged to recuperate in the comfort of his home and under the care of a cardiac nurse, a dietician, and a fleet of household staff.

  Guilt said her presence would trigger another collapse—one that nitroglycerin and calcium channel blockers couldn’t defeat—so she’d refused to hightail to her parents’ home at the first summons.

  The second summons had arrived via a crisp, emotionless text message from Joan, advising her to fold up her office for the remainder of the afternoon and pay J.T. the respect she owed him.

  When she arrived at the mansion weighed down with fragrant flowers, she found a familiar Cadillac SUV parked at the estate and swore.

  Of course she wasn’t the first visitor J.T. wanted. Of course her parents had only been lying low during his hospital stay, until they could unleash their wrath in more comfortable surroundings.

  A housekeeper took the flowers while another escorted her to the sunny breakfast room where Joan sat regal in a wingback chair, sipping tea from a china cup. Clothed in a plain gray dress, with her hair gathered in a severe twist at the nape, she appeared subdued.

  Pointing her cup at a pitcher of iced milk, Joan said, “Care for a drink?”

  “Guess so.” When Joan sent the housekeeper to fetch a glass, Aly asked, “Where’s Jackson? I saw his truck.”

  “Discussing BioCures with J.T. and one of the lawyers. Business doesn’t pause for life’s uh-ohs.”

  “My baby’s not an ‘uh-oh,’ if that’s what you’re indirectly saying.”

  Joan shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

  “No, not really, when it comes to you, Mom. You knew Jackson was standing behind me in Dad’s hospital room, and you tricked me into admitting he’s the father of my baby. Why?”

  Joan meandered to the doorway and waited for the housekeeper to return with the glass. Filling it halfway with milk, she gave it to Aly. “Are you keeping up with gynecologist appointments? Taking vitamins?”

  “I am. And I asked you a question. Why, Mom?”

  “I didn’t tell him. You did.”

  “You set me up.”

  “It was a split-second decision, and it was for Jackson’s sake. I couldn’t let you deprive him of being involved in his baby’s life.” Joan shook her head, somber. “I did the man a favor and he has the goddamn nerve to insult me.”

  “Insult?”

  “Do the words manipulative and disloyal sound nice to you?”

  Accurate, yes. Nice, no. “Seems he’d be glad you’re on his side and not mine.”

  “Well, that’s exactly what he doesn’t appreciate. He said I manipulated you, that I’m disloyal to you.” Her brows quirked over her large, all-cried-out-puffy eyes. “At the hospital you couldn’t say whether or not he loves you, but after today there’s no question in my mind.”

  He loved her, even if he hadn’t intended to shout
it at the hospital or blurt it to Joan.

  “The NFC championship game is tomorrow. J.T. won’t be there—doctor’s orders. I need my unit to be solid. If your drama could be contained until after play-offs, that’d be great.” Joan suddenly grabbed a linen napkin, jammed it against her eyes. Swearing, she whispered, “It’s not enough that Luca Tarantino’s targeting J.T. and me. Or that BioCures Group is trying to put your father in a chokehold. Our daughters, one by one, are working against us.”

  “That’s not true. We’re creating our own lives.”

  “I don’t want this. I—I want my life. Before, it’s like I had it all right here in my palm—” Joan made a fist, stared at it “—and I could hold my career and my family and my youth right here. But it’s all being pried out of my hand now. My husband has a heart condition, my football team is under investigation, and my pretty little girl, the best uh-oh that ever happened to me, is responsible for two children. It’s all going away and I just want it back.”

  “No, Mom. You can’t have it back. You have to face yourself now—the person you are without Dad and the team and your daughters to hide behind.” Aly watched fresh tears flood her mother’s eyes. “We’re all still here. We’re in your life, but we aren’t your life. My life includes this baby and it includes Maddie. Accept that.”

  Joan’s mouth fell open. “I thought it was Veronica, but…it’s you. I see myself in you, Aly.”

  “I’m not like you. I’d never manipulate my children.”

  “No.” Wistfully, Joan smiled and took the untouched glass of milk, reclaiming her chair and returning to her solitude. “You’ll be a different kind of mother. That’s what makes you, you, and not me.”

  Aly went upstairs to J.T.’s office as Jackson and one of her father’s corporate attorneys were leaving. Jackson stopped, waited until the other man had walked away, then said to her, “I’m not one of Joan’s favorite people right now. Or J.T.’s, for that matter. But business—”

  “Is business. I know. You’re supposed to pick and choose your battles, not mine.” Aly brushed a fingertip over the cuff of his shirt. “Thanks, though.”

  “I love you. Your battles are mine.”

  “Stop saying that. I swear, it hurts to know you love me and we can’t do anything about it.” Touching him, letting him wrap her in his strength, would only intensify the hurt. Still, she hugged him, pressing as close as she could. “We can’t talk this out today.”

  “But we need to, before the fight.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do something for me, Aly. Stay away from the gym for a while. Something’s not right with my uncle, and I need to figure out what.”

  “It sounds like you already know what and you don’t like it.”

  “A guess. Swear I hope I’m wrong.”

  Dropping her arms, she let the man she loved go, and entered the office. “Does your cardiac nurse know you’re jumping back into work before you’ve even cut off your patient bracelet, Dad?”

  J.T. looked remarkably less exhausted than his wife. He grabbed a pair of scissors from a desk drawer and pulled up his sleeve to snip the bracelet. “Feeling all right, Aly?”

  “Mom told you I’m pregnant?”

  “So did your sisters, who begged me not to cut you out of the family.” With a swish, the blades severed the bracelet. “So did Jackson, who asked me not to cut you from the publicity department.”

  “I don’t want the publicity department. I want the front office. Someday, I’ll prove I belong there.”

  “Then you’ll shake it off.”

  “Uh…I’m pregnant.”

  “Shake it off. Mentally. Don’t let it get to your head. It’s what I told Jackson.” J.T. set down the scissors, considering. “Want a piece of the corporate world? What about my shares of BC Group?”

  “Get some rest, Dad. I’ll come back when you’re not sedated out of your fucking mind.”

  “Papers are drawn, for when you want in.” He leaned back in his chair, shut his eyes. “Coronary artery spasm. It’s a variable I didn’t consider. BC Group’s pushing for a change, and I need to let the reins go on something. Not my team. That’s mine. But I’m rich and risky enough to see what you’ll do with shares of BioCures. Together, you and Jackson would be majority shareholders.”

  “We’re not going to be together. Not in business or anything else.”

  “What you and he did… There’s no way in hell Joan or I can stand by that. But you’re going to raise that child without him?”

  “It’s looking that way. I still want the front office.”

  “Crawl before you walk, Aly. It’s a lesson you’ll teach your kid. I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to fire you.”

  “You’re offering me shares of BioCures,” Aly said, trying to comprehend the reasoning behind the maneuvers, “but you’re still considering axing me from the Villains?”

  “Just making assessments. It’s what’s best for business.”

  * * *

  The Las Vegas Villains had dedicated the NFC championship game to J.T. Greer. Maddie, who had never attended a professional sporting event—and never imagined showing up to one in a trendy outfit from the spring collection of a designer whose name was routinely dropped on the red carpet—found herself in a reality she was almost too afraid to believe was hers.

  At least, for a little while it was. Discovering a pregnancy test in Aly’s house had bluntly put things into perspective. Aly Greer had good intentions and welcomed her into a life that could’ve been ripped from a page in Maddie’s dream life binder, but Maddie would never be part of the Greer family.

  They were together as a caretaker and foster kid, as friends, on borrowed time. Aly would eventually be on all the fashion blogs sporting a baby bump—and making arrangements to extricate Maddie from her life.

  It had happened before, so Maddie knew the drill. She was a temp, a filler.

  But it was difficult to remember this, to not get attached to Aly and her family, to resist hugging herself in pure happiness because Aly Greer and Jackson Batiste had saved her.

  Whenever she wanted to be delusional, she pretended that they were in love and would ask her to be a part of their family—not caring that her parents had been meth addicts, she was short and small for her age, and she’d been raped by a monster. The cold truth was Jackson would be leaving after his boxing match, Aly had Complicated Grown-up Stuff that included a pregnancy she was keeping hush-hush, and Maddie was just a system kid who wasn’t meant to belong in anyone’s family.

  At Villains Stadium, in the fancytastic owners’ box that offered gourmet appetizers and was bustling with people who exuded importance, she was enticed to fall into the delusion again. Aly had brought her to the press box, introduced Maddie as her foster daughter, and had stayed with her during the pregame fanfare.

  During halftime, Aly’s mother had drawn Aly to a computer where J.T. Greer had been called on a videoconference and when she’d returned to her seat, she’d whispered, “Joan and J.T. asked for my opinion, and she’s sending my decision down to the field. Unbelievable.”

  “They’ve never asked for your opinion before?”

  “No, not regarding strategy. Not as employers seeking business input from an employee. They understood me, Maddie. It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time. Understanding.”

  The game had ended on a clean field goal, and the owners’ box had exploded in roars, laughter, champagne, and embraces. Joan Greer had grabbed Aly in a hug and Aly had pulled Maddie into it, as well. And then it was the three of them joyful in the chaos, until photographers broke them up.

  “Chickadee, do you think you could get used to this craziness?”

  Maddie had looked up at Aly, all the racket rendering her brain a little slow to catch up. “You mean I can come back here?”

  “Well, the Villains’ next stop is the Super Bowl, but after that, absolutely. Because the owners’ box is always o
pen to family.”

  Family… The idea that Maddie could actually be more than a system kid—but part of a family—left her so giddy that hours later, when Aly finally took her away from the celebration sweeping through Las Vegas, she was still feeling floaty and light and secure.

  And wistful, because she thought about Renata now more than she had since a monster had hurt her. She loved Renata for giving her a home and an education in cooking. She hated that cancer had weakened her, and that her creep of a son had taken advantage. But Renata was not her family, maybe because she’d never referred to Maddie as family in all their years together.

  Voices lured her downstairs after midnight. With Rabbit twitching and sniffing, bundled in her arms, Maddie moved quietly in her bare feet. Perhaps it was because every room in Aly’s fairy tale mansion had a locking door, or because she realized Maddie needed space and privacy, but for several nights Maddie had felt safe enough to go to bed without her shoes on…and dream.

  Tiptoeing toward a broad column that divided the open main floor space into two distinct rooms, Maddie peeked around it and saw Aly leading Jackson Batiste to the living room.

  “Nothing’s changed,” Aly said. “You’re not going to throw the fight. You’re going to win that fight and go to Miami without me.”

  “Why can’t we bend or sacrifice?” Jackson rested a hand on Aly’s stomach. “Why can’t we take that kind of risk?”

  “Because that kind of risk isn’t best for this baby. Either I’ll resent you each time you take on a fight or you’ll resent me for convincing you to give it up. Can’t do that to myself or you or my kids.”

  Maddie gasped, but it made no sound. Kids. She wanted to be thrilled, but were Jackson and Aly about to walk away from what made them happy?

  “Slow dance with me, Aly. That’s something I can give you tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  Then both were looking at a phone and as he scrolled, she said, “Not that one. Keep going.” When they seemed to be in agreement, he tapped the phone and music lifted into the air.

  Soundlessly kissing Rabbit’s forehead, Maddie watched the boxer and the math geek heiress dance in front of the winter tree. Not speaking, not laughing, they swayed together.