I nodded, trying to get my tongue unstuck from the roof of my mouth. I walked slowly over to the bed and sat down next to him. Dylan pulled me into his arms, resting his cheek against my hair. “I’m okay,” he murmured again, more quietly this time. His hand kept stroking my back.
“I was worried,” I admitted. “I didn’t expect to feel like this.”
Dylan stiffened, and for a second, I thought I had hurt him. But when I looked at him, he was giving me a serious look. “There’s something we need to talk about,” he said.
I felt my stomach drop for the second time that night, sure that whatever he was about to say wouldn’t be anything good.
ELEVEN
DYLAN
The evening had been a rollercoaster of emotions. There was the lead-up to the fight, then I’d seen Lucy watching me from the stands. She had to be there for me, right? Her brother wasn’t fighting tonight and I doubted that she would have been wearing anything like that where her brother could see her.
She looked unbelievably sexy in a low-cut red dress with a hint of black lace peeking out, cupping the tops of her milky breasts. My god, I couldn’t wait to see the rest of what was underneath that stupid dress. There was no question about it: I was taking her home tonight.
Even if it could get me into a world of shit.
The thought gave me pause. I remembered what James had said about Bobby and his supposed connections. There was a reason I hadn’t seen Lucy since.
But now was not the time to think things over. My opponent was on the other side of the ring, sizing me up. I had to focus on the match. Lucy was probably only here because her brother had asked her to distract me.
Not that this particular match was crucial. I probably didn’t even need the win, but I wasn’t going to lay down and lose to a guy like him either.
Or at least, I didn’t intend to.
I grimaced, thinking back to that last hit. I could have seen it coming from a mile away, but I hadn’t moved fast enough. It ticked me off that I hadn’t. Still, I had made it this far into the tournament without even coming close to losing. That was something.
I had been doing pretty good, considering how out of practice I had been coming into this tournament. And considering that this was the first round where I’d really noticed the lingering effects of my injury? Yeah, that was pretty good.
I couldn’t help but wonder how things might have gone if it hadn’t been for that distraction right before the match began.
Of course, when Lucy flew into the hospital room looking pale with worry, I realized that she couldn’t have had any part in any of this. She never would have gone along with it. She looked absolutely terrified, like she’d find me laid up in bed halfway to death’s door.
I immediately put my arms around her, holding her close and breathing in her sweet scent. “I’m okay,” I promised her. The doubts were still there in my mind, though. Why was she so worried? It didn’t make any sense. That wasn’t the relationship that we had; she shouldn’t have followed me all the way to the hospital just because I had taken a bad hit, and especially not when her brother was a boxer as well. I was sure she had seen worse hits in her life.
No, there was something weird about all of this, something that didn’t fit right. I started thinking again about what James had said about Bobby. Maybe Lucy had got caught up in it and she now felt guilty about distracting me—not that that was the only thing that had gone wrong that evening—and I had taken the hit?
It was the only thing that made any sense to me. Otherwise, there was no way she would feel this upset, right?
“There’s something we need to talk about,” I said, pulling slowly away from her.
Her expression shuttered, and her lips pressed closed. I could practically see her running through all the things that I might say and how she’d respond to them. That made me mad. It was one thing for her to screw with me so that her brother would win the tournament, but how could I have been so blind as to think that she actually cared about me?
I groaned in disgust. “It’s true, isn’t it?” I asked. “You’re just doing all of this to give your brother the advantage.”
Lucy blinked in surprise. Whatever she’d expected me to say, this wasn’t it. I rolled my eyes. She probably thought she was clever, that she had kept her true intentions well hidden. She probably believed I was just some dumb boxer that she and her brother could play with. Well, I was done.
“What are you talking about?” Lucy asked, her eyes widening.
“I’m not stupid,” I said. “You and your brother cooked up a whole plan from the beginning, didn’t you? You cozy up to me and give him a reason to have his guys come after me.”
Lucy started to look angry. “Maybe you hit your head harder than you think,” she said icily. “You think I want you to get in trouble with my brother? I only showed up tonight because I knew that he wouldn’t be there, and I wanted to see you.”
I rolled my eyes, not believing a single word. “Well, I guess the plan’s changed then? What, as soon as you saw that I was genuinely into you, you realized it would be easier to just distract me and get me to throw the tournament rather than having me offed?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Lucy snapped. “Bobby’s protective of me, but
