Dirty Boxing (Blood and Glory Book 1)

1

It only took one look for Jules Darcy to know that the past year had been a complete and total lie. Just one glimpse of Nick through the window and the careful threads of her feigned indifference, each one of them so painstakingly stitched into place, unraveled around her. One heart-stopping moment and she was forced to acknowledge that maybe she hadn't moved on at all. 

Jesus. She knew she hadn't gotten over him. A cross-country move to Las Vegas, a sudden career change, all of the little things she'd done to convince herself she was strong enough to forget, and she was right back where she'd started a year ago. Trying to make herself believe he didn't matter. Trying to make herself believe that those few weeks with him hadn't meant anything. Trying to pretend he hadn't completely undone her, scattering her heart like shards of broken glass. 

"Julian?" Her dad's voice cut through the haze of her shock. Blinking out of it, she forced herself to focus on her father, who was looking down at her with a furrowed brow. The grooves deepened by years of sun exposure that had left him with a permanent tan. "You okay?" 

Even his assistant, Deb, had stopped scribbling last-minute notes on her legal pad and was staring at her over the rim of her glasses. The fluorescent lights in the hallway seemed strangely warm, and Jules fought the urge to pull the suddenly too-clingy fabric of her silk blouse away from her heated skin. Male laughter drifted through the gym's door. Not Nick's laughter, though. God, she remembered his laugh. It was low and deep and warm, filling all the hollows within her. 

Dammit, no, she wouldn't think about him now, and she gave herself a mental shake. It had only been a quick glimpse through a smudged window. There was no way he was in that room. Just to be sure, her gaze darted back to the glass, but her dad had shifted in the hallway and his wide shoulders now blocked her view. But she didn't need another look to know that seeing Nick had been a figment of her imagination. He was a fighter with a rival league, and he wasn't here. Fate wouldn't be that sadistic. One single glimpse of a stranger who reminded her of Nick was not going to send her spiraling backward into the past. She wasn't that person. She was stronger than that, and guys didn't make her swoon—especially on her first day at work.

 Squaring her shoulders, she gave a competent nod, already feeling better. "Yes. Of course. Just going over what I plan to say." 

"Don't worry about it." Her dad shrugged, muscles flexing under his white button-down. "It's your first day, and this is only a fight-week briefing. Standard operating procedure. I'll introduce you, give a pep talk to the guys, and then go over the new protocols for Saturday." 

"But I should say at least something about the campaign. That is why you hired me." As the director of marketing, a position her dad, the president of the World Fighting Championship, had asked her to take on, she was in charge of the new campaign he was so excited about. The one that would take the WFC from B-list entertainment to a world-class and respected sports organization. The campaign that was already at least a month behind schedule, thanks to her predecessor's incompetence. She was doing her father a huge favor taking this on, but it seemed petulant to have to remind him of that yet again. "I haven't met most of the fighters and trainers I'll be working with—" 

"Now's not the time." He waved away her concern. "Deb's scheduled meetings with the guys who need to be brought up to speed." 

"Meetings?" She glanced at Deb, the attractive middle-aged woman who had been her father's assistant for years. 

The woman adjusted her glasses as she looked down, scanning the legal pad in the ever-present leather-bound planner in her arms. Peering up again at Jules, she had the grace to appear a little sheepish as her pale cheeks turned a soft pink. "The first one's after this. Your father didn't tell you?"