“I know.” Connor had stood and moved toward him. “You were always the good one. I won’t bring you down with me. I’ll be out of here in ten minutes.”

Connor had disappeared into the bathroom, where his freshly washed clothes waited for him. Then his cell on the counter had beeped with a text message.

When Tyson reached for it and saw the words scrolling across the top, his heart stopped. It wasn’t the threat from his brother’s drug dealer that made him pause, but the screensaver pic of him, his brother, and their mother taken when they were in junior high, before life got complicated and messed up, before they’d taken different paths, before they’d lost her. That was the thing that made him pause.

He set the phone down and placed his palms against the counter as Connor came out of the bathroom. “How much do you owe?” Tyson asked, not looking at him.

“Really Tys, it’s not . . .”

“How much?”

“Five thousand.”

He closed his eyes. He had nowhere near that amount. All of the money from his fights went right back into the gym—into his fighters, into promotion, into his own training. “How much will they settle for?”

His brother nervously licked his lips. His knees shook as he sat on the couch.

He was coming down—the drugs no longer having much effect after years of abusing them—and soon he would need his next fix. If he meant what he said about getting clean, he was in for a rough road, starting any minute.

“Two, maybe three, but it won’t hold them for long.”

Five thousand dollars all gone into his brother’s veins. “I’ll have it in a few hours . . . In the meantime, stay in the apartment. Do not go out, do not open the door to anyone, and do not come near the gym.”

Connor had nodded eagerly. “Yes, okay . . . yes. I promise, I’ll figure this out. I’ll pay you back. I mean it this time, Tyson. I want to get clean, fix the mistakes . . .”

He held out a hand, not interested in hearing false promises, false apologies, or any sort of claim about fixing the past. There was no fixing the past. “Just stay put and away from me. That’s all I’m asking you to do.”

“Okay. I will. You won’t even know I’m here.”

The words echoed in his mind. Hadn’t he heard those words from a different kind of trouble just the day before?

He sat staring at the office phone. And now he was about to invite that trouble right back into his life as well.

*   *   *

An hour later, after several other attempts at the exercises listed in the issue of Women’s Health magazine she subscribed to but never read, Parker sat on her pool deck, her feet in the cool water. The early October sun was high in the sky, but the air had a definite trace of fall coolness and she knew that within a month it would be time to close up the pool for the winter months. She hoped she’d be back in LA soon. Being away from the glamour and glitz of the bright lights, the shopping trips on Rodeo Drive, and being apart from the moviemaking process was torture. But it was even harder to be in LA when she wasn’t filming. Watching the excitement from the sidelines was worse.

She picked up her cell phone and stared at it, willing it to ring. She hated the idea of having to reconsider training at Cage Masters. She shivered, remembering the way the sleazy-looking owner of the run-down, dirty gym had looked at her. Desperate or not, she couldn’t go back there.

With a sigh, she dialed Punisher Athletics. It couldn’t hurt to see if Tyson had changed his mind. Persistence had always been her friend in the past.

Three rings, then an out of breath, “Hello. Punisher Athletics.”

“Hi. Can I speak to Tyson Reed please?” She’d offered him two thousand for the week but at this point she was ready to pay him anything he wanted for his help.

“Looks like he just picked up another call, would you like to hang on a sec?” the guy asked.

“Yeah, I’ll wait . . . thanks.”

As he placed her on hold and heavy metal music blared in her ear, her phone beeped with an incoming call. Pulling the phone away from her face, she saw the Punisher Athletics number lighting up her screen. Huh? Had she somehow gotten disconnected? The hold music still played.

Hitting “Accept” on the incoming call, she said, “Hello?”

The sound of throat clearing made her move the phone away slightly. Gross. “Hello,” she said again when there was silence on the other end.

“Hi . . . uh . . . Ms. Parker?”

“Ms. Hamilton. Parker is my first name. Who is this?”

“Tyson Reed.”

“I was just . . .”

He interrupted. “You still looking for a place to train?” he asked grumpily, his voice gruff.

He’d been calling her the same time she’d been calling him. She smiled. She wouldn’t have to beg. “Um . . . well, I was considering a different gym . . .” she lied.

“Oh, okay, never mind.”

“No! Wait, Tyson . . . yes, I still need a place.”

“Shit,” he mumbled.

Nice.

“Fine. You can train here.”

“You’ll train me?”

“That’s not what I said. For two thousand for the week, you can train here under the guidance of one of my coaches. I won’t be training you. Let’s be very clear about that.”

She frowned. “But . . .”

“Forget it,” he said quickly.

“Wait!” Geez, the guy was annoying as fuck. “Okay, one of your coaches is fine.” She really had little choice.

“Also, I’m not guaranteeing results. As I told you, your body is . . .”

She gritted her teeth. “Yes, yes, I remember. I just need to learn some basic moves. That’s all.” Anything she could learn to at least appear as though she could be ready for the role in three months would be beneficial.

“Okay. Well, you can start today if you want,” he grumbled.

“And if I get the part next week, I can continue training there?” She wanted to be clear that this wasn’t a one-week-only offer.

He hesitated. “Fine. But if I were you, I really wouldn’t hold my breath about getting the part.”

So now he was an expert on Hollywood. “I recall you saying a similar thing about me training at your gym.”

The line went dead.

Chapter 3

Shit. She came back.

Tyson watched as Parker entered the gym and, unfortunately, so did every other man in the place. Dressed in a pair of tight, pale pink leggings that reached just below her knee and a black spaghetti strap tank top that dipped low across her chest and provided little coverage of the ample breasts beneath, her blonde hair curled and tied back in a high ponytail, she looked ready for a photo-shoot for a fitness magazine, not for a grueling, intense fighter’s workout. The professional fighter and trainer in him scoffed at her; the hot-blooded man in him was semi-hard already. What the hell had he agreed to? “Did I say you could stop warming up?” he yelled to the group of fighters doing circuit training in front of him. “Push-ups, then up for squat jacks. Go!” He checked his watch as she stopped beside him.

“I’m here.”

No shit. In less than three seconds she’d already disrupted things. He ignored her. “Full push-ups, nose to the floor¸” he told the guys who were all craning their necks to stare at Parker.

“Tyson,” she said and he cringed. He didn’t like the sound of her voice saying his name. He didn’t like that he was in a position where he needed her money. Correction—his brother needed her money. And he didn’t like that his body was reacting as though it had never seen a beautiful woman before. He finally turned to her. “It’s ‘Coach,’ and you’re late.”

“Well, you just called me an hour ago and you didn’t exactly tell me when classes started . . .”