“Classes are all the time. Real fighters train all the time.”

“Should I join them?” she asked, looking nervously at the men now on their twentieth push-up.

He doubted she’d be able to complete one full one. “No. I told you, I’m not training you.” He pointed across the gym, where Dane worked with the new members of the club, guys who wanted to fight, wanted to train, but lacked the natural potential Tyson could assess within minutes of meeting an eager young wannabe. He focused only on the fighters who could win.

“But I paid you to train me.”

Had she not been listening? “You paid to train here. My personal coaching fee would have cost a lot more than two grand.” His jaw tightened thinking about where her money would go. Keeping his waste-of-space brother alive a little longer. There were far better uses for the funds for which he’d been crazy enough to take from this train wreck, but he’d agreed to bail his brother out once. Then it was up to him to stay clean.

“How much?” she was saying.

“What?”

“How much for you to train me?”

There wasn’t enough money in the world that could entice him to take on that disaster. “I’m not for sale. Dane’s waiting for you.” He hit the timer on his stopwatch. “Okay, everybody up!”

The men jumped to their feet, and Parker stayed exactly where she was.

Now she was just pissing him off. “Look, Ms. Hamilton, either go work out with your trainer or leave. No one stands around in my gym.”

She looked about to argue, but he turned away. “Bobby and Walker—in the cage. You’re up first,” he said.

From the corner of his eye a second later, he saw her join Dane, who’d been watching them and now greeted her with a smile. “Hey, Ms. Hamilton, great to see you.” Dane was dubbed the gentle giant of the group. One of the biggest middleweights in the division, but the nicest fighter on the planet. He was a fan favorite despite an inconsistent fighting record, and if anyone was willing to train Parker, it was Dane. “Ready to work?” he asked her and she smiled, the blonde ponytail bobbing up and down eagerly.

Tyson clenched his jaw. She wouldn’t be smiling by the end of the day. But then, he suspected, neither would he.

*   *   *

What an asshole. Tyson Reed had to be one of the worst men she’d come in contact with . . . ever. He was arrogant, cocky, and rude. He was the one who’d called her and told her she could train there and now he was acting as though her being there was the most inconvenient thing in the world. She didn’t get it. And he’d sure accepted and cashed her check awfully quick.

As she ran the laps outside the gym, she struggled to breathe. She was the only one still out there in the hot afternoon sun, as everyone else had already finished and were rehydrating inside. Her legs were turning to jelly and her lungs hurt. Ten laps? Yeah right. She’d be lucky to survive a fourth. As she neared the gym on her fourth pass, Dane walked toward her.

“How’s it going?”

“Ask . . . me . . . when I can breathe . . .” She stopped and bent at the waist to catch her breath.

“Running’s not easy if you haven’t done it in a while,” he said with a smile.

“Try never . . .”

He laughed. “Water?” He extended a bottle toward her.

“Thank you.” She was careful not to choke on it as her body competed for the cold refreshing liquid and lifesaving air at the same time. Dane was so nice. “I’m sorry you got stuck training me . . . but I have to say, you’re a lot nicer than the alternative.”

“I’ll take that compliment even though my competition wasn’t tough. Don’t mind Tyson—he has a disability.”

She frowned. “Really?” Suddenly, she felt a little bad for calling him an asshole in her mind during the entire run.

“Yeah; it’s called major prick syndrome.” Dane winked. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and led her back inside. “He’s not that bad. He just needs time to warm up to people.”

The man they were talking about turned to look at them as they entered and the expression on his face was a mix of disdain and annoyance.

“How much time?” she mumbled. “Cause I’m not sure ten years would be enough.”

“Well, he’s not training you. I am and I actually think this is really cool.”

Such a great, helpful guy . . . then why couldn’t she stop her gaze from drifting to the not-so-nice one across the gym? “What’s next?”

Dane smiled. “Can you still feel your legs?”

“Barely.”

“That’s a yes then. Let’s hit the circuit.”

Circuit. Just the name sounded painful. She suspected the workout would be torture.

She was right. Leaving the gym, she could no longer feel her legs, and the next morning she wished she couldn’t. “Ow . . . ow . . . ow . . .” Each stair was more impossible than the last. Every muscle in her body screamed when she moved. She couldn’t lift her arms, she couldn’t bend her legs, and breathing too deeply caused her to wince. As a kid she’d broken a rib falling from a set of monkey bars at a playground as a kid. This immobilizing pain was similar.

What the hell had happened to her body the day before?

She was in good shape. Or so she’d thought. She really shouldn’t be struggling to move like this.

Going into her kitchen, she poured a cup of coffee, the weight of the pot making her forearms ache. She hadn’t even known there were muscles in that part of her arm . . . or that she’d been working them. She opened her medicine drawer and struggled to open the bottle of painkillers. Finally succeeding, she took two with a mouthful of hot coffee, then shuffling her feet forward slowly, she went outside. On the deck, she swore under her breath as she lowered herself into a chair and let her legs fall out in front of her.

She may never move again.

A quick glance at her phone revealed it was after seven already. The gym opened at nine and it just might take her two hours to get there . . . but despite the fact that she’d never been in so much pain in her life, she would be there as soon as the doors opened. Show Tyson Reed she was serious and she wasn’t giving up. No matter how tempting it was. Massaging her aching thighs with one hand, she picked up the script she’d left on the table the night before. She flipped to page one and started reading. She hadn’t put herself through this torture for nothing. She was getting this role.

*   *   *

“You’re doing great. That’s it—swing and duck . . . just like that,” Dane was saying outside the office door.

Tyson watched as Parker did as she was instructed. Not bad, he reluctantly admitted, but not good enough. Not if she hoped to get this part she hadn’t shut up about for the last five days, making him want to implement a no-talking-rule in the gym. As he studied her, instantly he saw flaws in her stance, a lack of tightness in her muscles and damn if the woman looked like she’d actually lost weight in the last few days, instead of putting on any kind of bulk to turn her Victoria’s Secret model shape into a fighter’s frame.

He wondered if Dane had given her a meal plan . . .

He shook his head. He didn’t give a fuck.

Getting up, he closed the office door and ran a hand over his head. The truth was, he was surprised to see her back after the first day of training. Watching her hobble out of the gym after Dane had put her through the workout of her life, he’d assumed—prayed, really—that that would be the last he saw of her. He’d had bigger, stronger athletes quit after their first day in his gym.

Instead, she was back every morning as soon as the gym opened. That morning she’d even been standing outside the gym waiting for him to unlock the doors. “You’re early,” he’d said.

“Didn’t want to catch shit for being late again,” she’d said with that too-gorgeous smile of hers, which he tried to avoid being the recipient of at all costs.

He’d grumbled some unintelligible reply as he’d unlocked the door and moved back to let her enter, forbidding his eyes to check out her ass as she passed.