Ice Cold (An MMA Stepbrother Romance) (7 page)

“You’re going soft,” Maury growled at me. “Too much drinking and too much pussy.”

When Maury got crude, I wanted to smack him upside the head, which was part of the reason he did and said what he did. I started to hit the pads on his hands harder. “I’m in the best shape of my life,” I said as the sweat rolled down my face.

“Bullshit. You’re going to get your ass beat by Jenkins in two weeks.” Marv “The Hammer” Jenkins was my next opponent on the books. His specialty was a single-punch knockout. The fighters who had gone down as a result said it felt like taking a hammer to their head, hence Marv’s nickname.

“No, I won’t,” I snarled back at him. Maury was the best coach in the business, and I paid a pretty penny for his services, although sometimes I wondered if it was a sustainable relationship. I was as pissed off most of the time as doing anything productive with him.

“You gotta cut back on all the distractions, kid,” Maury said. “Get your head in the game.”

“I beat Dread, didn’t I?”

“That kid has no business being in the ring with anyone. That’s like bragging that you beat up your little sister,” Maury said with a sneer.

I slammed the boxing pads with all my strength, and when Maury began to backpedal, I knew I had him. I brought one more punch down hard right onto his left palm and heard the ‘oomph’ blow out of Maury’s mouth.

“You were saying about this supposed little sister?” I said with a smirk. That’s when I heard a murmur outside the ring from the guys who had stopped their training to watch me spar with Maury. I thought that it was about my moves when I saw the woman standing there staring at me with her mouth open.

I took in several details at once. The skirt that hugged every inch of her trim hips and showcased her long legs. The swell of her pert breasts underneath what looked like a silk blouse. A leather briefcase slung on her arm. Sun-kissed, blonde waves streamed around her shoulders and made me want to bury my nose in them. Then I saw the beautiful face that I had been dreaming about for the last week.

Alexa was standing in my gym. Her eyes practically bugged out of her head, so it was clear she was as surprised to see me as I was to see her. And judging by her prim and proper appearance, in some random twist of fate, she was the bookkeeper that my dad had promised me would arrive that morning.

I didn’t want anyone nosing around in my books. I had had the game plan all worked out. I’d make life so miserable for my dad’s latest attempt to control my life that she’d be packing in less than a week. I mentally shook myself. It couldn’t matter that I knew her. She represented all the things that I hated about my relationship with my dad. I had to make him see I didn’t need him or his help otherwise I’d never get him to leave me alone. The plan had to remain the same. It didn’t matter that I already felt my cock starting to swell as my eyes danced over her legs thinking about having them wrapped around my waist again.

I made my way over to the ropes. “I think you might be lost, Princess.” I heard the low whistles from a few of the guys standing there watching. I glared in their direction and gave the head cock for them to get back to their workouts.

For a second, I thought she was going to turn and run. Then I saw her chest hitch, and she ran a hand down the side of her skirt. That did nothing but draw my attention to her legs again. Damn, the girl should have been a dancer.

“Hello, Shayne,” she said moving a foot closer to the ring.

It was time for my master plan to begin. I settled my gloves on the ropes and squinted at her. “Do we know each other?”

Her eyes widened, and then I saw the clench of her jaw as she registered my words. I knew it was cold, pretending I didn’t remember her. She took another step closer to the ring. “I’m Alexa. Alexa Carroll from Nueman & York. But we also met…after your last fight.” Her chin jutted up in the air. I had to give her credit.

I pretended to think about it. “Alexa. Alexa.” Then I let a slow smile crawl across my face. “Ahh, Alexa.” I let her name slide off my tongue in a soft purr, and I was rewarded by a flush across her cheeks. I let my eyes deliberately slide down her body again taking my time. “You here for a second round, Alexa? You could’ve just called.”

Her spine straightened. “I’m not here for anything other than managing your books,” she said stiffly. She glanced around and unconsciously tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. I was impressed that she had managed to keep a straight face so far, although I was a bit miffed that she didn’t appear to be the slightest interested in me other than for exactly what she said.

“Pity. Hang on a sec.” I motioned for her to wait, then spun to look at Maury. He crossed his arms and gave me a look that told me he knew exactly what I was thinking. “I’m going to take a break, coach. Gotta show my new bookkeeper the ropes.”

“Is that what the kids call it these days,” he muttered under his breath.

I sat down on the middle rope and slid my body out of the inner ring and onto the outer mat. Then I dropped down to the floor in front of Alexa.

“The stairs were right over there,” she said cocking her head in the direction of the other side of the ring. She appeared to be regaining some of her composure.

“Faster this way,” I said. “I told my father I didn’t need a bookkeeper.” I didn’t see any need to beat around the bush on the topic. I didn’t care how good she looked. I didn’t need a babysitter.

“I’m not sure about the communication between you and Cal, but I can assure you the assignment is temporary. Just for the next four months,” Alexa said. Her cheeks were turning red. It was as if her mind had started working a million miles a minute.

“So,
Cal
, is it? I wouldn’t expect you to be on such familiar terms with my father…unless…” It was well-known that my father had a thing for leggy blondes and usually the younger, the better. The idea that he might have touched Alexa made my blood boil, though.

Her face whitened. “That insinuation is as insulting as it is disgusting. Especially since our parents are getting married. I’m leaving.”

My mouth fell open as she spun on her notably expensive heel after she dropped her little bomb. Dad was getting married to her mother? That would make her my…stepsister? I started to laugh, and the noise must have been what stopped her in her tracks.

I should have let her storm out. That would have shown that my plan worked perfectly, but I had to admit that seeing her ass again dressed up in the prim and proper skirt made my dick twitch. I had screwed my future stepsister. I couldn’t stop laughing at the irony, but suddenly, I didn’t want her to leave.

“Hey, hey,” I said moving after her. I swung around in front of her because I couldn’t grab her arm to stop her with the bulky boxing gloves on my hands. “Don’t rush out like that. I was just having a little fun.”

“At my expense, obviously,” Alex said. Her eyes flashed with anger. I remembered when they were soft and luminous even in the harsh overhead lights of the locker room. Her face was flushed, just like it was right before she came. I wanted to see that again.

“Look, Calvin didn’t tell me anything about his new bride,” I said. “So in all fairness, I didn’t know about you.”

“How easily you seem to forget anyways,” she replied. I wasn’t sure, but I thought that I detected the slightest bit of hurt under the brittle anger. I felt bad about my earlier comment, but even though I did remember her, what did she expect? It was a one-night thing. She had been the one who seemed intent on making sure it stayed that way. Why was I the one feeling guilty?

“How about we compromise?” I said. The gears in my mind were spinning. “If I let you look over my books, maybe you can tell my dad that I don’t any help.”

“It sounds like you do, though,” she countered.

I shrugged it off. “My dad overreacts about a lot of things-. My finances are fine. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a second opinion. That way you can do what he sent you here to do, and I can get my dad out of my hair. Deal?”

I could see her processing my words. “If I find anything that needs to be addressed, I stay. And you don’t get in my way. You cooperate,” she said.

“Are you sure you aren’t a lawyer?” I winked at her. I liked a girl that drove a hard bargain.

She smiled. She was drop-dead breathtaking when she smiled. “I prefer numbers over people.”

I saw Maury shaking his head at me from the ring. It was clear that he was less than pleased at the interruption, and I knew that I needed to get my head back in it. “I’ll get you my bank account info and my most recent receipts, okay? We can talk more later. Right now, if I don’t get back in the ring, that old man is going to kick my ass from here to next Tuesday.”

Alexa turned and caught the tail end of Maury’s glare before he turned into a bland expression and offered her a half wave. She looked back at me. “Scary.”

“Don’t I know it,” I said with a heavy, fake sigh.

“Is there somewhere I can work? I need to download some files from the office network to get started,” she asked.

I pointed toward the back of the gym. “There’s a few empty offices back there. Take your pick. Wifi network password is ‘icerocks’, so it’s easy to remember.”

She shook her head. “Thanks.” She started to turn when I caught her arm. It was a clumsy gesture with my gloves on, and I caught a whiff of her perfume. It was something musky and sweet, and it made me want to dig my nose into her curls and breathe it in deep.

“So you’re going to be my new stepsister. And last week, we just…”

She put up her hand to stop me. “Don’t remind me,” she said, closing her eyes. “That was a mistake, and believe me, it that won’t happen again. This is strictly professional.” She headed toward the office space, her heels making a distinct clacking noise on the concrete that drew eyes all over the gym to her like a magnet

A mistake? Since when was fucking Ice Malone a mistake?

I leaned back in my chair and rubbed the sides of my temples. I had been squinting at my laptop screen for hours poring over spreadsheets and trying to match the random stacks of receipts in front of me into coherent categories.

Shayne was clearly deluded. He was hemorrhaging money just like Cal said, and that was just my assessment of the receipts in front of me. After my excruciatingly embarrassing introduction to my new client and stepbrother, I had tried to stay out of the way as much as possible. It was difficult at first trying to work with the sounds of the gym outside, but eventually, I got used to it. Stacey joked that she was going to stop in to take her to lunch just so she could ogle all the muscled meat; including Shayne.

Speaking of Shayne, I let my gaze wander out the glass window in front of me The office I chose was the only one of the three at the back of the gym that offered any kind of natural light and didn’t make me feel like I was inside a cave. It also meant that I had a front row view of the gym on the other side of the glass, and more often than not, Shayne and his coach were in the middle ring. Sometimes they were sparring, often it appeared they were arguing.

It was my third day on the job, and I finally felt as if I had a handle of what was going on with Shayne’s finances. I remembered Cal’s tirade about wanting his son set up for the future when his MMA career was over. I understood it completely now. There was no way that Shayne was equipped to keep his own books, no matter what he thought.

I thought about waiting another day to break the news to him, but it wasn’t as if the story was going to change. It was just that we had done a good job so far of avoiding each other. On one hand, I was relieved. It had pissed me off when he said he didn’t remember me, but it was supposed to be just a one-night stand. I imagined that he had one every night of the week. Still, it was the hottest sex of my entire life. It hurt me to think I hadn’t any impact on his memory of that night.

I stood and stretched my back. I was going to have to find a yoga class soon. My body was nothing but knots. I had my hands on the small of my back as I turned and found Shayne leaning against the doorframe of my office. His eyes were squarely on my jutting chest. I quickly straightened and ran my hand over my skirt. Stacey had been giving me crap about continuing to dress as if I was going into a downtown law firm every day, but I wanted to make sure that everything about my presence was professional and above board. I could just imagine what my mother would say if she found out that I had sex with my soon-to-be-brother. She’d be mortified.

“The door was cracked,” he said, offering no apology for his stare.

“I was actually just coming to look for you,” I said, using my most dignified and professional voice. “Do you want to come in and sit down?” I gestured to the chair across from me.

“Are we going to take a meeting now?” Shayne turned his cheek over his shoulder, and I saw him flick a gesture at Maury across the room. Maury scowled and stalked toward the locker room.

“What was that about?” I asked.

Shayne stepped into the room and slid into the chair. Even though I was standing up and he was sitting down, he seemed to fill the entire room. I was glad that he had a hoodie on with his shorts. I wasn’t sure I could stop myself from ogling his bare chest, which seemed to be his preferred workout attire for his work in the ring with Maury.

“Maury’s pissed off at me.”

“That seems to be the norm,” I replied. I caught his surprised look. “What? I’ve been here for three days. It’s long enough to start seeing the team dynamics.”

“He doesn’t think I’ll win,” Shayne said, throwing his gaze downward toward the floor. “The vote of confidence is overwhelming.”

I felt myself softening toward him. Despite the fact that I thought he was a cocky ass, he was a cocky ass with work ethic. He was there before I arrived at eight already hitting the bags or lifting weights, and he was there when I left a little after six each evening. He appeared focused and serious about the upcoming match. “He’s just making sure you’re ready.”

“I am ready,” Shayne said. He waved off any further talk on the subject. “So, are you ready to give Cal your stamp of approval yet? I’m sure you’re eager to get back to Connecticut.”

“Actually, we need to talk about that,” I said slowly. I gestured toward the receipts on my desk. “Assuming I have all your receipts, and I know I don’t based on my cross-reference with the last month of spending from your bank account records, you are spending money at an even faster rate than you did the last three quarters.”

Shayne stiffened in his chair. “So? I make a lot of money. I spend a lot of money. It’s not a big deal.”

So far, the conversation was going exactly how I anticipated. That meant that it wouldn’t end well if I didn’t try to manage it. “Making a lot of money is great. Spending less money is better, especially when you think about your future.”

“Jesus Christ, have you taken a page from Cal’s hymn book or what?” Shayne said as he stood up. “I don’t need someone to tell me how to spend my money. I don’t need anyone’s help.”

I took a deep breath. I needed to be calm. This was my first real client, and I didn’t want to screw it up. “There are ways that you could actually be making more money, and if you did that, and we just got your spending a bit more under control, we could accomplish both. You could still spend money, within reason, and you’d show your dad that you were thinking about the future by investing some of it.”

Shayne’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, how do we do that?”

I pointed around the gym. “You bought this place six months ago, and you don’t charge any gym dues for the guys who work out here. Most of them are on the MMA circuit just like you. It’s not like they can’t afford it or wouldn’t expect to pay something for the privacy of being able to workout here.”

“These guys are my friends,” Shayne said. “I didn’t buy it to make money. I wanted a place where I could work out in peace and have my own space. Plus, owning real estate is supposed to be a good thing.”

He was being stubborn. “There are expenses related to running this place,” I said, pointing at the computer screen. “Electricity, water, cleaning services, maintenance on the equipment, not to mention the mortgage and liability insurance. That all adds up. If you even charged a small fee that covered the basics, you would be in a better spot.”

Shayne’s jaw set in a way that made me want to lick it. I cleared my throat, completely forgetting my train of thought. His eyes seemed to burn into me. I dropped my gaze back to my computer screen. “You’ve been living in an apartment with a short-term lease for the last two years. Signing a longer-term lease or buying a condo in the same building would save you thousands plus you can write off the mortgage interest.” I slid a couple of listings that I’d found on the internet over the desk to him.

“You’ve got me all figured out, huh?” he said in a low voice.

It was an unexpected turn. I thought he’d be angry. I hadn’t expected the quiet, haunted look that crossed his face. “I’m doing my job, Shayne. I can help you.”

He was in my space a moment later staring down at me. I gulped as he bent down and looked at the spreadsheet over my shoulder. I could feel the warmth of his breath tickle my ear. “I don’t need anyone to help me.”

“Not according to the bi-weekly payments to one Dr. Leonard Carlson,” I said. I knew it was a low blow. Those were payments I’d found that didn’t have a receipt attached to them, and when I googled the doctor’s name, I found out he was a well-known psychiatrist.

I yelped when Shayne gripped her to my elbow pulling me to my feet. “What do you know about that?”

“I don’t know anything,” I said. I saw the anger in his eyes. I knew I had crossed a boundary into a part of his life that he probably didn’t want exposed to anyone. “And I don’t care. My job is to provide an accurate depiction of your financial status so you can make the best decisions when it comes to your money.”

He was close. Too close for comfort. His fingers pressed deeper into my elbow as his eyes searched my face. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Judgment? Humor? Laughter? Probably all of the above.

“I don’t want anybody knowing about Dr. Carlson,” he finally said. “Especially Maury.”

“I signed a confidentiality agreement,” I said in a soft voice. “I couldn’t talk about any of that even if I wanted to.”

He released my elbow and stared at his hand for a moment. I thought I might have a bruise on my skin from where he had gripped me, but I sensed that he hadn’t even realized what he was doing.

“There was a lot of shit I had to deal with when my mother died,” Shayne said. “There’s a reason that I’m using a stage name, you know. My father didn’t want the press digging into things with my past. Dad thought it might help to have somebody to talk to after all of that.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” I said. “My mother took me to my first shrink when I was five.”

I shivered under the intensity of Shayne’s gaze. Finally, he gave me a short nod. “Fine. You can stay. I’ll think about what you said, but in the meantime, just make sure I have money in my accounts when I need it. That’s all I care about.”

Then he stormed out the room, and I let go of the breath that I didn’t even realize I was holding. Shayne Malone was a lot deeper than I originally expected, and I had the feeling I was just scratching the surface.