But even more than all that, he’d taken care of her emotionally. It was like he’d plugged into her and sensed when she needed him to slow down or just hold her. When she needed to talk about things, even when she thought she couldn’t. She’d shared pieces of herself with him she’d never given anyone and couldn’t imagine ever giving anyone again. Looking back on the last couple of weeks, Kat realized the only times she felt truly happy and at peace were when she was with Irish. Whether they were making love or watching bad reality TV. All that mattered was that she was with him.
She did love him. And hadn’t he admitted to pretty much the same?
I never planned on falling for you, but I did. Hard.
Yeah, he loved her, even if he hadn’t said the words. But instead of staying and working things out, he planned on leaving. Because why? He didn’t think he was good enough for her. Kat fisted her hands until her nails dug into her palms. Agitation had her stalking back and forth in her tiny apartment while Murphy watched like he was at a tennis match.
“How dare he make the decision to leave based on the assumption he’s not good enough for me,” she spit out. “Don’t I get a fucking say in this?”
Murphy let out a meow, which she took as support to her argument. “Exactly! He’s being bull-headed and such a…a…” She stopped and waved her hands in the air. “Man!”
Exhausted from the emotional roller coaster of the night, she plopped down onto her futon. Murphy ran over and jumped into her lap to rub his head against her face in his favorite form of affection. As she stroked his soft fur, she thought about what she should do. She was tired of men deciding her fate. And even though Irish was the first to do it with good intentions, it didn’t matter. The days of her succumbing to what others wanted from or for her were over.
Kat picked up the kitten under his front legs and held him in front of her face. “Tomorrow night, Murphy, I’m going to fight for what I want. And what I want is Aiden ‘Irish’ O’Brien. Forever.”
Chapter Sixteen
Xander was silent as he wrapped the white tape around Aiden’s left wrist and hand in a practiced, methodical manner. There was no point in going over the game plan they’d worked on during the week to beat Aiden’s upcoming opponent. He was no longer planning on beating him. The new plan was to make the first two rounds look close, then go down somewhere in the third round.
Then it would all be over…
His short-lived consideration for making a career comeback.
The debt owed to Sicoli, plus the blackmail money owed to Sully, thereby eliminating the danger to Kat and her sister.
And his brief departure from reality where he entertained the dream of being with Kat…indefinitely.
It was that last one that threatened to kill him. He hadn’t gotten any sleep last night and had almost raided Xander’s personal stash of scotch. He’d just wanted to drink until he was so numb he couldn’t feel anymore. But he’d tried that tactic after Janey was killed, needing to erase the memory of her being struck by the car only a few feet away from him, and it hadn’t worked then, either. He’d learned the hard way that abusing alcohol was nothing but a one-way ticket to a life of hell.
The difference now was that a life without Kat felt like a different kind of hell. The kind that burned him soul-deep. And he doubted anything existed that could put out the flames.
“That feel okay?” Xander asked after patting down the end of the tape.
Aiden flexed his fingers then made a fist. “Fine.” He nodded for him to wrap his right hand and attempted to turn his thoughts to the present.
The room they were set up in wasn’t very big, nor was it the cleanest. But it gave the fighters a place to get prepped and into the zone. Considering the tourney was underground, he considered the private space a luxury. Most of the time fighters in secret circuits had to glove up on the sidelines right before they entered the cage.
He closed his eyes and tried to visualize how he wanted the fight to go. It didn’t matter if he was taking a fall or not. He still had to walk the fine line of beating the guy up enough to make it look like he was trying without actually knocking his block off for two rounds.
Aiden didn’t move when he heard the hinges creak as the door opened, letting in the deafening noise of the crowd echoing down the hall. He expected a runner to announce how much time he had left, but when the door clicked shut, he froze and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
Kat.
He felt her there as easily as he felt his own limbs. Taking in a deep breath through his nose, he reveled in her lilac scent for a brief moment before he steeled himself and opened his eyes. Jesus Christ. His memory never did her justice, but this was almost like seeing her for the first time all over again.
She was breathtaking in a cream-colored sundress that skimmed her mid-thigh, leaving plenty of her sexy bare legs to view between her hem and the beat-up cowboy boots she wore. Her unbound hair hung behind her delicate shoulders and graceful neck, which held the necklace he’d given her the night before. Off of her he’d thought it was perfect, but on her it looked even more…right.