“Remember? Yeah, Reid, I remember. I also remember last night when all of that changed. You’re not honestly going to stand there and deny that, are you?”
He didn’t say anything for several minutes—seconds? Hell, it could’ve been an hour, she didn’t know—with nothing moving on him except the ticking of the muscles in his jaw. So he was aggravated. Big flipping deal. She was about to go nuclear.
At last he cut through the silence with words that could’ve been samurai swords for as sharp as they were. “Last night was great. Just like all the other nights. But the arrangement is over now. You wanted Mann to notice you and be interested—which he has, and he is—fulfilling my part of the bargain. Your part of the bargain to get me healed in time to fight for my championship belt has also been fulfilled. So that’s that.”
“No that’s not that! You’re running away like a damn coward, that’s what this is. Not any bullshit excuse about following the terms of our so-called deal.” Adrenaline buzzed through her veins, making her slightly lightheaded, but she just grabbed onto a wooden chair for balance and pressed on. “Things changed between us, Reid. You know it, and I know it.”
“I’ll admit things went from clinical to personal, but it would’ve been impossible for it not to. Sex with someone you care about is personal. But that’s not enough to base a long-term relationship on, you know that.”
Their voices were rising, and somewhere in the back of Lucie’s mind was the warning that much louder and she’d have Mrs. Egan knocking on her door. Or worse, calling her brother. But she didn’t care.
“What about love, you big dumb jerk? Isn’t that enough? Because I do. I am totally and utterly in love with you!”
The world fell silent. Not even the ticking of the clock on the wall dared make a sound as the two of them stared at each other. Maybe time had stopped. Maybe this was one of those moments where an angel would suddenly appear to give her sage advice or the chance to rewind life a couple of minutes so she could take back the words that made her more vulnerable than she’d ever been in her life.
His eyes were strangely cold, much like she imagined they looked as he stared down an opponent before the ref called for the fight to begin. She’d never seen them like that before, and they were killing her. Then he spoke and she realized she was wrong…
“You loved your ex-husband, too, Luce. Look what that got you.”
It wasn’t his eyes that ended up killing her, but his words.
“Get out,” she managed around the lump in her throat. She blinked, trying to keep the hot tears at bay. “I don’t want to see you ever again.”
No apology. No hesitation. He spun on his heel and six steps later was out of her life. For good.
Chapter Eighteen
Weeks, not years. Reid had to remind himself it had only been a few weeks since he’d walked out of Lucie’s apartment. It felt like a lifetime ago. Sometimes, when he was alone at night, lying in his California king—which now seemed obnoxiously empty after loving the way Lucie wrapped herself around him in her smaller queen—he wondered if he hadn’t dreamed the whole thing.
But then he’d remember their last night together. The way she responded to him as he made love to her slow and gentle like he’d never done with any other woman. Like he’d never do again with any other woman.
Their month together had been all too real…and now his life without her was all too empty.
As soon as he returned to Vegas, he’d fallen into his usual routine of training sessions mixed in with some specialized PT sessions with Scotty. Though the man was an excellent doctor and Reid’s shoulder was as close to perfect as he could get it before the big fight, he’d practically had to gag himself so he didn’t verbally compare everything Scotty did against Lucie’s techniques.
He thought about her constantly and he caught himself mentioning her practically every time he opened his big mouth. It got to the point where he decided it was safer to rely on nonverbal communication like grunts. Hell, it had worked for cavemen, why not him?
It was the day before the fight. Physically, he was golden. He was in great shape, his shoulder was decent, and at the weigh-ins earlier that day he registered at a perfect two-oh-five.
Mentally, however, he’d never felt more fucked up. Normally this close to a fight the only thing running through his mind were mental images of him overtaking his opponent. But the only image running through his mind now was the stricken look on Lucie’s face when he purposely ripped the heart from her chest.
Reid growled, his frustration quickly escalating to pure anger, until he was yelling like a battle-ready Spartan. He picked up a medicine ball next to his feet and hurled it across the gym at the wall where a couple of his teammates stood next to his imaginary target.