Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance (70 page)

“I plan to get him drunk, so I wouldn’t count on it. He’s always a soft touch when he’s on the booze. Can you make it?”

“Sure,” Chloe said reluctantly. You’d have thought I’d just ask her to miss her own wedding. “Do you want me to go home and get changed first? That restaurant is rather formal I think.”

“It is, but don’t worry, you’re just perfect as you are. Your attire, I mean. It’s fine.”

Chloe nodded and left the room. I had my work cut out for me with this one. This must be how normal men felt when trying to impress someone they liked.  

Well, it was fun to have a challenge for once. And Chloe was worth it.

-*-

The restaurant manager knew me well at this point, so he gave me the large, circular table in the corner with plenty of privacy. It wasn’t particularly intimate, but I preferred it to the other small tables crammed together in the middle.  

My business often required sensitive conversations, and I wanted to talk to Chloe tonight without worrying about everyone else listening in as well.

“I feel a bit underdressed,” Chloe said, as she looked around at the other women here who were nearly all wearing elegant dresses and expensive necklaces.  

Chloe had on a knee length skirt and a tight fitting white blouse. No ugly necklace tonight though. Can’t say I missed it. I’d love to see her in a dress, but even like this she was still the best looking woman in the place by a mile.  

“You look great,” I insisted. “I’m hardly in my finest suit either.”

We sat down, but Chloe left a lot of space between us. If Anders were coming, he’d need all that space for his fat ass, but it was just the two of us now, so I had hoped to sit a little closer.

“When is Mr. Young arriving?” Chloe asked.  

“Ah, well, he’s not actually.”  

“He’s not?”

“No, I called and canceled this morning.”  

“Okay. You know, if you cancel a meeting, there’s not much point then showing up for it.”

There’s the cheeky Chloe I’d been missing these last few days. Perhaps tonight wouldn’t be too bad after all.

“I canceled the meeting so that we could spend some time together,” I explained.  

“Like a date?”

“Yes. Like a date.”

Chloe considered it for a moment, but then put down her menu and picked up her purse. “We should leave. We can’t do this. I can’t do this.”

“Because we work together? I’m not denying it could be awkward, but the way I look at it, we’ve already done the part we aren’t supposed to. This is simple in comparison.”

Chloe shook her head. She didn’t put down her purse, but she hadn’t stood up yet either. I still had a chance.

“It’s not because we work together. I’m just not interested in a relationship with you.”

So
that’s
what it felt like to hear those words. Like someone had taken a knife and very slowly slid it between my ribs and directly into my heart. After this dinner, I had some apologies to make. Many, many apologies.

“How will you know until you try?” I asked. I don’t know why I thought that would work. It never had when women said it to me.

“I… I’m just not that into you,” she said. “There’s no chemistry.”

This time her words didn’t hurt. They couldn’t. It was such an obvious lie. No chemistry. Bullshit. There was more chemistry than either of us could handle. Why was shy lying?  

“You don’t need to worry about what happened the other night,” I said. “What we do is no one else’s business.”

“It’s not that,” she replied. “I just don’t think we’re a good match. We’re very different people.”

“Is this about Roddy? I haven’t acted on that information yet. If it wasn’t for you, he would be dead already, but I’m doing what you said. I’m thinking about it.”

“But you still want to kill him?”  

“Of course I want to kill him. Can you blame me?”

“Do you enjoy killing?”  

“What? No, of course not. That’s a ridiculous question. Why would you even ask that?”  

Chloe went to reply, but closed her mouth as the waiter came over to take our drink order. Chloe ordered some wine, which at least suggested she was prepared to stay through dinner. That was a good start.

“I know about the man in the factory,” she said once the waiter had left.

“The man in the factory? That sounds like the title of a Sherlock Holmes story.”

“Don’t joke about it,” she snarled, suddenly turning angry. “Before we went away for the weekend, you murdered a man in cold blood.”

“How the hell do you know about that?”

“I read about his death in one of the newspapers left lying around in the cafeteria. So you admit it?”

“No, I definitely don’t. But I know what you’re talking about. He was already dead when I got there.”

“You were covered in blood when you got to the car.”

“Yeah, because my stitches tore open.”

“I just don’t know if I can trust you,” Chloe said. Those words did hurt, because she definitely meant them.

“You can trust me. I trust you.”  

“You do?”

“Yes, of course. The only other person I’ve ever been this close to was Kara, but even that wasn’t the same. With you it’s… different. I can’t explain it. I’ve never cared what anyone thought about me, but you’re the exception. What do I have to say to prove to you that I’m being honest with you.”

“Tell me what happened in the factory.”  

I took a deep breath, and told her everything. I didn’t leave out any of the details. She looked visibly relieved when she heard my side of the story. I should have just told her from the start. If you trusted someone, you shouldn’t pick and choose the information you trust them with. It was everything or nothing.  

“Why didn’t you just tell me this from the start?” Chloe asked.  

“I was trying to keep you out of danger. I still am. Well, I’m trying, but I’m not doing a very good job of it. I can’t put you at risk.”

“Stop being so fucking arrogant,” Chloe replied, stunning me into silence. “I make my own decisions. If I want to help you, then I will. You don’t get to decide what I do.”  

“You’re so cute when you’re angry,” I teased.  

Chloe pursed her lips and her face turned bright red. I might have gone too far with that one. She looked like she was about to explode, but when she finally exhaled it was to laugh and give a weary smile.  

“You’re a hard man to stay angry with,” she replied.  

“The easiest solution is to not get angry with me in the first place. That way, you cut out all the negativity.”

“You make that difficult sometimes,” Chloe said. “But I’ll try. Just stop being a jerk.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised. “Does that mean you’ll stay for dinner?”

“Oh, I was always going to stay for dinner. Have you seen this menu? Like hell I’d say no to a free meal here.”

I smiled, and forced myself to look down at the menu. I could happily stare at her all evening, but that might creep her out at some point.  

She was wrong about one thing though. I did have to protect her. I would never be able to live with myself if anything happened to Chloe. The sooner the situation with Roddy was sorted the better.  

I had to get him out of the picture, and I only knew one way to do that. I had to kill him.  

Denton never invited me back to his place after dinner. He dropped me off, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and that was it. So much for being an arrogant playboy.

I’m not saying I necessarily would have gone home with him, but it would have been nice to have been given the choice. I suppose that’s what you get for falsely accusing someone of being a murderer.

Whatever tension was left between us had disappeared by the next day at work. We were back to our old ways, which meant I could be sarcastic and insulting again.  

Denton didn’t even bother to argue when I insisted on accompanying him on one of his little visits to collect a debt. He knew better than to tell me to keep my nose out now.

I had to make sure to wear the necklace this time. Last night, I’d left the necklace in my purse, so all that Lois heard was a load of muffled voices. She called to question me about it and I pretended the air heating had been broken in the restaurant and I’d needed to keep a jacket on which covered the necklace.

I didn’t know if she believed me. I didn’t know if I cared.

A part of me wished I had recorded the conversation. Denton had done a good job convincing me of his innocence, and I wanted Lois to hear that as well. Unfortunately, he’d also referenced us sleeping together, so all-in-all, it was best that conversation remain lost.

Before turning on the necklace, I warned Denton that I wanted to keep things professional while we were out in public. He verbally agreed, but then pinched my ass as I walked out the door, so I had no idea how seriously he’d taken my request.

“What’s today’s meeting about?” I asked, as we drove out of town to a small supermarket.  

“Debt collection,” Denton replied.

“Ah.” I knew what that meant. Someone was going to be on the receiving end of a beating. “Why are you going personally?”  

“He’s a friend.”

“You enjoy beating up friends?” I asked, genuinely curious as to why he was so dead set on doing this himself.

“No, but it’s better I do it than someone else.”

Denton was obviously confident he’d get the money, because he’d brought along a briefcase to keep it all in. Strangely, the briefcase suited him, or at least it did when he wore a suit covering up all his tattoos.  

I still found it strange that he could look so professional one minute and so… bad when he was undressed.  

We arrived at the supermarket, and walked straight into an office at the back of the store. The manager didn’t look at all surprised to see us.  

“Denton,” he said solemnly. He didn’t look surprised, but he didn’t look happy either. “Boy, am I glad it’s you.”  

“You owe fifteen thousand dollars, Bruce. You’re just lucky my dad didn’t make the visit personally.”

“I know, I know. But I just don’t have the money. We’re losing customers every week to that new chain store up the road. I thought we’d be able to repay the debt once the insurance money came in, but they denied our claim for some bullshit in the small print.”

“Can you pay anything?” Denton asked.

Bruce shook his head, and looked down at the floor. “Maybe a thousand, but even that’s pushing it.”

Denton sighed and slipped off his jacket, before handing it to me as if were a ring girl before the start of a boxing match.  

“Let’s get this over with,” Denton said. “Which side is still sore from last time?”  

Bruce pointed to the left hand side of his chest. “Land a few on the face this time. I don’t want your dad thinking you went easy on me.”

Denton walked forward, but before he could land a punch, a young girl, no more than seven years old, ran into the office bouncing and smiling in a way that only seven-year-old girls could manage.

“Daddy, Daddy, I finished the puzzle and…” She trailed off as she saw Denton and I standing there looking serious.  

“Sweetie, Daddy’s busy with some customers now. Can you pop back to the kitchen and do another puzzle?”  

“But I want to show you what I did.”

Denton turned to look at me. “Chloe, get her out of here.”  

I nodded and offered my hand to the young girl, who took it willingly. We walked back to the kitchen where she showed me her completed puzzle.  

The walls were thin and we soon heard the sounds of Denton’s punches landing on Bruce’s face. He must have fallen over as well, because there was a thud as something heavy hit the floor.

“What’s that noise?” the girl asked.

The next time she saw her dad he would be covered in bruises--maybe even blood--and looking a lot worse for wear.  

“Daddy is stopping a burglar,” I said. “Your daddy’s very brave and he wants to keep everyone here safe.”

“Oh. Okay.”  

She went back to doing her puzzle, which was actually a connect-the-dots picture, and by the looks of it would end up as a butterfly.

Denton appeared ten minutes later, so we left the girl to her puzzle. She looked happy enough, and with any luck Bruce would be able to clean himself up a bit before she saw him again.