Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (76 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Kya

"
What
are you doing?"

It was not hard to figure
out where Fenton was. The luncheon was on hold while a crowd gathered outside a
small side office.

I pushed past Sienna's
camera crew and stood frozen in the doorway. Jackson had Fenton in a headlock
as Fenton pounded at his mid-section. Jackson's face was red with pain and
exertion, but he was not letting go. Neither man stopped when I cried out.

"Kev, do
something," I said. I ran into the room but did not know how to approach
the scuffling men.

"Like get punched in
the face? No thanks," Kev said.

"Can't you stop
them?" I asked Sienna.

She gave a pale smile.
"What I should do is get the cameras rolling."

"Of course," I
said. I jumped forward and grabbed Jackson's arm. He ignored my nails digging
into his forearm until I almost drew blood.

Fenton stopped punching
as soon as I drew near and held his hands out to the sides, palms open.
"I'm done. I'm done with him."

Jackson released his neck
and they shoved away from each other.

"What is going
on?" I asked the room at large.

"You've never seen
two guys fighting over a woman?" Sienna asked. She fluffed up her bleach
blonde hair and pinched color back into her cheeks.

Jackson gave Sienna a
smile, despite his shortness of breath. "Yeah, that's it. Sienna and I
were having a little private time away from the cameras and your mad dog here
busted in the door. Couldn't stand to see someone else with Sienna, I
guess."

"You had your
chance," Sienna told Fenton.

"Just
jealousy," Jackson said.

I turned to Fenton, but
all he said was, "Why are you here?"

"See,
jealousy," Jackson said. "She's here to finish up our business about
the power tool endorsement. He just can't stand another guy getting any
attention."

Fenton lunged at Jackson
again, but I stepped between them. "You were fighting over Sienna?" I
asked.

Fenton said nothing, only
clenched his jaw, so Jackson spoke up. "I hate to break it to you,
sweetheart, but Fenton here was yelling something about Sienna being his
woman."

"That's not
true," Kev said.

"Then, why did you
two come here to talk to me?" Jackson asked.

Kev looked at Fenton and
did not know what to say.

"Look, I hear you,
but I believe that women can choose for themselves," Jackson said.

Fenton stepped around me,
but Kev jumped in to help. "It's time to go, Fenton. It doesn't matter.
They've got their story and that's it."

"I don't
understand," I said, looking to Sienna.

She waved her camera crew
in. "I'm used to men fighting over me, next time, I'll leave the door
open, so we get it all," She vamped for the now-rolling cameras.
"Doesn't matter what happened, I always come out on top."

Kev caught my arm and
started to pull me and Fenton towards the back door. "Don't believe her.
She'll say anything to make herself look good. Same with your pretty boy
there."

I yanked my arm free.
"Then, tell me what happened."

"We came to talk to
Jackson about you, remind him to keep it strictly business. He had Sienna
cornered in the room and was trying to make her go farther than she
wanted," Kev said.

"But the door was
closed and no one saw anything?" I asked. "So it’s your story versus
theirs?" I grabbed both Fenton's arms and looked up into his face. He
avoided my gaze, but did not pull away. "Tell me what happened."

He shrugged my hands off.
"It doesn't matter. Let's get out of here."

"Fine," I said.
"If it doesn't matter, then I'm going to stay and finish the business I
have with Jackson."

"You can't be
serious," Fenton said. "He's a slime ball, thinks he's untouchable.
Is that who you're supposed to be with?"

"I'm not with Jackson
McRay. It's just business." I crossed my arms over my chest. "Correct
me if I'm wrong, but this whole situation feels a little unbalanced, wouldn't
you say?"

Fenton glowered at me
then turned back to Jackson. "I was just coming here to remind him it was
just business, make sure he didn't cross any lines."

"Sienna, are you
telling the truth? They were fighting over you?" I asked.

"Oooh, now who's
jealous," she said and smiled at the nearest camera. She raised her right
hand and pledged, "I swear they were fighting over me. Even Fenton's
manager can't say that's a lie."

I looked at Kev who gave
me a pained negative shake of his head. "Then, it sounds like you're the
one that crossed the line," I said to Fenton.

"So you believe him?
Of course, you do. It doesn't matter that underneath his perfect look he's
rotten. He's a dirty predator that thinks the whole world is his to toy with
and that includes Sienna and you. I'm warning you, Jackson, I've seen what you
really are," Fenton said.

The head of the golf
tournament elbowed his way into the office followed by five security guards.
"Alright, Mr. Morris, you have disrupted us enough for one afternoon. Take
them out."

"That seems a bit
unnecessary," I said.

Jackson shrugged.
"They weren't invited."

"No, they
weren't," said the tournament president. "They promised this
photographer a great scene if he bribed the doorman to let them in. It was all
just a publicity stunt."

Neither Fenton nor Kev
could deny what the man said. The photographer mouthed “sorry” to them just
before the security guards grappled them out the back door. One took Kev, while
the other four surrounded Fenton.

He glanced over their
shoulders and I felt the cut of his laser blue eyes. "You coming?"

Jackson said, "Don't
worry, Kya, I won't let this little scene stand in the way of our
business."

"No, you're
right," I said. "I'm going to stay. I can't let your crazy publicity
stunts get in the way of my business anymore."

Fenton shook off the four
security guards and strode out the back door himself. I waited until the office
cleared. I took a few steps towards the back door, and then changed my mind
again. I followed Jackson out into the banquet hall.

"Normally, I'm all
for making a scene, but that was a bit much even for me," Sienna said to her
semi-circle of cameras.

Jackson joined her and
slid a comforting arm around her shoulders. Sienna shrunk back then recovered
and gave the cameras a bright smile.

"No wonder you came
looking for a higher class of athlete. We might not have crazy parties in
luxury suites, but we at least know how to treat a woman," Jackson said.

Sienna shrugged his arm
off and rubbed her neck. "It seems like the only people that know how I
want to be treated are my friends and my fans."

"Speaking of your
friends, I was hoping your entourage would liven this place up," Jackson
said. He stepped back into the shot and Sienna backed away.

"That wasn't lively
enough for you?" I asked.

Jackson dropped the hand
reaching for Sienna's waist and turned to me. "What can I say? I like a
little fun and excitement in my afternoons." He stepped aside to talk to
the head organizer of the golf luncheon.

"Are you okay?"
I asked Sienna. My back was to the cameras and I spoke as quietly as possible.

"Why do you
ask?" Sienna tossed her hair.

"You're usually so
bouncy, but now, I don't know, you seem a little jumpy," I said.

Sienna looked at Jackson.
He smiled, and she swallowed hard. "This just isn't my crowd."

"What is it?" I
asked.

"Sorry, Jackson, but
I just heard there's a margarita-making contest at Caesar's that needs a
judge." Sienna motioned to her camera crew. "Come on, boys, we're
outta here."

Jackson took my arm and
led me to a long table set with a white linen tablecloth. The president of the
golf association and his wife sat across from us.

"And, people wonder
why we have such a rigorous screening and interview process for membership at
our club," the president said.

"I apologize, sir, I
thought a little on-air time would be good for us," Jackson said.

"Of course. It had
nothing to do with you," the president nodded. "It just goes to show
that people's true class, or lack thereof, will always show through."

I sat wondering if the
entire incident had nothing or everything to do with Jackson McRay. There was
something stiff about his smile, but over the course of lunch, he relaxed.

"Please, let me
escort you back to the hotel," he said at the end of the gathering. He
signaled a driver and soon we were ensconced in a black town car. "I feel
like I need to apologize for my association president and the head organizer.
They are quick to judge. I'm sure Fenton is under a lot of pressure these
days."

"Thank you for
having some understanding," I said. I leaned back on the comfortable
leather seats. "You're right. I have seen athletes start to crack under
the pressure and their judgment is usually the first thing to go."

"As long as it
doesn’t blow back at you," Jackson said. He took my hand and kissed the
back of it. "I hate to think of you being surrounded by scummy managers
and boxing coaches and fighters. Wasn't this afternoon a pleasant change?"

I had to agree. Despite
the superior remarks about Fenton and Sienna, the luncheon had been entirely
pleasant. "Yes, thank you. It was just the break I needed."

Jackson held my hand, a
comforting and sweet gesture, all the way to the Tropicana. The driver jumped
out to open the door for me, but it was Jackson that rushed around to help me
out of the car. I could not help but feel like a princess when I was with
Jackson McRay. He was the very model of a charming prince.

"Ms. Allen, I was
hoping to see you here," a man's voice hailed us. Mario Peretti appeared
out of a limousine.

"Sorry. Ms. Allen is
not interested in speaking with you right now," Jackson said. He curled a
long arm out in front to shield me. His hand on the small of my back ushered me
towards the casino.

I stopped and stood my
ground. "It's okay, Jackson. I know him. What can I do for you, Mr.
Peretti?"

"So, formal now. Let
me guess, you spent the afternoon with his kind," Mario said. He smirked
at Jackson's outfit and then stepped between us.

Jackson laid a heavy hand
on Mario's shoulder. Though the MMA fighter was shorter, he made quick work of
shrugging off the hand and forcing Jackson to take a step back.

"What do you
want," I asked. I put both hands on my hips.

"Just a
photograph," Mario said. His smile curled up with mischief. "I'm a
fan, you're a fan, let's just get a quick pic together."

"Why? So you can use
it to rile Fenton up?" I asked. I started to walk towards the hotel lobby.

"Exactly,"
Mario said.

Jackson laughed. "I
like it. Let's do it." He reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me back,
and then giving me a push towards Mario.

"No, thank
you," I said. I looked to Jackson expecting him to shield me again and
help me get inside.

He held out an arm to
block me from the hotel lobby. "Give me the camera and give Ms. Allen here
a quick kiss," he said.

"Jackson! No. Stay
away from me, Mario," I said.

The fighter lunged and
wrapped an arm around my waist. "Sorry, Kya. Normally, I'm really sweet,
ask anyone. It's just this is a good way to get an edge of him."

I pressed hard against
his chest and tried to hold him back. Jackson laughed again and waited until
Mario stole a kiss, then he snapped the picture.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Kya

I
shook Jackson off in the lobby and made my way through the casino alone. The
fact that he had allowed, actually pushed me into, a compromising photograph
with Mario Peretti made me feel ill. It was clear that everything Jackson did
was to suit himself. That was not how a true gentleman acted.

I rushed to the elevators
and up to the suite. I still was not clear on what had happened at the golf
luncheon, but now I had reason to doubt both sides. The truth had to be
somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, Fenton was already gone.

"Is he going to come
back and change for the party?" I asked Sandi.

She stopped setting out
her makeup kit and looked up. "No, he's already changed."

"Are you okay?
What's the matter?" I dropped my purse on the couch, realizing she was
there to help me get ready for the party myself.

"I saw Fenton and
Kev a little while ago. Kev was really upset. He said that they got kicked out
of some snobby golf lunch. They accused Fenton of trying to pull off some tacky
publicity stunt."

"I think there's a
little more to it than that," I said. "It sounded to me like they
crashed the party and tried to start a fight with Jackson McRay."

"He doesn't sound
like a nice man." Sandi turned back to her brushes and color palettes.
"They said he had that reality television star cornered."

"If you ask me, I
think Fenton acted like a jealous suitor. Maybe he'd rather go to the promotion
party with Sienna."

"Really, Kya, how
can you say that?"

I crossed my arms over my
chest. "I just can't help but get the feeling I'm being played. Neither
story adds up and neither Fenton or Jackson or even Kev will tell me the whole
truth."

"I don't want to get
into it, but Fenton didn't say a thing the entire time they were here. Kev said
he shuts down like that when someone doesn't believe him. Probably happened to
him a lot as a child. You didn't believe him and he can't defend himself, so he
has nothing to say," Sandi said.

"So instead of
telling me the truth and trying to convince me, Fenton's just going to give me
the silent treatment?" I asked. "Sounds like he's still acting like a
child."

"Don't you want to
believe him?" Sandi asked.

I flopped down in the
chair she had set out for me. "Yes. But that would mean Jackson McRay was
some kind of monster and Sienna was an innocent victim. Do you see why that's
hard to believe?"

Sandi gave a weak smile.
"Yes, but believing that means that Fenton stepped in to help her even if
it meant confronting Jackson and causing a huge scene. He's not the type to
stand aside for the sake of his reputation, and I think that makes him
heroic."

I held my hands up.
"Alright, I hear what you're saying. Let's just agree that all I know for
sure is that I need to get ready and head to the fight promotion party."

Sandi patted my shoulder
and then got to work. Within the hour, I had my copper hair swept up, my green
eyes accented with perfect makeup, and the iridescent dress shimmering every
time I moved. She ushered me into the elevator.

"Let me guess, it
all changes back to normal at midnight," I said as I stepped inside.

"Let's hope
so," Sandi said.

I headed into the flashy
party feeling like Cinderella for more reasons than just the dress. I was still
an outsider in Fenton's world and I half expected the doorman to send me away.

"Hey, beautiful. No
hard feelings about earlier, right?" Mario Peretti appeared trailing a
large entourage.

"You mean when you
attacked me?" I asked.

"Just a kiss between
colleagues. Surely, that's happened to you before," Mario said.
"Besides your boyfriend did not seem to mind."

"Jackson McRay is
not my boyfriend," I said.

"Well, obviously,
I'm not the only one confused by that," Mario said. He nodded in the
direction of the bar.

Fenton leaned over a
limber, black-haired woman and drank a shot off her flat stomach. She sat up
and offered him a lime from between her overly plump lips.

"They've been pretty
friendly ever since I arrived. Maybe I picked the wrong photo op to make our
man jealous," Mario said.

I pushed past him, much
to the amusement of his entourage, and marched into Fenton's eye line. He
caught sight of me, and his blue eyes blazed. It was not the smoldering
appreciation I had imagined when I chose the dress. I forced myself to walk
straight over to him.

"We need to
talk," I said.

He turned back to the bar
and ordered another shot. A voluptuous blonde took position and smiled at
Fenton with bright red lips.

"Aren't you going to
say anything?" I asked. "Really? You're going with the silent
treatment? What if I say that I want to believe you? It was an awkward
situation. It seemed personal and I did not want to let something personal get
in the way of the business I have with Jackson. Come on, you don't have
anything to say about that?"

Fenton shrugged.
"Actions speak louder than words." He leaned down over the blonde's
bare midriff and savored the second shot. He made a big show out of sucking the
lime wedge from her fire engine red lips, but when he looked up, I was staring
over the top of them.

On the wall, almost a
story high, was a slideshow of Mario's rise to the top. Fenton's loss was
heavily featured and now I knew why he wanted to add a photograph of me. The
sharp cuts and close-ups of Fenton's first loss to Peretti were all
psychological warfare meant to shake his confidence. My picture would surface
soon enough.

"Well hopefully
reason speaks louder than photographs," I said. "I can explain."

It was too late, Fenton
turned around just in time to see the wall-sized shot of Mario kissing me full
on the lips. My hands that had been raised to ward him off actually looked like
I was embracing him.

I grabbed his shoulder.
"Please, Fenton, you have to believe me."

"Like you believed
me?" he asked. He did not even glance at me. Fenton yanked his shoulder
away and strode across the dance floor to call Peretti out.

The crowd burst into
excited chatter and the music stopped. Fenton shoved him as soon as Peretti
turned around and for a moment it looked as if the fight would happen right
there on the dance floor. The crowd backed away and the two were left in a wide
circle.

I tried to push my way
in, but the crowd was too tight and too excited to move. Kev appeared at my
side and stopped me.

"Fenton knows it was
just a prank. It's all part of the show," Kev said.

"Are you sure? I
screwed everything up. What was I supposed to do?" I asked him.

"How about
conducting your business over the phone or email like every other agent?"
Kev asked.

Peretti puffed out his
chest and was strutting around Fenton getting the crowd riled up. Fenton
answered with a hard shove that deflated Peretti's chest. Security burst into
the circle to haul them both back. Instead of de-escalating the situation, the
fight promoter handed Peretti a microphone.

"A fighter's got to
keep a cool head and it seems Fenton Morris is ready to lose his again,"
Peretti said.

Half the crowd cheered
and half howled with rage.

"I know that ladies
love a man with self-control, with focus, with the ability to see things
through to the very end," Peretti said. He shook off the security guards
and roamed around half the circle, encouraging the crowd to choose sides.
"It’s not my fault if Fenton's woman wants the same thing."

I cringed when the
wall-sized photograph reappeared. Fenton fought off his security guards and got
right back into Peretti's face. Peretti held the microphone away, but the rough
tone of Fenton's voice made his message clear.

"You'll have your
turn," Peretti said, leaning back to speak into the microphone. "And
when you do, you better apologize to your woman. She's gotta be unsatisfied if
she came to me."

Fenton lunged and knocked
the microphone from Peretti's hand with a sharp slice of his hand. The crowd
cheered and the security guards swarmed the two fighters again. This time, when
they ebbed back, it was Fenton who had the microphone.

"Some people become
fighters because they think the lifestyle looks cool," he said. "I
didn't become a fighter, I was born fighting. I had to fight for everything. I
had to fight to keep my family together. I had to fight to keep my sister safe
at school. I had to fight to keep food on our table. What I never did was fight
to keep my focus. I wanted better from day one, and I'll be damned if I let
some strutting scum distract me from that."

The crowd heckled him,
egging him on, hoping for more trash talk or maybe another sneak preview at the
fight.

"I have no reason to
talk about Mario Peretti's skills as a fighter. I have no reason to talk about
Mario Peretti at all. He doesn't matter to me, the title does. I know Vegas is
confusing, there's hype all around. But I guarantee tomorrow, Peretti's hype
isn't going to follow him into the ring. It'll be just us, and the better man
will win."

"What about your
girl?"

"You just gonna let
him take your woman?"

"Come on, Morris,
you can't take that lying down!"

The crowd heckled him
more, and the wall-sized photograph of our kiss appeared again. Peretti bounced
around with his fists in the air then blew air kisses at the crowd. Then, he
directed the spotlight towards me.

Kev tried to help me duck
away from it, but the hot light blinded me. The crowd around me surged back and
then forward. Hands shoved me towards the open circle where Peretti and Fenton
waited. I lost grip of Kev's hands and was pushed along, helpless until I was
in the open.

Peretti bounced over and
reached out to embrace me. Without thinking, I batted away his hands and spun
to avoid him. The crowd went wild. The spotlight still blinded me, and I tried
to find Fenton. Suddenly, a strong arm locked around my waist. Peretti was pushed
far away.

"Only a weak man
would use a woman," Fenton said. "My reputation might be tarnished,
but nowhere in the long list of my misdemeanors and conflicts is there an
accusation of treating a woman badly.

I wrapped my arm around
Fenton's waist, glad for the solid feel of him in the sea of ogling faces.
"Actions speak louder than words," I said.

"Say it again,
darling," Fenton told me. He held the microphone in front of me.

"That photograph was
a dirty trick. Peretti's all trash talk and tricks. Actions speak louder than
words," I said.

Fenton's loyal fans
erupted in chants and applause. It felt good to stand arm in arm with Fenton,
even though I knew we had not yet come together.