Page 33 of The Fighter

“Morning. Yes, I know. I was going to wait at the station. It’s only a few hours before the first train.”

His look of displeasure deepens. “No, you’re not,” he says. “I’ll give you a ride back home.”

“Was that in the contract, too?” I ask sweetly, grabbing another glass of prosecco from a waiter. For a brief second, I contemplate turning down his offer, and then sanity wins. I’m already exhausted, and the idea of sitting around the station for hours waiting for the first train home sounds truly awful. There’s no point cutting off my nose to spite my face. “Thank you, a ride would be wonderful.”

Tomas drives a BMW sedan. It’s a nice car, comfortable and spacious. I sink into the leather seat with a sigh. “I’m exhausted,” I confess. I pull out my phone and realize my battery is completely dead. “You wouldn’t happen to have a phone charger, would you?”

“In the glove box.” He gives me a sideways look. “You were going to wait for five hours in a train station without a working phone?”

“When you put it that way…” I find the cord and plug it into the USB port in the console. It takes a few minutes for my device to power up. When it finally does, I see that I have multiple messages from my bank. After the two-sets-of-books disaster, Tomas took Simon’s name off the bank account and signed me up for a fancy service that alerts me every time there’s a withdrawal. “Why is the bank texting me in the middle of the night?” I open the most recent one. “There’s been a one hundred and nineteen thousand euro deposit into the gym’s bank account? That’s not right. It’s got to be some kind of mistake.”

“One hundred and nineteen thousand, nine hundred and eighty-eight euros,” Tomas says, not taking his eyes off the road. “It’s from the investment, the one I called you about.”

What kind of investment converts ten thousand euros into a hundred and twenty in less than six hours? I turn in my seat and stare at him. “Tomas, where did this money come from?”

“I bet on your fight.”

My mouth falls open. Did I hear him right? “You did what?”

“I bet you’d win,” he repeats. “They set the odds at twelve to one, the idiots.” A smile plays about his lips. “I had to walk a fine line with that bet. Del Barba gets notified anytime someone bets over ten thousand, so I bet nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine.”

“You bet ten thousand euros?” Yes, I sound a little shrill, but can you blame me? “What would have happened if I lost?”

“I guess I would have been out ten grand,” he replies, accelerating around a slow-moving transport truck. “But I wasn’t worried, and I’m not reckless; I only bet on a sure thing. I knew you were going to win.”

He says it with complete confidence, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. A lump wells up in my throat. The last person who had this much faith in me was my mother, but even before she died, the Alzheimer’s took her mind. It’s been a long, long time since someone believed in me.

I think I’m going to cry.

And I can’t do that in front of Tomas. I just can’t. I can’t expose myself that way.

“You bet on my fight with the gym’s money,” I make myself say, my tone snarky. “How confident could you have been?”

“Look at what time the text came in.”

I pull up the details. The text from the bank alerting me to the money deposited into my account came in only a minute or two after Tomas called me. Which means… “You put the winnings into the gym’s account before the fight even happened? I don’t understand…”

“Like I said, I knew you were going to win.” He glances at me, a long, lingering look that sets butterflies fluttering through my stomach. “I owe you for the kiss. What do you want?”

You.

I take a deep breath. “I want first right of refusal when you sell your share of the gym. I want you to offer it to me first and give me enough notice so I can raise the money.”

“How much notice?”

“A month,” I reply, reaching for the stars. My previous contract with Simon specified a week. That contract wasn’t even worth the paper it was printed on, but I know enough about Tomas now to know that if he agrees to do something, it’ll get done. His word means something.

“Done,” he says. “I’ll have Daniel draft up the changes tomorrow.” He takes his attention off the road once again. “You could have asked for anything you wanted,” he says. “I didn’t put any conditions on it. You could have asked me for my share of the gym.”

Anything I wanted. My heart starts to beat faster. “You paid a million euros for that share,” I say lightly. “That seems excessive for one kiss.”

His gaze rests on me, an invitation in the smoky depths of his eyes. If we weren’t speeding on the E70, I’d be tempted to take him up on it, consequences be damned. “You’re selling yourself short, Alina,” he murmurs. “Never underestimate your worth. Any man with a pulse would pay that and more for a chance with you.”

Any man with a pulse would pay that and more for a chance with you.

He drops that bombshell as if it were nothing and turns his attention back to the road. I hug his compliment to myself for the rest of the way home, and it warms me from the inside out.

Tomas parks his car in Tronchetto. The trains aren’t running yet—it’s too early—and in any case, I feel like walking. The two of us stroll in silence toward Dorsoduro. “Where do you live?” I ask him.

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