Page 4 of Dirty Little Sins

"I love small towns. I used to spend my summers with my grandmother in the middle of nowhere countryside outside a tiny Italian village. It's how I learned to cook."

Nina set down her glass and touched my elbow. "As much as I love sharing these things with you, I think you're using them as a way to procrastinate from telling me what's really going on. Why don't we get to the important stuff, like what freaked you out, and then later when we're both too shitfaced to be serious, we can talk about the other. Deal?"

I hesitated only for a second. I'd gotten good vibes from Nina every time I met her and nothing about that had changed. Besides, she was right. I was stalling. I lifted my glass, took one last sip and started in on the long overdue story.

"The billboard out front. I saw his name."

She abruptly placed her wine glass on the floor. "Wait. This has to do with the hotel? Oh boy, I read the situation all wrong. I thought for sure this was about a man. Your recent divorce perhaps? Don't get me wrong. I’m here for work drama too, especially if something happened in our hotel. That I can definitely fix."

"Wait. What?" I stared at her dumbfounded. I had no idea what she was talking about.

"What?” she echoed me and then laughed. “Sorry, my mind is jumping ahead and getting confused. How about you start over and I stop interrupting. The billboard out front. You saw his name. Who’s name?”

My stomach churned as the story hovered on the tip of my tongue.

“Vincent.”

Her eyebrows rose when I finally said it out loud, but to her credit she didn’t say anything. She just waited for the rest.

It had been months since I’d seen him last, but the pain still lingered like it was yesterday.

“We had a fling. Or an affair. Whatever you want to call it. "

Too anxious to sit, I stood up and returned to the window where I could see the billboard again. Why this hotel? Why me? Surely this was a nightmare and I would wake up any minute.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again.

There it was again, taunting me in big bold letters that flashed on the screen, the same announcement I’d seen earlier.

In two weeks.

The Destroyer versus The Irish Bull

The fight of the century.

“Now he’s here and he is going to destroyme.”

Chapter Two

VINCENT

"Fuck you and the horse you rode in on." Apparently I wasn't in the mood to be questioned by my manager who'd been riding my ass for what felt like weeks now. "I've already accepted the challenge and you need to get over that. It's done. It's happening. I'm fighting Callum Murphy. Suck it the fuck up."

"Charming as always," Brian frowned across my iPad, his smirk only making things worse.

"Look. We'll be touching down within the hour. Have you made the arrangements I requested?"

"Yes,” Brian said. "Although why the hell you need a suite at The Sinclair this week when you have a perfectly goodprivatehouse to go home to is beyond me." If not for the video I was forced to look at, I would have tuned my manager out by now and missed half of Brian's shitty quips. Then maybe I wouldn't be half tempted to fire him right now.

Somewhere along the line in our relationship my manager had gotten too comfortable. He inserted his personal thoughts and comments too much. It was time he was reminded who he worked for and not the other way around.

"My motives are not for you to question. I want the suite for convenience and that is all that should matter. And the other request?"

"Look, Vincent. We need to draw the line at the suite. Now is not the time for a catered party for dozens of people. If you are going through with this farce of a fight then you need to keep your head in the game between now and then. That means less pussy and booze and more time at the gym."

I ground my teeth to hold back from telling him to fuck off.

I actually didn't blame the man for jumping to that conclusion. Before my extended trip to Italy, I'd pretty much fucked and drank my way through Vegas and any other city I happened to be in. I'd had a reputation as a total playboy manwhore and it was well deserved at that.

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