Fight for Her by Kelly Favor (book club books .txt) 📗

about it made her feel embarrassed, because she could imagine how everyone would laugh at the idea of Gunner King liking some young girl, fresh out of college with natural boobs and no plastic surgery—a normal girl with nothing to set her apart from the crowd.

But she couldn’t help it. She knew Gunner felt something for her. It was palpable between them—it was like an electrical current and there was no escaping it.

Well, other than the fact that he had escaped it. As a matter of fact, he’d basically run away from her as fast as his legs could carry him.

That’s because I pushed too hard. He saw through my act and he was hurt andangry. But I know that if I just got another chance…

There wasn’t going to be another chance, though, and she was slowly coming to grips with that fact.

Somehow, despite her angst, or maybe because of it—Krista managed to sleep for a couple of hours. When she woke up, she took out her phone and listened to the interview over and over. Every time she got to the end, the place where she started pressing him on why he didn’t want to fight Zane Davis, she could easily hear the shift in his voice. And then she’d pushed harder still, telling him to go back to Vegas.

It was cringe inducing.

And yet, she couldn’t help wondering why he was so defensive. She also couldn’t help but question his assertion that he didn’t care about his legacy, or what anybody else thought of him.

Was he truly scared of Zane Davis? Was that what all of this was about?

Everyone on the planet knew that Zane was a monster. The guy was big, strong, and he hit like he had bricks in both hands. Krista pulled up a YouTube highlight video of Zane’s knockouts and watched him flattening guys left and right. The knockouts were stunning in their ferocity.

Some people theorized that Gunner knew he couldn’t withstand Zane’s power, and that’s why he was quitting the sport.

All over the web, person after person was opining on the fact that Gunner was scared of Zane Davis. Comment after comment, one person after the other called Gunner a “pussy,” a “coward,” a “bitch.” They laughed at him—they said he was all hype, and that he’d been a paper champion all along.

It actually hurt Krista to read that stuff about Gunner. Before she’d met him in person, he’d just been some guy she’d read about and a superstar who worked for the same organization as her. But now she knew that there was much more to him.

Gunner was special. But he was also human.

He didn’t deserve all the hate he was getting from people.

It was later into the afternoon and she was still surfing the web and shaking her head at all of the cruelty toward Gunner, when her cell phone rang.

Maybe it’s him, she thought. But then she remembered that they’d never exchanged phone numbers, and her heart sank. She looked at the caller ID and saw that it was the last person she wanted to speak to right then—Drew Ellis.

But there was no escaping her boss. She had to answer.

“Hi, Drew,” she sighed.

“Tell me the good news.”

“Well…” she started.

“Don’t give me bad news right now, Krista. I don’t want to hear about failure. I don’t accept failure.”

“I didn’t fail,” she lied. “I just didn’t succeed…yet.”

“Why not?”

“It takes time to gain someone’s trust, Drew,” she said, rolling her eyes as she toyed with her computer keyboard.

“We don’t have time. If we’re going to make this fight happen, we need him back in Vegas by the end of the week. The event is scheduled for Saturday.”

“Everyone thinks it’s cancelled anyway,” she said.

“Yeah, but we’re still keeping hope alive. Every day I field questions and tell reporters that we’re still in talks with Gunner about making the fight happen. People don’t know how bad it really is yet.”

“Well, I’m not giving up,” she said.

“What did he say? What happened?”

“We just talked. I took it slow. He’s very jaded about reporters and the media.”

“He’s going to be a hell of a lot more jaded at the end of this if he fucks me, Krista. Why don’t you explain that to him? Maybe you need to draw him a picture of just how fucked he’s going to be after I’m done suing him, and he’s living in a cardboard box.”

“That’s just mean, Drew.”

“It’s true. He needs to hear it, Krista. Can I count on you to get the message to him or not?”

“I’m doing my best.”

“Get it done. I’m not playing games here anymore. Christ. Just get it done.”

That was the end of that conversation.

She tossed her phone onto the bed and put her face in her hands.

This whole thing had turned into a nightmare, and it was one that she couldn’t wake up from. She hadn’t had the guts to tell Gunner that she worked for the UFF, and she hadn’t had the guts to tell Drew Ellis that Gunner wanted nothing to do with her after the disastrous conversation this morning.

Krista knew that she couldn’t give up just yet, though. She’d screwed things up, but there was still a chance that she could make it right. She went to the bathroom and cleaned all the smeared eyeliner off her face, washed with soap and water, put her hair back in a ponytail.

She took some deep breaths and tried to calm down.

A plan was starting to form in her mind.

When she was sufficiently cleaned up and relaxed, she went downstairs and paid for one more night at the Middle River Inn.

After that, she went back to the restaurant next door.

Cole was behind the counter, chatting with his brother Caden, when she entered.

She gave them a slight wave and then sat down at one of the stools. “It got quiet around here since this morning,” she said, as Cole approached.

Cole glanced at his watch. “We just finished up the lunch rush about forty-five minutes ago.