The Fight for Love (Contemporary Romance) Read Online Free

gotten worse lately.”
     
    “Why don’t you let me cover the event for you?” she suggested brightly.
     
    Lucie could see the exhaustion in Adrian’s eyes. After working all day at the paper the last thing he needed was an evening at a busy fight event when his home life was already draining enough. But that wasn’t why Lucie made the offer that she did. She was clinging to the media pass and the prospect of seeing Dalton again even if it was in a professional capacity.
     
    “Really?” Adrian straightened in surprise. “I wouldn’t…” he cleared his throat nervously, “I wouldn’t have thought it was your kind of thing. You rarely cover sporting events. That’s why Carol put me on it.”
     
    “Huh, I’m kind of into that stuff,” Lucie shrugged nonchalantly, hoping Adrian wouldn’t quiz her on the world of professional fighting about which she actually knew very little.
     
    “Don’t you have some big date lined up for the evening?” Adrian wondered bitterly.
     
    Lucie smiled sweetly, hating the fact that Adrian still hung on to his bitterness towards her.
     
    “Nope, no date lined up.”
     
    “So what, you’re single?” Adrian asked, looking surprised.
     
    “You say that like you care,” Lucie deadpanned.
     
    “No…I just,” Adrian was turning bright red, regretting having asked the question. “If you’re happy to cover the fight then that’s great, I’ll owe you.”
     
    Lucie smiled in acknowledgement.
     
    “It’s no problem,” she told him kindly. When in reality it was she who’d now owe him one as Adrian had just given her the perfect excuse to run into Dalton again and Lucie couldn’t wait.
     

***
     
    “Again!”
     
    Dalton’s trainer barked the word at him. Bouncing on his feet in the ring, Dalton jabbed once, twice at the punching pads his trainer was holding up, using so much force that he almost knocked the other man off his feet.
     
    “Good!” his trainer exclaimed enthusiastically. And then, undeterred, “Again!”
     
    Dalton punched hard and fast, always bouncing, staying quick on his feet. His speed coupled with his power had secured his position as one of the top fighters in his weight division. But in his industry he knew that you were only ever as good as your latest win. All it took was one defeat to send you falling from the top and Dalton had spent too long climbing up to where he was to ever take a step back.
     
    “Again!”
     
    His trainer was an ex-boxer, once famous during the prime of his career. Steve Rugen. He was a hardened man with enough visible battle scars to ensure that no one ever messed with him. He also had little patience. Most of the world adored Dalton but not Steve, he still saw him as the messed-up kid he’d discovered street fighting in the projectsover ten years ago.
     
    Raising his fists and keeping his head low to his shoulders, Dalton threw some more punches.
     
    “Come on, Dalton, harder!” Steve urged angrily. “Hit me like you mean it!”
     
    Dalton punched the pads again and again, until his knuckles became sore beneath the thick boxing gloves he was wearing.
     
    “Okay, take five,” Steve ordered abruptly.
     
    Panting, Dalton stalked across the ring to the edge and reached for a much needed bottle of water which he hungrily drank from. Sweat was running in rivers down his back.
     
    “Everything okay?” Steve asked after Dalton had finished rehydrating.
     
    “Yeah,” Dalton shrugged. “Why do you ask?”
     
    “I feel like you’re holding back.”
     
    Dalton quickly shook his head. “Of course not.”
     
    But he was holding back more than he’d like to admit. The stab wound on his chest was still sore despite the painkillers he’d washed down that morning with his protein smoothie. And his mind wasn’t as focused as it usually was. He found that his thoughts kept straying over to Lucie and what had happened in her apartment. He’d desperately wanted to stay, to get the chance to kiss