Raw Deal (Larson Brothers #1)(72)
He knew her breakdowns always embarrassed her, as if she wasn’t allowed to express them. He’d tried to give her a safe place to do that, and now he’d f*cked it all up.
This wasn’t working. It was never going to work as long as he kept giving in to her.
Leaning his forehead against her door, he asked, “What do you want me to do?”
This time, she was a long time answering. “Just . . . go home. I’m sorry I asked you to come all this way.”
“Like hell I’m going home and leaving you this way.”
“You’re the reason I am this way.”
“Savannah. I’m coming in.”
Her door was locked, but the knob was old and flimsy. He broke the f*cker with a violent twist and shoved his way inside to see her sitting on the bed, staring at him in disbelief. “You—”
“I’ll buy you a new one.” Stalking over to her, he grabbed her left hand and showed her the little tattoo on her ring finger. “Found it.”
Her streaming eyes were furious and her mascara had smudged around them, making her look half crazed too. “When?”
“This morning.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“Did you want me to?”
“I don’t . . .”
“Considering what you told me about it. That it was there for the man you’re going to marry. Where did you really see us going, Savannah?”
“I didn’t know! But I was willing to find out, before this.”
“Before this? So you’d be willing to be with me when I’m not a fighter, but not if I am. It doesn’t make any sense. I can’t change what happened to your brother. I can’t change what I am. So you either want to be with me knowing it all, or you don’t.”
“It’s that life I don’t want!” she burst out. “I’ve seen what Rowan went through with Tommy. I know what it entails. Even if you win the title, what then? A rematch. Defenses. It’ll just go on and on until you lose, or you get hurt, and then you’re done. I can’t take it, Michael, I really can’t. I can’t watch it.”
“Savannah—”
“What if I asked you just to take some more time? Would you do that?”
“This is it. If I back down from this, I’m as good as done. In this business, there is no tomorrow.”
She threw her hands up. “Oh, Jesus. Stop quoting Rocky.”
“That was Creed.”
“I know who it was! I’ve seen it a thousand times.”
“Look, you said when we first met that Tommy wouldn’t quit, but that’s what you would want from me? You would want to see me as a quitter?”
“I don’t want to see you as someone who has to fight for survival. Because you’re still doing it, you know. It’s no different than when you were a kid.”
“It’s completely different,” he practically hissed, and she drew back from his sudden vitriol, though it tore at his heart to see her do so. “Don’t ever say that to me. I didn’t have a choice back then. I do now.”
“And you’ve made it!” she yelled, shooting to her feet and showing him that she could fight, too, when she needed to. “To hell with me and what I want for you, to hell with everyone, you only care about your pride and f*cking glory and a belt around your waist. You don’t have anything to prove to anyone!”
“I have to prove it to myself.” The louder she grew, the quieter he became. “And I have to prove it to Meyers, who knew exactly who he might be talking to at that press conference in there.”
“See? Your pride.”
“You want me to f*cking back down? To tell Meyers and the world that he’s right, I’ve been hiding, I’m done, that’s it, I’ll never come back from what happened to Tommy? That’s not how I’m made, Savannah. It’s not in my blood. If that’s what you want from your man, you picked the wrong motherf*cker.”
“I want my man to give some consideration to his woman’s worst nightmare, and do his damnedest to not make it a reality for her, starting by not doing the one thing she asks him not to do.”
“Except that one damn thing is everything I’m about.”
“No, it’s not. I’ve seen what you’re about. It isn’t that. It has nothing to do with that.”
“Then you haven’t gotten to know me at all. You only see the side you want to see.”
She straightened, drawing herself up to her already considerable height. And the slow inhale she took was probably the most dangerous thing he’d seen her do since he’d known her. “I guess I’m seeing that now,” she said icily. “All right. What are you standing here arguing with me for? Go home, get started. Good luck and Godspeed and all that. Forget about my brother, forget about me. Go do you.”
“That isn’t what I want.”
She brushed past him and headed for her living room, only speaking when her back was to him. “Well, you know what I want.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The wipers squealed across the windshield, the sound grating on Mike’s already frazzled nerves. New York City was as damp and rainy as New Orleans had been, but it wasn’t so miserably humid. Mike stared blindly through the tinted backseat window of the SUV taking him over to the press conference to announce his name being added to the main card at Mayhem. The street was clogged with yellow cabs, the bleak gray world interrupted by splashes of color from open umbrellas.