Outmatched: A Novel Read online

  Contents

  Outmatched

  Also by Kristen Callihan

  Also by Samantha Young

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Outmatched

  What happens when a boxer finds chemistry with a geek?

  * * *

  Parker Brown can’t believe she needs to hire a fake boyfriend. When she landed her dream job in renewable energy, she thought she’d be entering a world at the forefront of progressive thinking. But the head boss prefers to promote employees who are “settled.” Thankfully, she’s found the perfect candidate, a fellow intellectual looking for some quick cash. What Parker gets is his protective big brother—Rhys Morgan. The tall, muscled ex-boxer with a foul mouth shows up just as her boss does, and now she’s stuck with the manipulative jerk.

  * * *

  Responsibility weighs heavily on Rhys. Now permanently out of the ring, he’s trying to hold together his late father’s gym and keep his younger brother, Dean, on the straight and narrow. To save Dean from himself, Rhys takes his place, ready to give this society girl a piece of his mind. Instead, he finds an opportunity. Even though they can hardly stand each other, posing as Parker’s boyfriend is a win-win deal. She gets to keep her job, and he’ll charm her star-struck boss into sponsoring his gym.

  * * *

  Problem is, they can barely keep their hands off each other. And what started as an easy deal isn’t so easy anymore. Because what future can a rough ex-boxer, afraid to open his heart, and a polished society geek, who has sworn off real relationships, possibly have?

  * * *

  They say opposites attract. These opposites are about to combust on impact.

  Outmatched

  A Novel

  By Kristen Callihan and Samantha Young

  Copyright © 2019 Kristen Callihan and Samantha Young

  * * *

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of the above author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  This work is registered with and protected by Copyright House.

  * * *

  Edited by Jennifer Sommersby Young

  Cover Design By Hang Le

  Also by Kristen Callihan

  Other Adult Contemporary titles by Kristen Callihan

  * * *

  The Game On Series:

  The Hook Up

  The Friend Zone

  The Game Plan

  The Hot Shot

  * * *

  VIP Series:

  Idol

  Managed

  Fall

  * * *

  Adult Paranormal Romance titles by Kristen Callihan

  Darkest London Series:

  Firelight

  Ember

  Moonglow

  Winterblaze

  Entwined

  Shadowdance

  Evernight

  Soulbound

  Forevermore

  Also by Samantha Young

  Play On

  As Dust Dances

  Into the Deep

  Out of the Shallows

  Hero

  Villain: a Hero Novella

  One Day: A Valentine Novella

  Fight or Flight

  * * *

  On Dublin Street Series:

  On Dublin Street

  Down London Road

  Before Jamaica Lane

  Fall From India Place

  Echoes of Scotland Street

  Moonlight on Nightingale Way

  Until Fountain Bridge (a novella)

  Castle Hill (a novella)

  Valentine (a novella)

  One King’s Way (a novella)

  * * *

  Hart’s Boardwalk Series:

  The One Real Thing

  Every Little Thing

  Things We Never Said

  * * *

  Adult Paranormal Romance titles by Samantha Young

  (written under S. Young)

  War of Hearts: A True Immortality Novel

  * * *

  Young Adult contemporary titles by Samantha Young

  The Impossible Vastness of Us

  The Fragile Ordinary

  * * *

  Young Adult Urban Fantasy titles by Samantha Young

  * * *

  The Tale of Lunarmorte Trilogy:

  Moon Spell

  River Cast

  Blood Solstice

  * * *

  Warriors of Ankh Trilogy:

  Blood Will Tell

  Blood Past

  Shades of Blood

  * * *

  Fire Spirits Series:

  Smokeless Fire

  Scorched Skies

  Borrowed Ember

  Darkness, Kindled

  Outmatched

  A Novel

  Kristen Callihan

  Samantha Young

  One

  Rhys

  * * *

  My dad once told me that most people didn’t intend to ruin their lives; they simply made a series of stupid choices. He’d been in his battered leather chair, wide shoulders hunched over the executive rosewood desk that had been the pride of his office. The same chair I slumped in now, facing the same expansive desk.

  Idly, I traced a finger along the edge, the once-gleaming wood now dull and nicked. As a kid, it seemed odd to me that Dad wanted this ornate desk, more suited to a law firm, as the centerpiece of a bare-bones boxing and martial arts gym office. When I’d asked him about it, he’d smiled in that faint way of his.

  “Lights Out is my pride and joy, boyo.” He’d spread his big, scarred hands over the shining desktop. “Here is where I represent it. Like it or not, appearances matter.”

  Actions and words counted equal measure in his world. Act decisively, speak your piece with truth, and make good choices.

  What would he think of my choices?

  “Nothing good,” I muttered, then pressed the pads of my fingers to my aching eyes. At the moment, I wasn’t thinking much of my dad’s choices either.

  Dad’s been gone for four years. The pain had dulled a little around the edges, but the emptiness remained. It was the fine, hot rage I felt toward him that freaked me out. Dad was never perfect. I’d known that for a long time. After Mom died, he’d fallen down a rabbit hole of his own making. But this shitshow he left on my hands was another story and made it hard to forgive and forget.

  Shit, I wasn’t allowed to forget. The bank wouldn’t let that happen.

  I was clueless that my finances and the gym were in so much trouble until the day I found my dad hunched over his desk. The day Dad told me he’d mismanaged my money—a toxic mixture of bad inve
stments and gambling—and that he’d remortgaged the gym to try to cover it.

  A month later, Dad was dead. Heart attack, the stress and shame of what he’d done catching up to him in the worst of ways. And I became the new owner of Lights Out, and a mountain of debt.

  My jaw locked tight, the rage hitting me again. I wanted to get up, walk away, and never look back. From outside the glass walls of the office came the sound of juvenile laughter. The junior group was practicing capoeira, one of the gym’s newest offerings. The classes were all full, but only half of the boys could afford to pay. And while it was my prerogative to turn them away, I knew I’d never do that. This gym was their lifeline in a world that would easily drain their joy and leave them empty shells of their former selves.

  “That’s a pretty nasty expression you got going.” Carlos stood by the door I’d made the mistake of leaving open. A grin split his face. “You find a rash or something?”

  “Yeah, right under my balls,” I replied without heat. “You want to take a look?”

  “I’ll leave that to your lady friends.”

  Carlos knew I hadn’t been with any lady friends, as he put it, in a while. Don’t get me wrong—the opportunities were there, I just hadn’t wanted to take them. I didn’t have the stomach for… well, anything lately. First with Dad’s fucking debts, then with Jake—I didn’t want to think about Jake.

  Carlos pushed away from the door and dropped his ass in the chair opposite my desk. “So,” he prompted, “what’s with the face?”

  I rubbed the back of my aching neck. “The usual. Money.”

  Carlos leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees, his easy smile gone. Most people never saw Carlos without a smile. Between us, Carlos was considered the happy one, those big brown puppy eyes of his drawing ladies in like honey to bees. He’d played up the role with ease, hiding a darker interior almost no one knew about. That he trusted me enough to show his true self now and then was something I’d never take for granted.

  “No change?” he asked.

  “Not enough. I’m behind on the mortgage payments by a few months. Bank is breathing down my neck.”

  “What about this Kyle Garret?”

  Six months ago, a guy named Kyle Garret approached me about buying the gym. After looking into him, Carlos and I found out he was a big real estate mogul, buying up property all over Boston and the East Coast and turning it into swank condos and housing developments.

  “I’m not that desperate.” Okay, I was. But this place had been everything to me growing up. It was filled with ghosts of my past, and while some of them were painful, others kept me going. All I had to do was walk through the gym, and I’d remember: the juice bar in the lobby where mom would greet Jake, Carlos, and me after school with banana shakes and a big smile. Studio B where Jake and I took our first punches and truly learned why boxing was the Sweet Science.

  My brother Dean and I used to hide under Dad’s desk and play “spy.” Which was to say, Dean would play spy and I’d humor him. That was until the day my parents slipped into the office for a quickie and didn’t know we were under there. Some memories aren’t pretty, but they were mine and they were all I had left. I wasn’t about to lose that too.

  Carlos sighed. “You know if you got back into the game, I could set up a match—”

  “No.” It wasn’t a shout but it damn near felt like one in my head. A cold sweat broke out on my lower back as I glared at Carlos. He damn well knew I was out of boxing. For good.

  His expression was empathetic. “Look, man, I know. But I don’t think Jake would want—”

  “I said no.”

  Just thinking about Jake opened a hole in my chest. Best friends from the cradle, closer to me than my own meathead brother, we’d had each other’s backs. Both fighters. Both headed for greatness. Hell, we had greatness in our palms. Until an unlucky hit to the temple ended his life.

  A greasy lump of horror and shame slid down my throat. Losing him was hard enough; knowing that Dad lost a crap ton of money because he’d bet on Jake and lost tainted every memory I had of both of them, of boxing.

  Jake had left behind his wife Marcy and their baby girl, Rose. Hell, I’d grown up with Marcy, and I hadn’t seen her and Rose in months. Every time I did, guilt and grief crippled me for days.

  “I’m done with that game,” I told Carlos, though I shouldn’t have to. He knew I was done.

  The urge to scrub my skin rode me. I showered two hours ago, but I felt unclean, sticky with regret and rage. Dad’s shame had somehow transferred onto me and I couldn’t rid myself of it.

  His smile was weary. “Yeah, I know. But this gym is all I have too. It goes and we all lose our home.”

  I couldn’t sit there anymore. Lurching up, I paced the small space. “We need to bring in more business. No, what we need is a sponsor.” And a fucking miracle.

  Carlos rubbed his chin and watched me pace. “That could work, but what would the draw be?”

  “Fuck if I know.” My chest sagged with a sigh. “Tax write-off? The joys of helping inner-city youths?”

  Dark humor lit Carlos’s eyes. “Your lack of enthusiasm isn’t exactly selling me here.”

  “Because I’m no good at bullshitting. I’m a shit salesman.”

  “That you are, bro,” said a voice from the door.

  Dean, my baby brother and expert bullshitter, lounged in the doorway. I honestly didn’t know how the fuck we were related. First off, instead of wearing jeans and a shirt like any other guy here, he was dressed in a three-piece suit that I knew cost more than his rent—rent that I paid. The little pissant.

  Secondly, he was too fucking pretty. From grade school on, girls cooed over his blue eyes and sandy hair. Prince fucking Charming. I pushed away the thought that he looked like my ma. I missed her daily.

  That was the hell of it. I missed too many people.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Dean asked, ambling into my office. He stopped short and gave me a wide, fake-ass smile. “Today, I mean.”

  I shot Carlos a quick, do not say a damn word glare. He blinked, and I knew he understood. I kept Dean away from the business troubles. He had potential to be something great—if he ever got his head out of his own ass and got a job.

  Carlos stood up and rolled a kink out of his neck. “Rhys has a case of limp dick.”

  I elbowed Carlos hard enough to knock him sideways. “Get the fuck outta here with that shit. You want to jinx me or something?”

  Carlos snorted and looked to Dean. “Got any advice for that, college boy?”

  “Thoughts and prayers?”

  “You’re both hilarious.” But our ploy had worked. Dean was distracted.

  As soon as Carlos left, I leaned against the edge of my desk and looked Dean over. “What’s with the suit? You going on an interview?”

  Please let it be that. The boy had a degree in computer science from BU, had aced his MCATS, and had multiple offers from grad schools across the country, but he was floundering, working as a waiter and spending his free time dicking around with women.

  He grinned liked it was Christmas morning. “Something like that.”

  This kid. “It either is an interview or it isn’t.”

  “Oh, I got the job.” His grin wouldn’t die. “Tonight’s more like a trial run.”

  Fighters rely on instinct, and mine kicked into high gear. “Trial run? What the fuck are you talking about, Deanie?”

  His smile fell flat. He hated when I called him Deanie.

  “What kind of shifty-ass, suit-wearing job has trial runs?” I pressed when he turned mulish. “Or starts at… six in the evening?”

  “Look, I was really excited to tell you about this because it’s fucking brilliant. But if you’re going to give me shit…”

  “Talk. Now.”

  “Fine.” Dean pulled out his phone and headed my way. “I found this wicked cool app where you put in your photo and skill set and it finds you people who are looking to hire.”
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  “That’s… good.” And yet my hackles stayed up. There was something fishy about his manner.

  “So I figure, what the hell, no one is hiring for what I have a degree in now. But I’m good at other things.”

  “What other things?” This fucking kid. Only nine years younger than me and I swore he’d aged me a decade every frickin’ year I had to deal with him.

  He shrugged. “Like charming women, making them feel good.”

  Slowly, I stood at full height. “Making women feel good.”

  “Yeah,” he said like I was dense. “I’m brilliant with women.”

  “What’s the job, Dean?”

  Oblivious, he tapped on his phone. “So, this app put me in touch with this cute honey, Parker, who… get this… will pay me to be her escort.” His eyes lit up. “Isn’t that a pissah? I can’t believe it. The amount she’s willing to pay me is crazy. Easy money and all for doing what comes natural to me. Best part? It’s an open-ended deal.”