I had to look away as I remembered my close encounter with the man. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like him at all, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to him at least a little.
“Go on in,” Piper said, taking a step away from me. She said nothing else, spinning on her heel and walking away. I assumed she was headed downstairs with the guys.
Well, this was weird, wasn’t it? I pushed into the room, finding Shay wearing workout clothes, her hands wrapped up in bandages. She was punching a punching bag, but the moment I stepped in, she lowered her hands to her sides, studying me.
She looked pissed. I didn’t think I flirted with Nix too much last night, but that had to be what this was about. Shit. Maybe my father was wrong. Maybe none of her boyfriends were weak links. Maybe they all loved her so much they didn’t even see any other girls.
Shay took a swig from a water bottle, walking over to me. She wiped an arm on her forehead, catching the sweat. Her hair was down, a little greasy, but she still looked like she could take care of business. I supposed, with everything she’d been through, she had to constantly be ready. Never at ease, never relaxed, always ready. I knew the feeling well, and it sucked.
“Do you know why I had Piper bring you here, Giselle?” Shay asked, cutting to the chase.
The room we were in was padded; the walls, the floor. Full of exercise equipment, weight lifting machines, a treadmill, a bike. The most impressive exercise room I’d ever seen. Slade’s muscles made sense.
“No,” I said, and the moment I said it, I regretted it.
“Really? Because I think you do.” Shay took another step towards me, cocking her head, her dark-eyed stare so intense it reminded me of… well, it was almost like looking into a mirror. Though she had brown hair, she was just like me. About my same height, my same stature. We both had the dark eyes that could be mysterious and acidic at the same time.
When I continued to say nothing, Shay turned around and said, “Come here.” I followed her through the room, and we stopped in an area that was free of machines. Shay turned to face me, cracking her neck. “Fight me.”
“No. I’m not going to fight you.”
“Why not? We’ll see who the better woman is. Whoever wins can have all the dicks downstairs. How does that sound?” Judging from the sound of her voice, I’d say she didn’t plan on losing, so it wasn’t like she was really putting two of her boyfriends up for grabs. “That is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Her hands curled into fists at her sides, but she didn’t lift them, didn’t take a fighting stance with me. The only thing Shay did was glare at me.
God. This was just great. I’d made an enemy of Shay with my fumbling attempt at flirting with one of her boyfriends, all on my father’s insistence. This day could literally not get any worse.
What could I say to her right then? Clearly, Shay had already made up her mind about me and what I wanted, so all I could do was prepare myself for a fight I didn’t see coming.
She was angry. She was fucking pissed with me. Because of that, she had certain tells, and I was able to block her punches the moment she started raining them down upon me. Shay was strong; I had to give her that. If she landed one of those punches on my gut, I was certain I’d be hurting for days. Given a clean shot, she could knock me off my feet instantly.
But I was no frail, clueless girl. I was in a much better place than I’d been last night—minus the lingering feeling of confusion I had over Ezekiel and everything he’d told me, how my body had reacted to being so close to his.
I was ready to fight. I could let loose some steam.
And so I did.
Shay and I were locked in a fight for what seemed like forever, neither one of us wanting to give the other an upper hand, neither one of us wanting to lose. We both had something to prove to the other person. Shay wanted to defend her territory, so to speak, and I sought to prove to her that I was no wilting flower, even though I might look it in this constant barrage of white.
The room was full of grunts as we fought. Anytime I threw a punch, Shay either sidestepped or redirected my blow. I did the same when she came after me. We were like the same person, shadows of the other, so evenly matched it was impossible to guess which one of us would finally get lucky and be the victor.
Because that’s what it would be: luck. It would be sheer dumb luck when one of us overtook the other. She’d been trained her whole life… just as I had. We were the same, even if we were different, even if I didn’t like the feeling of her hand grabbing my fist or me knocking her arms off course.
“What did you hope to gain by coming onto one of my boyfriends?” Shay asked as she lunged at me.
I dodged her, managing to land a single punch to her side, but she recoiled and bounced back, hitting me in much the same way, causing me to stumble back a bit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hissed out.
“Don’t play dumb.” The anger on Shay’s face dissipated somewhat, and her nonstop assault at me slowed to a halt when she said what she said next: “Unless it wasn’t you. Tell me the truth, Giselle. Was it your father’s idea? Did he tell you to flirt with my boyfriends when I wasn’t around? You had to know I’d hear about it—”
My initial reaction was to deny her, to protect my father, to keep his name from being dragged through the mud. Because if she knew, she’d run to tattle on him for his dirty moves, and maybe he’d be out of the running.
But that first reaction aside, I didn’t know why the hell I would bother to try to protect my father when he’d done nothing to protect me my whole life.
Control. The only thing my father had ever done was control me.
I let my hands fall to my sides, showing Shay I was no longer going to fight her. If she wanted to take this as a win, she could. I was done fighting the battles of my father, pretending they were my own. They were not. “I don’t want your boyfriends,” I whispered. “You can keep them. The only thing I want is the thing I can’t have.”
The power to rewind time. To save Father Charlie. To tell my father three years ago no.
She breathed hard. “If anyone can understand that, it’s me.” Her posture didn’t relax, but she didn’t come after me again. She stood two feet in front of me, still glaring, but not with full-out hatred. “I lost everything. I only recently got my life back, and now that I’m here, I’m not going to let anyone take it from me.”