U.K. Boxing Day: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 91) Read online

  And I want to use every last penny, all the pence and pound sterling I’ve got, of it to spoil her rotten because she deserves it.

  “Paine! Paine, dammit!” the referee says.

  I turn seeing him standing at the center of the ring with Anthony. He better enjoy being champ because his reign has less than a minute left to it.

  “Where’s your head at, Paine?” the ref says. “Get over here and touch gloves.”

  “Fuck him. I’ll touch my glove to his jaw when I break it for disrespecting my woman.”

  “I’m going to disrespect her in more ways than that,” Anthony says.

  The ref shakes his head and steps away, annoyed by me, but it doesn’t matter.

  Nothing matters, but her.

  I feel my arms shaking as my stance widens. Suddenly my head starts shaking and my neck tightens as every muscle in my body fires.

  I feel like Bruce Banner as he transforms into the Incredible Hulk.

  The bell rings and I charge right at Anthony, who puts both gloves up to block the wild, completely undisciplined punch that I cock back and throw with all of my weight.

  The momentum from my hips and the power from my obliques, my glutes, and my shoulders comes slamming forward as my glove finds his jaw, just like I said it would.

  His tasseled boxing shoes come clean off the mat as his entire body goes flying toward the ropes. The laws of physics are nearly denied as his shoulders clear the top ropes as his body continues falling backwards. The gigantic German continues his trajectory as his entire body flies right outside the ring landing at my woman feet.

  Just like a cat that brings home its kill to win the approval of its owner, I’ve dropped this pussy at the feet of my woman, letting her see first hand what happens when someone tries to disrespect this lion’s lioness.

  “Get an ambulance!” someone yells.

  I feel Jim Gray’s, legendary boxing announcer, hand on my shoulder and the bright lights from multiple cameras stuck in my face, temporarily blinding me.

  He asks some rapid-fire questions, but I don’t even hear the words. It’s only noise to me.

  I raise my glove, moving the camera out of my way and checking on my woman to make sure the EMTs don’t bump into her or that any of Anthony’s fans cause her harm.

  But her seat is suddenly empty and as I frantically scan the area where she was it’s clear she’s disappeared.

  CHAPTER 2

  Ella

  “Do you have a pre-booking, miss?” the taxi marshal on East Parkside, near Car Park 4 outside the O2 Arena says.

  I blow right past him, recognizing the license plate of the Uber I booked from the ride-sharing app as I was running for the exit.

  I jump in the back and we take off towards my Airbnb.

  “Rough night?” the driver asks about a minute later as we enter Blackwall Tunnel’s southern entrances, just south of The O2 on the Greenwich Peninsula, as the tunnel guides us underneath the bend in the River Thames.

  “I’m not sure,” I say.

  Thankfully the cabbie just nods and doesn’t ask any more questions over the course of our thirty-seven minute ride.

  I tap my foot on the floor and exhale hard every few breaths, nervously watching the icon of our car on the Uber app trying to will it to arrive at White Hart Lane Station, Stop U in Tottenham, faster. I would have him drop me off at my Airbnb, but I don’t have the address with me and my Airbnb app isn’t working...again. I took public transportation from the airport to that station when I arrived into town, so if he drops me there I can get orientated and will recognize which way to walk the last little bit.

  Finally we arrive and I pay him the £2.50 initial fee plus the £0.15 per minute fee, effectively draining my purse. I can only imagine the awkwardness if I’d hired a black cab or Addison Lee, the London based private hire taxi company.

  Thank god I was carrying some quid, because the app denied my U.S. issued credit card.

  The cab drives away and immediately I know my luck is about to get tested again…in more ways than one.

  I turn in a half circle, trying to get my bearings just outside of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, one of the six English football (soccer) clubs to have never been relegated from the Premier League.

  The team is as tough as their many hooligan fans, and after not living in London for four years, and not being a big football supporter, I’d forgotten just how tough those hooligan fans can be.

  If there’s one man I wish were here with me now it unequivocally would be him…the man I just ran from.

  The way he delivered that body right on my doorstep, so to speak, had me terrified.

  At first, when his eyes locked on mine after I yelled out to him, unable to control myself I felt a connection with him, an undeniable attraction.

  It’s what I’ve wanted for over four years now and I was sure that’s what I saw.

  Until I saw his rage and the way he dropped that man like a bag of garbage at the curb on collection day.

  Instantly I was sprouting sweat like a rainstorm, unsure if my presence inspired him or enraged him.

  I wasn’t about to take a chance as I immediately ran from the arena and didn’t look back. Heck, I didn’t even text my brother until I was in the Uber. He probably thinks I’m psycho, or afraid of a little blood or something.

  What does Oliver think?

  I feel like I had my one chance right there in front of me and I blew it. The chance of a lifetime.

  Right now I’m going to need nine lives to navigate the short walk through this dodgy area and back to my accommodation.

  To say the people I see along the side of the road smoking cigarettes right now are unsavory would be the understatement of a lifetime.

  They say the worst thing you can do when faced with a predator is to run, as that will bring out the predatory instinct even more.

  I quickly begin walking east down White Hart Lane towards Creighton Road.

  I keep my chin high, shoulders back, walking with a stiffness to my shoulders as I’d imagine someone like Vladimir Putin does when he’s trying to out-alpha all those other foreign leaders. Whether he succeeds or not is another story, but all I know is what I’ve seen before and the guys along this road don’t look like they were born here.

  I hear them speaking in a harsh tongue as they eye me, making catcalls but I just keep on stepping like I’m ten feet tall and bulletproof with the biggest dick in the jungle. Considering I don’t even have a dick to start with makes my charade that much more imperative.

  Ten minutes later, although it seems like a lifetime has passed, I arrive at the gate only to find it locked.

  I see the security guard sleeping face down on his “security” desk, drool coming out of his mouth as a replay of the fight streams on BBC.

  I just can’t escape this night no matter how hard I try.

  I bang on the door with the pinky side of my fist, and he’s quickly up and letting me in.

  “Wait. Weren’t you that…”

  “Not me,” I say, continuing up to my room with a swagger that lets him know I don’t have the time to be messed with. In reality I’m trying to put up a huge bitch shield since I’ll be staying here all week. Being rude to others is definitely not something that comes naturally to me, or how I’d ever want to treat people.

  But being the center of attention, especially in the part of town I find myself in, is not how to make it through a “holiday” visit back home, although this is technically only half home to me.

  As soon as I’m through the door I shut it and throw my back flat against it, exhaling for the first time in nearly an hour.

  I turn on the water in the shower and then move into the main living area, flipping on the TV while the water gets warm.

  I strip down, and of course I quickly see that the last person to rent was watching Sky Sports.

  All they can talk about is Oliver’s tenacious victory.

  The replay of his devastating blow to the c
hin of Joshua Anthony is played over and over and over again, with the announcers freezing it mid frame and saying how they’ve never seen anything like it.

  Me either, but what I’m really referring to is him.

  I flip over to BT Sports and they’re still dissecting the fight too, although they also seem interested in finding out the name of “the young woman ringside.”

  “Great,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  It’s the biggest night of Oliver’s life and there’s a chance I may have stolen a bit of his thunder.

  But it’s those cloudy eyes of his…the ones that are as bottomless and dangerous as a thundercloud that first drew me in. It’s one of the many ways he intimidates other men without so much as laying a finger on them.

  And it was also one of the many reasons why every woman in London, and the Commonwealth, wanted him like no other.

  The announcers ramble on about how he’d been distracted, which they find unbelievable considering how he’s been preparing for this moment his entire life.

  They seem to be lost on the fact that it didn’t make a difference…I didn’t make a difference.

  It was just another first round one punch dismantling from Oliver Paine.

  And Paine is oh so appropriate in this case because after what happened tonight, what I did, years of dreaming of being with him, the hopes that I’ve built up over time, have been dismantled with one crushing blow, an emotional one right to my gut.

  “See! Right there,” the announcer says. “Freeze it there.”

  “Her,” the other announcer says. “He locks eyes on that woman and then as soon as he knocks Anthony clean out and delivers him right to her feet, the camera pans back on him and then back to her, but she’s gone.”

  “More like disappeared,” the other announcer says.

  “Time for you to disappear,” I say to the announcer, hitting the off switch on the remote. I don’t need salt thrown in my wounds.

  What I do need is a hot shower and some sleep, time to lick my wounds and figure out if there’s some way I can be saved by the bell.

  Because as it stands right now Anthony wasn’t the only one Oliver knocked out with that punch.

  He took my hopes and dreams with it and I have to find a way to dust myself off, stand back up, and come back swinging…against the best pound-for-pound fighter the world has ever seen.

  It’s not going to be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.

  All I know is I’m going to need a miracle, and Christmas is three hundred and sixty four days away…as far away as humanly possible.

  CHAPTER 3

  Oliver

  “What do you mean your sister’s not coming?” I say to Ethan, my eyes narrowing and my nostrils flare.

  “I don’t know, man. She just up and left. You saw her.”

  No I didn’t actually, or else I wouldn’t have allowed it to happen.

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Well where are you two staying?”

  “I just flew in for the fight. I’ve got a flight out in the morning back to New York.”

  “Where’s Ella?”

  “She got an Airbnb somewhere.”

  “Somewhere? You don’t know where your own sister is staying?”

  “She’s an adult. She can make her own decisions.”

  “You’re her brother,” I say. I already knocked one man out cold tonight because he disrespected her. The last thing I expected to find was her brother doing the same thing, but in a different way.

  “She’s a woman, Ethan. There are a lot of parts of the city that aren’t safe, especially at night.”

  “She lived her before, remember? She’ll be fine.”

  I feel my fingers dig into my palm. I want to deck my supposed best friend, the one who I never expected to act this way.

  I stand up from my seat.

  “Everything okay, champ?” he asks.

  “No. Everything’s not okay. I’m out of here.”

  “Whoa man. You can’t,” he says reaching for my arm, but I shoot him a look that leaves no questions in his mind that I do not want to be fucked with right now.

  I have to find out where my woman is and make sure she’s safe, and the only place I know she’s safe is by my side.

  “Watch me,” I say.

  “You’re under contract. You have to stay for two hours minimum or else you’ve got serious problems,” he yells after me.

  I don’t care about the troubles, I’ll pay the fine.

  But there is another much more important trouble I’m facing. I have no idea where she is and the only person who can put me in touch with her is back at the table where I was just sitting.

  I turn around and go back to the table.

  “Are you okay, man?” my friend asks. “You know Ella likes to do her own thing. She’s probably in bed reading a book.” He pauses. “Why are you so concerned about her anyway?”

  “Why aren’t you?” I ask.

  He shakes his head, turns and takes a sip of his drink.

  He stares off towards the dance floor, his eyes locking on the storage cage right in the middle.

  The place we’re at is called The Cause, and it’s easy to see that it used to be a garage, the storage cage right in the middle of the dance floor one of the visual reminders. There are girls dancing inside of it and the DJ booth is right next to it, which makes the entire dance floor a good setup. I’m not one to dance, but if Ella were here there’s no question I’d be cutting a rug out there tonight, celebrating my victory and more importantly celebrating seeing her for the first time in way too damn long.

  The Cause itself has a capacity of four hundred, but when paired with its sister club, Grow, as it is tonight, the venues combine to host six hundred.

  And there are definitely six hundred people here for the sponsored after-party that required me to show.

  It’s crazy how quickly things change in a big city like London. Organizing parties in Hackney became too difficult due to restrictions. You have to get a Temporary Events Notices (TEN), which is harder to come by, and a Special Policy Areas (SPA), which keeps new licenses at bay for places that want to stay open late. For that reason more places spread to Tottenham, which was further north.

  And speaking of how things change so quickly my mind flashes back to Ella. She was just a kid five or six years ago and now…damn.

  She’s all woman.

  I still remember the get-together we had at her parent’s house when they announced they were leaving London to go back to the States.

  I was so pissed because I was losing my best friend, the guy I went to Thailand with to study Muay Thai kickboxing one summer. Our dads went too. It was one of the best experiences of my entire life.

  But apparently somewhere along the way Ethan forgot about honor. How could he let his sister out of his sight after midnight in a big city, or really anytime and anywhere for that matter? He’s a man. He’s supposed to watch over her day and night and keep her safe.

  That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about, amongst other things, since their going away party.

  That was the first time I’d ever seen her like that…like the woman that she is now.

  Gone were the pigtails and braces and the clumsy kid who wanted to tag along from time to time.

  In there place was a smile that could bring a man to his knees, curves that could make a motorcyclist jealous, and best of all a mind as sharp as a tack.

  Most people really don’t know how smart she is because she’s shy, and never wants to attract attention to herself. That’s how she’s always been, and it’s one of the things that I admired about her the most.

  She has it all from inside to out. And it’s all going to be mine. All I have to do is convince her there are no other choices, and claim her the second she sees that I’m the one.

  I didn’t need any time myself, but I had to remember not to go too fast too soon and scare her away
.

  If she only knew the thoughts I had racing through my mind since that day she packed up and went away, she would have never come to the fight tonight, or come anywhere near the beast I’ve become. The beast that wants to devour her, own her, and possess every part of her just like she had with me.

  I turn and look at Ethan to my right, the red fluorescent lights shining right into his face, which allow me the perfect view of his eyes in this profile position.