Chapter 8
Brooke
Dominic retreats across the gymnasium like a man escaping a crime scene, and I take a long sip of wine and try to focus on Marjorie’s story about her niece’s wedding venue drama.
“So then the caterer says he needs another three thousand for the ice sculpture, and my sister nearly has a stroke right there in the—Brooke? Honey, you still with me?”
“Hmm?” I blink and find Marjorie watching me with a look that makes me want to crawl under the table. “Sorry, Marjorie. Really. Just a long day.”
“Mm-hmm.” She follows my gaze toward the far side of the gym where a crowd is gathering around a large taped circle on the floor. “Long day. Sure.”
I ignore the implication and set my wine glass on the table. “I’m going to stretch my legs for a bit.”
“You do that, sweetheart.” Marjorie’s smile is far too amused. “Stretch those legs.”
He’s crouched near the edge of the circle checking the tape, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, forearms flexing as he smooths down a corner.
His jacket is off now, his dress shirt pulling across his shoulders every time he moves, and I hate that I notice.
Hate that my eyes keep tracking the breadth of his back, the way his slacks pull tight across his thighs when he shifts position.
“God, look at him,” one of the women murmurs to her friend. “If my husband looked like that, I’d never let him leave the house.”
“If my husband looked like that,” another says, “I’d actually want to go to the gym.”
Dominic stands and turns to face the growing crowd with his feet planted shoulder-width apart, and he explains the demonstration in that low, commanding voice he uses when he’s in coach mode, the one that somehow manages to be authoritative and warm at the same time, the one that does something to my stomach I refuse to acknowledge.
“Push me out of the circle,” he says, gesturing at the tape.
“No strikes, no throws, just hands and leverage. Pledges get donated for every challenger who lasts sixty seconds.” He flashes a grin at the audience, easy and charming and nothing like the cold hostility he’s shown me lately. “Who wants to try first?”
A couple of dads volunteer, middle-aged guys with soft middles and the confident stride of former athletes who haven’t quite accepted that their glory days ended two decades ago. Dominic handles them like they’re made of tissue paper.
He lets them strain and push for longer than necessary, makes them feel like they almost had him before easing them gently out of the circle, and the crowd eats it up. More laughter, more applause, more of that approachable charm he’s apparently capable of deploying for everyone who isn’t me.
Then the football coach steps up and nearly catches him with a low feint that makes the crowd gasp.
Dominic actually has to work for it this time, his feet sliding on the tape before he recovers, muscles straining against his shirt as he pushes the coach out with a grunt of effort.
He shakes the man’s hand with genuine respect, grinning that boyish grin that makes him look ten years younger, and the applause is louder now.
“Who’s next?” Dominic scans the audience with that easy smile, that warm approachable expression I have literally never seen directed at me in my entire adult life. “Come on, somebody’s gotta be able to give me a real challenge here.”
The words land in my chest and sit there, pulsing with years of accumulated fury.
A real challenge.
My feet are moving before I’ve fully decided, carrying me toward the circle with a momentum that feels almost inevitable. The crowd parts as I approach, conversations dying into curious whispers, and I set my wine glass on the nearest table before stepping out of my heels.
The gymnasium floor is cool under my bare feet, smooth and familiar, and the room goes quiet in a way that feels weighted with history. Anyone who went to school with us, which is most of the people standing around this circle, remembers exactly who we are.
The rivalry all throughout high school due to our competitive natures, then the scholarship, and of course the apparently legendary screaming matches. And now here I am, barefoot in a cocktail dress, stepping into his circle like I have absolutely no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.
Which, historically speaking, has always been accurate where Dominic Midnight is concerned.
His easy grin vanishes the second he sees me, replaced by a hard, wary expression. His eyes drop to my bare feet, travel slowly up my legs, linger for half a second on the slit in my dress before snapping back to my face.
I step closer into the circle.
“What the hell are you doing?” His voice is low, pitched just for me, and there’s a warning underneath the words that I choose to ignore completely.
“Raising money for scholarships,” I whisper back, sweet as poison. “Seems appropriate, don’t you think?”
His eyes flash with recognition, with old anger. “You’re going to lose.”
“That’s funny.” I tilt my head and give him the sharp smile I reserve for men who underestimate me, the one that’s gotten me through fifteen years of locker room interviews and condescending editors and athletes who thought they could intimidate a woman with a press pass.
“I don’t remember ever losing to you, Dominic. ”
“You sure you want to do this?” There’s an edge underneath the question that has nothing to do with the balance challenge, a tension that goes all the way back to senior year.
“I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life, you smug asshole.”
His nostrils flare and something hot flickers in his eyes.
One of the organizers, a nervous-looking woman clutching a clipboard like it might save her from whatever’s about to happen, scurries over to explain the rules for the crowd.
She keeps glancing between us like she’s trying to decide whether to call for backup or just flee the building entirely, and I can’t really blame her for the concern.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she says, backing away with visible relief.
Someone in the crowd starts a timer, and then Dominic’s hands are gripping my forearms and mine are gripping his, and the rest of the gymnasium falls away like it doesn’t exist.
But he doesn’t know that I’ve been taking Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes for the last fifteen years. I know how to grapple. I know leverage and base and how to read an opponent’s weight distribution.
I shift my stance lower, widen my base, and push into him with my shoulder instead of my hands, testing his center of gravity.
Surprise flickers across his face before he can hide it, and the sight sends a rush of satisfaction through me. That’s right, asshole. I’m not the same girl you knew in high school.
He adjusts quickly, countering my pressure with a subtle shift of his hips, but for a second I had him off-balance and we both know it.
His hands tighten on my forearms, his grip hot against my skin, and the memory surfaces before I can stop it.
Those same hands sliding up my thighs, pushing my skirt higher, his mouth on my neck while I bit my lip to keep from crying out…
I stumble, my focus fracturing, and he uses the moment to drive me back two steps toward the edge of the circle.
“Getting distracted, sweetheart?” he murmurs, quiet enough that only I can hear, and there’s an edge to the question that makes my skin prickle.
“You wish,” I mutter back, and dig my heels in, stopping my backward momentum.
I push hard against his left side, dropping my weight and driving with my legs the way my instructor taught me.
He redirects, turning my momentum against me with that infuriating efficiency, but I’m ready for it this time.
I pivot with the redirection instead of fighting it, using his own force to spin us both ninety degrees.
His eyebrows lift. Impressed, maybe. Or just reassessing.
“Careful,” he says, and there’s something almost like respect underneath the warning.
“Don’t patronize me, you dick,” I spit out, and he rolls his eyes.
We circle within the tape with our hands locked on each other’s forearms, each of us testing for weakness in the other’s stance.
The crowd noise fades to a distant hum as my entire world narrows to the grip of his hands, the focus in his dark eyes, the way this feels exactly like every argument we’ve ever had.
There’s the same electricity crackling in the air between us, the same absolute refusal to give an inch of ground, the same bone-deep knowledge that neither of us will back down no matter what it costs, because backing down has never been in either of our vocabularies.
That was always our problem. We were both too stubborn, too competitive, too willing to burn everything to the ground rather than let the other person claim victory.
“Sixty seconds,” someone calls out, and the crowd cheers, but neither of us breaks eye contact.
My arms are burning now, the muscles in my biceps and shoulders screaming with sustained effort, and sweat is sliding down my spine in a way that reminds me this dress was absolutely not designed for physical combat.
The slit up the side is giving me mobility, at least, but I’m acutely aware that one wrong move could turn this into a wardrobe disaster in front of half the town.
“You could just concede,” Dominic says, and underneath the taunt I catch a thread of genuine concern that irritates me more than the taunt itself ever could. “No shame in it, Bennett. You’ve made your point.”
“I have never conceded anything to you in my entire life.” I shift my weight and push again, harder this time, testing a different angle. “I’m sure as hell not going to start now.”
“Stubborn as ever.”
“Look who’s talking.”