Below the Belt Read online

  He reached forward and put his hands on her shoulders roughly. “Stop!” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I made mistakes I wasn’t proud of. I was young. We were young. We shouldn’t have gotten married and you know that. I came to terms with that fact by the time I’d signed those divorce papers. I thought you had too. I thought that’s why you wanted the divorce. I don’t know what has hardened you this much. The Frankie I remember, the one I loved wholeheartedly as well, the one who dressed in T-shirts and shorts—she was sweet, soft, and beautiful. Never got angry. This one, this hardened woman in front of me…no, I wouldn’t have dated this one. But it’s not because of the way you look, it’s…it’s because you’re cold now.”

  She took a step back. It was as if he’d punched her in the gut. “I am not cold. Don’t turn this around. I was sad and lonely. You were never around, I was alone in another country and you were fucking around on me.”

  “I’m not going to stand here and lie to you. I did fuck around and I’m sorry. It was only once. I don’t want to make excuses, because I was in the wrong, but shit, Frankie, it was after months of your lack of attention. I asked you to come with me everywhere, and you never went. Hell, you didn’t even seem fazed by the divorce.”

  “Fazed?” She leaned in and spoke softly. “I was destroyed. Utterly destroyed.”

  That seemed to surprise him. “I had no idea. Nothing ever seemed to affect you. I never even knew about you seeing me with a woman. You packed up your shit, left, and sent divorce papers. You shoulda said something. I never heard from you again. I made mistakes—I was young, arrogant, and stupid—but I was not the only one who made mistakes. Don’t make me the bad guy here, Francesca, or whatever the hell your name is now.” He sighed in frustration, then intertwined his fingers with hers and led her out the room to a bench near the lobby. She was too shocked to speak. “Listen to me. That was a long time ago. I’ve changed. Obviously, so have you. I wish we’d have spoken sooner. I wish I’d known that it affected you this much. Are you still fighting?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why? You were so good. You loved it so much.”

  “So it wasn’t that I was unsexy? That’s not the reason you cheated on me?”

  “Hell, no. I’ve always found you sexy. Your spirit—it’s the sexiest thing about you. Changing your clothes doesn’t change who you are. Like I said, I was young and stupid and you were distant and I didn’t know where your head was at. Communication was never your strong suit.” A man she didn’t know stuck his head out and called out to Rodrigo that the press conference was about to begin. When she didn’t speak, he continued. “I gotta go. I hope we can finish this conversation soon.” With that, he stood and returned to the press conference, leaving her with a whirlwind of thoughts. She sat there for some time, lost in those thoughts. She’d had it all wrong. Completely wrong.

  She felt dazed by the time she stepped back into the room. Tony and Rodrigo were sitting at a table with microphones in front of them, being asked questions by reporters. The fight was going to be televised on pay-per-view, and the sports reporters were having a field day. They were directing most of the questions at Tony, asking how he’d lost the last fight. How he’d felt about losing. If he was nervous fighting the younger, fitter Rodrigo. He answered most of the questions with a snarky comment or joke. She had to admit he wasn’t thrown off balance by the questions, and the crowd loved his arrogance. The fighters threw some verbal jabs at each other, and by the end of the press conference both were standing in fighter poses for the cameras.

  Seeing her only two lovers standing side by side being pitted against each other was strange. Both men were quite the specimen. If you were only to have two lovers, these would be the men you wanted. Tony was lighter-toned in comparison to Rodrigo’s olive skin. He was also slightly shorter, although he had a broader chest. Tony seemed slightly more intimidating because he was now sporting a full beard. It was nicely trimmed, but it definitely made him seem meaner. In front of the crowd, he was jovial and funny, whereas Rodrigo was the embodiment of professionalism. He answered the questions seriously, didn’t joke around, didn’t play it up for the press. Basically, he wasn’t cocky because he knew he had the skills and the training to win.

  The press conference ended, and Tony put his arm around Francesca’s shoulders as they walked out. “Where’d you run off to? I was looking for you earlier.”

  “Just had to make some calls and stuff.”

  “How’d you think the press conference went?”

  “Good. Press loves you, you know that.”

  “Okay, you seem like you want to say something. Spit it out.”

  “Just that…maybe you should really start toning it down.”

  He let her go. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you didn’t win last time, Tony.”

  “Oh, so I don’t have the goods to back it up and therefore I should just assume defeat this time around?” He walked toward the car, and she moved quickly to catch up.

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I just meant that the loss should’ve humbled you a little. Obviously it didn’t. You are training hard, and I’m so proud of you, but you’re not twenty anymore. Just—tone it down. Be real.”

  “Real?” He looked at her. “Look who’s talking.” He opened the passenger door of her car. “I have to swing by the hotel today. Do you want to go with me or should I drop you off at home?”

  “I’m sorry I upset you, Tony. This is what I didn’t want. I’m still the co-owner of WtF, and I have to be able to tell you things as my fighter and not as…” She wasn’t sure what word to use. “As the guy I’m sleeping with. Just think about it, okay? I wasn’t trying to be hurtful.”

  “As the guy you’re sleeping with? And I’m not being real? Says the woman who can’t admit she’s in an actual grown-up relationship.”

  They both got in the car and spent the rest of the day stewing in silence.

  —

  “Frrrrancesca!” She was bent over her bathtub, scrubbing. “Frrrrancesca!”

  “What the hell?” She came running down the hall and crashed right into him. “What happened?” She looked around to see if there was a fire or an emergency of some sort. Instead she found him standing with her cell phone in hand. Immediately she snatched the phone from his grip.

  He looked livid. His hair was standing up all over the place, as if he had been running his fingers through it. His nostrils were flared and his lips pursed. “What?” She looked at her phone as if the answer lay there. “What?” she repeated, but more curt this time.

  “You’re cheating on me.”

  “What?”

  He took an intimidating step closer to her, but she didn’t budge. “You’re fucking me and him? We’ve practically been living together! Is that where you disappeared to at the press conference?”

  “Excuse me?” She shoved him back a little, but he was like a brick wall. “Do not talk to me like that.”

  He threw his hands up in the air and started rambling on in Spanish before he faced her again. “Don’t bat your eyes, throw your pussy in my face, and then go sleep with your husband.”

  “My what? My husband? Rodrigo?” She looked at her phone, then at the angry man, and back at her phone again. “You were looking through my phone?” She stalked closer to him. “You were looking through my phone! I trusted you. Opened up to you, and you don’t trust me? You son of a bitch!” She pushed him back, and this time he budged. “You’re just grasping at straws. There’s nothing between him and me. There wasn’t anything there when I left him, much less now. You know, you’re always trying to fix me, but you’re all messed up too. You’re trying to sabotage a good thing because of your own issues!”

  “Oh, really? Then why did he send you a text that says—” He snatched the phone from her hand and read it out loud. “ ‘I’m sorry if I hurt you yesterday, Frankie, and I’m especially sorry for hurting you while we were married.
I’ve missed you a lot through the years. You were beautiful then, and you’re beautiful now, no matter how much you’ve changed. Go out to dinner with me—we need to talk this out.’ ” Tony slammed the phone onto the table. “You were talking to him yesterday. And he hurt you? How? ’Cause we’ve been…what the hell have we been doing all this time? Screwing, dating? You married Rodrigo and you say it didn’t go well, but there’s more you’re not telling me, isn’t there? I can tell, because you are too closed off to just be bitter about an ex. So don’t waltz in here and tell me that I have issues when you’re a fucking bagful of issues.”

  “You’re a dick.”

  She walked down the hall and he followed. “Maybe you’re just sticking around because I’m the big payday for WtF!”

  She was surprised and taken aback that he had come up with this convoluted idea. “Do you really think that?” She shoved him again, both hands against his chest, but his body barely moved. “How could you think that? Let me enlighten you so that you can feel better about yourself, Tony. Rodrigo cheated on me. Until yesterday, I thought he had cheated on me right and left. Turns out it was only one time, but it doesn’t really matter because it still hurt me to see someone laughing and touching my husband. We spoke briefly before your press conference began; that’s why he sent that text. He said some things that hurt me, but they were true things. I don’t think I’m mad at him anymore. I’ve actually been avoiding him because you are so fucking jealous. He was young. Shit, I was young. We were stupid and rushed into things. But I grew up in a gym full of men. This person you see here, with these suits, perfect hair, and uncomfortable fucking shoes, I created her. It is my armor and I won’t let you or any man crack that armor.

  “For years I was mocked for fighting. I was a tomboy. One of the guys. And he left me not for a girl in shorts, T-shirt, and sneakers but for a beautiful woman with big tits, a short skirt, and long hair—a few of them, I thought. And this is what you didn’t know. I was depressed after that. Very depressed.” She pushed her stretchy exercise shorts down her thighs and yanked her panties down, exposing her tattoo. “This tattoo.” She pointed at her hip, where the lettering read, If you’re ready to die, then you’re ready to live. She pulled her clothes back up. “I wanted to die, Tony. I never had friends, because girls didn’t want to be friends with me and boys didn’t know how to handle me, really. So I was all alone when I came crawling back home. A twenty-year-old divorced laughingstock. I felt like a failure. I didn’t leave my room for months. Months! I cried. I contemplated taking my life, Tony! At twenty, that’s not the shit you think about. So no, I don’t want to rehash that life. Yes, I’ve become so accustomed to being independent that I may just very well end up alone, but you know what, Tony? The one thing that I have is my dignity. And if you think that I would sleep with you, the second person ever in my twenty-eight years of life, just to get into your pocket, just for money, then I made the biggest mistake of my entire life, because I cannot even wrap my head around the fact that you’d think that about me!” Tears leaked out of her eyes, but she wasn’t sobbing. Not yet. Not in front of him. Never.

  He reached for her, but she pulled back. “Do not touch me,” she hissed.

  She grabbed the first keys she found, which happened to be the ones to his Camaro, and stomped out, not bothering to ask for permission to use it.

  “Don’t you dare leave this house, Francesca!”

  “Don’t you dare tell me what to do!” She slammed the door so hard behind her that the pictures on the wall fell down.

  Francesca was mad. Fuming. She drove to a nearby park and used the track to take out some of her aggression. She ran until she was drenched in sweat. And still she didn’t want to see him. Anger was better than sadness, her father used to tell her all the time. So she held on to the anger because she was afraid that if she thought about it too much, she’d fall into a dark place she hadn’t visited or wanted to revisit in nearly a decade. She hadn’t been exaggerating earlier; the failure of her marriage had caused her to fall into a deep, dark depression that consumed her. The kind of depression where she had mentally planned out the steps to end her own life. Only after serious medical help and a lot of therapy had she been able to start living again. She was terrified that it would happen again. That was the real reason she stayed away from men. Loving someone that deeply could potentially destroy her when it ended, and the prospect of that happening terrified her. She’d barely survived it last time.

  It was well past midnight when she went home and saw the lights still on. She didn’t want to see Tony, so she drove to the nearest hotel and got a room. She took a shower and then paced around her room until exhaustion hit.

  Surely she’d scared the shit out of Tony now. He was right; she had a lot of baggage. But honestly, he had a lot of baggage too. That temper, his jealousy…She didn’t want to be in a volatile relationship. She closed her eyes and tossed and turned for the better part of the night until she finally fell asleep.

  —

  It was four in the morning. Where the hell was she?

  Francesca had left her phone, so he’d called everyone they knew. He was worried. She was right; his insecurities were the cause of his aggression. Not only with her, but in general. Everything stemmed from his stupid insecurities, and yet she had known that and still accepted him for who he was. But he hadn’t done the same with her.

  He was fairly sure he’d lose his mind if he didn’t find her soon. She was such an intense woman, he wasn’t sure what she’d do when she lost control of her temper. And after what she’d admitted to him last night…he was terrified. Thinking of her crying somewhere was killing him. He took her car and drove around looking for her.

  When daylight broke, he called the only person he knew who could calm him down. “Sofia, I need your help.” He ran his hand through his hair. He hadn’t spoken to his sister in weeks, and he missed her like crazy. He had three other sisters, but he was closest to her.

  “Tony?” she said groggily. He heard a man’s voice in the background. “What time is it?”

  “Are you…you’re…are you there with someone? You know what, don’t answer that. I can’t deal with that right now. Can you talk?”

  “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

  Tony knew he was a mess, but he couldn’t seem to get a grip, so he started spitting it out. Everything. He told her he’d been dating Francesca and about the fight last night. “And now I don’t know what the hell to do. I fucked up.”

  “Have you told her you love her?”

  Tony was pacing as he spoke, and when she said those words his phone slipped through his fingers. He fumbled with it for a few seconds. “Sorry. You there? I dropped the phone.”

  His sister laughed. “I take it that’s a no.” She laughed again, but in the next breath her voice turned serious. “Tony, we’ve never ever talked about Dad and how he used to push you the way he did. You were the only boy, and he basically bred you to be a fighter. Then, when he died, I thought you would give up fighting altogether, since I never thought it was what you loved to do. You used to say you wanted to be a teacher. Remember that? You always said you wanted to work with kids. But you didn’t. You trained harder and fought harder after Dad died. He’s gone, Tony. You don’t need to prove anything to him or to anyone anymore. This anger you have inside, you need to let it go. The guy I see on TV or in the magazines looks frustrated and unhappy.

  “I love you, little brother, and I’ve never gotten involved with your career because you’re a grown man and you’re good at what you do. But for years I’ve worried about you. Mom and us sisters have worried about you. You getting in fights, drinking, refusing to settle down. You’re thirty-four and we’ve yet to meet a girlfriend. What I’m trying to say is that this woman—you need to fix it with her. You won’t disappoint her, and she’s not going to leave you—she’s not Dad.”

  “I only know how to fight. I don’t know anything else.”

  “That’s bullshit a
nd you know it. You’ve made more money from your investments than you have with the fighting. You’re smart, you have a good head on your shoulders, and you’re still young enough to do something else. You’re miserable because you’ve been doing something you hate for over fifteen years.”

  “I don’t hate it.”

  “Don’t confuse the fact that you’re good at it with it being something you enjoy doing. I’m great at pulling teeth, but I don’t like my teeth being pulled.” She laughed.

  “That was a corny dentist joke. No wonder you’re not married either.”

  “You know your career has a short shelf life. Maybe it’s time. Have you considered retiring?”

  “Only every damn day. My knees hurt, my shoulders are constantly sore, my back aches.”

  “You sound like an old man.”

  “Most days I feel like one.” He sighed. “I screwed up. Big time. Francesca was the best thing that ever happened to me, and now I don’t even know where she is. What if something happened?”

  “Based on what you’re telling me, she’s a pretty strong woman. I’m sure she’s fine. She probably just needed a break. Her stuff’s there, plus she has your car, so unless she hates you so much she’s willing to risk a charge of grand theft auto, I am fairly certain she’ll be back. But I hope you’re ready to grovel when she comes back, little brother.”

  Tony hung up and thought about what his sister said. Maybe it was time he retired. He would never be the fighter he’d been in his twenties; he couldn’t compete with the newcomers anymore. Hell, he wasn’t sure he even wanted to. For the first time ever, he really wanted to settle down. He was tired of living out of hotels, tired of waking up early to work out, tired of dieting, tired of being sore, tired of being angry all the time. Sofia was right: the days of trying to please his father were over. The man was dead, so there was no point anymore. There never really had been one to begin with, actually. The need to be a great fighter had been so ingrained in him, it had never occurred to him that he had a choice. A choice to do something else.