Page 16 of The Clinch
His place is exactly what you’d expect from a heavyweight champion. Expansive. Sparse. Floor-to-ceiling windows framing the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan beyond. Everything big. Solid. Unapologetically masculine.
I drift to the window and fold in on myself, arms wrapped tight, trying to keep the pieces together.
Eden hovers nearby. Nate drops onto the couch. Finn leans against the wall. Jessica paces, phone glued to her hand.
“We have a narrow window,” she says. “Right now, you’re a man defending a woman from her abusive ex. That’s the story we want. But if we don’t move fast, someone else will rewrite it. Question your judgment. Your fitness to hold the title.”
Leo’s fists clench. “I’m not apologizing for protecting her.”
“I’m not asking you to.” Jessica stops pacing and looks between us. “But we need to give people a story that will keep them on your side. Both of you.”
“What kind of story?” I ask quietly.
Jessica’s mouth curves, sharp and knowing.
“A love story.”
5
EYES UP (LEO)
The room goes dead quiet. Jessica stands across the room, cool and collected, sorting the wreckage into a narrative.
Everything in me locks onto Liz.
“Wait.” Eden stares at her. “You’re not suggesting?—”
“I am.” Jessica doesn’t flinch. “We tell the media that Liz is Leo’s girlfriend.” Her tone is detached and matter-of-fact. “Tonight wasn’t a random bar fight. It was a man defending his girlfriend from a dangerous ex. That’s the story.”
My gaze cuts to Liz.
She’s braced by the window, jaw dropped, arms crossed tight over her chest. That silk dress is still mid-thigh, and I can feel the memory of her skin under my hands from an hour ago. We were seconds from a kiss that would’ve ended the way these nights always do—in my bed, her body wrapped around me, gone by morning.
That’s the pattern. My pattern.
Women don’t balk. They don’t hesitate. They know the script, and they’re eager to follow it. They certainly don’t watch me the way she’s watching me now—guarded, reluctant, assessing risk.
Jessica continues, steady as a metronome. “We’re selling a serious, committed relationship.”
Liz’s expression says Jessica has just announced a prison sentence. Eden doesn’t move. Nate lets out a low whistle. Finn mutters something under his breath.
But I’m not watching them.
I’m watching her.
She edges back a step, shoulders tight enough to cut glass. The woman who moved against me on that dance floor—open, warm, attuned to every shift of my body—has vanished. In her place is someone bracing for impact, ready to run through a wall if she has to.
The rejection lands somewhere stupidly personal. I tell myself it isn’t real, that it’s part of the setup, and to get over it.
That goes nowhere.
Jessica doesn’t slow down. “If you’re living together, no one can frame you as an unhinged fighter gone rogue. It protects both of you—her from Drake, you from career damage.”
She’s right. If the narrative doesn’t flip, my entire season collapses. The commission opens an inquiry. Sponsors pause. The title defense gets pushed or pulled entirely.
I’m six or eight weeks out from camp. Everything is timed to the ounce—weight, recovery, visibility. One wrong move and the belt becomes leverage instead of protection.
But Liz—she’s still shaking her head.
