Below the Belt by Sarah Mayberry Page A

had bailed on Ray’s dinner party to go confront Jamie last night, and the other man was well aware of his reasons for leaving early. Cooper regarded him silently for a moment.
    Ray had lied to him about Jamie. Which meant he had two fighters who had been dishonest with him.
    “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Jimmy and I go a long way back. She didn’t want anyone to know, and I figured that was her decision,” Ray said, tackling the issue head-on.
    It was an apology, but there was a fair share of defiance in there, too, in the set of Ray’s shoulders and the way he held Cooper’s eye.
    Fair enough. Cooper figured he’d probably feel about the same way if he were in Ray’s shoes. He’d only known Jamie for a handful of weeks and already she’d burrowed into his psyche. It was clear to him that Ray was still half-gone on her—he would have found it almost impossible to deny Jamie if she came to him asking for help.
    “Let’s forget it, okay? Jamie and I have got some shit to sort out, but you and I are square. I get why you did it,” Cooper said.
    Ray came fully into the office.
    “So it went okay last night, then?”
    It was Cooper’s turn to feel uncomfortable. “Like I said, we still have some shit to sort out.”
    Ray dropped into the chair opposite Cooper’s desk. “Don’t be too hard on her. She’s copped a lot of crap in her life. All that stuff with her old man throwing that fight, then Kyle Vandenburg did her over, then her father’s death…Is it any wonder she wanted to just put it all behind her?” Ray said.
    “What’s Kyle Vandenburg got to do with anything?”
    A heavyweight, Kyle was the kind of egomaniacal moron who gave boxing a bad name. He brawled in bars, threw his weight around and hung with all the wrong people. He was also a dirty fighter. Cooper had beaten him twice in his career, and both times it had been a pleasure to pound the bastard into submission.
    “He was hooked up with Jack for a while. Sort of a mentor thing. Jack toyed with training for a bit before he came out of retirement and took that last fight,” Ray said. They both knew how that had ended—Jack had hit the canvas in round five after a lackluster display. He’d been arrested in the change room for fraud straight afterward, the unusual level of betting against him having tipped the authorities off. It had been front page news in the U.S. and Australia and had brought the sport an intense amount of scrutiny for several months afterward.
    “When Jack went down on the fraud charges, Jimmy was stuck with a bunch of legal bills. Vandenburg stepped in to help out. Jimmy was only twenty-two. Just a kid. I mean, I knew her back then, and she was gorgeous, but there was no way I would have gone there. She was so upset about Jack, her and Arthur were really struggling. But Vandenburg didn’t give a crap about any of that. He wanted her, and he got her. Told her he’d take care of everything, get his business manager involved to help them work things out.”
    Cooper rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Vandenburg ripped her off?” he asked.
    Ray nodded. “Him and his business manager. The Sawyers lost their house, cars, everything. Had to drop the appeal on Jack’s sentence, and Jack wound up doing the full two years. Jimmy blamed herself for a long time for being such a soft touch. That’s why she never lets her guard down any more. That asshole really did her good. Then her father finished the job two years ago when he killed himself.”
    Cooper remembered the way she’d hunched her shoulders in on herself last night as she struggled to control her tears. No wonder she hated being vulnerable. Life had taught her that only the strong survived.
    “I’ve been trying to get a match with Vandenburg ever since Jimmy told me,” Ray said. “Maybe this year.”
    Cooper nodded. “Yeah. We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”
    Ray grinned. “Can’t think of anything I’d like more than to make