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“Taritted teeth

“Why should she?” Bianca asked from behind him, her voice devoid of any fire or ice “At least she puts it all out there on the table No secrets with that one”

It was a solid uppercut to the jaw, the kind that rattled your skull and reverberated down your spine right to your toes

He pivoted to face her “Bianca, it’s not what it seems”

She crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow “So you filed the divorce papers?”

Flashing back to the year after Freddie died, the broken state of his body after letting hiet pummeled into oblivion in the title bout and the way he alking around in an angry red haze, he could still feel the pen in his hand when he’d signed the divorce papers but after that, everything faded away Tan the papers and her laould file them He’d marked it off his napalm-the-past to-do list and shoved it into a dark hole

Shaut He never shined a light into the shadows of his past for a reason, not even when Bianca had asked

“No” He barely le word out over the lu his throat

Bianca shook her head, her wavy brown hair tangling around her shoulders “That’s one hell of an oversight”

He reached out, needing to feel the silk of her hair between his fingers and the softness of her skin against his She evaded his touch with the ease of the self-aware fighter as always three steps ahead of her opponent, just like she did in the ring His hand hung in the air between them as useless as the truth told too late Still, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—give up

“She left after er Freddie died” He let his hand drop to his side “I was a wreck I gave up boxing, turned down all the TV analyst jobs and ca”

Bianca raised an eyebrow, disgust and anger coally wedded wife”

It took everything he had not to stagger back froned the divorce papers and had them delivered to her in New York”

She snorted “And you didn’t find it odd that your lawyer never followed up telling you the divorce was final?”

“I ignored his calls”