Tapout (The Submission Fighter Book 3) by Sophia Hampton Read Free Book Online Page B

appeared or even pretended to be. Instead, she saw a man that she could mold to her own will—a star with the potential to do great and be great under her tutelage and efforts. And when she found that rare, almost unobtainable type of athlete, she couldn’t help but watch as the dollar signs flashed before her eyes.
     
    In fact, she quickly learned that this type of man was most likely to be found in specialized fighters in particular. The men, and sometimes women, she found were so focused on their actual skills and talents that she would get more freedom to do what needed to be done. They did not resist when she presented her plan of attack. They had no reason not to.
     
    Managing the needy sponsors or objecting to this commercial or that was just not part of their operating manual. These were men who pushed their bodies to the limit, allowing themselves to get beat to a bloody pulp so that they did not have to do the boring stuff. When they got to the top, it was outsourced out and tucked away. As long as the paychecks were coming in, they were satisfied.
     
    But even in their first minutes of meeting, Lucy Hamlin could tell that Micah Anderson was a bit different. She had done her research after his phone call. He had a winning story, a great hook that the media should be biting to get a taste of. It was Cinderella for the fighting world with him going from rags to riches under the direction of a fairy godmother like coach—all while he supported a grandmother who raised him. He worked long hours at the gym to pay his way; he took on matches that were almost impossible to win just for the potential purse; and he endured injury after injury just to get to the top.
     
    However, that storyline was getting hidden in the headlines by this whole Romeo thing. His idiotic move of publicly coming out as someone’s boyfriend or lover was just a rookie mistake. While it may endear him to an older crowd of women, that kind of audience was few and far between. It was certainly not the audience that flocked to him or his sponsor’s products when the dust settled on this. 
     
    Micah taking that phone call from the “mystery woman” was the perfect opportunity for her to learn more about the situation. She needed to hear it directly from him, to feel out just how big a deal this woman was to him. Testing the water here was her best course of action, but she knew she had to be cautious with her words. The last thing she wanted to do was to prematurely offend him.
     
    She leaned across the table and turned her body square towards him, exposing the curve of her legs and the hint of the lace of her stocking around her thigh. “Honey, sweet,” she said. “Micah, I hope you do not mind me asking, but who just called you?”
     
    She tried to sound genuinely interested, almost concerned. But she could give one guess to who it was. If he told the truth and admitted it was his girlfriend, she would have to work around the love interest part. However, from her experience, if he tried to conceal it or even change the subject away from the phone call, she may have a bit more flexibility than she originally thought. She could even take a shot at proposing playing different angles of the romance story.
     
    “Oh, it was, uh.” He hesitated to find the right words he was searching desperately for. She could tell that he was conflicted. Lucy leaned forward, almost willing him to lie. He continued, still staggering, “A friend. She needed some legal help. I’ll call her back later.”
     
    And with that response, she couldn’t help but curl her lips into a knowing grin. She could make this one work in her favor.
     
    Chris, however, was less than amused. He eyed Micah from across the white linen covered table. He obviously knew what was going on as well as she did. The only one naive enough to play ignorant was Micah. Boldly, he exclaimed, “Micah, we talked about this. If you are gonna take Lucy for her worth, she will need to