Early in the morning, Jack left for the guest room, doing his best not to wake up the sleeping woman next to him.
Just when he was almost finished getting dressed, Mia opened the door that led to her room and greeted him with a smile, already in her gym clothes and her hair tied in a high ponytail.
She closed the door again and rushed downstairs to get her breakfast. Jack joined her minutes later, and after a light meal, they both left the house, with her driver already there with the limousine ready for them.
The voyage was quick because there was not as much traffic as there was on weekdays, with Mia talking about the people she met at the previous night’s event and mocking Jack for how nervous and awkward he looked all the time he was there.
When the limousine stopped in front of the gym, Jack opened the sliding back door and waited for Mia to exit. He quickly opened the trunk and took from there his gym bag with his clothes, following the smiling Mia inside the gym.
After greeting the receptionist, they both went to the room with the fitness machines, only to see a sweating Sophia Cross running on the treadmill.
She smiled at them and continued her run, fully focused on her speed and heart rate. Mia went to the treadmill next to her and Jack to the next one, and not even ten minutes had passed, and Sophia was already complaining that Mia was taking too long to warm up because she wanted to try some boxing against her.
With a frown, Mia stopped the treadmill and followed the happy little girl to another room, which was used for boxing and all sorts of Martial Arts. There was even a boxing ring in there, along with a lot of equipment hanging on the walls.
Jack stayed on the treadmill, and after finishing his ten-minute warm-up, he went to the next machine in his daily routine.
After almost fifteen minutes, the receptionist ran along the room, carrying a first-aid kit. Jack sighed and followed her with his towel on his shoulders, and as soon as he entered the room that Mia and Sophia were using, he slowly shook his head.
Mia was lying on the floor of the boxing ring, gasping for air, and her face was a complete mess. It was swollen, and she had a cut on her eyebrow and a broken lip.
Sophia was lying next to her, and she wasn’t any better. One eye closed, one lip dripping blood, and her face was all red from all the punches she got, even with the protective helmet that both were wearing.
The receptionist was opening the first-aid kit and started with Mia, while Sophia argued that she was way worse than that spoiled rich woman.
Jack approached the ring and asked while cleaning off the sweat from his face, “So, who won?”
Mia raised her arm, and Sophia did as well, making Jack sigh again. “A tie, I see. How could you tie with a kid, Mia? Shame on you!”
“I would like to see you doing any better! Your daughter is completely nuts! Even with me punching her, she wouldn’t dodge just to hit me with a straight punch! If this was a proper match, I would have won by points!”
Mia grimaced from the pain in her lip and said, “You were the first to go down, lady! And I counted ten before you got up! You were the one who said I counted too fast! And then you fell again!”
“But I still got up to fight, while you fell once and passed out for way more than ten seconds! I had to slap your face for you to wake up!”
“I don’t recall anything about that, lady! You must have been dreaming because of all the punches you got in your head!”
While Sophia and Mia were arguing, and with the receptionist doing her best to clean their wounds, a mocking voice came from the door: “So many people here today! What is the joyful occasion?”
Jack looked back and stared at the smiling blond man, making him grin. “Look who is here! What do you say? Do you want to have a friendly match?”
Without a word, Jack turned to look at the ring again and saw Mia frowning at the grinning young man.
Sophia raised her head to look at where Mia was staring and asked, “Who is the spoiled brat, lady? He looks just like you, with that stupid smile and that prideful look plastered on his ugly face. I so want to beat him up that I am almost trembling!”
“He is nothing like me! Are you crazy? Just look at him! He looks plain and stupid! I am nothing like that!”
“Not now, you mean, because when we first met, you acted just like him! He is even looking at me as if I am rubbish, just like you used to do!”
Douglas Clark went to the six-square tatami floor and asked as he was stretching his arms, “What do you say, Jack Cross? I am ready for you anytime!”
Jack kept looking at the boxing ring with his back to the mocking young man, and Mia said while looking straight at him, “This is a good day, you know? Plenty of witnesses here, just in case you need them.”
“Is he any good? I need to know if I have to hold back or not.”
With a shrug, Mia answered, “You can send him to a hospital for what I care! Just don’t tell me to accompany you there because I want to have fun in the afternoon instead of waiting in a hospital waiting room for a doctor to come and say he is going to live!”
Sophia sat on the floor and said, as she was rubbing her lower jaw, “If you want, I can go in your place, father! I need to practise with a tougher opponent because this lady here is too easy to knock out!”
Douglas shouted as he was spreading his legs on the floor, “Who asked you, you stupid brat? Shut up and let the grownups talk!”
While walking to the practising tatami floor, Jack did his best to remain calm and said, “If you want to fight, I am here. There is no need to insult my daughter.”
“Say what? Your daughter? Mia, you are dating an old guy with a kid? Don’t you have any pride?”
Jack asked while cleaning the back of his neck with the towel, “What rules do you want? And do we fight bare-handed?”
“Bare-handed, of course, like real men! And rules? Rules for what? This is a fight! There are no rules in a fight!”
“Are you sure? No rules? No gloves?”
Douglas made a mocking smile and said while getting up and going into a fighting stance, with both fists in front of his face, “Why? Afraid of twisting a finger? You don’t need to worry about that because you won’t see it coming!”
Jack was already in the tatami, and in a sudden movement, he threw the towel at Douglas’ face, blocking his vision. A powerful kick to his groins made Douglas bend forward with both hands between his legs, screeching. An uppercut straight to his face sent him flying, and he landed on the wooden floor after rolling his way out of the tatami floor, a complete mess of a broken nose and dripping blood.
While picking up his towel, Jack said, “You should have thought about rules, kid.” He then turned to the boxing ring and asked, “Can we go now? I want to have a shower before we go out to have lunch. I know it is still early, but this brat annoyed the heck out of me, so it is better if we leave before I tear him apart.”
Mia was looking at the fainted Douglas and spoke, “I know he said he didn’t need rules, but did you have to do all that?”
“Probably not, but I got enough of him. Besides, he insulted Sophia, so I had to show him what happens when he is rude to other people’s kids.”
Mia sighed and gently took the cotton swab the receptionist was using to clean her eyebrow cut and said, “Let me do that, and you can go check that fool over there. You should probably call an ambulance for him because I am not sure if he didn’t get a serious concussion.”
“Sure thing, Miss Mia! And no need to worry; I can vouch for Mister Jack! It was Mister Douglas who challenged him, without realizing how far apart they were in fighting proficiency! I have no idea why he thought he could beat Mister Jack! My co-workers and I are often in this room, watching Mister Jack do his fighting routine, while Mister Douglas only spends ten minutes hitting the boxing bag whenever he comes here.”
“Douglas was always a fool, but today he got what he wanted. Let me help you clean yourself up, Sophia, so that we can go for a shower and then lunch!”
Sophia grimaced when Mia put the cotton swab against the cut on her lip and said, “I sure hope you don’t want us to shower at the same time! I don’t need to look at your big boobs! And I also don’t want you checking me out, you pervert!”
“Shut up and stay still! How can I disinfect your wounds if you keep moving around?”
“That stings! What the heck is that orange liquid? Let me be! I never had to worry about disinfecting anything! I am tougher than you, you spoiled brat!”
Mia pulled Sophia’s right ear while still cleaning her broken lip and said, “Stay still! No one likes a girl with scars! You are already ugly enough! You don’t need to have scars all over your weird face!”
“Who are you calling ugly, lady? Look in the mirror before talking about someone else’s face!”
“I don’t give a damn if you think I am not pretty enough! I only care about what your father thinks of me!”
Sophia put one gloved hand over her mouth and said, with her eyes wide open, “No way! You really admitted that you fell for him! When did that happen? Tell me right now!”
With her cheeks turning bright red and while avoiding Sophia’s gaze, Mia answered, “I think… It happened a few days ago… It wasn’t suddenly, it was little by little…”
“Wait, a minute… Does your father know about that? I mean, that you like a poor guy who lives in a tiny and weird apartment like you called it?”
“No… I didn’t tell him yet. I only admitted it yesterday evening to your father.”
Sophia had her eyes shining, and she said in a low voice, “I want details! All the juicy details, and don’t forget to describe his reaction very accurately when you confessed to him!”
“Like… how surprised he was when he thought I was joking when I went to his room in my most sexy underwear?”
“Ugh! Not so many details; that is so gross! Can’t you only tell me what you said and how he reacted? I don’t need to hear about you offering yourself to him!”
Mia flicked Sophia’s forehead and said, “I didn’t offer myself!” She then paused and said, “No… maybe I did… Whatever! Stay still!”
“You know, for a rich lady, you are really a piece of work, aren’t you? What happened to you to become like this? You were always so proud and dignified, like a proper rich lady! Now you talk like… like a… What is the word…”
“If you call me that, I am going to kill you!”
From their left, Jack asked, “Did you stop fooling around? Can we go or not?”
Sophia got up with a jump and answered while removing her boxing gloves, “Sure thing, father! Let me just get away from this slu-“
A punch in her stomach made Sophia bend over, and Mia grabbed both her ears and said, “I am going to teach you how to be a nice little girl even if I have to kill you, you brat! That word is not something you can use as if you were talking about the weather! You will learn to respect me and to address me properly, or God help me, I am going to slice you open and take out your insides!”
“Ouch! I was joking! Geez, can’t I even joke with you now? You should be proud that I consider you worthy of my jokes instead of my absolute despise!”
While twisting Sophia’s ears, Mia said with a grin, “I am going to enjoy educating you, you rude brat! If you are a nice kid, I can be good to you, but if you are mean and rude, I can make you regret annoying me!”
While rubbing her ears, Sophia complained, “I already regret meeting you! You are so mean!”
“You won’t say that the next time I take you on a trip in my private jet to Disneyland with all expenses and all rides paid!”
“What is… Oh! I know that! I saw that place on television! Wait, you have a private jet? For real? How rich are you, anyway?”
“Now I picked up your interest? You are such a material kid!”
Sophia and Mia continued their bickering, and Jack slowly shook his head, and after taking one last look at the still-fainted Douglas Clark, with the gym’s receptionist using her cell phone to call an ambulance, he left the room for the showers.
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