Bare Knuckle: Vegas Top Guns, Book 5

Dedication

To TH & TH

Dream a little bigger.

Acknowledgments

We deeply appreciate our families’ unflagging support. Credit for much of our sanity is owed to the Group That Shall Not Be Named. Fedora Chen is an on-the-spot angel who never fails, even when our deadlines are crazy. Dana Gautier has been a fantastic asset to our work through this whole series. Thank you! In addition, we offer thanks to Sarah Frantz, Zoe Archer, Rowan Larke, Patti Ann Colt, and Kelly Schaub for their friendship, and to Kevan Lyon and Sasha Knight for their amazing enthusiasm.

Chapter One

Trish Monroe checked her ass for the fourth time. She rubbed a minuscule streak of fake tan that had smudged along the elastic of her string bikini. It wasn’t that big a deal, but focusing on
anything
might take the edge off her nerves.

The mirror was floor length on the door inside the dressing room she shared with two other young women. A brunette, a redhead, and Trish the blonde.

How original.

That’s what the promoters wanted. More importantly, that’s what the men in the crowd wanted—the perfect fantasies parading between bouts of hardcore violence. She swore testosterone smelled like sweat socks, cheap deodorant and foot powder. It permeated the boxing arena all the way back to where she and the pair whose names she’d only just learned got ready. Ring girls were practically afterthoughts. Such a humbling contrast to her brighter, more welcoming solo dressing room for
Princess of Egypt
at the Luxor.

She was still amped up from having just finished her Friday-night performance. As soon as the curtain fell, a dozen women hustled to the dressing rooms, hurrying to strip shellacked makeup and feather-bedecked costumes. Out the door they went, bound for other jobs. Some were cocktail waitress, others strippers, others moms hoping to get home in time to tuck in their kids. This was Trish’s first time making that harried transition. She wondered how long it took to wear a girl down completely.

Yet, sweet Jesus, the lights were addicting. The frenzy she’d faced that evening hadn’t registered while onstage. There, Trish and her fellow singers and dancers were stars. Applause became lifeblood.

Here, in an off-strip venue that had seen better decades, the calls and hoots would be of a decidedly more sexual variety.

Pay the bills. Pay the bills…

The mantra had taken on new meaning now that the semester was underway at UNLV. Her next tuition bill would show up any day now, waiting in an on-campus mailbox so her mama wouldn’t find out. Most mothers would’ve been proud to support their daughter’s college ambitions.

Some other daughter’s life.

For Trish, it was a matter of fighting for what she wanted. More often than not, of late, what she wanted was in constant flux. Keep dancing in Vegas’s many shows? Or
design
those shows? All she knew was she’d be spending her free time in the campus library, hoping Mama didn’t ask too many questions about Trish’s occasional “singing lessons”. The
Don Giovanni
project for the production design class she loved was due a week into October. She’d be lucky if her money held out to see that pipe dream through.

As she arranged two skimpy triangles of bright red latex over her breasts, Trish hid a scowl, because strutting around a boxing ring was a new development. This hadn’t been part of any of her plans.

A knock sounded at the door, right on the other side of the mirror. Trish jumped.

“Ten minutes, ladies,” came the voice of the fight director’s assistant. “Decide who’s up first.”

The brunette, Lola, kicked out a voluptuous hip to lean against the brightly lit vanity table. “I’ll go.” She paused a heartbeat. “If y’all don’t mind.”

The other woman waved her away, then struggled to glue on a pair of false eyelashes. What had been her name? Meg? Details from the frantic night were blending to the point of nausea.

Trish, who also hailed from the South—although from Georgia, not Lola’s gratingly obvious Texas—smiled sweetly. “Don’t mind at all, sugar. It’s all yours.”

Lola was actually her type. She was a curvy brunette with some sass, who reminded Trish of her ex-girlfriend, Mallory Gibson. Trish’s mood was too dark to do much beyond cataloging Lola’s pretty features. Her nerves were never this bad before a full-scale performance. Years in show biz hadn’t put a dent in the giddy, happy high she got when entertaining an appreciative crowd.

But a ring girl?

It was the easiest money she would make in a dog’s age. Mama had encouraged her to give it a try. “Nothing to worry about,” she’d said. “Think of it as a pageant stage or a fashion runway.”

Sure. Exactly the same.

The job was one step short of pole-dancing. She didn’t judge women who needed those gigs, or who liked them. Trish, however, would give up the whole deal before calling that show business. It wasn’t her. She didn’t
want
it to be her.

Lately, her mama had insisted on more and more embarrassing career moves—anything to fill the gaps between paychecks. If she knew Trish was funneling spare pennies toward textbooks, drafting supplies and a scientific calculator, she’d be too speechless to be angry. That wouldn’t stop her from throwing Trish out of their trailer.

Trish’s phone rang to the tune of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”, homage to her idol, Marilyn Monroe. She hadn’t come by her stage name out of nowhere.

“Hello?”

“Trish, darling, it’s Pam.”

A cold shiver along Trish’s legs had nothing to do with the blaring AC or her tiny Brazilian bikini. Her agent never called her after hours.

“What’s up?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light. Her throat was lined with dry cactus needles.

“
Princess of Egypt
has been canceled. It’s only got three weeks left on its run before they shut it down.”

So matter of fact. Not a hint of sympathy. No indication that with a trio of sentences, she’d ripped the world out from under Trish’s red patent stilettos.

“But…my contract. Aren’t we supposed to be given more notice?” She heard the Georgia molasses seeping into her voice. Getting flustered meant years of elocution lessons ran away lickety-split, like a squirrel with its tail on fire. “I’m sure we can’t be dropped like this. I need to make ends meet.”

“The production company’s been taken over as part of a corporate buyout.” Pam’s demeanor made Trish feel like a real professional. The woman’s behavior was the exact opposite of Mama’s hysterics and melodrama. Right then, however, her agent of five years sounded as brusque as an executioner. “They signed the paperwork today. Under these circumstances, they’re only required to keep current shows open another three weeks.”

“You had no hint this was coming?”

“It was a long shot.”

“But you knew. You knew and you didn’t think to tell me.”

Silence.

As a headache exploded, Trish caught herself before she put a shaky hand to her forehead.

No ruining her makeup. No eating too much. No getting drunk or doing anything close to getting pregnant.

Her life was an endless series of
don’t
. Right now, her self-imposed
don’t
was
don’t fucking cry
.

That meant blinking a hundred times and blotting a tissue beneath her nose. In the scant time since arriving newly scrubbed from the Luxor, she’d scrambled to secure her platinum wig and apply fresh cosmetics. She didn’t have time to ruin her look with minutes before her walk out. Plus she’d spent too many years toughening her emotional skin—as thick as a rhino’s hide these days. This business ate the weak.

“I’m real sorry about this, Trish. It was a great part for you. A real chance to make your name. Great body. Great dancing. Easy to work with. But the complete package? That, you know—that genuine star quality. It’s been five years, hon. I’m beginning to doubt it’s going to happen.”

That was worse than bad news. That was bad news
and
a guillotine
and
a stab to the heart. Trish grasped for the back of a folding chair and sat. The metal was cold and sent goose bumps up her ass and around her thighs. Heart pounding. Universe dissolving.

Oh God. The fallout waiting at home when she told her mama…

“You’re,” she started, swallowing tightly. “You’re dropping me?”

“No, I’m giving you our contracted thirty days’ notice. I’ll send the official notice by registered mail tomorrow. I mean it. I’m really sorry about this. We’ve tried, haven’t we? It just isn’t working out.”

“You’re right about that.”

She hung up and took a deep breath. Saying anything else would involve cussing until the paint peeled. Then again, maybe the grungy room could use a renovation.

Her knees shook and her feet jittered. She watched them as if they belonged to some other woman. Suddenly, the prospect of walking into that boxing ring holding a giant placard was not the most disappointing thing in her life. It was a lifeline rather than a bridge between paychecks. More disheartening, she’d have to do damn well in hopes of getting an invitation to return for additional nights.

What a shitty turn of events.

“Bad news?”

Trish blinked. Meg—yes, that was her name—still sat at the vanity table. Her makeup was finished. She was a natural redhead, which was rare in their business. Hell, natural hair was a rarity. Trish hadn’t taken to a stage of any kind without a wig since she was sixteen. Extensions and hairpieces had been routine by the age of four.

“Yeah, bad news.
Princess of Egypt
has been shut down.”

“Shit.”

Lola whistled low. “Were you in it? Bless your heart.”

“I had the lead.”

“Sorry,” Meg said with more genuine sympathy. “I know what it’s like. I was cast in that
Wizard of Oz
revival at Caesar’s. I was the Dorothy alternate and never took the stage once.”

That revival had been five years ago. She’d been in Vegas as long as Trish. Funny how a pit stop on the way to the bigger prize of Hollywood stardom had turned into a half-decade holding pattern.

Another knock. “Time’s up, girls. Let’s go.”

Trish took a deep breath and stood. Her knees held. She followed Meg and Lola out of the dressing room, like a magnet following iron. Pulled along. She smoothed shaking hands down her sides as her heels clicked down the fluorescent-lit corridor. She was as thin as always. As stacked as always. Legs for miles and the voice of an angel. She’d heard those words from a hundred different directions since hitting puberty. So had a couple thousand other girls from hick towns all over the country.

At that moment, she had her body and sense enough to hide every worry behind a long-practiced smile. Bigger ambitions—oh, she had so many—would have to wait.

Pay the bills…

Standing straighter, catching sight of Lola’s lush, twitching hips in front of her, Trish added an extra dollop of sex to her walk. She’d lived in the spotlight since before she could spell her own name. Granted, spelling
Patricia Beauregard
gave most people fits. If that wasn’t a Southern pageant girl’s name, she didn’t know what was. But Mama had been right. It wasn’t a Vegas name, and it sure wasn’t a Hollywood name.

Trish Monroe—now that was a name. She and Mama had decided on it one late night while watching
Some Like It Hot
. Trish was going to be a star as bright as Marilyn. She’d been seventeen at the time and had believed that with every ounce of youthful enthusiasm.

The corridor intersected with where the fighters emerged from waiting rooms. More bright lights and considerably more people. Each man, no matter how obscure, was encircled by an entourage of wannabes. Trainer, cut man, manager, dudes who…what, cheered them on and made them look more intimidating? Wearing sparkling walk-out robes and boxing gloves, the fighters bounced on their toes and donned their fighting postures.

Yup, the stench of testosterone was nuclear out here. No wonder her eyes occasionally wandered to the other side of the street. She’d been disillusioned for so long.

Slavering fans. Neutered industry professionals. Fellow wannabes. Or sugar daddies.

Men in show business—particularly in Las Vegas—didn’t come in any other flavors.

Lola strode on ahead, as did Meg. They were swallowed into that sea of stoked, energized male bodies. The first bout was going to begin. Out in the arena, the MC played music and whipped the crowd into a flurry of cheers and applause. Trish wouldn’t walk the ring until the third round, if the fight lasted that long. She stopped a man who seemed like a trainer’s apprentice. He probably iced down swollen body parts for a living.