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impossible to stop. She laughed until she couldn’t breathe, until the force of it doubled her over. Only when Sebastian’s arms went around her did she realize she wasn’t laughing at all.
    “Renata. Rennie.” He cradled her against his chest, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other firm around her waist. When had he removed his gloves? “I’m sorry, Rennie, so very sorry.”
    The softness of his tone as much as the words themselves pushed her overboard. She buried her face into the sweat-soaked cotton of his shirt and bawled. For the loss of her father, the love of this man, the years they should have had together. All her frustrations and pain and confusion raced up and out, eager to be purged through her tears.
    When the tears subsided, embarrassment set in. “God, that was such a girl thing to do.”
    He loosened her gloves, pulled them off, then tossed them to the mat. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said, wiping her tears away with gentle sweeps of his thumbs. “I happen to like girls. Especially girls who can kick ass.”
    Embarrassment gave way to relieved laughter. She felt more than a little punch-drunk, even though she knew Sebastian had blocked more than attacked. “Yeah, well, I obviously had some pent-up emotions I needed to work out. Thanks for taking it.”
    “No problem. I’ll be your punching bag anytime.”
    Shit. She belatedly realized that his father had done much the same to him, using a young Bas as a human punching bag for his drunken rages. “Oh, God, Bas—”
    “Don’t.” His arms tightened around her. “I know the difference between what you did and what he did, Rennie. Like you said, you had some stuff to work out and I wanted you to let it out. Besides …” He smiled down at her. “Unless you aimed for my nuts, you weren’t going to do a lot of damage with those gloves on.”
    “So you’re saying I’ve got a long way to go before I can take on Andropova?”
    “Not at all. But you’d have a long way to go if you were facing me in the ring. Beginning with adding on another eighty pounds.”
    She knew that. Bas had been formidable during his time in the ring. Very few of his matches went the full time. He was just that quick, that brutal, that good. That focused. It was why she had no problem with agreeing to train with him. Even with their personal issues unresolved and strained, she could learn a lot from him professionally.
    His expression sobered. “I’m sorry about your father.”
    Her heart twinged with old sorrow. She still missed her dad, even though it had been two years since he’d passed. “I don’t need your condolences, Bas. I know we weren’t together anymore by then, but you knew him. I would have thought you’d come to the funeral at the very least.”
    “I was there.”
    “What?”
    “I was there. At the interment. I offered my condolences to your mother.”
    She blinked, trying to find words, trying to speak past her shock. Bas was at her father’s funeral, and her mother had never told her? His absence was the one thing that had pissed her off more than anything else. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
    He spread his hands. “I didn’t want to make a difficult day even more difficult for you. Besides, you were leaning pretty heavily on Cooper by then. I figured the last thing you’d want was for me to show up, but I owed your father my respect. He was a good man and he obviously loved you.”
    He cupped her cheeks. “You have every right to be angry with me. You have every right to never forgive me. But I’m going to try to make things up to you, starting now. We’ll work together to get you back that title.”
    She looked up at him, exhausted, bewildered, and turned on despite herself. Her body instinctively reacted to his as if they were chemically bonded. “Why? Why would you do all this for me? The training, staying here, the endorsement deal—you’re doing way more than you need to. So why?”
    “Because of this.”