Although I was relieved that Rhys wasn’t lingering over what I’d inadvertently revealed about my feelings for him, I was concerned about what fighting would do to him emotionally. “I asked before and I’ll ask again—is the gym really worth the toll this will take on you? Or am I missing something here? Rhys … what am I missing?”

Rhys’s expression hardened, and he looked away. “It’s nothing, Tink.”

“It’s not nothing. It’s most definitely something. I know you and I are … new … but before the kissing and the very hot touching started … well, Rhys, I’m your friend. Talk to me.”

His lips twitched. “Hot touching, huh?”

I struggled not to smile. “Don’t change the subject.”

He stared at me for a long moment and then sighed, deep and heavy. “I’m going to lose the gym if I don’t start making payments to the bank. I have a guy interested in buying it, and it’s looking more and more likely I’m going to have to sell.”

My stomach dropped. I knew how much the gym meant to him. “Rhys …”

“Before my dad died, he told me the gym was in trouble and that he was behind on his payments for the gym, and that he’d also mishandled my finances. He’d gambled … almost everything was gone.”

Oh my God. All his earnings. Every hit he’d taken in the ring … all for nothing in the end.

I felt a little off-kilter and stumbled toward the nearest armchair. “Oh God, Rhys.”

“I’ve been hiding it from Dean.”

I frowned. “But he’s managing the accounts now, I thought?”

He snorted. “I fucked with him, gave him a shit ton of paperwork to go through, and kept the real accounts—digital accounts—to myself.” Rhys slumped forward, resting his head in his hands as he stared at his feet. “When I started making real money boxing, Mom got sick with cancer. I didn’t want my parents to have that debt, so I paid all her medical bills.”

My heart ached. “Rhys …”

“Dad was renting the building for the gym. I bought it for him. Paid Dean’s tuition. But I also left my dad to handle my finances, and I found out too late it was a mistake. He made a lot of bad investments, gambled … what I had left went to paying Dad’s funeral costs when he died, and I paid off a chunk of the debt to the bank by selling my condo. But now we’re a few months behind on the mortgage …”

Nerves fluttered in my stomach. All this time he’d had this hellish pressure on his shoulders. No wonder he’d jumped at the chance to make friends with someone as powerful as Fairchild.

“Does Fairchild know any of this?”