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Vale is over by the bar, holding court, belt slung over one shoulder. Champions do bring their belt to these things—the NMFC want it in the photos. But the media photos are done now, and any other fighter would have handed it to somebody on their team by this point. Not Vale.

He catches my eye across the room and smirks. Then he lifts the belt off his shoulder, just a fraction. A taunt.

My jaw tightens. James puts a heavy hand on my shoulder and speaks low, so only me and Briony can hear. “He wants you to lose it, Ryan. You never lose it with another fighter before a fight, and he knows that. He wants the room to think he’s the one who can get to you. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

I roll my shoulders. Crack my neck. “Aye. Okay.”

James steers us round a few senior NMFC people and sponsors, murmuring a reminder to me of who each one is before he introduces them. Glad-handing has never been my style, but I shake hands and say the right things, more or less.

Briony, though, is a natural. She asks questions, listens to the answers, and has folk laughing inside a minute. She’s more like James than me that way.

After maybe five such introductions, I give James a look that says I’m done for now, then lead Briony away to look at the auction lots instead. I kiss her hand.

“Sorry about all that. There’ll be more of the same over dinner.”

“Don’t worry. I get it. It’s all part of business.”

We’ve been browsing the lots for several minutes—Briony lingering over a glass case of jewellery—when I hear my name. Kovac is coming towards me, his wife and a baby in tow. I’ve met his wife a couple of times, but the baby is new.

We shake hands, and he slaps my back.

“You looked better before July,” Kovac says, his Croatian accent as thick as ever, eyeing the small scar above my eyebrow—courtesy of his right hand.

“Aye. I see your jaw’s still working, unfortunately.”

He laughs.

Briony holds out her hand. “I’m Briony. Ryan’s girlfriend.”

It never gets old, hearing that.

“This is a bit surreal,” she admits. “The last time I saw you two together was at Braehead, and you were taking lumps out of each other.”

Kovac shrugs. “It’s a sport. In the cage, I try to take his head off. Outside, we get on fine.”

Briony smiles, then turns her attention to the wean. “She’s gorgeous. Can I hold her?” She claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh, sorry! That was a bit forward, wasn’t it? We’ve only just met!”

But Kovac’s wife is already laughing and passing the baby over. Briony settles her against her shoulder and starts to sway, talking all sorts to her—what a pretty dress, what big eyes, all that stuff.

And, shit, if seeing her like that doesn’t do something to me. Babies have never interested me. I’ve never wanted to be a family man. Wouldn’t even know how. But Briony with that wean? The picture looks…right somehow.

And that troubles me. Because, aye, she’d make a brilliant maw someday. No doubt about it. But how do I fit into that?

I give myself a shake. Three weeks out from a title fight is no time to be thinking about weans.

I set my knife and fork together on an empty plate.

Grilled chicken, greens, sweet potato. No sauce. I’m deep in camp, so James sorted an adapted menu with the kitchen in advance. It was fine. But I spent the whole course eyeing Briony’s wild-mushroom risotto, which looked a lot more interesting.

Before the meal, the NMFC top brass gave speeches about the Foundation and its work. Our table is mostly NMFC people and their partners, including a senior exec and his wife over from Austin. Briony has kept the conversation going all through dinner, laughing in all the right places. The exec’s wife can’t get enough of her accent.

Me? I ran out of things to say somewhere around the starter.

I lean in to her ear. “You’re doing great. Then again, these are more your sort of people.”

“Ryan,” she whispers back. “Patricia and Brandon have a private chef and homes in three different states. They are not my sort of people. There’s middle class, and then there’s that.”

Once the mains are cleared, the auction starts. Ridiculous lots go for ridiculous money: a signed belt, a training day, two cageside seats for Paris. I don’t bid on a thing.