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Even though it was my day off, I showered and dressed to go to work, donning the emotional armor of my favorite dark purple quarter zip shirt with the gym’s logo over my heart. Before I left the apartment, I ate strawberry Pop-Tarts, my version of the breakfast of champions. I sipped coffee on my drive with no music on the radio because all I could think about was what proverbial bomb was about to go off in my life.
For months, I knew my boss, Amy, was going to sell the gym, but she’d never actually said anything to me about who might replace her. But still, as I took the familiar route to work, where I’d invested every ounce of my heart since the day she hired me to manage the place, I had a sinking suspicion that my premonition was about this place that was so dear to me.
My headlights cut a swath through the empty parking lot in front of the low, square building that housed the gym. Instead of pulling around to the back where I normally parked, I decided to come through the front.
I locked the door behind me and punched the security code as it beeped on the wall. The gym was dark when I walked in, which suited me just fine. I’d memorized every inch of the place years earlier, so the weak light of the sunrise was more than enough for me to navigate back to my office.
If I could stay busy enough, with the boxes of merchandise I needed to unpack and display, the training schedule I needed to finalize, and the timecards I needed to finish, maybe I could ignore the bad juju feeling.
I took a sip of my coffee and stretched my free arm over my head with a wince. Went a little too hard in class the day before, and I groaned loudly when my muscles screamed in protest at the movement.
The groan is what had the door to Amy’s office opening, the light of her small corner lamp illuminating the space. The shades were drawn over the glass that looked out over the gym, which I hadn’t noticed earlier. Amy’s head popped out. “Iz. You’re here like, really early.”
I stopped, my heart beginning to tumble over each thudding beat. “Why do you look nervous about the fact that I am?”
I’d worked for her and known her for too long to tiptoe around anything.
Amy sighed, her face falling in a look that had my stomach falling too. She’d been my boss and known me too long to tiptoe around me. This was it. As soon as she looked over her shoulder and spoke to someone in her office, I knew this was the thing I’d been dreading.
A new owner.
A new boss.
But that dread was nothing on how I felt when Amy turned back to me and gave me an apologetic smile. It was the apology I saw that set my heart hammering.
My skin felt too tight and my bones too big because I knew whoever was in that office was the thing … the feeling I’d had.
Suddenly, I wanted to run. I didn’t want to face whatever—whoever—it was.
Amy’s dark eyes searched my face. “I was going to do this tomorrow a bit more formally, but I had a feeling your ass would show up on your day off.”
“I needed to unpack those boxes,” I said, but my voice trailed off when she moved aside, and he filled the doorway.
Holy. Fucking. Hell. It was even worse than I thought. Like all the things that terrified me were rolled into one big, muscular, better-looking-in-person package sent to make me feel wildly out of control.
I hated that I was right, that my sleepless night had indeed warned me that something like this was going to happen. I knew what item in the box had called to me, and oh, my hell, now I wanted to shred it to bits just so I could pretend it didn’t exist.
It would be fine, I told myself.
This was no place for the teenage version of Isabel, the one who’d been a little uncertain and a lot terrified of what people thought of me. I was not her anymore. No matter what was in that fucking box with his name on it.
It was the only reason I didn’t watch where I was walking, and my foot caught on the edge of the ropes.
With a gasp, I pitched forward, my coffee falling with a wet slap onto the ground, my hand dripping from the mess that was left of my cup after I squashed it to death in my hands.
“I am so sorry,” I said.
Amy laughed. “This is the unflappable Isabel Ward I was telling you about.”
My face burned, but she leaned over to toss me a towel, which I used to wipe off my hand, and toss it over the spot of coffee that I’d undoubtedly be mopping up in a few minutes. As I pushed the towel around the mess with my foot, I felt his gaze on me. Carefully, I lifted my head to meet it head-on. See if I was capable of it.
This could.
Not.
Be.
Happening.
