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Pisa’s eyes glimmered with tears. “I was so afraid of telling you. I know this can’t be easy.”
Chelsea squeezed her in an elbow-padded hug. “I don’t care if it’s easy or not. It’s what you have to do.”
After a bit more hugging, they dusted the grass off of their gear and resumed their breakneck skate around the park. Chelsea kept the beaming smile on her face, but inwardly, she was torn. Pisa was her rock, the person she could count on at all times to be there for her. She couldn’t keep her from such an awesome promotion, not when it would mean so much money and success for her.
But . . . what would it mean for Chelsea? She’d just have to suck it up and cope. Somehow. But New York was going to be a lot less fun without Pisa around.
* * *
“Top rope or lead climb today?” Sebastian asked Hunter. He adjusted his climbing harness and double checked it one more time before he glanced over at his buddy.
“Top rope,” Hunter said, then glanced around uneasily. “Gym seem awful busy to you today?”
Sebastian grunted. It did, but he thought he was just paranoid. “Maybe we picked a bad time to get our climb on. You wanna reschedule?”
“Nah,” Hunter said, chalking his hands. “Need to get some aggressions out.”
“Oh?” Sebastian clipped in and then squinted up at the wall. They’d rented the area for the hour, but Hunter was right—their private gym of choice seemed to be rather busy today for no reason at all. Maybe he needed to see about building his own personal rock climbing wall. Seemed kinda silly when there was a perfectly good one here downtown, though. “Work stuff or something else?”
Hunter wasn’t the chattiest partner, so it was sometimes tough to get him to open up. Not today, it seemed. Sebastian was a little surprised when Hunter admitted, “Lost out on an important bid earlier. Too distracted by wedding stuff.”
“Glad it’s you getting married and not me,” Sebastian said, putting his hands on one of the lower pre-bolted sport route handholds. “The last thing I need is more media attention.”
“It’s not the media,” Hunter said in his gravelly voice, approaching the wall. “Gretchen wouldn’t do that to me. It’s . . . well, it’s Gretchen. She’s planning this big costume party for the engagement announcement and she’s all worked up.”
Sebastian’s brows drew together. He wasn’t exactly sure how that was distracting. “And . . .”
“And when she gets worked up, she takes her stress out on me.”
The words sounded like they were growled out of Hunter’s throat, and Sebastian paused in his climb to look over at his partner. Sure enough, Hunter’s face was bright red, and not from exertion. “Ah,” he said, chuckling. “ That kind of distraction. You poor, suffering beast. How do you cope?”
“Fuck off,” Hunter said. “I—” He bit the words off and stared into the distance.
Sebastian turned to look . . . and cursed.
Now he knew why the gym was so crowded. A trio of cameras were filming a short distance away, and another man held a long boom mic over the head of a girl with white-blonde bleached hair. She was wearing a hot pink sports bra and matching yoga pants . . . and stilettos. And when she turned, he swore again.
Lisa Pinder-Schloss. His ex from hell. The one who wanted to be as famous as the rest of his family.
She brightened at the sight of him and bounded over, her big implants jiggling as she trotted to the climbing wall. And all Sebastian could do was hang there, a few feet off the ground, stunned as she and her entourage showed up.
“Hi, baby,” she cooed, staggering over to the climbing wall. Her heels sunk into the mats and she wobbled with every step.
“Lisa? What are you doing here?” Sebastian said, releasing the hand holds and sliding back down to the ground. At least she had the sense to approach when he was at the bottom of the wall and not the top.
He looked over at Hunter, and he had his hands in front of his face, squinting. “If those cameras don’t get off of me in two seconds, I’m suing the daylights out of each and every one of you,” the scarred billionaire growled.
Immediately, all three cameras swiveled away and zoomed in on Lisa.
Sebastian dusted his hands, stepping a few feet away to give Hunter his privacy. He knew the man was reclusive and hated his picture taken. Hell, Hunter hated going out in public at all but was trying to do better for his fiancée. Definitely time for Sebastian to look into that private climbing wall. Fuck.
