Page 11 of Snatched | AllFreeNovel

“I wasn’t flirting.”

He tilts his head. “She was.”

The heat rises in my chest.

“And you didn’t exactly shut it down,” he adds smugly.

I take a slow breath, the way my physical therapist taught me. I remind myself that Damien is five-foot-eight on a good day and gets winded climbing stairs. Not the enemy. Just a petty man with a clipboard and a Napoleon complex.

“Next time,” he continues, “keep the small talk strictly fitness-related. Abs, macros, form. Not her dating life.”

I bite back the instinctive:She brought it up.

Instead I say, “Got it.”

He doesn’t move or blink. He just inspects me like he’s looking for a weak spot.

“Don’t make me write you up, Cole.”

I nod once.

He walks away with the triumphant strut of someone who thinks they’ve won a battle I never signed up for.

When he’s gone, I sit on the edge of the training bench and exhale long and hard.

My knee throbs—just a faint pulse, barely noticeable now, but I know what it means. I shouldn’t have demonstrated lunges earlier. I should know better.

But Elena’s eyes lit up when she asked about abs, and suddenly I’m twenty-one again, showing off in a weight room, trying to impress someone I shouldn’t care about.

I rub the side of my knee.

That’s what ended it.

Not the fame or the pressure or the contract—my knee. One weird step, one bad angle, the pop I felt all the way up my spine.

Career over in a single sound.

I stand, stretch, ignore the ache.