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“You saw his package. You’re already halfway there.”
“That
’s not how it works,” I laughed.
She shrugged. Something started beeping and she whipped around to look at a timer on the counter.
“Oh! Shit, those are the soufflés. Look, I have to go. But seriously, you should go for it. I mean, you’re both adults. You’re both stuck there in Florida. Go on and scratch that itch, Jillian. You’ve had that itch for, like, a million years. Just do it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Go get your soufflés. I’m going to go now.”
“Do it,” she commanded with a smile just before she hung up.
I stared at the phone, shaking my head. It was tempting to try, but I was smarter than that. A guy like Bruin would never go for a girl like me. I was sure he still saw me as that awkward little fourteen-year-old who had a crush on him.
Nope. A guy like Bruin would just break my heart, and I just couldn’t afford that.
Not now. Not ever.
9
Bruin
As I jogged down the concrete along the side of the road that hugged the shoreline, I couldn’t help but feel a little smug. Last night, I’d exchanged emails with some of my colleagues in Edinburgh, one of them complaining about the cold rain.
Sure, Florida got cold, but with it being later November and still hovering around the upper seventies, I couldn’t complain. It was perfect jogging weather.
I’d been jogging since before the sun rose. There was something beautiful and addicting about getting up before almost everyone else in the city, hitting the streets with nothing but an outfit and a phone, and just going.
I monitored every step my long legs took, felt every shift in my weight as I ran. Over the years, I’d come to make my cardio workouts as controlled as my breathing, and my routine was almost as regular. Years of soccer in and before college made it an essential part of my life. Even when I was in countries that were totally foreign to me, even if I was visiting for just one morning for a business meeting, I’d try to find time to go running and explore the area just before dawn.
Jogging around Lima while on vacation and running by puzzled locals was still one of my fondest exercising memories, but Ft. Lauderdale had a special place in my heart, too. As I felt the salty air kiss my swelling leg muscles and hug my chest as I ran, I got to watch the sun rise to the east, colors bursting over the horizon as boats began to lazily drift out for business or pleasure.
And all the while, my body marched on like a machine, every part of my honed physique working in perfect harmony to keep things moving, always improving, always staying fit. I made my body a temple.
It paid off this morning, like most mornings. I was rarely the only one out running along the coast. There were plenty of others, old and young, who came running the opposite direction or made way for me to run past them.
I got a lot of looks from the women, too. There had been more than one occasion when a morning run had turned into a conversation with some other young professional out for a jog, and that conversation had turned into a cardio workout of a very different kind in my yacht’s bedroom.
This morning, though, I just pushed myself, hard. None of the looks I was getting from the young women out here was doing anything for me. That kind of thing hadn’t interested me since—her.
I clenched my jaw and tried to control my breathing better as I ran, focusing that energy into my workout. I didn’t listen to music when I ran. A long time ago, a trainer told me that a workout was as much about the mind as it was the body, and if my mind was distracted, I was missing out on half the workout. I still took that to heart.
So when thoughts of Jillian haunted me, I fought tooth and nail to focus that frustration into my jogging, blood coursing through my body, swelling my muscles, keeping my heart in perfect condition.
But the distraction came in waves, and I wasn’t always able to keep it at bay.
It had been a week since I’d seen Jillian and Jeff. A week since Jillian had walked in on me, a week since old memories came flooding back to me in ways I’d never expected, a week since things had gotten tense with Jeff over the subject of his little sister.
So, why did it feel like the past week had been one long, drawn-out day?
My workouts had gotten more intense since seeing Jillian, and not just my cardio. I found myself spending more time in my gym, pushing myself harder than usual, really wanting to feel burns I’d never felt before in my body. If my physique was like a statue, I wanted to be a master sculptor. Nothing but perfection was acceptable.
But are you doing this for you, or for her?
That thought pestered me the whole time.
My phone buzzed in its holster on my bicep, and I brought my jogging to a slow stop so I could take it out and look at it. My heart jumped at the sight of Jillian’s name on an email.
