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‘I should be the one asking you that question. You should have taken the day off.’
‘We’ve had a change of management. The last thing I need is to lose my job on top of everything else.’
‘You wouldn’t lose your job.’
‘How do you know?’
His gaze slid back to mine. ‘Because I’m the management.’
For a moment I thought I’d misheard and then I stared into those dark velvet eyes and knew I hadn’t. ‘Fit and Physical has been taken over by the Black Belt Corporation.’
‘That’s right. I own the Black Belt Corporation.’
‘You?’ It hadn’t occurred to me it could be him. I felt stupid. I hadn’t taken any notice of the word Black in the company name. But now I thought about it, it was obvious. Hunter had trained in this place. Spent every day here growing up. He’d loved it as much as I did.
And he was back.
Now I really did feel sick.
‘You own Fit and Physical?’ My palms were sweaty. I wiped them over my workout pants. I noticed he was wearing the same black T-shirt all the staff wore and wondered why I hadn’t seen that the moment he walked in.
‘I was going to tell you last night but I thought you’d had enough of a shock for one evening.’
James, one of the other instructors, walked into the room. ‘Mr. Black—er, Hunter, could I just—?’
‘Not now.’ Hunter didn’t even turn his head. He kept his gaze fixed on me and my skin burned as if I’d lain naked in the heat of the midday sun. My mouth was as dry as if I’d hiked through the desert. Once again I wished I’d saved this man for a time when I was better able to cope with him. I’d wasted what could have been the hottest, mos
t exciting relationship of my life on my messed-up teenage self. I wished I could wind the clock back. I’d ignore the angst and enjoy the man.
James took one look at Hunter’s face and then mine and backed out of the room, no doubt to spread the word that Rosie Miller was about to get her marching orders from the new boss.
I stooped and picked up my water. ‘Right. Well I’d better leave.’
‘Why would you leave?’
Because I was about to leap on him, strip him naked and enjoy the sex without any of the angst that went with relationships. ‘I think it’s best.’
‘Are you really going to walk out on a job you enjoy because we were once lovers?’
We both knew he hadn’t been just my lover—he’d been my everything. Hunter had filled all those empty gaps in my life and when he’d walked away, I hadn’t been sure I’d hold together. It had been like playing emotional Jenga. Once that all-important piece had been removed, the whole structure had collapsed. It made me cringe to think about it.
Fortunately, I’d rebuilt myself and I was pretty robust now. I wasn’t going to blow over in a strong wind and I wasn’t going to let the threads of my life unravel over a man.
There was no way I would walk out on a job I loved just because working alongside Hunter reminded me of the most humiliating time of my life.
‘I wasn’t suggesting I leave the job,’ I lied, ‘simply the room. Unless you’d like me to leave the job?’
I dumped the problem right back in his lap.
Maybe he couldn’t cope with working with me. Maybe he was afraid I’d revert to being that clingy, embarrassing creature he’d once known. I couldn’t really blame him.
‘You’re exceptionally talented and I want talented people around me. That’s the way to build a successful business. And we’re going to grow this place into a successful business.’
The compliment robbed me of breath. So did his use of the word we.
I swallowed, wondering what it was about this man that turned me to a lump of quivering jelly. My skin tingled and my nerve endings hummed. I looked into his eyes and forgot where I was.
I was seconds away from doing something really stupid like kissing him when the door opened and another instructor put her head round. This time it was Caroline and the moment I saw the way she looked at Hunter, I realized he was the guy my self-defence class had been talking about.
