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Mere moments later, a well-groomed bloke materialized at my side, a charming smile on his face—a face I easily recognized as belonging to a well-known anchorman. “Hi,” he said simply. “Isabel McKenzie, isn’t it? I’m Lambert Formby.”

I gave him a polite smile. “Nice to meet you.”

He tilted his head. “I know you must get this a lot, but you look so much like your mother it is uncanny.”

Ugh. “I’ve noticed.”

He chuckled. “I suppose you have.” Propping his hip against the bar, he glanced down at my mostly-consumed cocktail. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“She has one, as you can see,” said a new and somewhat familiar voice as a warm, hard body pressed against my back. “And the only person who’ll be buying her another tonight is me.”

The possessive note in Cole’s tone took me so much by surprise that my eyebrows almost flew up.Well.

Lambert looked like he might protest to being so thoroughly dismissed—no one here took kindly to being shooed along if the person they’d approached wasn’t claimed. But he pressed his lips tightly shut. Perhaps because challenging aprofessional boxer on anything would never be a wise move. He gave us a nod and gracefully melted away.

Planting his hands on my hips, Cole pressed a kiss to the side of my neck. “Our table’s ready.”

I half-turned on my stool and smiled at the gorgeous male specimen that took my hand in his. “You have good timing.”

“And you have more admirers than I’m comfortable with,” he said, his mouth quirking. He swept his gaze over every inch of me. “You look as stunning as always.”

“Why, thank you. You’re looking rather edible.”

“That’s one I haven’t heard before.” He nodded at my friends. “Ladies, I’d apologize for whisking Izzy away, but I’m not sorry.”

“Oh no, we don’t mind,” Inaya told him, waving a hand toward the dining area of the lounge. “You go whisk.”

I snorted. “How gracious of you.”

She only smiled.

“Come.” Cole gently took my drink from me. “I’ll carry your glass.”

Once I’d said my quick goodbyes to the girls, I allowed him to lead me to the dining area. A waitress there showed us to a booth, took our orders for drinks, and then told us she’d be back shortly.

Cole didn’t sit opposite me, he slid onto the cushioned boothbesideme, sitting so close his thigh pressed against mine. The scent of his masculine cologne was as intoxicating as the way he so blatantly ate up my space.

After we’d scanned the menu and chosen what food we’d soon order, I returned it to the menu holder. “So, how was your day?” I asked him once the waitress disappeared.

“Same as most Fridays,” he replied, absently toying with my curls. “I have a strict diet and training regimen.”

Curious, I tilted my head. “Talk me through a typical day for you. If you don’t mind,” I hurried to add.

“Of course I don’t mind. It’s not anything you’ll find exciting. I eat breakfast, go jogging, have lunch, train, sometimes spar, shower, have dinner, and then relax for the evening. It’s more intense if I head off to camps to train before a fight—sometimes I do, something I don’t. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that boxing leaves me little time for much else.”

I had the feeling that he’d have been just as highly committed to any career. It was clear to sense that Cole was a man who fully applied himself to everything he did. I respected that. I admired his level of focus and dedication. And I sure did like being the center of that intense focus just as I was right now.

“How does your typical day go?” he asked.

“My routine isn’t quite as rigid as yours. I wake early, but not too early unless necessary—for instance, if I need to take shots of a sunrise or something. I grab my camera, head off to a random location, take a ton of photos, and then go back to my apartment where I upload and play with them on my laptop.”

“How did you get into photography?”

“When I was a kid, I’d often hang around my mum’s photoshoots. I’d also often bug the photographers out of plain boredom. They’d naturally get annoyed and try shooing me away. Though not too rudely—most people find my mum pretty scary.”

Cole’s mouth canted up. “Your dad, too, I’ll bet. He has a temper, from what I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, people tend to swerve getting on his bad side. Anyway, this one time I was at one of her photoshoots—I was seven, I think—and poking at a photographer. Amazingly he didn’t get frustrated and tell me to piss off. He let me hold his camera and started talking to me about which button did what etc. And … that was it. Something just clicked for me. My dadbought me a camera, and it became an extension of my hand pretty fast.”

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