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“You’ll get another position soon. You’re good at what you do.”
“Thanks,” she whispers. But she’s unsettled, caged.
“I hope Longdale has helped you clear your head.” I want to reach out and touch her, maybe put an arm around her. But I don’t.
“Yeah. It’s been good for me.” Her brow jams down. “Helping you has rectified something in my mind, I guess. Part of me missed working with athletes who are big and think they know everything.” Her green-eyed gaze zips over my face.
“Hey,” I counter. “I’ve been the model patient.”
“You have, except for the fact that you wouldn’t be in this position if you’d continued taking care of your knee after you came here from Texas.” She shifts away from me, throwing her hands in the air before letting them down to slap her tanned thighs. “We’ve got a lot of issues that didn’t have to be issues in the first place.”
“You’re…right. But I’m kind of thinking being cut in half by a three-hundred pound lineman might have had something to do with it.”
“Falling off a treadmill didn’t help, either,” she teases.
I’m about to respond with some sort of remark that might give me a bit of my dignity back when Sebastian’s assistant, Britta, someone who functions somewhere between a drill sergeant and the grandmother we never had, enters the gym.
Chapter 9
Oakley
I’ve gotten myself so wrapped up in Alec’s brilliant blue eyes that I almost welcome the intrusion of an older woman in the gym. Her sudden presence is like spilling ice water down my front. A frosty wake-up call.
She smooths down her plum-colored business suit. “Hello, Alec,” she says and then turns to me. “And are you Oakley Edwards?” Her tone is professional and airy, her posture dignified.
I sit up straight, for no other reason than when someone has impeccable posture, I have to try to match it, too. And for good measure, I move away from Alec slightly. “That’s me,” I say, curious about who she is and why she’s here.
Alec stands and gestures towards her. “Oakley, this is Britta, Sebastian’s assistant. She keeps us all afloat. Britta, Oakley’s a...” Do I imagine that he pauses, as if not sure what to call me? A friend or a foe? His personal trainer? Someone I’ll probably never see again when I go back to Texas?
Her smile is polite, yet warm. “Nice to meet you. Sebastian Tate and Oliver Tate are requesting a meeting with you this afternoon, if you’re available,” she says to me.
“What kind of meeting?” Did they notice me taking a couple of the gym towels up to my room? The placard near the stack says not to remove them from the gym, but I was in a rebellious mood and super sweaty, so I did.
Not that I’m stealing them! I just moved them around. Surely that can’t be a crime.
“I apologize, but I don’t know the reason for it,” Britta says. She hands me a small card. “Here’s the conference room number. It’s on the second floor. And here’s the meeting time, as well as my phone number in case you’re unable to make it or have any questions.”
I have a ton of questions, not in the least what Alec thinks of all of this. Did he know about this before now? Is he involved somehow? Can I just bring the towels right back down here and avoid the meeting altogether?
Britta leaves and I turn to Alec. “What’s all this about?” I ask casually.
Redness drifts over his cheeks and he picks up his phone off a nearby counter. “I have no idea.” He gives me a long look, tells me he’ll see me at our next training session, and leaves, his phone already pressed to his ear.
Chapter 10
Alec
Conveniently, my older brothers were too busy to take my calls this morning after Britta asked Oakley to come. I knew something weird was going on and so I spent whatever free time I had, in between CEO of Fun tasks, trying to figure it out.
Sebastian gives me jack squat to go on when I finally track him down, telling me it’s “nothing.” Oliver isn’t much better, although he talks about how great it would be to focus on helping injured athletes rehabilitate, and what I think about that.
“Are you joking? How and why would we try to market to injured athletes?” I say.
The pointed look Oliver gives me constricts my throat.
So now I have Milo on speaker because I need him as backup. A sort of wingman as I try to find out what’s going on. I’m roaming around the resort, trying and failing to find them again and demand answers. I feel a certain protectiveness over Oakley, and I don’t want anything my brothers say or do to be a problem for her.
“Do you want me to call Sebastian and ask him? If he’s avoiding you, he might be more willing to take my call,” Milo says.
