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Sucking it up, I walked down the hallway toward his office. My teeth dug into my cheek. Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open.
With his head bent down as he searched for something in his desk drawer, he was completely unaware I was in the room. He shuffled through some papers. Slowly, I shut the door behind me and turned the lock. Startled, he glanced up when he heard the click.
“What are you doing, Adrianna?”
I waited a beat before answering.
What was I doing? In a way, I felt like I had no right to be pissed. He hadn’t confessed any kind of undying love to me the other night, and he sure as hell hadn’t made any promises. Not that I wanted him to. Technically, he had every right to do whatever he wanted and with whomever he wanted, but that didn’t sit well with me either. Regardless of any unspoken words or not, thinking of him with someone else and then ignoring me hurt more than anything.
Feeling a little less confident now, I whispered, “We need to talk. You’ve been ignoring me since you left my place, and I want to know why.”
“I have not been ignoring you,” he said, averting his eyes. “I have been training you since then as normal, just as I have everyone else in this gym, have I not?” His tone was clipped.
“It’s not the same thing, and you know it.”
I made my way around his desk. If he was going to play the innocent card, he was sure as hell going to be brave enough to look at me while doing it.
Looking up at him, I said, “Sure, you’ve been barking out demands every time I walk through those gym doors, but I can tell you’ve been trying to avoid me as much as possible. We need to talk.”
He stared at me, his expression void of any emotion. “If you mean coaching you, then yes I have. That is my job.”
My blood was simmering. “Is it your job to seduce your gymnasts too? Fuck them and then act like they don’t exist? Because you’re killing that race.”
“How dare—I did not seduce you,” he gritted between clenched teeth. Kova slid a hand into his dress pants, the vein in his arm jutting out like he was forming a fist. “I do not have time for this shit,” he said as he tried to make his way around me to the door. “You are being irrational.”
My heart was burning. I grabbed his hand without thinking, trying to stop him. “Do not touch me!” he hissed, pulling his hand away like he’d been burned.
My brows lowered. “Kova—”
“Use your head, Ria. You are not thinking of the consequences of our actions. You need to stop right this minute and get out of my office,” he said, keeping his voice low. “You and I? It should have never happened. Your feelings are all messed up right now.”
My jaw fell open. I was speechless. I’d never witnessed this side of him before. I never once worried that he’d deliberately hurt me either. Seeing him lose his cool made me take a few hesitant steps back.
“You’re a cold man.” My wide eyes raked the length of his body. “Don’t try to tell me I’m incapable of understanding what my feelings are when you lock yours in a room to avoid them,” I whispered under my breath, backing further away from him until my back hit the office door. “You’re just a big baby.”
Kova tracked my steps, following me until he was standing inches from my face. His eyes met mine and I swallowed hard.
Picking up a lock of my hair, he twirled it between his fingers. “You would not be able to handle me if I was honest.”
This is a special scene that was deleted during the editing of Balance. It actually goes in part with Falling to Pieces by Leddy Harper. We’d written the scenes collectively, but mine was ultimately removed. I love this chapter and planned to incorporate it into one of the books later on, but there was never a right time for her character to go to a boudoir studio despite being intrigued by the pictures on Kova’s desk of Katja’s own session.
I must be out of my mind.
Delusional.
Why I thought this was a good idea, I’ll never know. I guess the same could be said for sleeping with my coach too. That definitely wasn’t the brightest idea I’d ever had, but I wanted to do something special for him.
Fuck it. What’s done is done and I had no regrets.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled the tinted glass door open and walked into the free-standing building. You’d never know from the outside this was a studio, and I immediately liked the privacy of it. I’d been so used to people with cameras following my family’s every move that this was something I could appreciate. It meant no worrying.
A woman sat behind the marble countertop, staring at a computer screen. When she picked her head up, I said, “Hi, I’m Adrianna. I-I’m here for an appointment.”
She smiled hesitantly, raking her eyes up and down my body. I tensed, knowing what she was probably thinking.
“Hey, welcome. I’m Shari.” She smiled, and shuffled some papers together before placing them on a clipboard.
“Hey.”
