Slamming the door and spinning around to face her, I glared. “We live in California. No cold air to let in.”
She shrugged. “Something my grandmother used to say when I visited her in New York as a kid.”
I gritted my teeth feeling angry and strangely excited to see her.
“Get the hell out of my house,” I demanded.
“No.” She folded her arms over her chest.
As if on their own volition, my eyes began trailing down her body, noticing the leopard print button up top she’d tucked into the black skinny jeans she wore with a pair of red high heels. A simple outfit, nothing special about it, but fuck all if I could get that message through to my body, which began to heat up.
“The hell do you mean, no?” I advanced forward.
She lifted her chin, defiantly. “I mean.” She hesitated, but eventually blew out a breath, lowering her arms, holding them out at her sides. “You’re being a stubborn ass by firing me and not even giving me the opportunity to explain myself. Grow the hell up.”
This time it was my eyes that bulged. “Grow up? I’m not the one who lied. You are. I might be an ass, but I’ve always been upfront and honest about it.”
She narrowed her eyebrows angrily. “Oh please. Come off it. You hide behind being an asshole because you don’t want anyone to know the real you. You don’t want anyone to get too close. Where’s the honesty in that?”
I tensed for a heartbeat, before smirking and folding my arms over my chest. “Is this you thinking you’ve got me all figured out?”
She pushed out a breath and stepped closer, to which I responded by moving backward. She stopped. “I know you, Luke.”
I glared at her. “If you knew me, you would’ve never fucking lied to me.” Pointing at her, I added, “You would’ve known the one thing I never could stand is being lied to, manipulated, just like,” I stopped before the words could come out.
“Like what?” She asked.
“Like, Anna. My mother,” I seethed, gritting my teeth as the words passed my lips. The thought made my stomach rumble with nausea. I hated the woman that birthed me and to think of Syd as being anything like her stirred something ugly and deep in me.
She sighed. “I tried to tell you that final night in San Diego.”
“Why the hell didn’t you? You had ample opportunity,” I yelled, feeling myself getting more rattled than I cared to admit. That night in San Diego, I’d opened up to her about my past, all the while she kept this secret.
“I was going to tell you once we got back.”
“When?”
“That night. After our date.”
I deepened my frown. “How convenient.”
“It’s the truth, dammit,” she insisted, stomping her foot. “Did I or did I not tell you during that night I needed to talk to you about something? That we needed to talk?”
I thought back to that night and recalled Syd mentioning something about talking. However, my cock was too busy trying to bust its way through my jeans to put much stock into her comment. I had figured it was about training.
I ran my hand through my hair, looking away from her because my damn heart—the very thing I promised not to give to any woman, was softening.
“You could’ve told me from the beginning.”
“Yeah right, Luke. What would’ve happened if I walked into your gym that first day and said I’m Daniel Banks’ daughter? The one he hadn’t seen for over twenty years before he died. Can you tell me about him? Oh, and by the way, hire me as your new head trainer.”
“I would’ve told you to get lost.”
“Exactly,” She responded, exasperated.
“But at least I would’ve known the truth.”
“What if I wasn’t ready to tell you the truth? You know what it’s like to keep family secrets. Is it easy to open up to a practical stranger?”
