I look at him knowingly. "How much did that hurt your torso when you used your ab muscles for that maneuver?"
He drops the act, grimacing. "Like Chucky was in my stomach."
"That's what I thought." I work my hair back into the hair tie I had around my wrist. "Next session, I'll be ready for you. I'll know everything you've been working on, and I'll have a game plan. Arrive ready to work."
He gives me a playful and unofficial salute, and offers Isla a short wave on his way out the door.
"I hope you know how lucky you are," Isla says, fanning herself.
"He's an attractive man," I say in a carefree voice. "That's all. The world has plenty of them."
I hurry next-door to use the bathroom we share with the spa before my next client arrives. Peter's face, his hesitance to offer details about himself, and his readiness when it comes to teasing me, it all sits at the forefront of my mind.
Sure, he's an attractive man. But something tells me there is so much more to him.
Chapter 10
Penn
"You all set, buddy?"
Slim Jim sits on his haunches, staring at me with that intense gaze. It's 6:14 in the morning, but Slim Jim is ready for anything. Everything. He could scale a ten-foot block wall right now if I gave the command. He is fast like a bullet and just as deadly. An assassin on four legs. Unbelievable, this dog.
I finish my pre-run electrolyte water, then clip a leash to Slim Jim's utility vest. In large, white-stitched letters on either side of his vest, is the directive DO NOT PET. And still, invariably, some well-meaning and air-headed doofus will reach a hand out to him. Slim Jim's a good dog, and not dangerous to anyone who isn't a criminal or trying to inflict harm, but he's not up for snuggles. He's a work dog, and his favorite thing in the world is to have a job to do. Everything Slim Jim does is a fulfillment of everything he was made to do.
Unlike Paper Towel Duke.
Slim Jim and I slip out the side gate, and I spend a short minute looking over the chalk drawings on my driveway. Some neighborhood kids cornered me yesterday when I was getting out of my car, asking if they could use it to draw on. The smallestkid, smiley and gap-toothed, informed me he'd already filled up his driveway. I'd told them to have at it.
Slim Jim and I set off, his big paws hitting the sidewalk with soft thuds in a comforting cadence.
She's marrying Duke.
We come to a break in the road, turning right onto a road that will eventually lead to the main drag through town.
Slim Jim keeps perfectly in line with me, never falling behind and never attempting to lead.
What the hell does she see in the guy?Their families were always close, the moms in book club and serving on the Olive Township restoration society. The dads tolerated each other, from what I could tell. Duke has two siblings, but for the St. James family there is only Daisy. Duke and Daisy were friends because of their families' connection to one another.
When did Duke go from friend to fiancé?
The question gnaws at me, its barbs tearing at my insides as it races around my body. My trainers smack the pavement as I pick up speed. My heart batters my breast bone, my breath heating and tearing at my throat.
I had no idea she was going to be my physical therapist, or that she owned the practice. It was only all those years of being a SEAL, of learning how to conceal surprise, that kept me in my seat when she walked in that tiny room. Her assistant, Isla, said not a word about the name of the person I was making an appointment with.
Fuck, but that was difficult. Being next to her, enveloped in her scent that is fist-bitingly luscious (plum, I’m almost positive, and maybe a little vanilla), and then she adjusted me and I thought I was going to come out of my skin. Her touch, electric and heady, overwhelmed me. Seeing her for my next appointments might end me. Survival is unlikely at this point.
Here lies the motherfucker who pretended not to be Penn Bellamy.
The thing is, I don't have to stay here. I could leave tomorrow. Today, for that matter.
I don't have to subject myself to this. Or Daisy, to me. To what it might do to her if she finds out I am not Peter Bravo, but Penn from her childhood.
Or you could be honest with her.
It's Hugo's voice in my ear. Hugo's advice from the second I called him and told him I would be returning to deal with the house.
What should I do about Daisy?I'd asked.
