The instructor stumbled slightly. His brow lifted. Then a low, amused grunt. “Well. Someone’s pissed.”
Arden swiped her forearm across her forehead, catching her breath. “Something like that.”
His gaze lingered. He saw it, the fire she hadn’t extinguished. The fury smoldered under sweat and skin.
“You good?”
She offered a crooked smirk, reaching for her towel. “Ask the next guy who crosses me.”
A bark of laughter. “Noted.”
She turned, chest still tight with leftover adrenaline. The sweat helped. The burn helped. But it hadn’t burned it all away.
The ache in her shoulders was a comfort, but unease still curled beneath her sternum like a warning.
Her phone buzzed.
Gideon: Did you sleep? Or are you working out your frustration by beating the shit out of something?
She smiled.
Define “something.”
Gideon: That’s my girl. I’ll see you this evening.
She stared at the screen, her thumb hovering. Her smile faltered, softer now.
And for the first time all morning, her breath came easy.
The heat hadn’t faded.
But it had direction now.
Phone tucked away, towel slung over her shoulder, she headed out into the cold morning air, still wound tighter than she’d admit.
?
The water was scalding. Steam hung heavy in the air, curling along the glass in restless, shifting patterns.
Gideon barely felt it.
He stood motionless beneath the spray, hands braced against cool tile, muscles tight beneath his skin. Water poured down his back, carving through the ridges of his spine, pooling at his feet before spiraling down the drain.
It should’ve burned.
Should’ve snapped him back into his body.
But it didn’t.
Not against the fire inside him.
Evelyn. Arden. The storm gathering behind his ribs.
Every carefully constructed part of his life was shifting. Colliding. The walls he’d spent years reinforcing were starting to crack, and at the center of it all was her.
Arden Rivers.
He should’ve been thinking about Leo. About Christian. About the file waiting on his desk, one that could reduce Blackwell Enterprises to ash.
