I raised my hand to my temple and rubbed. "Lucia, please stop..."
"Ooohhh!" Lucia's eyes widened when she saw my ring. "Teacher's got ahuzzz-band! Teacher's got ahuzzzz-band!"
Dear Lord.Was there any getting out of this?
I tried again with my most reasonable tone. "Lucia, I'm sorry you saw that. But I'd appreciate it if you kept it to yourself. I don't want the rest of the class to get distract?—"
Lucia cut me off again, this time by puckering her lips and making kissing noises as she wrapped her arms around her shoulders and pantomimed our make-out session.
Cole raised an eyebrow. "You chose this form of charitable work because…?"
The thing was, I actually enjoyed teaching my students—especially Lucia, whose wicked sense of humor occasionally derailed the class but most often kept us laughing. However, the notion of Lucia telling everybody about the kiss she witnessed had me cringing too hard to answer Cole's question.
"Please, Lucia—" I once again tried reasoning with the middle schooler, but this time it was Cole who cut me off.
"I'll give you ten bucks to keep your mouth shut, kid," he told Lucia, pulling his wallet out of his joggers.
What is he doing?
But before I could chastise Cole for trying to bribe a child, Lucia brought the kissing sounds to an abrupt halt and shot back, "Thirty. You look like you got money. Bet you can afford it."
"I've got money because I don't let myself get swindled," Cole replied coolly. "Twenty."
Lucia folded her arms. "Twenty-five!"
"Fine," Cole answered, pulling a twenty and five ones out of his wallet. "What's your full name, kid?"
"Lucia Reyes," she answered proudly.
Cole held out the money to her, stiff as a general.
"Lucia Reyes, we've got a deal, but if you break your promise, I'm going to make sure this dance class gets shut down. Then, you'll never have anybody to teach you to twirl around for free again because you couldn't keep your mouth closed."
"Cole!" I nearly screeched.
"Do you understand that I'm serious," he asked Lucia, as if I hadn't said anything.
"Yep! Deal!" Lucia snatched the cash out of his hand before I could scold Cole again and singsonged, "I didn't seenuuuhhhthin'! I didn't seenuuuhhhthin'!"
Cole smirked at me over the little girl's head in a way that clearly said,See? I always get my way.
That was exactly what I was afraid of. The memory of his mauling kiss looped inside my head as I grabbed the gnarled piece of wood I called my "Debbie Allen stick."
Thanks to Cole's somewhat nefarious wheeling and dealing with a child, the kiss would remain a secret.
But the feelings it had sparked inside of me?
Gritting my jaw, I turned my eyes from the man who’d made me lose every ounce of sense for those hot few seconds. And this time, I kept them averted until time for class to begin.
CHAPTER12
Cole
When I'd decidedlast minute to further "sell" the story of our sudden engagement by assisting Sunny with her little Saturday morning class, I’d thought,Sure, why not? How hard can it be?
Answer: damn fucking hard.
I ran an extreme number of miles three times a week and did a brutal strength workout every Tuesday and Thursday. On Saturdays, I did both before my weekly sparring session with Jabbari.
