I wrap my hands, pull on my gloves, and go at the heavy bag like it owes me money. The rhythm helps, left-right-left-right, the thud of leather against canvas, the burn in my shoulders, the sweat running down my back. I've been at it for over an hour and my arms are screaming but I keep going because every time I stop, I think about her.
I think about the way she saidyes.
I think about the way my mother called me out in the hallway, stripped me down to the bone in six sentences, and was right in every single one of them.
I think about Anya Agapova sleeping down the hall from me in the guest room, and how I don't even know what she looks like when she sleeps, and why the hell that thought is in my head at all.
I hit the bag harder.
The gym is in the basement of the estate; a room Liam had converted years ago when he got tired of driving to a commercial gym and having people stare at him. It's got everything I need. Free weights along the far wall, a bench press, a squat rack, the heavy bag in the corner, and enough space that I can move without feeling caged. It smells like rubber and iron and old sweat, and at five-thirty in the morning, it's the only place in this house where I know I’ll find peace.
I strip my shirt off after the first hour because it's soaked through and clinging to me in a way that makes my skin crawl. The gray sweats stay. I move from the bag to the bench and load the bar heavy, heavier than I usually go, because I want the strain. I want my muscles to shake. I want to feel something that makes sense, something with a clear cause and effect. You push the weight up. Gravity pulls it down. Simple.
Nothing about last night was simple.
I press the bar up, hold it, lower it. Again. Again. My chest burns and I breathe through it, counting reps like a prayer. Somewhere above me, Anya is waking up in a bed that isn't hers, in a house she hasn't been inside since she was a kid, and today Liam is going to sit her down and talk logistics and timelines and all the practical shit that comes with marrying into this family. And she's going to look across the table and see me, and maybe in the light of a new day, without the adrenaline and the desperation, she'll realize what she actually agreed to.
I rack the bar and sit up. Wipe my face with the hem of the shirt I tossed on the floor. Run my hands through my damp hair and stare at the wall.
She felt safe.
That's what Liam told me last night, after he got off the phone with Diomid. He didn't tell me everything, said most of it was between him and her brother, but he mentioned that much.Shetold Diomid she felt safe when she looked at you.He said it like it was a good thing, and I wanted to believe him, but the voice in my head, the one that sounds like every woman who's ever looked at my left side and quickly looked away, won't let me have it that cleanly.
She felt safe because I'm big enough to stand between her and the Baron. That's not the same as wanting to look at this face across the breakfast table for the rest of her life.
I get up and move to the dumbbells. Curls. Shoulders. Something to keep my hands busy while my brain does what it always does, which is find the darkest interpretation of anything good and hold on to it like a lifeline.
I'm mid-rep, left arm curled, watching the muscle flex in the wall mirror I try not to look at, when I feel it.
Someone is watching me.
It's the blind side. She's standing at the door on my left, which means I can't see her without turning, but I don't need to see her to know. The air in the room shifts the way it does when someone's been standing still for longer than a passing glance. She's been there a minute, maybe two, and she hasn't said anything.
She's watching me.
I finish the rep. Set the weight down. Turn.
Anya is leaning against the doorframe in a T-shirt and leggings that must be Iris's it’s not what she arrived in. Her hair is loose, dark and messy from sleep, and her face is scrubbed clean of whatever she was wearing yesterday. She looks younger like this. Softer. And she's looking at me with an expression I was not prepared for.
She's not looking at my face.
She's looking at my chest. My arms. The line of sweat running down my stomach. Her eyes are tracking over me like she's reading a book she doesn't want to put down, hungry, deliberate and not even a little bit subtle about it when her gaze lands on my gray sweatpants.
And then she catches herself, drags her gaze up to my face, and her cheeks flush pink, but she doesn't look away.
Something clicks in my chest like a lock turning. I've seen women look at me before. The look is always the same: a flash of interest that dies the second it reaches the scar. They take in the body, the height, the shoulders, and then they get to my face, and whatever they were feeling shuts off like a light switch.
Anya got to my face and the color in her cheeks deepened.
She's not embarrassed because she saw the scar. She's embarrassed because I caught her staring.
I don't know what to do with this. I don't have a playbook for a beautiful woman looking at me like she wants to put her hands on me. But something in the way she's standing there, chin up, flush spreading, pulling at the collar of the T-shirt like it’s choking her, makes me want to try something I haven't tried in a long time.
I want to see what happens when I don't back away either.
"Morning," I say, keeping my voice easy. I grab the towel from the bench and drag it across my chest, slower than I need to. Her eyes follow the movement. "You're up early."
"Couldn't sleep." Her voice is a little rough. Morning voice. I like it. "I heard noise down here."
