He produced another cup, this time handing it down to me. My whole body locked down like someone had poured me into concrete.
His eyebrow, dark and slightly foreboding, rose slowly.
Kelly cleared her throat loudly, and I blinked.
Coffee.
The cup.
Right.
On the side of the cup was my last name in black Sharpie, and I swear, my hand didn’t shake in the slightest when I reached forward to take it from him. Our fingers didn’t touch because I damn well made sure of that.
His eyes, steady and, yup, unsmiling, watched me as I took a wary sip.
My eyes widened when it hit my tongue because it was exactly what I normally ordered.
With a slight dip of his chin, he murmured a short, growly, “Ward,” in greeting and was gone. As he walked away, long legs striding easily over the black rubberized floor, I caught sight of another full drink carrier in his massive hands.
“What the fuck,” I whispered.
Kelly burst out laughing.
I gave her the side-eye. “You never heard me say that.”
She notched two fingers to her forehead in a salute. “Aye aye, boss.”
Like I was handling a pin-less grenade, I set the coffee cup onto the floor next to me and kept unpacking boxes with Kelly’s help. Only a few regulars were in, using the bags and the weights, so the gym was quiet.
After how long I’d worked there, the noises hardly even registered to me anymore. The clang of weights hitting a rack, the laughter of people talking, the music playing over the speakers, and the rhythmic tapping of someone on a speedbag in the corner should have all been comforting and made me feel better.
But everything was just … off. I couldn’t find my bearings in the place that was my touchstone.
“How many for your class today?” I asked Kelly.
Her face scrunched up as she thought. “Twenty-five, I think? I checked about an hour ago when I got here.”
“Yeah, why are you here this early?”
“I wanted to get in a workout.”
I glanced at her taking a leisurely sip of her coffee. “How’s that going for you?”
“Quite well, as I am helping my beautiful manager unpack these beautiful gloves from her hiding spot,” she said with a magnanimous gesture. Picking one up, she studied the design. “Now I get why Amy didn’t want the logo on the wrist strap. She knew what was coming.”
The pair I was holding lowered slowly into my lap because I hadn’t even realized it.
A change had been on the horizon for longer than I realized, peeking over the edge of my days unnoticed. It was me who hadn’t been paying attention.
Kelly chattered happily in my silence, but very little of what she said registered. Beyond the boxes, Aiden was familiarizing himself with the computer programs we used and reviewing the policies, schedules, and day-to-day information I knew like the back of my hand.
And I was hiding behind boxes because my reaction to him made me feel like I was bungee jumping naked from the Space Needle. A teenage crush was nothing to be embarrassed about, but there I was. Hiding.
“Iz,” Kelly said. By her tone, she must have been trying to get my attention.
“Huh?”
She grinned. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”
“I …” My shoulders fell. “Not really. I’m sorry.”
Kelly waved that away. “I said that you should go in there and thank him for the coffee.” An innocent enough statement, but then she fluttered her long eyelashes.
My head tilted. “Are you high?”
“Never on Wednesdays,” she answered gravely. Her wide smile broke across her face, and I found myself laughing under my breath. “I’m only half kidding. You should thank him, but honestly, that man is gorgeous, and he’s single, and you two have a million things in common.”
I wanted to shove a towel in her mouth to shut her up because hearing her talk about us together had my palms going a little sweaty.
“Kelly,” I said quietly.
She beamed.
“Stop talking about it.”
Kelly sighed.
An alarm went off on my phone, and I cursed under my breath.
“What?” Kelly asked.
“I forgot I have a bridesmaid dress thing with my sisters.” I blew out a hard breath.
“Am I invited to Molly’s wedding?”
I gave her a look.
Kelly sighed. “I know. But she’s marrying Noah Griffin. He’s Keith’s favorite player on the Wolves, and your brother is his favorite coach, which means half the team will be there, and then my boyfriend could die a happy man.”
I smiled. This was the byproduct of being in a family that was practically NFL royalty. I was constantly surrounded by world-class athletes, but look how it did me absolutely no good when it really counted. The mental image of spilling my coffee at his feet would haunt the hell out of me.
“As fun as that sounds, I don’t think siblings’ co-workers are invited,” I said. “Can you take my session with Glenn after your class? That’s the only thing I had on the schedule.”
She nodded. “No problem.”
I stood, stretching my arms over my head.
Kelly pointed at the untouched cup on the floor. “Don’t forget that.”
I swear, I looked at that cup like it was a snake coiled up around my legs, ready to sink its fangs into my skin.
She laughed, shaking her head as she left to get set up for her class. “You’re so suspicious, Iz,” she said over her shoulder.
Maybe to her, it was that simple. A thoughtful gesture from a serious guy. To me, though, it felt like something else entirely. If I drank that coffee, I’d start thinking about how—in his first week owning a new business—he took the time to figure out what every single employee on the schedule liked to drink. I didn’t want to think about Aiden Hennessy, with his excellent eyes, wide-as-a-house shoulders, and long-legged stride, doing quietly thoughtful things because it would shred my already embarrassed heart into a heap.
What it did was make me feel like that fifteen-year-old girl again, and I hated that.
Not because fifteen had been a bad year. On the contrary. Our family finally felt settled and right when I was that age. Paige was pregnant with Emmett, and I felt safe. Loved. It was why doodling in my purple diary about marrying MMA fighters who were ten years older than me felt completely acceptable.
The reality of my adulthood might look different than the one I’d dreamed up, but everything about it was great.
And what I didn’t need was Aiden making me feel like a starry-eyed young girl whose heart was soft enough to be crushed into bits. Been there, done that, and had a T-shirt and abandonment and control issues to go with it. I did not need to put myself in that position ever again.
And sure, it was great if he didn’t turn out to be an asshole, but holding that coffee, it felt far, far more dangerous that he might be more than what I’d built up in my head so many years ago.
That was why I walked that coffee over to the drinking fountain, took off the top, and slowly poured it down the drain. It was a small way to assert control over all the flutteries.
The brown liquid swirled quickly through the holes, and I breathed deeply once it disappeared. Decisively, I capped the travel top back onto the empty cup and tossed them both into the trash can next to the fountain.
“Guess I got your order wrong.”
I froze. His voice came from right behind me, all low and growly. My eyes fell shut because holy shit, I was destined to get off on the wrong foot with this man, wasn’t I?
Blowing out a slow breath, I turned to face him. His eyes betrayed the slightest hint of amusement that he caught me, but everything else about his face was even and steady. In fact, every physical feature that made up Aiden Hennessy seemed carved straight from stone.
Not just his face, which was handsome enough, but his shoulders and arms, the veins running down
toward his massive hands.
I’d seen the gracefully inflicted violence his body was capable of, the speed and strength.
And as he towered over me, I hated that I had to lift my chin in order to meet his gaze.
“The order was fine,” I told him. “Drank too much already this morning.”
The sound he made in the back of this throat was so ambiguous that I had to physically chomp down on my tongue to stop from defending myself. When the front door opened and a group of members walked in for Kelly’s class, his attention moved from me to the sound of their bright laughter. Immediately, the pressure on my lungs eased. There was some magic voodoo he had going on, and I did not like it one tiny bit.
“Seems like the classes are always well-attended,” he said. His gaze left the group of women and came back to rest on my face.
I nodded. “Especially on the weekends.” I sucked in a deep breath and held his eyes. “I hope you don’t intend on getting rid of those.”
He shook his head. Nothing else. Just a shake of his head.
“Good.”
His lips twitched just a fraction before they settled back in a firm line. “Glad I have your approval, Ward.”
My cheeks were flaming, and I hated it. My hand lifted in a small gesture toward the door. “I have to … I’ll be back in a little bit.”
Aiden nodded, and as I turned to go, I knew he was watching me.
“So let me get this straight …”
“Yes.”
Molly paused. “You don’t know what I was going to say. How can you say yes?”
Even though I was behind a dressing room curtain and she couldn’t see, I rolled my eyes. “I already know what you’re going to say.”
“You just left?”
“Yes.”
“Isabel!”
Angling to the side, I slid the zipper of the sky blue dress up and huffed when I couldn’t get the eye hook closed. “What? It’s not like I expected him to be standing over my shoulder like a giant hulking shadow, and yes, I just … left.”
“Guess I know who’s not going to win employee of the month …” Her voice trailed off. I stuck my hand out from behind the curtain with my middle finger raised. She swatted it back inside. “I never knew you to be a chicken.”
Instead of arguing with her over something so stupid, I simply rolled my lips between my teeth and tugged one last time at the zipper. As I studied my reflection in the mirror, I couldn’t decide if the dress just wasn’t right for me, or if my body was so used to workout gear that it now actively rejected any finer materials.
“Are you dressed yet?”
My hands fell by my sides. “Yes. I don’t think this color works on me, though.”
“One, I find that highly unlikely, and two, show me.” Molly tugged the curtain aside, and when she caught sight of me, her smile was massive. “Iz, I love it. You look so pretty!”
With a skeptical glance at the mirror, I tugged at the drapey things over my shoulders. “There are frills. On my body.”
She laughed. “You don’t have to choose that style. I’m just trying to decide on the colors. I like the blush pink, but it might be too summery for a fall wedding.”
“The blue,” I insisted. “I will feel naked in that pink one.”
“Definitely blue,” Lia called from across the space.
Our two youngest sisters, Lia and Claire, separated by all of two minutes at birth, were sharing a dressing room. “Come on, you two,” Molly called. “Iz is already dressed.”
“Hang on. Lia’s new mom boobs are huge, and she can’t get her dress zipped.”
Molly and I grinned at each other because really, they were. She’d given birth about eight weeks earlier, and honestly, she had the rack of a centerfold if I’d ever seen one.
While we waited, Molly pulled out her giant wedding binder and made some notes after flipping to a bright pink tab. It was no surprise that Molly was the most organized bride-to-be on the planet, and also no surprise that she had zero Bridezilla tendencies so far, something that was making this whole “watch my big sister get married” thing a lot easier.
“Where’s Paige?” I asked.
“She had to stay home with Emmett. He wasn’t feeling well, and Logan is at training camp.” Molly held up her phone and snapped a picture of me. “But I promised I’d send her pictures.”
As her fingers tapped out a text to our sister-in-law, I took a seat on the large ivory ottoman in the middle of the room. No one else was in the dress shop with us, so I leaned back on my hands and listened to the laughter of Lia and Claire as they struggled to close up Lia’s dress.
Out of nowhere, I felt very, very lonely sitting in that room with my sisters.
Molly was getting married.
Lia was living with her boyfriend, Jude. With the addition of their son, and Jude’s new gig playing soccer for Seattle, I knew it was only a matter of time before they made it official too.
Even Claire, the shyest of the four of us, found her person in bad-boy snowboarder Bauer Davis.
And none of this was new; none of their relationships were new. Was I allowed to blame Aiden for this? I tried to imagine his face if I came back to work in a rage.
Yo, bossman, seeing you has me all twisty inside, and I don’t like it. And when you’re nice and thoughtful, it makes it worse, and I start feeling like a lonely petulant teenager around my very wonderful, happily-in-love sisters because I’d rather gouge my eyes out than explain it to them. Please stop. Thanks.
“What are you smiling about?” Lia asked.
Belatedly, I noticed all three of them staring at me.
“Nothing.” I cleared my throat.
Molly nudged Claire. “She’s terrified of her hot new boss. Did I mention that yet?”
Lia’s eyes widened. “Oooh, are you?”
“How hot is he?” Claire asked.
Molly held up both hands, all ten fingers wiggling. Claire laughed.
I gave her a steady look. “Are we deciding on dress colors or not?”
Lia held her hand out to help me off the ottoman. “Sorry, Iz. We’ve never been able to tease you about a man before.”
Molly snickered. “Yeah, because normally, she eats them alive once she’s done with them.”
The words I muttered under my breath would’ve set a nun’s ears on fire. Lia was the only one who heard and started laughing. The idea of me as a man-eater, casually licking my fingers after I’d had my way with them was so laughable. But immediately on the heels of that was a startlingly clear mental image of Aiden lying on a bed, spent and wrecked with me equally spent and wrecked next to him. My heart rate jumped at the vivid picture in my head. But that kind of inner-vixen reaction would be welcome after how I’d started off with him.
The tripping, coffee-spilling me was nothing like they imagined me.
It was so much easier to let them think it. Let them believe it.
“Fine.” Molly sighed. “Let’s get this done so she can go back and hide from him for the rest of the day.”
With a deep breath, I shoved down everything they’d just brought up. Way, way down. “You’re going to be missing your maid of honor if you keep this shit up.”
Molly held up her hands. “Fine, fine. I’m done. Ladies, show me what you’ve got.”
Chapter Four
Isabel
Until I started working at the gym, leading classes, and working with clients, I never understood exactly how deep my sadistic streak went. But when one of my favorite clients limped up to me after class, shirt soaked with sweat, it was the only time in my life I was all hearts and rainbows and smiles.
Sally’s eyes narrowed in a glare. “I don’t know who hurt you, Isabel, but I can’t tell whether I should set you up with my therapist or give you a hug.”
I laughed, running my sweat towel along the back of my neck. “Is that your way of saying you liked my class today?”
As she dumped her gloves and tangled hand wraps ba
ck into her bag, she snorted. “Something like that.”
“I added those extra burpees just for you.”
Straightening slowly, she rolled her eyes and slung her bag over her shoulder. “Next time? Don’t.”
“Bye, Sally.”
She waved.
My mood felt light, probably because I’d yet to see any glimpse of Aiden. For the day, at least, my office was my own. And it wasn’t like his presence weighed me down; it was simply that added awareness and the way my skin vibrated at a different frequency when he was in the building. It was something I was going to have to get over because Aiden Hennessy was here to stay.
A college-aged girl approached as I started wiping down the bag I’d used during class. She slipped in just before I started, so I didn’t get a chance to speak with her like I liked to do with new members.
“What’d you think?” I asked her.
She exhaled a small laugh. “That was … intense. But one of the best workouts I’ve ever had.”
“Excellent.” I held out my hand. “I’m Isabel, the manager.”
“Brenleigh.” She pointed at the ring in the center of the gym. “I was just glad you didn’t make us hop up in there for some ass-kicking.”
“Nah, we wait until at least your second class for that. You bought the ten-class punch card, right?”
Brenleigh nodded. “I came in yesterday after I saw one of your Insta posts about the special you’re running.” Her cheeks were already flushed from class, but when she glanced around, the red deepened even further. “Is it true that Aiden Hennessy is the new owner?”
“That is true. We’re very excited to work with him.”
Excited. Terrified. Hiding from him. Whatever.
She licked her lips and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Is he, like, taking one-on-one clients or anything? You know, like, private training sessions.”
Ahh. The fangirls were starting to descend. Now this was something I hadn’t anticipated. I knew he had plans to do some training sessions, but no formal coaching like some speculated he might after he retired. So a co-ed coming in and asking for private sessions … that was not in my managerial wheelhouse. It wasn’t in my personal wheelhouse either. My ability to fake it with people was about as stellar as my cooking skills.
Forbidden: A Ward Sisters Sisters Novel Page 4