Chapter Three
Chloe couldn’t believe Leo had gone behind her back to hire security, once again treating her as if she were a terrified six-year-old instead of a grown woman with a fitness empire and a spine forged from stubborn steel.
She adored him. Of course she did. He’d been the sun in her childhood orbit, the steady force that made everything feel safer.
As a kid, she worshipped him, trailing after him and his friends to the gym, wrinkling her nose at the sweat and the “gross stinky boy smell” until the place somehow felt like home.
Those clunky old weight machines had lit the fuse on everything: exercise science classes, certification hours, the first videos she recorded in a sunroom so hot her mascara liquefied. Her dream life had started with Leo.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t infuriating.
Right now, he was pissing her off with world-class efficiency. Sometimes that old dynamic clung like a vine, and she hated how easily he could shove her right back into that small, scared version of herself she’d worked so hard to outgrow. The one who waited for permission.
And now he’d unleashed Kayne Serruto on her life.
Yes, fine, Kayne was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Those eyes alone should’ve come with a warning label. Her brain had short-circuited the moment Leo’s mysterious “contact” turned out to be six-foot-something of muscled danger. His voice did inconvenient things to her pulse.
And now they wanted her to pretend to date him?
Sure. Easy. Totally not a trap she would sprint toward at Olympic pace.
The problem wasn’t pretending. The problem was wanting it to be real.
Maybe he had a terrible personality. Maybe he was rude or arrogant or smelled like boiled cabbage. Something had to ruin the fantasy. Somehow, she didn’t think any of those scenarios seemed probable.
“Chloe?”
She blinked at Leo. “What?”
“Have you heard a single word I said?”
“Sorry, I was—” mentally undressing your hired muscle, “—trying to figure out how this whole thing works.”
Her phone chimed, saving her. One glance at the text and she shot to her feet. “I have to go. We’ll finish this at the club.”
She didn’t wait for a response as she hurried out of the smoothie shop.
Outside, sunlight warmed her face, but she was still rattled by Kayne, Leo, and her life.
Everything felt as if it had been tipped toward some new axis she wasn’t ready to examine.
Leo had always exaggerated every threat, as if he were auditioning for a Homeland Security PSA.
Childhood hadn’t changed him; adulthood had only given him more authority to wield.
She parked outside Designs by Sandy, the company she’d hired to build and run her website and handle her social media.
Sandy’s husband owned a construction company and had restored the stately Victorian that housed the office to its glory.
Chloe had wanted to use him to renovate her club, but he had commitments he couldn’t postpone.
But even here, with the vanilla-scented air wrapping around her like a hug, her thoughts kept circling back to Kayne Serruto.
His voice. His eyes. The quiet weight of his attention that made her feel seen in a way that was both exhilarating and terrifying.
It was deeply inconvenient.
“Chloe!”
She smiled at Jezzie Topper, Sandy’s receptionist. “Hey, Jezzie. How are you?”
“I’m mad at you.”
Chloe blinked. She barely knew the woman. What could she have done to upset her? “You are? Why?”
“I did your Luscious Legs video last night. I can barely walk. At this point, I might need crutches.”
Chloe chuckled. “That one is brutal.”
“I’m afraid to try Amazing Arms. I may not be able to drive again.”
“It’s tough but worth it.”
“If it sculpts my shoulders to look like yours, then I’d gladly endure the torture.”
Chloe’s smile softened. The definition on her arms had come through years of hard work, dedication, and training, but she didn’t want to discourage Jezzie. The woman was rail-thin. She needed strength, not discouragement. One strong breeze could tip her over.
“You’ll do great. Practice and be consistent. Is Sandy in?”
“Go on back.”
“Thanks.”
Chloe started down the hallway and had to stop abruptly to avoid being run over by Aiden Kerr, Sandy’s newest hire.
He had no experience but was eager to learn.
Sandy, always the champion of misfits and underdogs, had taken him under her wing.
He looked up from the papers in his hand and yelped as if she’d materialized out of smoke.
“Oh, geez, I’m sorry, Ms. Giordano.”
“It’s fine, and again, call me Chloe.”
Aiden was shy and could hardly look her in the eye, let alone remember to call her by her first name. He pushed his straggly brown hair out of his face. “Are you here to meet with Sandy?” He shook his head. “Of course you are. Evan asked her to call you. It’s about your site.”
That didn’t sound ominous at all.
Aiden turned and scurried back down the hallway. She took that to mean she should follow, so she did.
After greeting Sandy and Evan Calder, the project manager in charge of her website, she took a seat and listened as Evan outlined a scalability issue caused by massive traffic.
“It’s been online three days, and aside from that unfortunate incident when it crashed upon launch, we’ve had over five million visitors.”
Chloe’s mouth fell open. Five million? Even if a fraction subscribed at $12.99 a month . . . the math made her head spin.
She’d pre-recorded a special program and blog posts to coincide with the launch. A new video was released each day, the last she would film in her apartment before her lease ended in two months.
Sandy launched into a tech monologue Chloe understood none of, but the translation was simple: it’s fixable, only temporary chaos and minor user irritation. They were worried people might complain.
“I’ll post an update,” Chloe said. “Let them know we’re still smoothing things out.”
“Good. We didn’t want you to panic.”
They wrapped up soon after, and Chloe headed out.
“Chloe, wait up.”
She turned to see Evan jogging her way. Despite the short distance, he was out of breath when he reached her, one hand braced on his knee as he tried to recover.
“Hey.” He rubbed at what she assumed to be a stitch on his side. “Sorry about the hiccup with the website.”
“No worries. We knew there would be kinks to work out.” She gave him a polite smile she’d perfected over the years that was warm, noncommittal, and designed to keep things easy.
“Do you want to discuss it more over, say, coffee, or maybe dinner?”
There it was. The question landed with a familiar, sinking weight in the pit of her stomach.
Chloe inwardly sighed. She’d gotten to know Evan well over the last few months while they worked on her site.
He was funny and kind, and he was genuinely good at his job.
On paper, he checked plenty of boxes. In reality, there was nothing there for her beyond gratitude and professional respect.
It sucked how often that seemed to disappoint people.
A picture of Kayne Serruto flashed in her mind, uninvited and vivid, and she ruthlessly shoved it right back out. This was not the time nor place. Nor was it remotely helpful.
She had tried to let Evan down easily before by deflecting and keeping things firmly work-related, but he never quite took the hint. The interest lingered, hovering just under the surface, making every interaction feel slightly too tight, like a shirt that almost fit.
“I can’t,” she said gently. “I have plans with my boyfriend.”
The lie slipped out with alarming ease. That part unsettled her more than she wanted to admit. Guilt followed immediately at the crestfallen look on Evan’s face, his shoulders dipping a fraction before he straightened again.
“Oh, I didn’t know you were seeing someone.”
“The relationship is still new,” she added quickly. So new it technically didn’t exist. She hated that she felt the need to soften it, to protect his feelings when she hadn’t done anything wrong. “But I appreciate you checking in, and thanks again for keeping me posted on what’s happening.”
She gave him another smile, this one firmer and more final. Hopefully, this time, he would hear what she wasn’t saying.
Chloe climbed into her vehicle and drove to the club, heart thudding with that now-familiar mix of pride and panic.
She’d bought the place on instinct. It was a gut punch of opportunity she couldn’t walk away from, even if her life was already overflowing with projects, deadlines, and the unrequested addition of a bodyguard-fake-boyfriend.
But it had come up for sale, and she didn’t want to miss out.
She’d never been good at walking away from things that mattered.