Chapter Six
Tuesday, I heard the weight bar clang as I racked it before snagging a towel to wipe the sweat off my shoulder.
“You have two more,” Neil, my expensive-as-hell trainer said matter-of-factly.
“Take it easy…I’ll get to them…I’m paying you.”
It was a near constant joke between the two of us. He pushed me and I complained every step of the way, wondering why I hired him to do this to me.
“What’s up with you today? You still mad about the date? Poor baby, I forced you to meet a supermodel.”
I looked over at Spencer doing squats in the mirror.
“You know this is my gym, right? Anyway, that fiasco? It was last week. I’ve forgotten about it already.”
He laughed, setting down the dumbbell he’d been holding.
“Let’s go,” Neil barked then ribbed us some more. “If you ladies wanted to chat, you should’ve gone for coffee.”
I hoisted the bar off the rack and started with my deadlifts.
“Good for your running, boss. Keep it up,” Neil said to me before instructing Spencer to do push-ups.
“Now Millsy, what’s eating you?” Spencer spoke through broken breaths.
Fucking Corey had called me Millsy once in front of Spencer, and now he picked only the most special times to bring it out.
Racking the bar early again, I blew out a breath.
This whole scenario reminded me of a different time and place in a weight room. Of course, one woman had changed—the love interest—and the other hadn’t.
“Women problems?” Neil asked, an eyebrow raised. “Aren’t you a little too old for that?”
“I don’t pay you to be my therapist, and just because I have a decade on you doesn’t mean I’m old.”
More whispers of the past. My teammate, Teddy, had tried to help, and I’d accused him of being a shrink. Insulted him along the way too.
Neil leaned into the mirrored wall. I’d turned my third bedroom into an exercise room. Bachelor’s prerogative, I called it. It was meant to be a nursery, but there would be none of that around here…
“Spill it.” Spencer stared me down, now on his back on the mat.
“Apparently my grandmother is coming back to haunt me.”
“Not what I expected to hear,” came from Spence on a long breath. “Interesting, I’ll admit, but not your everyday kind of guy talk.”
“I didn’t take you as the kind to believe in ghosts,” came from Neil. “Give me some crunches,” he added, looking at me, and I dropped to a mat on the other side of Spencer.
Through gritted teeth, I spoke. “Not her actual ghost. Her past. There’s some girl…woman…who claims her grandpa was the long-lost love of my grandmother’s. I don’t know if it’s true or what happened or why she even cares, but uncovering their story is her current life mission. And I’m her accomplice whether I want to be or not.”
“Tell me this, is she smoking hot? Enough for you to turn down going home with Sela? Is that what happened last week? I didn’t know you were interested in someone else, or I wouldn’t have pushed the agenda.”
“Dude…what are you, twenty-five? Smoking hot?”
“Says the guy saying ‘dude.’”
I couldn’t help a belly laugh escaping me. “Ouch,” I said, holding my core.
Neil recentered us. “So what’s the issue? Spit it out and we can get back to your workout.”
“This woman has literally hunted me down and trapped me in this romantic mission with her.”
“Pretty sure no one traps you in anything, Millsy. Now I know she’s gotta be hot and smart and interesting and worth it.” Spencer stood and grabbed a water bottle.
Getting up myself, I turned to face my friend. “I appreciate all your rambling on and on. Yes, she is extremely attractive, curvy, younger, huge green eyes, smart with a knack for little zings, and wounded…in a way that compels me. That’s the problem. And now I’m tasked with helping her research my family, which is the last fucking thing I want to do. Yet I agreed to all of the above.”
“Back to bicep curls because you need a therapist for this,” Neil directed.
“You do, man. You really fucking do. It’s like your worst nightmare wrapped up in one. A broken, gorgeous woman and your shitty family history. All your kryptonites. Is she trying to bandage your abandonment issues too?”
I nodded, lugging the thirties and starting to curl. “You know she is…they all want to make up for my lack of a mother.”
As I said it, I knew these two were right; I needed therapy.
Instead, I found myself meeting Frankie at her kickboxing class on Wednesday. If the guys only knew I was group kickboxing… I could practically hear them laughing like hyenas.
“Hope you can keep up with me,” she said outside the boutique fitness studio before yanking the door open.
She was still in her work clothes—shiny, pale pink Mary Janes on her feet, silver-gray pencil skirt, an ivory sleeveless blouse, and a huge sparkly tote slung over her shoulder. Took me all of three seconds to catalog every inch of her like a desperate and thirsty man searching for water and she was a bubbling stream.
We signed in at the desk, Frances quickly letting them know she’d booked both of us on her package.
“Dinner is on me.” I said it without us even discussing grabbing a meal after, but the evening already felt too short. For someone who didn’t enjoy spending time with many people, being with Frances felt inviting, natural, and like it was never enough.
“I need a minute to change.” She ignored my offer, looking me up and down, taking in my track pants and jacket.
“I’ll just leave this in a locker.” Waving a hand in front of my body, I’d never felt more at a loss for something to say.
How was it this small creature unraveled me?
“Meet you back here,” she stated and sauntered off.
If it took me three seconds to note her work outfit, it took less to take in her workout wear. Black biker shorts, a strappy red tank thing, and her hair tied tight in a ponytail, sneakers on her feet.
“Ready?”
I nodded.
What happened next was a blur. Some hunk named Roy led us through a warm-up, notably passing behind Frances every time we hit down dog. Next, he worked us through our uppercuts and a bunch of other jabs and crosses, which only left me wanting to jab him every time he adjusted Frances’s form.
Sweat beaded on my back as we filtered in front of our punching bags and started the routine. Frankie was composed and chill as she kicked the bag, raising her leg and whipping it through the air. Her hair bounced in the process, allowing her scent to waft my way. Milly’s…I noted.
“Having fun?”
Her words were meant for me, but Roy noted our conversation and took the class up a notch. Falling in line with his sequence of jabs and kicks, there was no way that ass was going to get the better of me.
Of course, I’d need some ibuprofen in the morning.
With a wink, I went back to work on my bag until the very end of class when I said, “I won’t ever doubt you can’t look out for yourself again,” to Frances. When her head tilted back, a soft giggle escaped her vocal cords. My choice of stripping down to my athletic shorts was clearly a mistake. They did little to cover up my body’s reaction to the supple skin leading from her collarbone to the top of her tank.
“You hung in there, tough guy,” she sort of complimented me. She followed it up with, “Thanks, Roy,” and of course the asshole winked and flexed his bicep before waving.
“I’m not that old, you know?” No clue as to why I confessed feeling ancient next to Roy or even Frances, but it rewarded me with another neck drop and a view at an expanse of skin I wanted to run my tongue along.
“So, dinner? And we can talk Milly?” She pulled her hair loose, allowing it to flow over her shoulders, shaking it out.
A strong desire to grab her—gently—and pull her in for a kiss took me over, and I had to shove this nonsense down. “Yeah,” I agreed. “I need to grab something to wear…from my office.”
We were in Chelsea, which was about twelve blocks from my offices in Hudson Yards.
“Okay,” she readily agreed. “I can change, and we can go? Or should I meet you there?”
“I’ll wait, take your time…”
Surprisingly, she didn’t take long. I’d just finished a bottle of electrolyte water from the studio’s smoothie bar when she came out of the locker room in her street clothes, smelling like eucalyptus-scented soap with a dash of Milly’s perfume.
“All set?”
She nodded and we made our way out of the small storefront without seeing Roy again. Thankfully.
“No car?” Frances eyed me up outside as if this was a test.
“I walked.”
She nodded, noting I’d passed her first quiz. Then fired off another question. “Either you don’t get chauffeured everywhere or you didn’t want to tell anyone where you were going…” Her hip hiked, head cocked, she watched my every move on the sidewalk.
I felt the sides of my mouth turn up. She had such nerve or chutzpah…
“What?”
I debated lying or saying nothing as we started to walk. “At least I don’t have to tell you where to go. You’ve bombarded my office enough times.”
“Very funny,” she replied, turning and winking. “I’m sneaky like that. Now tell me what had you cracking a smile-slash-smirk.”
“Are you sure you’re not really a spy?”
“Simply smart and astute.”
“And cocky?”
“Are you trying to avoid my question?”
“Milly,” I admitted. “I thought about Milly, who you are only dying to discuss, and how she would say you had chutzpah.”
“Hutzpah! My friend, Rachel, said the same…”
Of course she had a hard time getting out the ch sound. “Chutzpah,” I corrected. “In the back of your throat, feel the rumble of the sound.”
She gave it a few tries and ended up saying, “I know, I can’t do it. Just get on with it.”
We walked side by side, the heat of the day lingering on the sidewalk. It wasn’t far to Tenth and Thirtieth, and time was ticking by quickly. Maybe we’d get distracted from the question? But I quickly realized there was no deterring this woman. “It means something like bravado. You’re not afraid to say what you want or mean. Milly always meant it as a good thing. In fact,” I felt my voice lower at this admission, “she often said she wished she had more chutzpah when she was younger.”
“Maybe she meant in regard to Paps?”
“Honestly, I have no clue. I’d never heard of James before you, so it could be. Mostly, it was when I played sports. ‘Don’t be shy, Mackenzie. Play hard and be brave.’ When I got to college, she said, ‘Make friends and do what’s right.’”
“Do you have someone you can ask?”
“About what?”
“My Paps.”
We were one block from my building, and I was starting to resent the project. I’d spent the better part of the last two decades shoving my family to the back of my mind. “Other than my dad’s sister, no. And she’s the last person on earth I want to engage. And that is a very long list she’s heading up.”
Another small laugh awarded me a slight view of her neck, and again the expanse I wanted to traverse. “Not even for me?”
I yanked open the door of the tower that housed my offices, and nodded to the security man as she said it.
“Hi, Miss,” the detail said to Frances, confirming I was in trouble.
Not even for me?
That was the problem. For her, I’d do it, and I didn’t just do stuff for most people.
“Where were your offices before?” Frances tactfully changed the subject in the elevator, and I felt a sigh of relief roll up my chest.
“Over in Midtown, but I got a tip on this area and haven’t regretted it.”
“No doubt. It’s pretty much the hottest area in the city.”
There was something about this woman. Tiny in stature, fierce in personality. Sweet in nature, sexy in every sense. Comforting when she smiled, scary when you could see her brain twitching.
“Give me a sec,” I told her more for my benefit than hers. I needed a minute or ten to collect myself. I guided her to a waiting area and said, “There’s water, sodas, wine, over there…I’ll be right out.”
I needed to grab a quick shower and change, but mostly put my armor back on before we went to the damn dinner I’d suggested. It all felt like too much and way too little at the same time; I didn’t do activities coupled with dinner dates. Except, here I was.