His face an inch away from mine he said, “If you think I’m gonna let you go back on that promise you made me in the kitchen, think again.”

“I didn’t make any promise.”

“Oh yeah you did.”

I gave up. “Luke, let me go, I’m going to be late.”

He kept looking at me then his eyes got ultra warm and he murmured, “Yeah, I’m gonna enjoy this.”

Shit.

Chapter Eight

Get the Business

This was my morning:

Luke took me to the gym. Sissy decided to go with so we all trudged out to the garage. Luke took the keys to my car out of my hands and declared he was going to drive. Standing outside of the garage, we had a fight about who was going to drive.

Luke won.

Then Luke drove us to the gym. Luke got out when we got there and I told him he didn’t need to walk us into the gym. Standing by my Range Rover, we got in a fight about whether he was going to walk us into the gym or not.

Luke won.

Then when we got into the gym, Luke asked to talk to Riley privately “outside”. Standing in the reception area of the gym, Luke and I got in a fight about him talking to Riley privately “outside”.

Luke won.

I waited until they returned, both stony-faced with the addition of Riley looking way, way pissed off and I opened my mouth to give it to Luke for being a he-man, tough guy jerk when he grabbed my purse. I stared, still with my mouth open, as he dug through my purse, took out my phone and started to hit buttons.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Programming my numbers into your phone. Call me when you’re done.”

I snatched my purse out of his hand, which he allowed. Then I went for the phone, which he didn’t allow and stopped me by pinning me to his frame with one of his arms and holding my struggling body while he beeped buttons with the phone held behind my back.

He let me go and handed me my phone.

“I hate you,” I snapped.

“No you don’t,” he replied calmly, grabbed the back of my neck, yanked me into his body and kissed me, hard, open-mouthed and hot until my knees buckled and I melted into him.

Then he let me go, gave me a half-grin, touched my nose and left.

Jerk.

I whirled around and Sissy was standing there. “Oh my God, you totally need to f**k him or you’re going to spontaneously combust,” she said.

Argh!

Needless to say, my workout nearly kicked my ass. I was so pumped up and Riley was so pissed off, I pushed myself hard and he ran me ragged. I tried to talk to Riley a couple of times but he wasn’t in a talkative mood. He was in a kick Ava’s ass mood therefore I quit trying to talk to him when I couldn’t talk at all because I was breathing too hard.

After we were done, I called Luke, saying only, “We’re done,” then I hung up on him.

Ha!

We showered and changed into normal clothes and I took my sweet time in the locker room in order to make Luke wait. I did my hair, my makeup and put on a pair of jeans, a cornflower-blue blouse with a silver-thread design on the front, a square neckline and cap sleeves and finished my ensemble with silvery-blue flip-flops (because seriously, Luke was in the picture, I hated him and thought he was a jerk, but I had been crushing on him since I was eight, I wasn’t going to look like garbage when he was hanging around).

I breezed through the reception area but Luke wasn’t in the reception area, he was waiting outside in the Range Rover which made my efforts at “breezing” moot.

We got in the Range Rover and Sissy suggested happily, “I know, let’s get some coffee!”

I turned in my seat and glared at her. She grinned at me. Luke took us to Fortnum’s.

We got there and everyone was there. Indy, Ally, Daisy, Shirleen, Jules, Jet, Roxie, Vance, some guy who looked a lot like Hank (who I found out was Lee, Indy’s fiancé and Luke’s boss) and even Matt.

Shirleen took one look at me and announced, “Nope. They haven’t done it yet. You’re out,” she said to Matt and then smiled at me. “I’m still in. I got my money down that you get the business on Monday.”

I felt the heat hit my face just as my stomach dropped.

Sissy, to my total disbelief, burst out laughing and asked, “Which days are free? I want in.”

Oh… my… God.

“That’s it!” I yelled at her. “You aren’t my best friend anymore. I’m filing for best friend divorce.”

Sissy just kept laughing.

“You must be Sissy. Come here, child, sit by Shirleen. I think we got Wednesday open but that’s nearly a whole week after this all started. It ain’t good odds,” Shirleen informed her.

Everyone was staring at us and I whirled on Luke who was standing behind me. “This is all your fault.”

“Babe,” he said, his eyes warm, his tone gentle and affectionate.

Fuckity, f**k, f**k, f**k.

I like it when he calls us “babe”. It’s sweet, Good Ava said.

It isn’t sweet, it’s HOT, Bad Ava contradicted.

I dropped my head and looked at my toes. They were painted hot pink. I inspected them because if I was thinking about my toenail color I wouldn’t think about how my life had gone out of my control.

This wasn’t a smart thing to do, letting my guard down when Luke was close. His boots came into my vision very close to my toes and his hand wrapped around the back of my neck. His fingers started to knead my muscles and I lifted my eyes to his.

“You’re tight,” he said low, eyes no longer just warm but ultra warm.

“Are you surprised?” I snapped. “My life is total shit. I’m completely stressed out.”

His fingers kept kneading but he also put a different kind of pressure there so that I leaned closer to him. I had to tilt my head back further and, so I didn’t topple over, my hands went to his stomach (which, by the way, was hard as a rock).

He tipped his face to mine and murmured, “After we talk tonight, I’ll give you a rubdown.”

Ho-ly crap.

A rubdown from Lucas Stark. I had barely processed the kiss-and-carry through the living room, I couldn’t even begin to contemplate a rubdown. I felt my ni**les tingle.

“I need cookies,” I told him to move talk away from rubdowns. “Cookies are the only thing that works on stress.”

That and tequila but I wasn’t going to get snockered anywhere near Luke. I lost all inhibitions when I got snockered and that would not be good.

The warmth in his eyes was tinged with amusement. “I’ll also get you cookies.”