“I’ll skip the shower, thanks. I called to see how you’re doing.”
“Okay, I guess.” A little pang of worry rippled through her.
“Uh-oh. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Fidgety, she kicked her flip-flops off and squinted at her pedicure. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he’d heard from Callum. She hadn’t. Not a peep in the two weeks since she’d refused to bring him to Paradise Bay. But even if her brother had reached out to his former agent, Eddie wouldn’t have taken the call. He stuck to a tough-love stance where Callum was concerned. No contact unless and until Callum demonstrated he’d cleaned up his act. If Eddie ever found out her brother had been so staggeringly out of his head he’d tumbled her to the ground and sprained her knee, she doubted he’d ever speak to Callum again. She moved on to a safer topic. “I’m working my ass off, Eddie, but for some reason, my ass isn’t actually working off. I think I screwed up my metabolism or something.”
“You look great. Seriously. I see the progress from here.”
“Not enough. Luke did my midpoint measurements last week, and I haven’t actually whittled many centimeters off the…um…problem areas.”
“It doesn’t work that way. A body doesn’t shed fat in orderly increments.”
“My weight actually went up a few pounds.” She nearly whispered it, like a confession.
“Muscle weighs more. In the long run, though, your body spends more energy maintaining muscle. You’ll hit a tipping point where you’re not taking in enough daily calories to sustain it, and your metabolism will use any extra reserves you’re packing for fuel. I bet at this week’s assessment you’re right where you need to be. Maybe even ahead of the goal.”
She bobbed her head back in forth in a yada-yada-yada move, even though inside, she wasn’t so calm. “Luke says the same thing, but what if I’m not?” What if she fell short? What if she lost the role, instead of the curves? Would Luke ever be able to see her as anything except a waste of his valuable time?
“If you’re worried, talk to him. He’s the best, as a trainer as well as a friend. You can trust him with anything—even things you choose not to tell me, for whatever reason.” His inflection told her he knew there was something she’d held back.
She manufactured a sassy smile. “I’m not worried. I’m just wondering…is it too late for lipo?”
A clank of weights through the wall alerted her to the fact that somebody was working out in the gym. She eased a finger into the slat of the door, opened the shutters enough to peek through, and swallowed. Luke had stuck around after dismissing her, for once. He stood shirtless, with an array of muscles rippling as he brought two pulleys together in front of his chest, and then extended his arms and took them back out to his sides. Earbuds connected to the phone clipped to his hip ensured he couldn’t hear her, but even so, she lowered the volume on her phone.
Eddie laughed. “It’s about two decades too early for lipo. Trust the man’s skills, Quinn. I can tell you he’s pleased with everything you’ve accomplished so far.”
“Really?” A pathetic part of her starving for his regard perked up. “You talked with him? When? What did he say?”
Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’ve been playing a high school student too long. You’re starting to sound like one. He didn’t pass me a note in biology, okay? He just said you were knuckling down and impressing the hell out of him, and…”
He hesitated, as if he thought better of sharing the next detail.
“And what?” She pulled her gaze away from Luke doing an effortless flurry of pull-ups. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. Forget it. I’ve got to go.”
“Eddieeeee.”
“All right. Fine. Lord, save me from straight, white people.” He held up two fingers to someone off screen—presumable his assistant—and then refocused on her. “I asked him if he forgave me for coercing him into taking you on. You know, fuck the I-owe-you crap, and wha
tnot.”
Something painful expanded in her chest. Her breath. She was holding it, because the next words out of Eddie’s mouth mattered more to her than oxygen. “What did he say?”
“He said yes.”
A scramble of emotions made her eyes sting. Relief, euphoria, and something she didn’t have a name for. Maybe Luke didn’t resent her? Even as she pondered the question, her attention strayed to the gap between the slats. Beyond, the man capable of crushing her with a look, lifting her with a word, or driving her right out of her dirty little mind with his strict rules strapped on a pair of Everlast gloves and stepped up to the heavy bag suspended on a chain from the ceiling in one corner of the gym. His biceps bulged as he raised his fists to chin level and tucked his arms close to his body. Then he let loose with a lightning-fast, lethally powerful volley of straights and jabs. The smack of leather against leather sent a thrill down her spine.
“Earth to Quinn…”
She tore her attention away from her voyeur’s view of Luke owning the shit out of the hundred-pound bag, and focused on Eddie. “What?”
Eddie’s sharp green eyes narrowed. “I was going to say Lisa’s about to email you an updated shooting schedule, but I sense I don’t have your full attention. What do you keep looking at?”
Knowing a picture was worth a thousand words, she put her phone up to the slat to give Eddie a view of Luke in the gym, in all his shirtless, gleaming glory.
“Well, hell,” he said when she turned the screen back to her. “Now I need a shower.”