Beautiful Liar (The Reed Rivers Trilogy 2)

“I’m up,” she croaks out. “Just give me twenty minutes.”

“You’ve got five. Throw on workout clothes and meet me in the gym.”

In the gym, I do core blasters and plyometrics for a full twenty minutes before Georgina finally appears, her form-fitting short-shorts and sport bra instantly making me forgive her completely for keeping me waiting so long.

“Sorry, I...” she begins. But the second she notices a second Peloton bike set up next to mine, her words trail off. She rushes to the sleek stationary bike and grips its handlebars, like she’s confirming it’s not a figment of her imagination. “This wasn’t here last night during the tour! How did this get here?”

I smile. “You said you wanted to try one. So, I decided to get you one. This way, we can ride together.”

Her jaw hits the floor. “This is for me?”

I chuckle at her adorable expression. “Yes. It’s my gift to you, with an assist from Owen. I know you don’t have a place of your own yet, so I’ll have it delivered to your father’s place after this week, if you like. If not, you can leave it here as long as you need, until you get a place of your own with enough room for it.”

“Thank you!” With an effusive squeal, she breaks into an effervescent happy-dance—a sexy, jiggling display that makes me want to give her a month’s worth of exercise equipment, if it will guarantee I’ll get this same reaction every time.

“I’ve only got one request,” I say. “I’d like you to be my personal spin instructor this week.”

“Hell yeah! With pleasure!” She shakes her ass with glee... but then freezes. “Shoot. I don’t have any—”

“Shoes?” I point to a shoe box on the floor next to her bike. “Put on your new shoes, saddle up, and let’s sweat.”

Like a kid on Christmas, Georgina tears into the shoe box while I get my own cycling shoes on, and soon, we’re both clicked into our pedals and ready to begin.

“Let’s get warmed up,” she says, and we both begin pedaling at a fairly easy pace. “So, how hard do you want to work this morning?”

“A ten out of ten,” I reply, without hesitation. “Annihilate me.”

Georgina snickers. “Careful what you wish for. I taught advanced spin for the past two years. I’m pretty good at this, if I do say so myself.”

“Hit me with your best shot, Ricci. Make me pay.”

“There is a God.”

She cues up a thumping playlist, barks at me to gear my bike up to twenty-two, and then proceeds to lead me in a solid hour’s worth of torturous sprints and savage climbs and relentless anaerobic drills that leave us both gulping for air and dripping with sweat. Well, correction: we’re both dripping with sweat, but I’m the only one gulping for air. Somehow, Georgina’s not only performing every drill and maneuver alongside me, she’s also barking nonstop orders at me in a clear, smooth voice—something I couldn’t pull off right now, if I tried.

Finally, Georgina declares our private spin class over, and I crumple over my handlebars in relief.

She giggles. “Wimp.”

“You’re the devil... The devil with perfect tits.”

She laughs. “Of course the devil has perfect tits. How else do you think she gets stupid mortals to sell their souls to her? Now, pedal at a ten for a few minutes to get your heart rate down, Old Man. And then I’ll lead you through some stretching on the floor.”

Gratefully, I gear down as instructed, and slow my pedaling to an easy, cool-down pace.

“Seriously impressive, Georgie.”

“Back at you. You kept up with me the whole time.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t also barking orders the whole time. I’m only the Fred Astaire of spin. You’re the Ginger Rogers.”

She looks at me blankly, and, immediately, I know she’s as clueless about Fred and Ginger as she was about Bobby Fischer.

I flick the end of my towel at her in mock annoyance. “Are you trying to constantly remind me how young you are?”

“No. Just how old you are.”

I laugh. “Would it kill you to occasionally know one of my pop culture references?”

“Would it kill you to occasionally make a pop culture reference that someone under fifty would know?”

“Everyone knows about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They’re way before my time, too. They’ve transcended their era to become cultural icons. You should know about them for your writing.”

“Okay, Obi Wan Kenobi. Educate me.”

I give Georgina a quick primer on Fred and Ginger as we continue pedaling slowly, including the fact that, in modern times, Ginger is generally credited with being the bigger badass of the duo. “And you want to know why everyone says Ginger was the bigger badass?” I pause for effect. “Because Ginger did everything Fred did... only backwards and in high heels.”

Georgina laughs uproariously, without holding back in the slightest. And that’s when I know she’s truly ready to move on from the crushing disappointment of last night. Yeah, I’m sure she’s still hugely disappointed things didn’t work out the way she’d hoped, simply because she loves her stepsister and wants the world for her. But thanks to the belly laugh Georgina is gracing me with, I know for certain she’s ready to put last night’s fiasco behind us. And I couldn’t be more relieved about it.