Amy sighed, her face falling in a look that had my stomach falling too. She’d been my boss and known me too long to tiptoe around me. This was it. As soon as she looked over her shoulder and spoke to someone in her office, I knew this was the thing I’d been dreading.
A new owner.
A new boss.
But that dread was nothing on how I felt when Amy turned back to me and gave me an apologetic smile. It was the apology I saw that set my heart hammering.
My skin felt too tight and my bones too big because I knew whoever was in that office was the thing … the feeling I’d had.
Suddenly, I wanted to run. I didn’t want to face whatever—whoever—it was.
Amy’s dark eyes searched my face. “I was going to do this tomorrow a bit more formally, but I had a feeling your ass would show up on your day off.”
“I needed to unpack those boxes,” I said, but my voice trailed off when she moved aside, and he filled the doorway.
Holy. Fucking. Hell. It was even worse than I thought. Like all the things that terrified me were rolled into one big, muscular, better-looking-in-person package sent to make me feel wildly out of control.
I hated that I was right, that my sleepless night had indeed warned me that something like this was going to happen. I knew what item in the box had called to me, and oh, my hell, now I wanted to shred it to bits just so I could pretend it didn’t exist.
It would be fine, I told myself.
This was no place for the teenage version of Isabel, the one who’d been a little uncertain and a lot terrified of what people thought of me. I was not her anymore. No matter what was in that fucking box with his name on it.
It was the only reason I didn’t watch where I was walking, and my foot caught on the edge of the ropes.
With a gasp, I pitched forward, my coffee falling with a wet slap onto the ground, my hand dripping from the mess that was left of my cup after I squashed it to death in my hands.
“I am so sorry,” I said.
Amy laughed. “This is the unflappable Isabel Ward I was telling you about.”
My face burned, but she leaned over to toss me a towel, which I used to wipe off my hand, and toss it over the spot of coffee that I’d undoubtedly be mopping up in a few minutes. As I pushed the towel around the mess with my foot, I felt his gaze on me. Carefully, I lifted my head to meet it head-on. See if I was capable of it.
This could.
Not.
Be.
Happening.
Honestly, I knew so much about him that it was ridiculous. From my years of study, of keeping tabs on his career, keeping tabs on him. I knew he was six-foot-three, and in his prime fighting days, he weighed in around two forty-five, tiptoeing him into the heavyweight class that he dominated for years. He’d lost weight since he retired, not that it lessened his impact.
I knew what it was like to watch him fight because I’d watched every one.
Every one.
I knew that his name was scrawled into the pages of fifteen-year-old Isabel’s diary because when he had his first fight, I was utterly convinced I’d meet and marry him someday. For years, every fumbling boy who tried to flirt with me, ask me out, anything with me, was held up to the standard of him in my mind. With the stench of my spilled coffee hanging around us, I swear, I could’ve died from the mortification.
I knew his eyes were dark green, and his mouth rarely ever curved up into a smile.
I knew he’d retired a couple of years ago, after the death of his wife, in order to care for his daughter.
Having him stand in front of me was like having someone hand you the single thing you used to want, used to crave, and now you just had to pray that it was as good in real life as you’d imagined it would be.
If he was anything like what I’d built up in my mind, I was absolutely fucked.
Amy cleared her throat, and it broke the connection between his gaze and mine.
“Iz, you might as well be the first to know,” Amy said.
He took a step toward me, mouth flat but not mean, eyes dark and curious, and when he held out his massive hand, I took a step of my own. Unfortunately, I inhaled shakily before slipping my palm against his. The reason this was unfortunate was because it was loud and impossible for him not to hear.
When our hands touched, his brow lowered, and his gaze held on that single connection point. Slowly, I pulled my hand back, hoping he didn’t feel the tremor in my fingers.
“Aiden Hennessy,” he said.
Like I didn’t know his name.
When he opened his mouth again, I almost slapped my hand over those lips because I didn’t want him to say it. But my hand stayed at my side, and he spoke the words anyway, all low and dark, and I felt a shiver of foreboding at how my life was about to change.
“I’m the new owner.”
It took a few seconds to find my voice, and when I did, it was softer than I would’ve liked.
“N-nice to meet you.” Gawd, I could’ve slapped myself for that one single hiccup on the first word. But, honestly, it was hard to speak over the roaring in my ears. Quite easily, I could count on one hand the times I’d met an athlete that gave me butterflies—butterflies!
Aiden Hennessy, my new boss, who I’d see every single day unless he fired me for being completely incompetent, didn’t just set them off in my belly. From my head to my toes and every inch between was coated in flittering, fluttering, vividly colored, beating wings.
I wanted
