The gym wasn’t particularly full, but a quick scope around told me there was enough eye candy to keep me entertained. The treadmills were usually filled with women. Men congregated in the gorilla pit, where the free weights were. I was in good company when I hopped onto one of the treadmills and switched it on.

I plugged earphones into my head and switched on music loud enough to drown out everything else. My feet beat out a rhythm on the moving surface, and my body fell into the motion that being fit provided.

I loved running. I could forget about everything and get lost in my thoughts. My body did what it had to, and for just under an hour, nothing else mattered than what my body was doing and where my mind took me.

I had Lacey on my mind hard today. I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t usually think about the women I slept with after we did the dirty deed. I didn’t think about them ever again, most of the time. Not unless I was discussing the details of my night with Brian. With Lacey, it was different.

Her image flashed in front of me. I saw those mesmerizing eyes and her body that I’d had twice already, and still wanted more of.

Maybe it was because she was my PR Manager that she kept popping into my head. It wasn’t like she was gone and out of my life. I had to see her again for business.

She was someone I had to consider, and she was helping me get my career back on track. Which, so far, seemed to be going well. It would only take a short while longer before I was back where I needed to be, a worthy team member with a career and an image I could be proud of.

She knew what she was doing. The donation, for instance, had worked amazingly, even though I’d thought giving away that much money would be a complete waste. I hadn’t thought that buying forgiveness based on my fame would do anything, but apparently, giving was better than taking.

Go figure.

When I was done with my work out I switched off the treadmill and pulled my earphones out of my ears.

“Well, if it isn’t Hanson Bell,” someone on the treadmill next to me said, distracting me from my thought process. “Just in his own little world, ignoring everyone, even me.”

I didn’t know her. But it wasn’t rare for people I didn’t know to know me. My face was all over the news and the sports channels all the time— and in trashy magazines at the grocery stores, too.

I was more surprised that I hadn’t noticed she had been beside me this whole time. The old Hanson would have thought she was a Tahitian goddess. But the new and apparently improved Hanson hadn’t even noticed her presence because he was so caught up thinking about his PR manager.

This girl had skin the color of caramel, hair the color of coffee, and the old Hanson would have thought she had an ass that would make a man sit up and beg. I would have been busy watching as she ran through her routine, her ass bouncing up and down beside me, her long ponytail grazing her hips, thinking about how I would tap that so hard.

But I hadn’t even seen her then. And now that I do, even though she’s clearly a very attractive girl, suddenly I had no interest.

Damn that Lacey. How could her voodoo magic get up in my head all the time?

She was looking right at me with dark, liquid eyes. I grinned at her, as if to say, “can I help you?” and she flashed me a brilliant smile.

I was breathing hard. I put my hands on my hips and nodded.

“It’s me indeed,” I confirmed, after not knowing what else to say, and feeling rather dumb.

“What is a god like you doing here among us commoners?” she asked.

She flipped the hair on her shoulder back. Her hair was still perfect, like she hadn’t been working out at all. In fact, I began to think that maybe she hadn’t been. I think I would have noticed someone running alongside me on the treadmill next to mine. But maybe not, since I had been caught up in my own little world and since Lacey kept fucking with me head.

“Ha,” I answered, not really knowing what else to say.

I was used to strangers striking up conversations and girls hitting on me. But this encounter was getting rather weird, since I hadn’t said anything to encourage her to continue talking to me.

She smiled and looked to the side. She shuffled her weight from one foot to the other, one hand on her hip. She was showing off her assets, and she was doing a fantastic job of it.

“How about we go out for a drink?” she suggested. “We can talk about everything we have in common. I’m sure we can find a few more things we’re good at, other than fitness.”

Wow. She was asking for it. Practically begging me for it right here and now, but I didn’t feel like doing it. And I wasn’t even tied down.

“That’s okay,” I told her. “I’m busy.”

What a lame— and untrue— excuse. But I just couldn’t bring myself to go get a drink with her. I thought about Lacey getting a drink with some stranger who hit on her at the gym, and my stomach turned.

The stranger shrugged in a way that suggested she didn’t care whether I was interested in not. She was going to keep trying.

“How about you come to my place, and we forget everything we have in common, and do what our bodies were made to do?” she asked me.

My mouth dropped open and then quickly closed because I didn’t want her to think it was from a good kind of shock. I was just flabbergasted that she would suggest this after I had already said no to a drink.

“I said no thank you,” I told her, picking up my towel and water bottle and getting ready to leave.

This girl was getting annoying now— not being able to take no for an answer. I’m sure someone would like to get a drink with her, but not me. I had no idea why she was so fixated on me.

She switched gears on me the moment I said it. Her face fell, and a frown knitted her perfectly sculpted brows.

“Excuse me?” she said loudly. “Do I look like a piece of ass to you?”

I didn’t know what to say. Hadn’t she just initiated everything? And I had turned her down? What the hell was she even talking about?

“You’re all the same, you know that?” she said.

She was talking loudly enough for everyone around us to hear her. I wanted to get away from her. She was drama on wheels. But I couldn’t just turn around and walk away.

“You walk in here, wearing your fame like a crown, and you think you can just get with any girl you feel like? Well, I’m not that kind of woman. I have respect for myself, and I would never let a pig like you put his hands on me.”

She turned around and stormed away, leaving me to wonder what the hell had just happened. I glanced to the side to see who had been watching. Faces were turned toward me from all around. One or two phones were lifted in my direction, too.

Dammit! Wasn’t this just fucking perfect?

I left the gym. I couldn’t spend more time there after they had recorded me looking like I had been harassing a woman. Which made no sense because in all my life, I’d never had to resort to such tactics.

I could have any woman I wanted with the snap of a finger. Yet there was one who for some reason freaked out on me for not wanting her and tried to make it look like I had. She must have been fucking crazy.

When I arrived home, I got into the shower again. I stood under the hot spray until the water ran cold. Was I going to have to deal with this for the rest of my life? Was I going to be portrayed as the asshole every time I spoke to someone?

Of course, most of the time, I was an asshole. But what if there were times I was nice? Didn’t that count for something?

Obviously not.

My phone rang when I got out of the shower. I tied a towel around my hips and walked to the bedroom where I’d put the phone on the bed. Lacey’s name flashed on the screen, and I smiled.

“Hello, Beautiful,” I said.

“Don’t you dare,” she said, her voice cold. “You idiot.”

“What?” I asked.

“Did you think that it wouldn’t hit the internet the moment you left that gym? You’re all over Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, you name it. What do you think you’re doing?”

Blood drained from my face, and I sat down on the bed.

“Look, Lacey, I can explain.”

“Save it, Bell,” she sneered. Usually I thought it was cute when she called me by my surname by right now I was not amused. “I’m not even going to go into what it means to me personally. We’ll focus on the professional ramifications of this. Just your reputation alone isn’t going to hold up if you go on like this. You don’t seem to care that you’ll lose it all. Everyone else around you is scrambling, trying to fix the shit you get yourself into, and all you seem to do is repeat the same stupid mistakes.”

“It’s not what happened,” I said. “Was the whole thing even caught on tape? Did you see all of it?”

“No one is going to care what your version of events is, Hanson.” At least it wasn’t Bell anymore. “I told you— people only see what they want to see. They’re only going to care about how it looked. Which is horrible. It’s all over the internet, how much of a womanizer you are. Is this really the image you’re trying to maintain? Are you set on doing this? Should I just give up?”

“Lacey.”

“Don’t,” she said, not letting me speak. “I’m going to have a hell of a time trying to sort this out with your coach. Thanks to you, I have more than enough damage control to last me the rest of this week.”

She hung up the phone before I got to say anything else. I stared at the phone. A part of me wanted to throw it against the wall.

Dammit.

I didn’t even get to explain myself. But it was clear she didn’t want to give me the chance.