“Grant… Shit, man. How many bench presses have you done?” My trainer rushes to spot me, and just in time too, because I start to lose my grip, and the weight careens…toward my face.

Clay grabs the weight with no problem and puts the barbell back on the stand, the hundred and fifty pounds are nothing for a man of his strength. “What the hell were you doing? Trying to kill yourself?”

“Death by weight lifting? Yeah, that’s the way to go.” I groan, plant my feet wide on the ground, and lean over my spread thighs. Drops of sweat fall from my forehead onto the floor.

Fuck. I can’t get the look on her face out of my mind.

Hurt. Destroyed. Resigned.

Clay sits down next to me and bumps my shoulder. “Care to talk about it?”

Talk about it?

How do I talk about a woman who is absolutely everything I’m not?

Kind. Compassionate. Honest. Trusting. Loyal. Beautiful.

The broken look on her face yesterday won’t fucking leave my mind. I keep seeing it over and over again. In my dreams, throughout my day, while at meetings, on the phone. Her red hair flying in the breeze, her crystal-blue eyes tortured as I told her the deal was off, basically ensuring she no longer had any hope of saving her company or her home.

“What do you care?” I growl and run my fingers through my sopping wet hair.

Clayton grips my shoulder. “Seriously, man? We’ve been working together for over five years, and you have the balls to say that to me. I thought we were friends.” His tone sounds hurt, making him another good person I’m fucking over this week.

I look at Clayton’s blond spiky hair and blue eyes. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m fucked in the head.”

“Woman, work, or world?” He says the three words as if they are the be-all end-all. I cringe, uncertain of what he means.

He waves his hand in a circular motion. “Are you like this because of a woman, something screwed at work, or the world in general?” he clarifies.

I let out a long sigh. “One, both, hell, all three. Take your pick.”

Clayton nods curtly and stands up. “All right, then. More workout is not what you need. I’m thinking, a beer, a burger, and a bro lending his ear will do the job. Hit the showers and meet me out front.”

I jerk my head back. “You want to go out and have a beer…with me?” I frown at the desperate tone in my voice.

In that moment, it hits me. We’ve never been anything more than personal trainer and student. I hire him to keep me in shape. He bosses me around the gym, and I pay him well for it. The results are good. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I never even thought of him as a friend until he called me on it a few minutes ago.

“Yeah. When one of my buds needs me, I’m there. You’d do it for me.” He says this as if he knows it to be fact.

Would I?

I guess if he asked me to be, I would. Not that we’ve ever been in a position to open up to one another. Then again, I’ve never been in this situation with a woman ever. Women have always been expendable. And I’ve never worried about business decisions in quite this way. And I’ve not had to completely destroy a street full of thriving companies.

I nod and stand up to head to the showers. “Meet you out front?”

“You got it. And I know just the place to go.”

* * *

The drive isn’t long as I follow Clayton from the gym. He pulls up to a brick building with a bright green sign that reads O’Brien’s Pub and Grill, with four leaf clovers as the apostrophes. I can’t remember the last time I was in a pub. Probably back in college. A time when life was about frat parties, girls, and how much beer I could suck down my gullet without throwing up.

Clayton waits at the door as I park my car and jog to meet up with him. I feel odd in my dress slacks and shirt, but I left the tie and jacket in the car, rolled up my sleeves, and unbuttoned a couple buttons. Clayton, on the other hand, is still in his workout attire. A pair of black track pants with a couple white stripes down each leg and a red T-shirt that stretches across his massive chest.

The man is built, to say the least. I have what I would consider a good body. I work hard to stay in shape. Toned muscles, six-pack, and the magic V we all strive to achieve, but Clayton Hart is rock solid. He is toned on an entirely different level.

As we hit a high-top table, Clayton waves at the bartender. “Hey, Cal, how goes it?” he says with a smile. That’s the epitome of Clayton Hart. The man is always smiling. At least ever since he got married. Which reminds me, I think he said he’d had a kid not too long ago. Had to miss a few sessions because he was in the hospital with his wife.

“Um, Clay, how’s your wife and kid?” I ask, trying to open the conversation. It’s been so long since I’ve gone out with a guy to just hang out and shoot the shit, I’m a little rusty. Most of my dinners with men are business meetings, where they want something out of me or I want something out of them.

“Kids,” he clarifies.

“You have more than one kid?” My eyes widen, and I am genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, man. Strangest thing. I got with Moe, and we found out her daughter is biologically mine.”

I’m pretty sure my mouth hits the floor. What the hell? “How in the world did that happen?”

Clayton laughs. “Back in the day, when I was working my way through college, I used to donate to a local sperm bank. Years later, Monet and her then-husband picked my boys for the job. I met Moe, hooked up with her, and when it came to her backstory and her kid, two and two were adding up to four pretty quick. Her best friend did a genetic test, and voila, the kid is mine.”

I whistle and shake my head. “Bet that blew your mind.”

He chuckles. “It did. But since I fell in love with Monet, it worked out. Now we have Lily, who’s seven, and my son, Knight, who’s two. Though I keep hiding her birth control pills, so I’m hoping for another.” He snickers.

“You’re kidding?”

He laughs and shakes his head as a waitress finally comes up. Slow moving around here, but the place is nice, seems really low key.

“You boys want something to drink…eat?” she asks, leaning her hand on the table.

“Beer. Cold. Whatever Cal recommends,” Clay responds.

“Whiskey, neat. Two fingers.” I hold up two of my own fingers.

“And we’ll also take a couple of Cal’s famous burgers. Yeah, Grant?”

I shrug. “Sounds good to me.” I don’t admit that I can’t remember the last time I had a burger. Again, most of my dinners are out at fancy restaurants or a casserole I can heat up stocked in my freezer by my house attendant.

When the waitress leaves, she hustles back with our drinks far quicker than it took for her to make her way over initially. As she sets the drinks on the table and walks off, Clayton levels me with a pointed stare. “Lay it on me. What happened?”

I take a sip of my whiskey, letting it burn a fiery trail down my throat. Maybe the burn will coat the words, making them seem less damaging. I’m not sure I want Clayton to know how much of an asshole I really am.

“Grant, no judgment, man. Just a friendly ear,” he encourages.

I sigh, set my drink on the table, and run my finger around the rim. “There’s this woman, a yoga teacher…”

His eyebrows rise up to his hairline. “Yeah, yogis are hot man. My wife does yoga regularly. Can’t say I don’t enjoy the benefits of that practice, plus I take a bunch of classes myself.”

This surprises me. He seems like a loyal member of the gym brotherhood.

He notices my expression and grins. “Yeah. I prefer aerial. My buddy Nick teaches it. Stretches out my muscles in a way I can’t do at the gym.”

I nod. “Well, here’s the problem. I own a span of land on which I’m planning to build high-rise luxury apartments. This is a couple-hundred-million-dollar project that’s going to return close to a billion in revenue for Winters Group and the other investors.”

“Okay, I’m following. So what’s the problem?” Clay sucks back a swallow of his beer.

“Doing so means I have to evict about seven thriving businesses. One of which is a yoga studio.”

“No shit. Are you telling me the chick you’re going for works at the studio?”

I shake my head.

Clayton playfully wipes at his brow. “Whew…I figured you were going to be in a world of hurt if that was the case.”

“She owns it. And lives in an open apartment on top of one of the other businesses I’m going to flatten.”

Clayton’s face pales, and then he lifts the beer and gulps back almost all of it. I match his sentiment by killing my whiskey. It hits my gut and warms my entire body instantly. Something of a blessing. I’ve been cold for days.

“Dude, that’s fucked. So what are you going to do?”

I run my fingers through my hair and glance behind me. The bartender lifts his head, and I raise my glass and point to Clay’s as well. We’re going to need a lot more alcohol for this.

“Not much. The process is already started. Technically, the renters have less than six months to vacate the street.”

Clayton whistles. “Damn. What about the woman? The yogi?”

“She hates me.”

“I’m seeing you don’t hate her. Now you’re worried about her business and her being homeless.”

“Yeah. I know I can’t fix what’s happening, but shit, I want to so bad.” I huff out a frustrated breath. “Even told her I’d give her six months to change my mind if she dated me for the six months. We’d each get a turn showing the other our side of things. Then it just got too much to handle.”

“You reneged?” His voice is strange when he asks, almost a deep grumble.

The waitress comes up and switches out our old drinks with fresh ones.

“Kind of, yeah.”

“Why?”

“That’s the billion-dollar question, isn’t it? Luna’s beautiful, man. Nothing like any of the women I’ve ever dated. She makes me feel…I don’t know. Fuck. More. Just more.”

“Luna?” Clayton sits up straight, his arms pressed out to brace against the table.

I grin. “Yeah. Said her mom is a hippie. Named her moon.”

“Fuck. This is bad, dude.” Clayton’s expression turns hard.

“Why?”

“You’re talking about Luna Marigold, pretty redhead, sweet body, white-ass skin, the owner of Lotus House?”

This time I sit up in my chair, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. “How the fuck…?”

“I’m friends with her. Hell, I’m friends with all of them. My buddy Nick I mentioned, he works there. As do several of my friends. That’s the studio I go to. The same one my wife goes to. And you’re flattening the street? Fuck, dude. Sunflower Bakery? Rainy Day Café?” He runs his hands over his face and then braces his elbows on the table. “Man, you have to find another way.”

“Clay, I just told you…this venture is set to profit by nearly a billion dollars. The rent these businesses have been paying for the last twenty years is nothing.”

My buddy runs his hand across his chin. “I get it. I do…but… Dude, this street is special. You need to spend some time there.”

I slam my hand down on the table, my whiskey almost sloshing out of the glass. “That’s what I was doing, until I spent the night with Luna and got sidelined by her friends who own the bakery. They despise me, and I get it. I truly get it. I’m ruining something they love, but it’s just…business.” I grind my teeth on the last word.

Clayton inhales, deeply and slowly. “It’s not to them, though. That street is iconic. It’s one of the most chill and comfortable places to go. It’s a secret gem in the area. And the businesses, they’ve been there twenty years or more.”

I nod and suck back a slug of whiskey, letting that fire burn…wanting it.

“Looks to me like you’ve got some soul searching to do. What about your time with Luna?”

“It’s over.” With those two words, pain squeezes my chest in a death grip. I rub at my heart, trying to soothe it.

Clayton’s jaw goes hard, and he runs his tongue over his teeth. “She’s a friend. And you just said you spent the night. You look like a man who’s had his balls kicked and his dog run over. Obviously, she’s more to you than a quick fuck…”

“I didn’t fuck her! We slept. Just slept together.”

He cocks a brow. “You mean to tell me, you had Luna Marigold in a bed, and you did not take a piece of that?” Clayton laughs. “Better man than me. I mean, if I wasn’t ass-over-dick in love with Moe and have a serious thing for flexible Asian hotties, I would have considered Luna a huge win.”

I bite down on my molars and hold my jaw firm. The simple thought of Clayton wanting Luna makes me insane. Fucking certifiable. “Don’t,” I warn through clenched teeth.

Clayton lifts his hands. “Hey now, happily married man here. I’m just sayin’ I know her and she’s beautiful. She’s going to make some man very happy one day. And from what I understand, that’s really all she wants.”

“What do you mean?” I ask right as the waitress brings our burgers.

The second the plate touches the table, my mouth waters. I haven’t eaten all day, and I worked every muscle in my body beyond fatigue. I grip the burger and watch the juice run off onto the plate before I take a monster bite out of it. The meat, cheese, and sauce flood my taste buds, and suddenly, I’m ravenous.

Clay shrugs. “What I understand, she’s a bit old-fashioned.”

I chew and swallow before responding. “Luna is the farthest thing from old-fashioned. She’s as new age as they come with her yoga, breathing, oils.”

Clayton shakes his head and finishes his own bite. “Not in that way. Moe told me Luna wants to get married, have a couple of kids, and teach yoga. Take care of her kids and her man, make dinner, clean house. Kind of like a hippie June Cleaver.” He chuckles.

The vision of Luna moving around my apartment, cleaning house, making us dinner, taking care of our children…a boy and a girl. A legacy. A home. Not something I’ve ever had, nor did I think I would have. The beauty of that simple vision hits me like a two-ton boulder along with a deep-seated desire to make that vision come to life.

Except it never will. She hates me.

I haven’t even truly tasted the woman, and she hates me. “I’ll never get another chance with her,” I whisper, not realizing I said it out loud.

“Not true. If you want her, truly want to be with her, see where it leads, then go back to her. There is nothing a woman likes more than a man who apologizes, means it, and is man enough to admit it.”

“Just apologize. That’s your sage advice?” I pop a fry into my mouth. Damn, even the fries are world-class. Seasoned to perfection with a hint of paprika, which tingles against the tongue.

Clayton grins. “Betcha it works. And if she tries to let you off the hook but not bring you back into the fold, push your way in. Show up in her world. Everywhere she goes, you go. Make yourself a nuisance.”

This time I’m laughing out loud. “Is that how you wooed your wife?”

He grins. “No. I offered to help out a mutual friend of mine, ended up watching her kid, and never left. She’d been physically hurt by her ex, as in a hundred stitches running down her back, so I moved my ass in.”

I jerk my head up from focusing on my heavenly burger back to my friend. Friend. It feels good to think that and know it’s true.

“You just moved yourself into her house?”

He nodded. “And her life. She was meant to be mine, man. Knew it straight down to my marrow she was for me. I found an in, and I took it. Best decision I ever made, pushing my way into her life and heart. Now she’s mine for good, and I thank the man upstairs every day for the blessing.”

I wipe my mouth with my napkin. “Your advice, then, is to…”

“Push yourself on her. Make yourself a nuisance if you have to, but make sure you apologize first. Luna’s got a mind of her own, but she’s sweet. And if you’re into her, really into her, then you have to take a chance.”

“What about the fact that I’m going to be obliterating her business and her friends’ businesses?”

“Find a way to make it work. Get around it. Build somewhere else. I don’t know. Only you know what your business can take and what you’re willing to sacrifice. All I know is a woman like Luna deserves a man who will bend the rules, break his back, fall down on his knees to worship her. The question then is, are you that man?”

I sip on the whiskey and swirl it in the glass, watching the amber liquid spin a beautiful vortex. “I don’t know; I’d like to be.”

Clayton pats me on the shoulder. “It’s up to you how you’re going to respond. The way I see it, the way you look right now, all down and out, seems like the woman means a lot more than the potential profit.”

I want to tell him it’s more than just profit. My father, the investors, they are relentless, ruthless in their desire for more wealth. These plans were already in place before a fairy princess walked through my office door and brought me to my proverbial knees.

Then there’s the aching need to settle the score with my father. Prove I’m every bit as good a businessman. Better even than he was. Finally show them all I’ve got the chops to grow Winters Group far beyond what they even hoped for. This project was the start of all that. It would show my father and his cronies I have what it takes. Perhaps once in my entire godforsaken life, I might see pride in my father’s face, maybe even an atta boy tossed my way.

It’s ridiculous that a thirty-five-year-old man would need that kind of recognition and acceptance from his own father, but it’s true. I’ve strived to impress him my entire life, and all he’s ever said was how I missed the mark. Came close, but close was for second place, not winners, not leaders.

“Luna is not something I planned for…”

Clayton slaps his thigh a few times. “Women never are, God bless ’em. All I know is I’d be lost without Monet. She owns my soul, and I’d walk through fire to ensure her happiness. When you find the one you’re meant to be with, you’ll do anything to make her happy. I live for her. Plain and simple.”

He lives for his wife.

The sentiment seems so foreign to me but not unpleasant. It’s hard to imagine because I’ve never felt anything like it, but I’d like to. Boy, would I like to.

* * *

The wind blows against my face as I stand outside of Lotus House the next morning. Clayton was right. I need to mend the rift with Luna. I haven’t been sleeping well, thinking only of her and how I need to fix things between us. Remembering her lips on mine, the way her fruity scent coated my body for an entire day after I slept in her bed. God, I miss her smell.

The second hand of my watch lands on the twelve, and out walks a dream.

My dream.

Luna waves at someone inside the bakery and turns, smiling. Her steps falter when she looks up and sees me waiting by the door. The smile falls and disappears completely as she makes it to where I’m standing.

“Why are you here?” Her voice sounds weak and reed thin.

“It’s your turn,” I state lamely. It’s the only thing I can come up with.

She tips her head. “But you said it was over and the deal was off. You made it very clear…”

“Deal’s back on.” I swallow around the thickness entering my throat.

She shakes her head. “You can’t do that. I can’t go through that again. Grant, you hurt me…”

Fear ripples up my spine, and I lose all rational thought. I can’t hear her reasons why she won’t let us have another chance, not when I need her. Need her body against mine, her taste on my tongue. Without a second thought, I grab her around the waist, and her body slams into mine. Before she can say another word, I’m kissing her. I cup her cheek and tilt her head, opening my mouth and licking her lips. She opens on a moan, and it’s all the invitation I need.

I take from her lips. Take her sweet mouth in a searing hot press of lips until she’s kissing me back with as much passion as I have for her. She’s starved for it. Her body wiggles against mine as she tries to get closer, pressing her soft tits against my chest.

I hold her close and devour her mouth. Eventually, we need air, so I pull back but keep my forehead pressed to hers. “Lamb, give me another chance. I know I don’t deserve it, but I want it. I want another chance. Please.” I grip her body tightly to mine.

Her breath comes in little puffs against my wet lips. She opens her eyes, and her gaze breaks my heart. In them, I see her hesitance, her fear and anxiety, but more than that, I see her hope. It’s flickering a mile a minute in her gaze, and it wounds me, the knife of that desire cutting deep.

She thinks I’m going to save her.

How does she not see she’s the one saving me?