“Exactly,” I said. “So, relax and give the pitch. There’s nothing to be anxious or nervous about. It’s just me.”
As he stared into my eyes, heat started creeping into his gaze. I recognized it for what it was. Before Italy, I’d have told myself I was imagining things, but I knew better now. I knew what he looked like when he was getting turned on and it was the exact way he was looking at me right now.
“The methodology we use at Parker’s Get Fit is based on the simplest driver of motivation,” he said quietly. “Reward.”
Even though I knew I should step back, I didn’t want to risk moving in case it broke his rhythm or concentration. “If we know we’re going to get something out of it, humankind is, in general, much more inclined to go at somethinghard.”
Those aren’t the words I wrote, I realized. It was the basic message, sure, but he was twisting the actual words. Emphasizing some of them to make the pitch more flirtatious. “When we know we’re going after something that we want and that we’ll get to have some fun along the way, it makes us more motivated than ever toget it.”
“Parker.” My voice came out as a low warning, but he wasn’t deterred.
“See, there are people who hide behind excuses,” he continued. “People who will tell you that they don’t have time, but what they’re really lacking is the confidence to take the first step. Even when they finally find the courage and take that first step, they’re often too afraid of failure to stick to what they started.”
“You’re not talking about working out anymore.” I stated it as fact because, even if all those things could be true for joining a gym and starting a workout regimen, I knew it wasn’t what he meant. “The pitch, Parker.”
“This is a pitch,” he said, smoothly gliding over the difference betweenapitch andthepitch. “Very often, we find that people are so afraid of not achieving the desired result that they just give up. They crawl back into a comfortable cabin on the excuse train instead of going after what they really want.”
“This is ridiculous,” I snapped. “If you’re insinuating—not so subtly I might add—that you’re what I really want and that I’m just not brave enough to go for it, you’re wrong.”
“Am I?” He brought his hands up to touch mine, and it was only then that I realized they were still on his face.
The intensity in his chocolate brown eyes doubled when his gaze dropped down to my lips. My breathing suddenly sped up before I could even think about controlling it. One corner of his lips twitched up into the beginning of a smirk.
“I don’t think I am wrong, Bella,” he murmured. “Not this time.”
“What happened was a one-time thing,” I said firmly, yanking my hands out from underneath his and finally putting some much-needed distance between us. “It won’t happen again and it’s not because I’m too afraid to let it.”
His eyes flicked from one of mine to the other. “Why are you so angry about it then?”
“You need to be professional,” I snapped before going back to my seat and sinking into it. “Try it again, and this time, give it to me straight. The way it was written, no bullshit improvisation required.”
He shrugged, but I wasn’t lulled into a false sense of security. While I’d really thought he understood it would never happen again, it looked like I might’ve been wrong on that front. We still hadn’t discussed what had happened and I still didn’t think we needed to, but we would have to talk about the fact that I was serious about it being a one-time thing.
I couldn’t afford for it to be more.
Not now and not ever.