AT FIVE TO SEVEN the next morning, Jared walked down the street towards Bailey’s gym. She was already waiting outside for him, wearing another of her hooded sweatshirts and baggy tracksuit pants, and she raised her hand to let him know she’d seen him. He acknowledged her with a nod.
‘Good morning,’ she said as he walked up to her. ‘Are you ready for this?’
‘Bring it on,’ he said, responding to the challenge in her gaze and trying not to think about how gorgeous her mouth was. This was a challenge of sorts, not a date. They were supposed to be discussing business. And the fact that they were meeting here right now was his own fault—for being deliberately awkward and not trying to fit their meeting into normal working hours.
They walked into the reception, where she signed him in as her guest, and took him through to the changing rooms. ‘I need to put my stuff in my locker. Meet you back outside here in five?’
‘Sure.’
‘Oh—and do you have a pound coin for your own locker? I have change if you need it.’
‘Thanks, but I’m good.’
It didn’t take him long to stow his things in the locker.
When Bailey came out from the women’s changing rooms, Jared’s jaw almost dropped. Clearly she’d been wearing the hoodie and the tracksuit pants just for warmth outside, because now she was wearing formfitting black leggings and a bright cerise racer-back crop top. And he was horribly aware of just how gorgeous she was. Curvy, yet with fabulous muscle definition. Bailey Randall was a woman who looked after herself. She was utterly beautiful and could easily have held her own with any of the glamorous WAGs he’d known at the football clubs he’d worked at. And yet he didn’t think she’d be the sort to go to endless spa days and nail parlours.
This was beginning to feel like the most enormous mistake. They were supposed to be training together and then discussing her project over breakfast, and all he wanted to do right now was to scoop her up and carry her to his bed. Even though it was actually a Tube ride away.
It was obvious that, like Sasha, Bailey was aware of her effect on men. She was gorgeous. So was Bailey like his ex-wife in using her physical attributes to get her own way? The idea made him pull himself together. Just. ‘So what’s your normal workout routine?’ he asked.
‘Today is a weights day,’ she said, ‘so that means a quick cardio warm-up and then a resistance routine. You?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ll join you and adjust the weights to suit me. Just tell me what we’re doing and when.’
She nodded. ‘Any injuries I should know about?’
Jared had no idea whether Archie had told her anything about his past, but it was irrelevant now. ‘A very old knee problem,’ he said. ‘But I know my limits and I’m certainly not going to be stupid about it.’
‘Good. Then let’s do this. How about using the elliptical as a warm-up, then through into the back room with the free weights?’
‘Fine by me.’
Why on earth had she agreed to train with him? Bailey asked herself. Jared was wearing baggy tracksuit pants and a loose sleeveless vest, like all the other men in the gym. She barely took any notice of them other than to smile hello, acknowledging the fellow athletes in her time slot. But Jared Fraser was different. She was horribly aware of the hard musculature of his body. Particularly his biceps.
He was an ex-footballer. A sports team doctor. He shouldn’t have biceps that beautiful and that well defined.
Worst of all, she had a real thing about biceps. Bailey always dragged Joni off to the cinema whenever her favourite actor had a new movie out—and Joni still teased Bailey about the time she’d said, ‘Ohhh, just look at his biceps,’ really loudly, in the middle of the cinema. The actor was incredibly handsome, perfectly built, but so was Jared Fraser.
She sneaked a sideways look. He was concentrating on putting the time and intensity settings into the elliptical machine, and right at that moment he looked incredibly sexy. It made her wonder what it would be like to have that brooding concentration completely focused on her, and she went hot all over. This training thing was a very bad move. She wished now that she hadn’t challenged him. How on earth was she going to be able to concentrate on talking to him over breakfast? Even if he changed into something with long sleeves after his shower, she knew now that he had gorgeous biceps and that could seriously distract her. Right at that moment, she really wanted to reach over and touch him.
Well, she was going to have to make a lot more of an effort, because no way was she acting on that pull of attraction. She liked her life exactly as it was, with no complications—and Jared Fraser could be a real complication. If she let him. Which she really didn’t intend to do.
When they’d finished warming up, Bailey talked him through her planned routine, the large compound movements that worked several muscle groups at once. ‘I thought I’d do a full-body workout today, if that’s OK with you, rather than an upper or lower split.’
‘It’s a good balance,’ he said. ‘I notice you’re doing hams and then quads.’
‘You need to balance them out properly or you’ll end up with a back injury,’ she said, ‘and you wouldn’t believe how many patients I have to explain that to.’
Funny how easy it was to talk to him when they were both concentrating on doing the right number of reps and keeping their form correct.
‘What made you specialise in sports medicine?’ he asked.
‘I started off in emergency medicine,’ she said, ‘but then I found myself doing more of the sporting injuries, especially at the weekends or on Monday mornings. I did think about maybe working in orthopaedics, but then again I like the preventative stuff, too—it’s great being able to make a difference. Then I had the chance of a secondment in the new sports medicine department. I liked my colleagues and I liked the work, so I stayed.’
That was the brief version. She had no intention of telling Jared the rest of it—how that secondment had saved her sanity, just over two years ago, and given her something else to concentrate on when she’d desperately needed an escape. OK, so in sports medicine there wasn’t the speed and pressure that could take her mind off things as there was in the emergency department; but she also didn’t have to walk into her department again after first-hand experience of being treated there, knowing that everyone in the department knew exactly what had happened to her and trying to avoid the concern that shaded too far into pity.
‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘Why did you become the doctor of a football team?’
She wondered if he was going to tell her about his past as a footballer, but he merely said, ‘I enjoy working in sports medicine, and this job means I get to travel a bit.’
Surely he must’ve guessed that she’d looked him up and knew what had happened to his knee? Then again, it had been a life-changing accident, and he was on a completely different path now. She didn’t blame him for not wanting to talk about the injury that had wrecked his career—just as she didn’t want to talk about the ectopic pregnancy that had shattered her dreams and then cracked her marriage beyond repair. No doubt he, too, knew what it felt like to be sick and tired of pity. They didn’t have to discuss it.
‘How did you get involved in this research project, or have you always been a football fan?’ he asked.
‘I ought to admit that I’d much rather do sport than watch it, and football isn’t really top of my list,’ she said. ‘My boss was asked if someone on his team would work on the project, and he