“So we can circuit-train together,” she said brightly, standing close and gazing up at him with a teasing smile. “I’m great at spotting.”
She was trying to push his buttons. He was determined not to react, regardless of what she said or did. Meri was playing a game that could be dangerous to her. He might not have taken care of her the way he should have, but he had looked out for her. That wasn’t going to stop just because she was determined to prove a point.
“Want to warm up with some cardio first?” she asked. “We can race. I’ll even give you a head start.”
“I’m not going to need it,” he told her as he headed over to the treadmills, not bothering to see if she followed.
“That’s what you think.”
She stepped onto the machine next to his and set it for a brisk warm-up pace. He did the same, not bothering to look at her speed.
“You didn’t used to exercise,” he said conversationally a few minutes later as he broke into a jog.
Meri punched a few buttons on her treadmill and matched his speed. “I know. I was much more into food than anything else. Not surprising—food was my only friend.”
“We were friends,” he said before he could stop himself. He’d liked Meri—she was Hunter’s little sister. She’d been like family to him.
“Food was the only friend I could depend on,” she said as she cranked up her treadmill again. She was breathing a little harder but barely breaking a sweat. “It didn’t disappear when I needed it most.”
No point in defending himself. She was right—he’d taken off right after Hunter’s funeral. He’d been too devastated by loss and guilt to stick around. A few months later he’d realized he needed to make sure Meri was all right. So he’d hired a P.I. to check in on her every few months. The quarterly reports had given him the basics about her life but nothing specific. Later, when he’d started his own company, he’d gotten his people to keep tabs on her and he’d learned a lot more about her. He’d learned that she’d grown up into a hell of a woman. Obviously she hadn’t needed him around, taking care of things.
“The downside of food as a friend,” she continued, “is that there’s an ugly side effect. Still, I couldn’t seem to stop eating. Then one day I made some new friends and I stopped needing the food so much.” She grinned. “Okay, friends and some serious therapy.”
“You were in therapy?” The reports hadn’t mentioned that.
“For a couple of years. I worked through my issues. I’m too smart and weird to ever be completely normal, but these days I know how to pass.”
“You’re not weird,” he said, knowing better than to challenge her brain. Meri had always been on the high side of brilliant.
“A lot you know,” she said. “But I like who I am now. I accept the good points and the bad.”
There were plenty of good points, he thought, doing his best not to look at her trim body. She had plenty of curves, all in the right places.
They continued to jog next to each other. After another five minutes, Meri increased the speed again and went into a full-out run. Jack’s competitive side kicked in. He increased not only the speed but the incline.
“You think you’re so tough,” she muttered, her breath coming fast and hard now.
“You’ll never win this battle,” he told her. “I have long legs and more muscle mass.”
“That just means more weight to haul around.”
She ran a couple more minutes, then hit the stop button and straddled the tread. After wiping her face and gulping water, she went back onto the treadmill but at a much slower pace. He ran a few more minutes—because he could—then started his cooldown.
“You’re in shape,” he told her as they walked over to the weight room.
“I know.” She smiled. “I’m a wild woman with the free weights. This is where you really get to show off, what with having more upper-body strength. But pound for pound, I’m actually lifting nearly as much as you. Want me to make a graph?”
He grinned. “No, thanks. I can see your excuses without visual aids.”
“Reality is never an excuse,” she told him as she collected several weights, then walked over to a bench. She wiped her hands on the towel she’d brought.
“I can’t be too sweaty,” she said. “If my hands are slick, it gets dangerous. About a year ago, I nearly dropped a weight on my face. Not a good thing.”
“You should be more careful,” he said.
“You think? I paid a lot of money for my new nose. You never said anything. Do you like it?”
He’d known about the surgery. She’d had it when she was twenty. He supposed the smaller nose made her a little prettier, but it wasn’t that big a change.
“It’s fine,” he said.
She laughed. “Be careful. You’ll turn my head with all that praise. My nose was huge and now it’s just regular.”
“You worry too much about being like everybody else. Average is not a goal.”
She looked at him. “I haven’t had enough coffee for you to be philosophizing. Besides, you don’t know anything about normal. You were born rich and you’re still rich.”
“You’re no different.”
“True, but we’re not talking about me. As a guy, you have different standards to live up or down to. If you have money, then you can be a total loser and you’ll still get the girl. But for me it was different. Hence the surgeries.”
“You had more than one?” he asked, frowning slightly. He knew only about her nose.
She sat up and leaned toward him. “Breasts,” she said in a mock whisper. “I had breast implants.”
His gaze involuntarily dropped to her chest. Then he jerked his head to the right and focused on the weight bench next to him.
“Why?” he asked, determined not to think about her body and especially not her breasts, which were suddenly more interesting than he wanted them to be.
“After I lost weight, I discovered I had the chest of a twelve-year-old-boy. I was totally flat. It was depressing. So I got implants. I went for a jumbo B—which seemed about right for my newly skinny self.”
She stood and turned sideways in front of the mirror. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think I should have just gone for it and ordered the centerfold breasts. What do you think?”
He told himself not to look, but it was like trying to hold back the tide. Against his will, his head turned and his gaze settled on her chest. Meri raised her tank top to show off her sports bra.
“Are they okay, Jack?”
A guy walking by did a double take. “They’re great, honey.”
She dropped her shirt and smiled. “Thanks.”
Jack glanced at the guy and instantly wanted to kill him. It would be fast and relatively painless for the bastard. A quick twist of the neck and he would fall lifeless to the ground.
Meri dropped her shirt. “I love being a girl.”
“You’re still playing me. I’m going to ignore you.”
“I’m not sure you can,” she teased. “But you can try. Let’s change the subject. We can talk about you. Men love to talk about themselves.”
He grabbed a couple of weights and sat on a bench. “Or we could focus on our workout.”