Next, I had to loosen the lug nuts and this was where it got tricky for me. The damn nuts had been put on so tight that I didn’t have the strength to undo all of them. I managed to loosen two of them, but I struggled with the rest. And as I was putting all my weight behind it, I fell on my damn ass on the driveway.

“Oh my God, I fucking give up!” I yelled out.

As luck would have it, it was right at that very minute that Griff pulled up across the road and stared at me sitting on my driveway looking like a zombie fighter from some damn apocalypse movie, yelling swear words out at whoever would listen.

He removed his helmet and walked across the street to where I sat. Looking down at me with a smirk, he said, “Sitting down on the job there, sweetheart. Tyres don’t change themselves…you kinda have to do some of the work.”

I scrambled to stand, but the length and tightness of my dress did not help my cause, and the manner in which I finally made it to a standing position would have to be classified as the most unladylike manner known to exist. Griff did extend his hand to help me, but in my wisdom – or lack of it, if you chose to be honest about the situation – I declined his help. He shrugged, crossed his arms over his chest, stood back and watched as I made a fool of myself. All with that huge smirk of his that I wanted to wipe off his face with my zombie-dirty hand.

Glaring at him, I said, “Don’t even get me started, handsome. Today was supposed to be a good day – unlike yesterday that was the shittiest day ever and shall never be spoken of again. I was having a good hair day, and my makeup was the bomb, and my clothes were awesome, and then the goddamn tyre decided to have a hissy fit on the one day that was going good for me. No problems, I said, I can handle this shit – and I was – but then my stiletto decided it liked the grass more than my foot, and it also decided that, hey, your hair and face would look so much better with some dirt – dirt – on it. Hell yes, let’s make you look like a zombie fighter today, my shoe said. But, not to be outdone, my tyre decided to have the last laugh and knock me on my ass. Well, screw it all, I’m going to go inside, find another freaking amazing outfit to wear, fix my hair and face so that it still looks like I stepped out of Cosmopolitan and then I’m going to find a way to get to work that does not involve changing tyres, because there is no way I am letting a tyre dictate whether I have a good day or not.” I finished what I was saying and took a long breath.

He stared at me as his smirk morphed into a grin, and then he said, “Go inside and do whatever you need to do. I’ll change your tyre so you can drive to work.”

I stared back at him. “Why do you do that? Why do you act like an ass and then do something really nice? It confuses the hell out of me. You confuse the hell out of me!”

“I confuse the fuck out of myself, sweetheart,” he replied, and his sexy, gravelly voice was in full swing today. And it just made me even more confused. It was like he was flirting with me even though I knew there was no way he was.

I decided it was time to remove myself from his presence. “I’m going to go and get changed. I’d really appreciate you changing the tyre. Thank you.”

“No worries,” he said as he stepped closer to me. He reached a hand out and cupped my cheek, and then swiped his thumb over my chin. “You had a clump of dirt there,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. “I figured you would want it gone.”

His touch shot through me, and – good God – I wanted him.

I wanted him like I needed air.

I’d never wanted a man who didn’t want me back, and it caused all my insecurities and doubts about myself to flare up. And I hated that, because I’d put the time in to learning to love myself enough to be able to look past those doubts.

I took a step back, and said, “I won’t be long.” And then I hurried inside.

I had to find a way to forget Griff.

I had to move on to a man who wanted me as much as I wanted him.

14

Griff

I turned the television up as images of Jeffrey Bond flashed across the screen. The headline read – Bond To Go To Trial – and then they flashed to photos of his brother and discussed his murder. According to the news journalist, Bond’s family had sworn revenge on the killer, and Bond himself had reportedly said that once he got off the charges and released from jail, he’d personally take care of his brother’s killer.

Good luck, asshole.

Switching the television off, I grabbed my keys and headed out to my bike. It looked like it was time for me to put another plan into action in order to force Danny’s hand on getting me off the trial as a witness. No fucking way was I going on that witness stand.

As I sped off towards the clubhouse, I began piecing the plan together that had been sitting there waiting for me to decide to act upon it. Problem was, my thoughts kept drifting off to Sophia and this morning. She’d looked so damn cute sitting on her driveway with dirt all over her. When she’d taken the time to tell me what had happened - in only the way Sophia could - my dick had hardened because, fuck, that woman was sexy when she dropped her mask and let the words fly out of her mouth.

Christ, I had to get her out of my head. She was occupying too much of my time.

The trouble with that was I liked her being in my head.

And that was a whole other problem in itself.

* * *

I spent a few hours going over the surveillance from our restaurants and Indigo, looking for anything that might give us a clue about the fire at Trilogy, but came up short. Leaning back in my chair, I rubbed my neck. The knots I had there were only getting worse, and my training sessions weren’t doing much to take the edge off.