“Bitchy doesn’t suit your beauty, Anna,” he said simply, looking hurt.

My anger started to deteriorate instantly but I fought to hold on to it. I couldn’t keep letting this guy change the way I lived my life; I was doing fine before he came along. “Stop being such a nice guy all the time! You’re making my life hard, Ashton. I can’t cope with any more, please, please just stop this. This isn’t a game for me,” I begged weakly, dropping my eyes to the floor.

He stepped forward and hooked his finger under my chin, lifting my head. “It’s not a game for me either. I’ll stop if that’s what you need, but whenever you decide you’re ready, if at all, I’ll be here,” he whispered, bending forward and planting a soft kiss on my cheek. Then, without another word, he was gone and the gym door swung closed behind him.

I stared at the door for a full five minutes, not knowing what to think. I knew only one thing for sure – next week we were going to be pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend, so we were going to have to get this little sexual tension speed bump out of the way before then.

Deep down, I knew he wouldn’t quit his job before the allotted time was up, which meant I had eight months of his presence to cope with before he would poof into a puff of smoke and the problem would be solved. We needed to set some ground rules if this was going to work and then maybe, just maybe, I could get through the eight months unscathed.

Chapter Eleven

I sloped off to my room and showered, scrubbing all the sweat off me from the workout. When I was out and dry, I pulled on baggy combat pants, a V-neck top and a pair of Converse. Scraping my wet hair back into a messy bun, I took deep breaths, struggling to find the courage to talk to Ashton again. With shaky legs, I made the five steps from my bedroom door to his, hesitating outside before knocking. As I waited for him to answer, every instinct in my body was telling me to turn and run as far away from this guy as possible, because he was the only one that seemed to be able to make me question my ‘don’t get close to people’ plan.

He opened the door with a polite smile, but that quickly fell from his face when he spotted me. I gulped awkwardly. “Hi. I’m thinking that maybe we should talk,” I muttered, picking at the skin on the side of my fingernail. “Want to go for that walk or something?”

His answering nod was a little stiff. “Yeah. Come in, let me just get some shoes on.” He walked into his room, pushing the door open wider in invitation. I hugged myself, barely stepping over the threshold as I watched him push his feet into a pair of sneakers before tugging on the bottom of his jeans and clipping something black to his ankle.

I frowned at it. “What’s that?” I asked curiously. Without answering, he pulled the material up, exposing an ankle holster and black handgun. The air rushed out of my lungs as I recoiled. “Holy shit, Ashton! You could shoot your foot off!” I cried, horrified.

He laughed humourlessly and shook his head. “I have the safety on,” he replied, standing up straight again. “We really should arrange for you to have some shooting lessons so that you know how to handle a gun.”

My eyes were trained on the bump at the bottom of his jeans. “I don’t want shooting lessons.”

He shrugged, picking his cell phone from the side and pushing it into his pocket. “I would’ve thought you’d want to know how to defend yourself,” he countered.

“I don’t like guns,” I admitted, “and why would I need to learn how to shoot, anyway? I’ve got you and that idiot Dean for that.” I smiled weakly, trying to alleviate some of the tension that was in the air.

He smiled in response and motioned towards the door. “So, why don’t you like guns?” he asked, putting his hand on the small of my back as we walked through the house.

I winced. “Carter liked guns. I’ve seen a lot of people get shot.” I immediately tried not to think of the other reason I didn’t like guns, the thing that made me so terrified of guns that it would wake me up in the night. He groaned, and his hand closed over mine tightly. I shook my head, not needing to look at him to know that he felt sorry for me. “Don’t worry about it; I just don’t like the thought of guns, that’s all. The noise scares me,” I added, shuddering.

“Well then, I definitely think you should go for some lessons. You should get used to the sound so it doesn’t scare you anymore,” he suggested. I had a feeling that if he was there with me then I wouldn’t be scared anyway, but I didn’t want to tell him that.

We walked out of the house, and I immediately turned to the left. We had extensive grounds here at the lake house and a few minutes’ walk away, there was an old play park that I grew up using. I could probably use some pleasant and familiar surroundings while we had this conversation.

As we left the house behind us and strolled across the grass, I took a deep breath, knowing I needed to start sooner or later. “So, I need to talk to you. Um... I don’t really know what to say or how to say it, so I’ll just go for the truth, okay?” I offered, looking at him from the corner of my eye. He nodded, watching me intently, his eyes a little apprehensive. “Okay well, I don’t want anything from you. I can’t be with you again like this morning. I just can’t do that, so there’s no point in you thinking any differently.” I frowned because of how uncomfortable this conversation was. “I really enjoyed what happened this morning, I’m not gonna lie about it. That really was my first time in so many ways, so thank you. I just… I don’t want that to happen again.” I actually didn’t believe a word of what I was saying. Physically, I did want it to happen again, but for the sake of my mental health, I needed to set the boundaries because I couldn’t cope with the guilt of it afterwards.