There were a couple other dark-haired men at Maio House but none of them had shoulders that size or trap muscles that bulky. The tallest man who trained in this part of the gym was six foot three. I took everyone’s height and weight when they first joined. When they were finally forced to start cutting weight—which meant that right before they had a fight, they had to lose a few pounds to make it to their weight class because usually everyone was fifteen to twenty pounds heavier than they needed to be, and that was on the average side—I helped them keep track of it so that it wouldn’t be too much that had to be cut in too short of a time period. I had known guys who had to drop out of fights because they had gone a little too crazy with sodium levels, and no one wanted to lose an opportunity, especially over something so stupid.

But that was all beside the point. Because it only took maybe a second for me to figure out who was sitting there. Think of the damn devil and he will appear, or whatever the saying was.

Jonah Hema Collins wasn’t the devil, but I couldn’t say he wasn’t much further down the list than the red guy was on people I would rather never see.

How the hell had he gotten inside again?

I reminded myself for about the hundredth time over the last couple of days that there wasn’t anything the Fucker could say or do that would hurt me. There was nothing that would change my life too much. There was nothing that could happen that I couldn’t fight, because I would if I had to. I came from a long line of people who were really good at fighting. And that gene hadn’t skipped a generation with me.

The man I’d known hadn’t seemed like the kind of person to do something shitty… but everyone changes. That, and I wasn’t sure I had even gotten to know him that well in the first place, from the way he’d turned out in the end. You know, like an asshole.

I was going to be an adult. I was going to keep allllll this shit to myself and punch my pillow when I got home. That’s what I was going to do. Be an adult, even if a little part of me died from forcing myself to be decent since it wasn’t like that came all that naturally to me.

If I couldn’t make it until then, there were a couple bags right outside my office I had access to.

Seriously, who the hell had let him in?

“Good morning,” the man sitting in the chair said as he turned his head to look at me over his shoulder, like he had either heard or sensed me coming in.

He could take his morning and shove it up his—

There went my speech. But I wasn’t doing this for me, was I? Damn it.

“Hi,” I told him, giving him my best Lurch impression.

I rounded the edge of the desk, knowing my hip was just a few inches away from his elbow as I did it. It wasn’t a big room, but it wasn’t that small either. It was just that he wasn’t exactly what anyone would call a small man unless it was Andre the Giant we were talking about.

Jonah the Asshole didn’t wait until I was seated to say, “I’d like to sign up for a membership.”

Was he trying to piss me off? I wanted to ask him. I would have, if I had known I could get the question out of my mouth without going back on the promise I made myself. Because unlike some people I knew, when I said I would do something, I did it. I didn’t disappear—

Stop.

If you don’t have anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all, Luna would tell me. But she had never warned me how fucking hard it was to live up to that. And I definitely didn’t have a single nice thing to say about any of this. Especially not for this asshole in my office who was busy looking at me with a clear, guileless, totally earnest and open expression as he gazed at me over his shoulder.

And that just made me madder.

He wanted a membership here? Okay. Fine.

I pulled my chair out, lowered myself onto it carefully and then rolled it forward once more. Then and only then did I look up at him at the same time as I reached out between us, taking in that face that was almost model-gorgeous. Almost. Except he had been too busted up over the years to be something so… basic.

Fortunately for me, it didn’t take much effort to remember that maybe I wasn’t going to be a complete asshole, but that didn’t mean I had to like him. Or that I had to be nice. Just… polite. Out loud. The things I thought in my head were a different story.

Fuckface.

And it was with that thought that I watched as he scooted forward in the seat he had taken without permission or an invitation and reached out with that big, big hand. I watched in slow motion as his fingertips—long and with signs at the joints that said that nearly all of them had been broken at some point—brushed over the back of my hand so gently it might have been nice… if I didn’t borderline hate him.

For the rest of my life, I was going to blame the fact that he genuinely surprised the shit out of me on why I didn’t immediately slap his fingers away.

Jonah Collins took my hand with those strong fingers—while I sat there like a dumbass—flipping it over in the blink of an eye, so that my palm sat upward on my desk, and then set his own palm on top of it. His hand swallowed mine, making it seem a lot smaller than it actually was. The same way it had so long ago.

Before he’d left.

Before he’d changed my life for the better.

And also pissed me off in a way that was beyond fucking words.

I jerked my hand out from under his.

Fisting my hand, I set it on my thigh for a second before returning it to my desk because fuck it. I wasn’t going to hide shit from him.

He was the one who did the hiding.

Those honey-colored eyes were still on me, and I could see the deep, drawn breath he took in. I didn’t care if I hurt his feelings. He’d hurt mine enough. And he was real fucking lucky I was being this mature. That I was willing to let him be here in the first place.

But before I could say anything else, his shoulders pushed back and his chin went up again in that way I had only seen him do on the rugby field… pitch, whatever it was called. Like he was pumping himself up to deal with me. I ignored how that might have made me feel.

“Have lunch with me,” the Fucker said softly in that accented voice that I wasn’t attracted to anymore.

I said “no” instantly.

His shoulders stayed back as he tried again. “Brekkie?”

Breakfast? Why was he doing this? “What the hell do you want, Jonah?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. The man let his eyes drift over my face slowly, and I was pretty sure he held his breath. “I understand that you’re mad—” That was as far as he got before I stopped him.

“Mad?” I snapped before I could remind myself that I needed to keep it cool. “You think I’m mad?”

If anything, the word pissed would be more accurate for how I’d felt a year ago. Months ago, even. But not now.

He sat up just a little, but just enough to make those big, flat muscles flex under the long-sleeved white T-shirt with a tiny Adidas logo that was gripping his shoulders for dear life. The asshole made sure he was making total eye contact with me, keeping that fucking face nice and even as he responded way too calmly, “Yes. I can see you are, Lenny. You have that face you make when you’re bothered, squinty eyes and all,” the man from New Zealand answered in that way that was so second nature to him, I couldn’t believe I had liked the shit out of it in the past. “I want to talk to you about it. Explain.”