Page 50 of Second Chances

“I get the picture. Skip to the worrying part.”

“Sorry, yeah, so she pulled away from me and went to exercise instead. She’s been exercising a lot and not eating much. She’s lost a lot of weight. There’s something wrong.”

“It doesn’t sound good. Have you discussed it with her?”

“No.”

“It’s the first thing you need to do, Ryan. She’s had a lot of problems with her legs. Her first injury ruined her dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer. She’s probably struggling with her thoughts and overdoing the exercise. Talk to her. It’s the only thing you can do. Express your worries. She’ll probably appreciate it.”

“It’s kind of obvious I should do that, isn’t it?”

“A little bit. Sometimes men need to be told the obvious.”

“Pardon?” Grayson’s voice appears in the background. “Do I need to be worried about anything?”

“Hush you. I’m keeping nothing from you.” Sophie chuckles.

“Better not be or we’re going to have to add to the tally for you backside when you’ve had our baby. I already believe we’ve got over a hundred smacks to account for.”

“Seriously, man, that’s my sister.” I laugh into the phone.

“Hi, Ryan.” Grayson’s voice comes over the phone. I guess Sophie must have had the call on speaker all the time. “Are you ok?”

“I am now, just getting a little bit of advice from my sister.”

“That’s cool. She’s good at helping others.”

“She is.”

“Enough flattering me,” Sophie interrupts before adding, “Go speak to Elena.”

“Thanks, Sis. Bye.”

“Bye.”

After hanging up the call, I throw my phone onto the bed and head to our home gym. Elena is running on the treadmill. Sweat is pouring off her. She sees me enter and smiles.

“Another ten minutes, and I’m done.”

I switch on the Dom mode in my head and stride over to the treadmill and slow it down.

“Ryan.”

“Colors?” I inform her, and she knows instantly what I mean.

“Red, stop altogether, orange, stop and talk, green, all is ok.” Elena comes to a stop on the treadmill, and I hand her a towel.

“What’s going on, Elena?”

“What do you mean?” Elena wipes over her face and then cleans the machine down. I have a mini fridge in the room, and I retrieve a bottle of water from it, twist the lid off, and hand it to her.

“You chose to exercise over having sex with me.”

Her face falls.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I don’t want you to be sorry. I want to know what’s going on?” Elena steps off the machine, and even though she’s still a little sweaty, I pull her into my arms. “I’m not angry. I’m worried about you. You’ve lost a lot of weight and are thinner than you were before the accident. I know you’ve struggle with being injured, especially after last time. But I just want to check that it’s not causing problems inside that pretty little head of yours.”

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