Page 15 of Ignite

I only had to think about him, and I got the tingles in places that shouldn’t be tingling about a man who wasn’t my partner. But when we were in the same room, he absorbed all the oxygen and left me floundering to think straight.

Either Ethan Cooper was a walking sex machine, or I’d been without a man for too long. Although, to be honest, none of the other footballers or firefighters made my heart stop.

And now he stood in the foyer of my workshop, glaring at me as if my presence offended him. But I’d seen it. In the briefest moment before he’d recognized me, his face had been an open book. I had the same reaction on Ethan as he had on me.

Before I could react and greet him professionally, his face adopted the same, self-righteous sneer he’d perfected after finding out I hit him.

Good, I thought. I didn’t have time for stupid insta-lust.Liar.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He found his voice first.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Cooper,” I said, surprised by my measured tone. Only my family would have recognized the false bravado of my smile. “I work here.”

I waited for the typical reaction. Disbelief. Denial. All potential customers differed. Some would give me a chance, while others—

“Well, you obviously know why I’m here. Get me the manager,” he softly growled, looking around for someone to save him and proving he’d be theothertype of customer.

“You’re speaking to her.”

“Then get me the head mechanic.”

“You’re speaking to her.”

“Then get me Rylee, the guy whose name is on the shop. The guy everyone’s been telling me can fix what you did.”

“That would beme.”

It was all shades of wrong and evil to be this happy at Ethan’s confusion. Mostly, I wanted to let him stew, and continue his twenty questions.

But he only needed me because in a moment of madness, I’d been blinded by jealousy and distracted by feeling all levels of anger, madness, and loss.

“You’re Rylee? Your name is Ophelia.”

Ethan stated two facts. But in his confusion, his eyes flashed a dangerous shade of dark blue. I’d noticed them after the accident when he first got out of his ute, and his eyes had burned dark before turning a bright blue once he’d calmed down and realized his ute was still drivable.

“My driver’s license has the name I was born with.”

“The sign on the shop says Rylee’s Beat.”

“Ethan.” I drew out the two syllables until they sounded like a disappointed sigh.

Regardless of my guilt over the accident, or how kissable his full lips looked, I’d been dealing with misogynistic crap for years. Every single apprentice who’d waltzed through the business thought having a penis gave them an edge. Newsflash—it didn’t. It distracted their thinking and gave them a sense of entitlement when most didn’t have either the street smarts or talent to back it up.

“Yeah?” He took a step back, inspecting the workshop while I composed my words. Reece should have warned him that the woman Ethan had been ignoring at the gym was the same Rylee who could fix his car. Or, I could have agreed to an introduction. Or, I should have pulled up my big girl panties after the accident and offered to fix his ute for free instead of waiting until he came to me.

Yes, I was more than a pretty face or a nice ass, just as I hoped he was more than a footballer’s brain and body. We’d spent the last two weeks pretending not to check each other out, and now I wanted to see what Ethan Cooper had to offer. But being a bitch would only work if he deserved it. Right now, he didn’t.

Ethan had made a number of assumptions and I’d had more than one opportunity to set him straight. I took a deep breath, not recalling the last time I’d had to explain myself.

“Rylee was my father.” His eyes softened and I wanted him to understand my name. “This was my father’s business for thirty-two years. I’ve been working in it since I was sixteen and he couldn’t convince me to try something else. When my mother died, I wanted to be closer to my father.”

I choked out the last sentence, remembering why I never gave strangers the whole story. The grief still felt too raw, and I couldn’t trust myself to stay composed.

Instead of nodding his understanding and moving on, Ethan stood, his eyes holding mine—giving me space to continue. He understood grief. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I’d have bet serious money that Ethan had been running away from some sort of loss when he landed in Meringa.

I let my words hang between us as our eyes flashed a conversation neither of us were prepared to have, yet. Did he understand? Did he have the faintest idea that changing my name had been about defining myself as more than just a pretty girl who grew up without a mother?

Ethan studied me a moment longer before nodding. When he turned back for the door, I thought he would leave to find a new repairer, but then he swiveled and slowly made his way back along the honor wall. Only the best custom jobs deserved their own photo shoot, and it had become prestigious to have a car and job worthy of being hung on the wall. We had tourists turning up to see the wall in person, after admiring our business social media pages.

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