Page 15 of Under Daddy's Spell

Initially, her store and their bistro, which was now Jordan’s gym, had been one large unit. But the strip mall owner decided two tenants would double his income. He put up a dividing wall but was too cheap to spring for a separate heating and cooling system. It was an odd setup, especially since the thermostat that controlled both stores was on their side. It forced her to be friendly with her next-door neighbor.

The Toscanos were easy to get along with. With ovens going and pasta pots boiling nonstop, they preferred it on the cool side, which Tessa also needed with one oven and an almost-perpetually steaming espresso machine.

As a bead of sweat trickled between her breasts, Tessa looked at the wall separating her shop from Jordan’s gym. “I suppose I need to have that conversation.”

“Could you? Please?” Georgia pleaded as she fanned herself with a cardboard to-go box. “I feel like I’m melting.” ?

***

“I’VE GOT YOU SCHEDULEDfor your intro visit with Kurt on Tuesday at seven o’clock. And your first hot yoga class with Sara will be on Thursday at six.” Jordan had written everything on the intro packet he handed to Amelia, but he liked to repeat the instructions verbally to help make it sink in.

“Don’t I get any personalized instruction from you, Coop?” the twenty-something blonde asked, while giving him a pouty look of disappointment.

This question he had heard more times than he could count. Everyone wanted a private appointment with the owner, but there was only one of him, and he didn’t have the time or the inclination. He visited all twenty of his locations on a regular basis but hired qualified trainers to do the one-on-ones.

“You’ll like Kurt. He’s the tall blond over by the free weights.”

He was also five years younger than him and, if he had horns and a hammer, would look exactly like Thor from the Marvel movies, so he was told. Personally, he couldn’t tell one Hemsworth from another and had seen none of the films. From the appreciative smile curving Amelia’s lips, she had.

“He knows his stuff,” he assured her, although he didn’t think he needed to anymore. “His clients rave about their results. And don’t underestimate Sara. She’ll have you sweating, and not because we set the room to eighty degrees.”

“Thanks, Coop. I’ll go say hi to my new trainer.”

He’d learned deflecting attention from him to what they’d just signed up for, and with who, was the best strategy. That she was a decade his junior and so easily diverted stung a bit, but he’d get over it.

She made his 28th new member of the day, what he hoped to average in a week after their grand opening sign came down and they weren’t taking part in a strip mall-wide sale.

When he looked up, he saw an empty lobby for the first time today and was actually relieved. He hadn’t had time for a lunch break, and it was going on three o’clock.

A blur in a snug skirt and silky blouse with a mass of red curls passing by his front window caught his eye.

“You’re in a hurry,” Jordan greeted Tessa when she pushed through the double doors. “Where’s the fire?”

“If one spontaneously started in my store, it wouldn’t surprise me. It’s eighty-four degrees over there.”

With flushed cheeks and damp, curly tendrils clinging to the side of her neck, she looked wilted.

“Huh,” he replied with a frown. “It’s comfortable over here.”

“Yeah. I noticed.”

Her tone was a little snippy, which he didn’t care for, but he let it pass as he left the front counter and went to check the thermostat. He grabbed a bottle of water from a cooler along the way; she looked like she could use it.

“The instructors were having a run-through for hot yoga last night. Maybe they forgot to turn down the heat.” After he peered at the display, he turned to her. “Nope. It’s seventy-four, where we always keep it.”

He passed her the bottle.

She hesitated only a fraction of an instant before unscrewing the top and draining half of it. “Thanks. I didn’t realize how parched I was.”

“No problem.”

“My oven... I mean, obviously... It’s going to raise the temperature a bit. But ten degrees is a lot... Would you... Do you think you could... Might you consider turning it down to sixty-eight?”

He couldn’t keep from grinning at her stammering, and the color in her cheeks, and how she appeared charmingly mussed instead of the put-together, sexy-librarian look from yesterday.

“That’s a little cool when you’re trying to build up a sweat during a workout. Some gyms never lower their thermostats below seventy-six.”

“The folks on my side like to be comfortable while sipping coffee and curling up with a good book. It’s hard to enjoy a steamy cappuccino when you’re sweating.”

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