“It’s not—” He bit back his retort. She was trying to get under his skin. And of course, now that she’d said it, he couldn’t see the photo any other way. Fuck. “The brand reflects the clientele.”
She just raised her eyebrows in a way that said Whatever you say, asshole and went back to clicking with her mouse.
A few minutes later, Michelle’s phone chirped with an incoming call. When she glanced at the screen, her lips compressed into a thin line. She pressed the side button and it stopped ringing. Then she turned the volume off and placed the phone back on the table screen-down.
“Telemarketer?” Gabe asked.
“Ah, no.” Michelle made a show of looking at her laptop. “It was Ava.”
Gabe narrowed his eyes. “Since when do you ignore Ava?”
When they’d been kids, he’d been Michelle’s best school and neighborhood friend, but Ava and Jasmine had been her best cousins. He couldn’t imagine that had changed.
Michelle’s shoulders hunched. “Um . . . she still doesn’t know you’re here.”
“Really?” That surprised him. “Did you ever tell your cousins about . . .”
“About the day we got high and ripped each other’s clothes off?” Michelle capped her pen with a sharp snap. “Oh yeah. They know about that.”
Gabe shut his eyes. And prayed he didn’t run into Jasmine or Ava while he was here.
Next to him, his own phone buzzed with a text.
Fabian: How’s it going over there?
Fabian added an emoji of peeking eyeballs that managed to be nosy as hell for just a few pixels.
Michelle had popped her headphones back on and wasn’t paying attention to him, so Gabe lifted the phone and snapped a photo of her and her laptop, to prove they were working. But when he looked at the picture, all he could see was how beautifully Michelle’s cleavage was framed by the low V-neck of her Not Today, Satan tank top. If he sent that, Fabian would immediately suspect the truth. Instead, Gabe sent a photo of the half-filled branding worksheet Michelle had given him, and a short reply.
Gabe: We’re working.
Fabian: Have fun! But not too much fun.
And then he followed it with an animated GIF of Robert De Niro pointing at his eyes and then the camera with the caption I’m watching you.
With a weary sigh, Gabe turned back to his laptop. Fabian was right. He had to stay focused on the project. In this place full of memories, it was easy to forget the rest of the world still existed, and he needed to remember that he was here to do a job, not have a sex vacation with his childhood best friend. But despite his determination to keep his eyes on his own screen, Gabe’s gaze kept wandering across the table to Michelle. After a while, he leveled a glare her way. “This isn’t working.”
She blinked up at him. “What’s wrong?”
“You know what.”
Michelle glanced down at her cleavage, impressively displayed by the skimpy top. Her lips curved in a sly grin. “Oh. Am I distracting you?”
“Yes.” He ground out the word through clenched teeth and she laughed.
“Don’t you work in a gym? I’m sure you see sexy people in spandex all the time.”
They’re not you, he thought, but didn’t say it.
Actually, fuck it. What did he have to lose?
“They’re not you.” His voice was gravelly with desire. Shit, she turned him on so quickly.
Michelle gazed at him from under her lashes. “You can’t keep your eyes off me.”
He shot her a look full of exasperation. “Michelle, I’ve been attracted to you since we were fourteen. I’ve never been able to keep my eyes off you.”
Her lips pressed together and she looked down at the laptop. “Maybe you were better at hiding it.”
“Maybe you were better at ignoring it,” he retorted.
She shrugged. “Maybe both. Get back to work.”
Gabe tried. He really did. But the questions were frustrating him, and he had approximately eleven million emails coming through. He didn’t know how much time had passed before Michelle spoke again.
“How do you feel about some rebranding?”
Gabe looked up just as Michelle spun the laptop. Now the screen showed the Agility logo in red instead of blue, with a white star worked into the design. And while the website still retained some of its original blue tones, there were some bright pops of red balanced by green, white, and gold.
“How did you do that?” he asked, surprised by how much better it looked.
“A quick mock-up in Photoshop,” she replied. She tapped the touch pad and the flags of Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Haiti appeared on the screen. “Incorporating the color scheme and design elements of the flags is a subtle way to get the background of the owners into the branding.”
Gabe nodded. “Makes sense.”
She tapped the touch pad again and the picture from the “About” page appeared in a collage with some screenshots from Agility’s Instagram account.
“You two are also trainers, right?” she asked.
“I’m a physical therapist and Fabian studied sports medicine and business. But yeah, we’re also trainers.”
“Let’s show you both in action. Working with clients. Helping them achieve their best bodies and selves. Not posed and looking at the camera, but in the moment, doing what you do best. Which is not, I’m sad to say, modeling.”
“Hey, I did a little fitness modeling back in the day.”
“I believe it. You have a fantastic body. But this, Gabe, is your moneymaker.” She reached across the table with the pen and dug it gently into his cheek, where his dimple would be. “You’re not even smiling in this picture.”
He glanced at the photo of him and Fabian on Michelle’s screen. He’d felt so uncomfortable during that photo shoot, from the way they’d styled his hair to the tight outfits to the awkward poses.
And she was right. Gabe had been working his dimples since he was a teenager. Senior year, he’d taken a second job as a valet for an Italian restaurant. Most of the other guys had adopted a bored, lazy air, but Gabe had smiled at every single person who pulled into the lot. He asked about their day when they arrived, and when they left, he asked if they’d enjoyed the meal. Those tips had contributed to his “Get Out of the Bronx” savings fund.
The annoying thing was, it was something he’d learned from his dad. “A smile is your best customer service skill,” Esteban Aguilar used to say, and Gabe had spent years watching his father charm customers into buying more than they’d planned on when they walked in.
Too bad Esteban used up all that good humor at work. By the time he’d gotten home every night, he’d been tired and unapproachable.
“They told us not to smile,” Gabe said, gesturing at the picture.
Michelle shook her head. “They were wrong.”
If Gabe had previously harbored any doubt that Michelle was the right person for this job, it vanished in that moment. Hiding a grin, he went back to clearing out his inbox.
ANOTHER FIFTEEN EMAILS appeared and Gabe closed the browser tab. He couldn’t concentrate like this—sitting in the Amato house across from Michelle and her low-cut shirt, inundated by admin work. He usually got in a workout first thing in the morning, and while sex counted, he still had too much pent-up energy to sit here answering branding questions and vendor emails.