I found him behind the front desk flirting with a pretty, young, red-haired employee. They were laughing about something when he looked up and saw me coming through the front doors.
“Where’ve you been?” Luke stepped out from behind the front desk, clasped my hand, and pulled me in for a shoulder-bump. He clapped my back hard enough for the sound to echo around the lobby, which was made of cool concrete and bare walls. “A little birdie told me you brought a beautiful woman to my parents’ restaurant last week. What was that about?”
“Does this little birdie happen to be your mother?”
“Perhaps.” Luke steered me around the desk and flashed a dashing smile at the redhead, who giggled before returning to her work. He led me past the cardio room straight to the free weights, where he knew I always liked to warm up. Without asking, he fetched my dumbbells from the rack and adjusted my bench. “My dad said she was charming and made you laugh a lot. I told him he must have been imagining things because laughing isn’t one of your go-to pick-up moves.”
“Maybe I have better moves now.”
“Just tell me she wasn’t one of your models.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“So she is?” Luke folded his arms and watched as I began pumping a light warm-up set. “Man, I thought we talked about how you were going to keep your hands to yourself throughout this whole Naughty Cupid thing? It’s hardly been two weeks and you’re already breaking your own rules.”
“What else is new?”
“Garrett is going to have your head.”
“Fuck Garrett.”
Luke shrugged one shoulder in silent agreement. “What’s her name?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m asking.”
“It doesn’t matter what her name is.” I sat up and let the weights rest on the mat at my feet before shaking out my arms to get the blood flowing. I rolled my shoulders and neck, enjoying the subtle burn as my muscles woke up. “We’re colleagues, nothing more.”
“Bullshit.”
It was my turn to give a nonchalant shrug.
Luke sighed and traded in my light weights for heavier ones. “Does it bother Jennika?”
“What?”
“You seeing one of the other models at her company. Isn’t it kind of weird for her?”
“I doubt it.” I started pumping the heavier weights, and after my first set, it became impossible to talk during the workout. Once I set the weights down after I finished my sets, I stood and cracked my back. “Jennika and I are friends, that’s all. And I’m not seeing one of the models. I’m sticking to my plan, keeping my hands to myself, and finishing the campaign. Then everything will go back to normal.”
“Right.”
We moved on to another workout, and I explained to Luke that I was too busy to be properly entertaining any women. All the while, memories of last night in the jacuzzi flickered in the back of my mind, but I held those memories close. “I have commitments for the next few weeks getting ready for this fucking Valentine’s Day Cupid Fashion Show. Tonight, for example, I have to go to a competitor’s show.”
“Why?”
“Rebranding,” I said, tapping the side of my nose. “Thornton Enterprises is still cast in my father’s shadow. I don’t want to be seen as his son. I want to be seen as the new CEO who believes there is room at the top for others. That’s why I accepted the invitation in the first place. Garrett thinks it’s a bad idea, and it’s the kind of thing my father never would have gone to. Hell, he might have intentionally tried to sabotage it if he saw a threat there.”
Luke kept a close eye on my form as he forced me to do heavy weight on a leg press machine until sweat beaded on my forehead. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing a good job.”
My knees almost buckled.
Luke bullied me into pushing hard. “Don’t be a fucking weakling, Storm. Get it fucking done. There you go. Almost there. One more!”
When I finished, I hung my head back and glared at him out of the corner of my eye.
He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “I knew you had one more in you.”
“You’re always trying to murder me.”
“And yet you keep coming back. You’re a sucker for a bruising. Always have been. That’s why you kept picking all those fights with me when we were kids.”
I stumbled off the press machine. “It was either you I was fighting or my old man.”
“You were a loser either way.” Luke snickered.
Fact.
He threw an arm around my shoulders and steered me to a cable cross machine, which he began fiddling with, changing the handle attachment from a bar to a rope. “I meant what I said, by the way. I think you’re doing a good job. If your dad were still alive, he’d be thinking it, even if he was too much of an arrogant prick to say it out loud.”
“Thanks, man.”
“That doesn’t mean there isn’t still ample time left for you to fuck it up.” Luke pressed the rope into my hands. “Anytime you need someone to check you, you know where to find me. And Storm? Whoever this girl is, however serious it is, if she really does make you laugh the way my dad says she did, maybe she is worth throwing caution to the wind.”
I tried to hide my grin.
Luke saw right through me. “Just tell me her fucking name, man.”
Tightening my grip on the rope, I let my guard down. “Her name is Laila.”
CHAPTER 20
LAILA
I got home from my morning and afternoon of pampering at the hotel around four o’clock, which gave me approximately three hours to get ready for tonight’s fashion show. I could hardly contain my excitement. Usually when it came to shows, I was backstage and full of nerves while I underwent hair and makeup. I never got to experience it from the perspective of someone in the audience, and Storm had managed to score us front-row seats to the event. Being able to sit front row and cheer on the up-and-coming models would be such a blast, and I was so grateful I’d have Storm by my side.
The designer for the show was a new name on the scene making big waves. Her name was Ellice Knight, and she and her husband had started designing plus-size lingerie and loungewear after she had her first baby and struggled with her changing body. Her husband, Drew, who grew up in a family of girls and helped them make their dance costumes every year, turned to his trusty sewing machine and made pieces for his wife that he thought would make her feel as magnificent as he thought she was.
A few years later, here they were making a name for themselves in an industry that was damn near impossible to break into.
I loved that Storm had accepted their invitation to the event and wanted to support his competition. That was something that had definitely been lacking and I was keen to see him put action behind his words. He’d stunned me with his respectful chivalry last night. Who knew what was in store for tonight?
I took my time getting ready for the evening and waited for Lexi to arrive, who’d also been given a ticket to the show. At first she hadn’t seemed all that eager to come with Storm and me, and I’d offered her another ticket to bring someone along with her, but she hadn’t had anyone to invite. So we were going as a trio.