She pushed through the burning sensation until the last set was finally complete. “Am I done?” she asked, still breathing heavily, although her heart rate had actually slowed since their jog.

“Yes, you can recover now.”

Oh, thank heavens.

She trudged over to a thick patch of green grass beneath a nearby shade tree and collapsed, rolling once again onto her back. The blue sky peeked through the branches above her as the balmy breeze dried the perspiration dotting her hairline. Moisture clung to her neck. She sucked in a deep breath and then released it slowly as her body relaxed, melting into the soft grass. “I’m going to be sore tomorrow.”

“Yep,” Adam said, joining her on the ground beneath the tree. No sympathy in his voice. Just stating a mere fact. “You’ll feel like quitting too. Don’t. Work through the soreness. This is a process, and fitness doesn’t happen overnight. So show up, keep working, and you’ll see results, I promise.”

She smiled. “Speaking of showing up, why did you ask me to come to the park? I thought you’d want to meet at the gym. Isn’t that normally where you train your clients?”

He lifted one shoulder. “You didn’t feel comfortable there, so I felt like you were ill equipped to handle it on your first day. I didn’t want to overwhelm you.”

Her stomach fluttered at his sweetness. “Thank you for considering my comfort level. I appreciate that.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said with a sly smile. “We’ll get back into the gym soon enough. I just figured it wouldn’t hurt to give you a day or two to get used to the way I train before I unleash the fires of hell on you.”

“Big of you,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Fires of hell?

What the heck had she gotten herself into?

*  *  *

Adam had meant to take it easy on Preslee during their first workout, but things hadn’t gone according to plan. Not only because she was much stronger and more capable than he’d thought after witnessing her stair-climbing incident, but because it had been fun as hell annoying her with his whistle.

Besides, he couldn’t make the workout too easy. What kind of trainer would he be if he didn’t push his clients to their limits and show them their true potential? Not a good one, for sure. But he didn’t want to push her too much. Yet.

He hadn’t brought up the viral video again or encouraged her to vlog her first day because he wanted them to get a feel for each other first. She needed to be comfortable with him, and he wanted to see what she could handle. And vlogging would’ve only gotten in the way of that.