He crossed his arms over his chest, expression dark but removed. He didn’t respond.

Suddenly, everything made sense.

“This was your plan? From the moment you met Fairchild?”

“My gym is in trouble. It was an opportunity.”

For some reason, that stung. “I see.”

“Do you?”

His countenance, although still cloudy, was no longer distant. In fact, his green eyes were burning in a way I recognized. A shiver tickled down my spine.

This one was the good kind.

“Rhys,” I whispered, “how far are you willing to go to save your dad’s gym?” I stepped toward him and placed a tentative hand on his hard chest. His heart was pounding. “Don’t do it. It’s not worth what it’ll cost you.”

Our eyes met and held, a heavy silence falling thick between us. My breathing shallowed as his eyes dipped to my mouth, resting there as he bit out, “What about you? What about what you’re willing to do to impress Fairchild and the people who sniff at his ass? Why the fuck do you care what these people think?”

Confused by the subject change, I moved to step back, lowering my hand, but Rhys caught my wrist and pulled me against him. I uttered a little gasp, one hand falling against his abs while he kept the other imprisoned against his chest.

“Rhys?”

“Why?” he growled.

I didn’t understand why I was the object of his anger. It wasn’t that he was transferring his frustration with Fairchild to me; I realized that Rhys had been visibly annoyed with me almost from the moment we’d arrived. What was more alarming, however, was the current of sexual heat that accompanied that annoyance.

I didn’t understand it.

Rhys kept telling me this was just a job to him.

Yet he was looking at me now like he wanted to devour me.

“Rhys?”

“Why?”

My nerves were stretched taut by this point and my patience snapped. “I don’t care what these people think!”

“Bullshit!”

My chin jerked back at his vehemence. “Not bullshit.”

Rhys’s eyes widened marginally at my cursing.

Defiant, aggravated, turned on, confused, I tried to pull away again, but his other arm wrapped around my waist, imprisoning me against him. “Let go.”

“Why do you care what these people think?”

“I don’t care what they think! I care what my parents think!”

To my utter confusion, Rhys’s beautiful eyes darkened with fury. His grip on me tightened, pulling me up onto my tiptoes, and he bent his head so our noses were almost touching. “You’re fucking thirty years old,” he seethed. “Time to get your head out of your ass and start living for yourself.”

“Oh, you hypocrite—”