As his mouth inched towards mine and his breath blew across my lips, I jerked my knee up towards his groin. Obviously predicting my strike, he jumped backwards, laughing to himself as he avoided my blow.

“You’re right, a freezing cold lake is much more romantic,” he agreed, still chuckling to himself. My breathing started to slow down, my heart rate returned to normal now that he was further away from me.

“You’re an idiot,” I muttered, taking his towel off my shoulders and throwing it at him. He grinned and caught it effortlessly, rubbing his hair with it, making it stick out at all angles while I pulled on my clothes over the top of my damp swimsuit.

“You ready to go?” he asked finally, picking up his folded clothes and the bag containing empty wrappers from all of the food he’d consumed.

“Yep,” I confirmed, climbing into the boat.

He rowed on the way back and I closed my eyes, leaning my head back, enjoying the last of the sunshine. I’d had a nice day. I hadn’t thought that for a long time.

Chapter Six

As we stepped in through the front door, Sarah looked up from her dusting task, and a large, predatory smile crept onto her face. Ashton sighed next to me but smiled back. When she set down her duster and sauntered towards him, swaying her hips, something settled in the pit of my stomach, something unfamiliar and unwelcome. My eyebrows knitted together when I realised that it was actually a slightly jealous feeling. The feeling actually scared me because in spending the day with him and getting to know him a little, I realised that I actually enjoyed his company. That was the worst thing that could happen to me. I didn’t want to spend time with people, grow to like them and let them into my life, only to have them march right out again and leave me. For the last few years, since Jack had died, I’d deliberately alienated myself so that wouldn’t happen. I couldn’t get hurt again, so this was like a pre-emptive strike before they abandoned me.

Clenching my jaw, I shook my head at myself and forced the jealous feeling away. There was no way in hell I was letting myself get jealous over a bodyguard; Sarah was welcome to him.

Needing to distract myself from the fact that I’d almost done the unthinkable and made a friend, I decided to go to the gym for a while. “See you later,” I muttered, stalking off to my bedroom as Sarah twirled a lock of her hair around her finger and looked at Ashton through her eyelashes. After changing into workout clothes, I marched downstairs and into the gym. Not bothering to stretch beforehand, I stepped onto the treadmill and turned it on slowly while I put on my iPod and cranked it up as high as I could stand.

My run started out at a gentle jog but, as usual, quickly changed into something else entirely. Running was my thing. Running made my body ache and gave me something to focus on when I was struggling to keep myself sane everyday. I gritted my teeth as my legs burned from the effort of running at a flat out sprint for over twenty minutes. I was going to have to stop soon.

Wanting to enjoy thinking about nothing other than the physical pain for a few minutes more, I cranked up the speed even faster. I was running so fast that I could barely keep up. I could only run for another couple of minutes before I started to get a little light-headed and my hands started to tingle, so I slowed it down until I could stop.

As soon as I stopped, my legs refused to support me any longer. I slumped to the floor gasping for breath as I put my head between my knees, listening to the lyrics of the Usher song I had blasting through my iPod. When the tingles had subsided from my fingers and I no longer wanted to vomit, I flopped back onto my back and closed my eyes.

Suddenly my earphones were pulled from my ears. Shocked because I hadn’t realised someone else was here, I opened my eyes to see Ashton standing over me, frowning. “Why do you do that to yourself? Shit, Anna, I watched you run as fast as you could for fifteen minutes and you were already sprinting when I came in!” he cried incredulously.

I gritted my teeth, ignoring his obvious agitation, and pushed myself up to sitting. “Whatever,” I dismissed. “Want to show me how you keep blocking my hits all the time?”

“You want me to fight you?” he asked, raising one eyebrow in disbelief.

“I don’t want you to hit me if that’s what you’re thinking, but I actually thought I was pretty good at self-defence until I met you,” I admitted.

He shook his head. “Anna, I think you need to rest, surely you’ve done enough for today,” he countered, his expression turning hard.

I stood up; my legs wobbled and threatened to give out on me. “Ashton, this is my routine, usually it’s a morning routine but I had somewhere to be this morning, so I’m doing it now instead. I always run then have a few minutes with the punch bag. If you want to help me then great, if you don’t then just get out and stop interrupting me before I cool down,” I growled as I pushed past him, grabbing the training gloves from the side and putting them on. I then proceeded to punch and kick the stuffing out of the punch bag.

He sighed. “I’ll show you a few things if you want. But you need to stop this. This isn’t good for you, you shouldn’t train like this. It’s crazy,” he replied sharply.

I huffed and turned around to face him. He wasn’t dressed for training; he was still wearing the jeans and T-shirt he’d worn to the lake. He took off his shoes and socks, and then his T-shirt and belt so he was just wearing his jeans.

He looked at me cockily. “Take your shoes off then, we’re only practicing, I don’t wanna get hurt.”