I've been on the exercise bike for almost 10 minutes when my spidey senses go on alert. I speak in a low voice to Martina.

"I think that guy over there is watching me." I gesture with my eyes to a guy with light brown wavy hair who is working out with free weights over by the mirrored wall on the other side.

Instead of looking concerned, Martina actually chokes back a laugh.

"Hadley. That's one of three guys who have been checking us out since we got here. Me too, but mostly you."

"Why mostly me?"

"Because I've been coming here for awhile. You're the new girl."

I'm dubious. "I guess."

My experiences with the FBI agent, and woman in the club in New York, and my dealings with organized crime have made me suspicious of anyone who looks at me twice.

Martina lowers her voice. "See the guy on the rowing machine? The one with the red t-shirt?"

I glance over, careful not to appear like I'm looking at him.

"Yeah? Is he suspicious?"

"No, Hadley, but he's definitely been checking you out, too." She pauses. "He's a CPA with one of those big accounting firms. I went out with him a few times a couple months ago, but it just kind of fizzled out. No zing."

I breathe a little easier. But I'm still careful. Like the old saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

Martina looks me over. I'm wearing one of those cute, overpriced yoga outfits she encouraged me to buy when we did that first shopping trip together. And, admittedly, fit in perfectly with the crowd at the gym in the fancy condo building I was staying at before.

"You look hot," she tells me. "You know, maybe you ought to go out with one of these guys. I'm sure it won't take long for one of them to approach you. Once you take down that invisible force field you're been keeping between yourself and every guy who looks like he might be thinking about talking to you."

I pedal faster.

"It's too soon," I say.

"Suit yourself. But if Max didn't wait, why should you?"

It's something to think about. Maybe when the deal I've been working on for the art gallery is done. The problem right now is that every time I see him, I can't imagine being with anyone else.

"I know. It's hard," Martina says, and I realize with a start that I must have said that last part out loud.

After we finish our workout, we walk over to the juice bar and sit on stools at the long curved counter that encourages patrons to interact with each other.

"Do you think he did it on purpose?" Martina asks me.

"What? Who?"

"Max. Maybe he wanted you to see him with that woman. Maybe he thinks the breakup is easier if you hate him."

I shake my head. "No. He had no way of knowing I'd show up at his apartment."

She considers. "Yeah, but he insisted you come to the event at the gallery, right?"

I nod.

"So, if he didn't want you to know about her, it doesn't make sense that he invited her to the same event."

She has a point. But still. "I just don't see him being that devious. Why not just tell me he was seeing someone?"

"I'll see what I can find out from Gabe."

I stare into the strawberry smoothie I've suddenly lost my taste for.

"No. I think it's better to just leave it alone."

* * *

I'm still thinking about our conversation later that morning at my desk when I should be focusing on a motion I have to get filed tomorrow. I finished the adjustments to the contracts that we discussed with Malcolm yesterday. It's around 10:30 and I'm hoping to get some work done for tomorrow's deadline before I have to be at the gallery at 2:00. I just have to put our conversation at the juice bar out of my head.

Max has never been cruel, at least not to me. The suggestion that he would set the stage for me to find out about him seeing another woman rather than tell me directly just doesn't make sense.

So why do I keep thinking about it?

Martina sticks her head in my office.

"Hey, I have Max on the phone. Should I transfer him?"

I make a face. "Sure."

I'll already be seeing him in person at 2:00. What couldn't wait that long?

I pick up the phone. "Hello Max."

His voice is curt. "Don't hello Max me. Where are you? You were supposed to be here almost 30 minutes ago."

"What?" I sit upright in my chair. "Our meeting's at 2:00."

"I texted you the change in plans two hours ago, Hadley? Don't you check your messages?"

Oops. I remember now that when you block a person on your iPhone they don't get any kind of message that they've been blocked. So Max doesn't know.

"And by the way, I'm done with you not responding to my text messages. Stop being so childish."

My temper flashes and the words just burst out on their own.

"Childish? You've got your nerve calling me childish when you set me up to shove your new girlfriend in my face." I lower my voice, remembering that I am, in fact, in the office when I see Martina discreetly shut my door. "The least you could have done is tell me you were seeing someone new."

"Set you - Hadley, whatever you think about what happened on Friday night, that's no excuse for not answering my text messages, and not showing up on time for a meeting. This is business. And the sooner we complete the business, the sooner you won't have to see me at all anymore."

"I didn't see your text message, Max, because I blocked you Friday night."

Absolute silence. If silence has a temperature, then this one is well below freezing.

It stretches out until I wonder if maybe the call disconnected.

"Max?"

I've never heard his voice this cold, this angry.

"I'm on my way, and you better be downstairs in the courtyard in front of your office building when I get there."

I hang up the office phone and shove my file and my laptop into my fancy tote, grab my purse and head out to Martina's desk, trying to maintain my composure. The last thing I want is for an angry Max to show up at the law firm office.

"The meeting got pushed up," I tell her. "I'm not sure what time I'll get back."

I can't look at the sympathy in her eyes after hearing my outburst, so I turn quickly and head down the hall toward the elevators.

I cross the courtyard and am waiting at the curb just moments before Max pulls up. He must have either already been driving nearby, or he broke every speed record getting here.

He's in the same expensive sports car he picked me up in for a date after work when my grandfather saw us together, which seems like a lifetime ago now.

He reaches across the passenger seat and pushes the door open.

"Get in."

I do, and my legs are trembling.

Max's face is carved in stone, his eyes the color I've only seen a few times when he was really angry.

He pulls away from the curb, merges into traffic, and then makes a turn onto the highway that hugs the coastline.

"This isn't the way to the gallery," I say in a small voice.

Max ignores me.

I shift in my seat, turn my head to look out the window.

It's so much worse to just sit here in his car in silence while he speeds up the coastline, wondering what he's going to say, what he's going to do.

Finally he pulls into one of those little areas where you can sit in your car and look out over the water. At this time of day, it's pretty much deserted.

He shuts off the engine.

"Unlock your phone and hand it to me."

I hand it over and he goes to the settings and unblocks himself, then hands it back.

"You're lucky we're not in the back of my limo right now," he says, his voice sharp as a dagger. "If we were, I'd be spanking some sense into you."

It's pathetic how even now, after what's happened, his words arouse me. But I'd never admit it.

"You don't have the right to do stuff like that anymore. Remember how you told me I could always say no? Well, I'm saying no right now. I don't want your hands on me." Not the hands that were on her. Those words hover on my lips.

"Is that so?" Max asks, in that same icy calm voice.

Then he reaches over and just pulls me to him, so I'm leaning against the console, twisting so that our faces are close together.

"Go ahead, Hadley," he says in that infuriatingly calm voice, "say no to this." Then his mouth is on mine, hot and desperate, with none of the cold that's been in his voice, in his eyes. And I'm kissing him with the same feeling of desperation.

Max eases back slightly, tips my chin up with his hand so I'm looking directly into his eyes. "Go ahead," he challenges me. "Tell me to stop right now. You know I will."

"I hate you so much, Max," I tell him, then my hands are in his hair and I'm pulling his head closer, putting my lips on his and kissing him with every pent up emotion in me, willing everything that's been going on in my life to just disappear.

When his hand slides under my blouse, reaching for my breast, I suddenly come to my senses. My entire body freezes, and Max slowly disentangles us. I sink back into the leather bucket seat and just stare ahead, clasping my hands together nervously, trying to catch my breath.

He puts his hand over mine, then runs his thumb over my wrist along the edge of the bracelet.

"You're still wearing it."

I look over at him. "Maybe I'm afraid not to."

I don't specify whether it's fear of what Max's reaction would be if I stopped wearing it, or fear of walking around Miami without that tangible symbol on my wrist that I am under his protection. To most people it would just be a lovely heirloom bracelet. But I've already seen the reaction it sparked from not just Gino, but even my own grandmother.

"Hadley."

He looks at me like he doesn't know what to do with me, which is fine, because I don't know what to do with myself either.

Then his voice hardens, that edge comes back into it.

"What the hell were you thinking, blocking me? Do you realize how dangerous that was? That if something went wrong, I'd have no way to reach you? To protect you?"

I answer his question with one of my own.

"Who's Angelica, and what is she to you, Max?"