He gave her a hard look, hoping she’d pick up on the fact that what she’d just done was completely inappropriate and fucking unacceptable. God damn it!

Her smile went flat, and she lifted a brow, glancing down at her phone again. “Okay then, I’m out of here. I’ll try and catch the interview, but I’ll probably miss it because I have a couple of calls I’ll be on in the next few hours. Text or call me and let me know how it went.”

Felix nodded without saying another word because he seriously felt like cussing. He knew it was impossible to think Ella didn’t know about his reputation, that she hadn’t heard about all the trouble he’d been in and about every girl the tabloids had him hooked up with. But she didn’t need firsthand proof of it. If anything, Ella seemed reasonable. If he ever got as far as having to explain, she might just understand that, while he’d had his share of women, he was nowhere near as bad as the media made him out to be.

He turned to Ella as Adelina walked away, almost afraid to see her expression. She wasn’t even looking in Adelina’s direction. She was lifting the small bandage on the inside of her arm.

“That was my publicist,” he said, feeling a little stupid.

Ella looked up in Adelina’s direction. “Oh,” she said with little to no interest but then added with a subtle but very telling lift of her brow, “She’s very pretty.”

Clenching his jaw, he refused to comment on that, so instead he explained, “I would’ve introduced you, but she was in a hurry.”

She shook her head quickly as if he shouldn’t worry about that and stood. “Thanks for keeping me company,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I gotta get back to my class now.”

Before he could think of a single thing to say, she walked away.

“Fuck!” he practically growled under his breath as soon as she was far enough away he knew she wouldn’t hear.

That wasn’t the end of his frustrations. Sunday she hadn’t even come in. Then the rest of the week he’d only been able to talk to her a few times. He couldn’t ask for her exact schedule. He didn’t want anyone wondering about his interest in her because he hadn’t figured that out himself. He was attracted to her and not just physically. That much he knew. But what he should do about it was the big question.

He had so much going on right now, and as soon as the rematch between him and Grecco was announced, things would be getting even crazier. He wouldn’t dare dream of doing something sleazy and meaningless with her. And sleazy and meaningless would be all he’d have time for now. There’d been a few girls in his life he was attracted to that he’d never consider being with like that. Most were relatives of his good friends, though he’d been known to make an exception or two. The others were just girls he thought too sweet for that or came with warnings like the one he’d already gotten from Abel about Ella. But mostly she fell into the too-sweet-to-mess-with category. Still, the more he was around her, the more impossible it felt to not be drawn to her. Drawn to her in a way he couldn’t even begin to explain. The only thing he knew for sure now was running into her at the gym had quickly become the highlight of his day, and it almost scared him how disappointing it was on the days she didn’t show up. It scared him because the build up to the next time he did see her each time was unreal.

Like Hector had already noticed, Felix was certain it was just a matter of time before Ella picked up on his giddiness from being around her. Aside from the cracks Hector had made at the pizza place, the guy had not only been witness to Felix’s behavior around Ella a few times at the gym and ribbed Felix about it, but he’d also caught Felix staring at her a few other times. Of course, Felix had denied feeling anything for Ella other than just admiration for all she’d done and been through. Felix knew Hector wasn’t buying it, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was if Ella began to notice. He certainly didn’t have a poker face, and he hadn’t exactly tried to hide what she did to him. Felix was almost curious to know what she’d say. The problem was even if she did notice he still had no idea what, if anything, he should do about it.

All he knew was he still didn’t know a whole lot about her, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Chapter 8

Ella

All right, Ella had to finally admit it. The past few weeks she’d been a little absentminded. Carmen was right; she did seem to be walking around lately with her head in a cloud. Ella could admit to herself that maybe, just maybe, being around Felix so much and the way he gazed at her—making her insides go absolutely nuts, yet he was still a complete gentleman—had a lot to do with it. She’d thought him amazing looking from the very beginning, but adding to that how sweet he was when he spoke to her and how deeply he looked into her eyes sometimes, she’d been breathless around him more than once now. It was almost embarrassing, but as far as she knew, she’d managed to play it off every time she’d been around him.

Today she’d totally goofed and had shown up at 5th Street when Carmen and Sonia were scheduled for back-to-back classes. Ella had a couple of hours to spare now. The good thing was that Nellie had approached her with an outline of her ideas for the breast-cancer awareness program. It was several pages long, so it gave Ella something to do to kill time instead of heading back home only to have to come back in a few hours for the class she was actually scheduled for.

She’d been sitting at the juice bar for over an hour, drinking some carrot juice as she read through the pages of the outline very thoroughly. Nellie had some excellent ideas, albeit very ambitious but excellent ideas nonetheless.