“You hungry?”

“Yes!” she said so quickly he laughed.

“Okay. Because we need to talk. Let’s grab something to eat first. Would you rather talk at a restaurant or take the food back somewhere more private?”

“Private,” she said again quickly.

He really loved her giddy mood, especially since just last night he thought she might not be speaking to him today. “Your place?”

The twinkle in her eyes waned almost immediately, but she recovered as he’d only ever seen Ella do, so quickly and better than anyone else. “My dad’s there. I’d rather not.”

Felix stared at her for a moment, confused by the sudden switch in moods, but she smiled again, lacing her fingers through his, and squeezed his hand. “That’s fine then; my place it is.” That reminded him of something. “Even better. I have food waiting for me at home.”

She gave him that adorable confused look, another expression he’d never get tired of. “During training, I usually have my meals prepared for me especially on days like today when I know I’ll be gone all day. I got a call on my way here. There’s a fresh meal waiting for me at home, and my mom always makes enough to last me for a few days. You’ll like it, I promise.”

“Your mom prepares your training meals?”

Felix laughed, knowing what she was thinking. “It’s not the fatty Mexican food you’re thinking of. I used to pay someone else to prepare the meals for me. Still do when I’m on the road, but when my mom got wind of how much I was paying, she flipped. So she insisted I give her a list and she’d prepare my food when I was in town. She does a pretty good job.”

“Now I’m curious,” Ella said.

They were off and running. A part of Felix felt excited that he’d have her alone at his place again, and this time he wouldn’t blow it. But then another part of him was even more anxious about the amount of heavy shit he’d be laying on her tonight.

~~~

“This is training food?” Ella asked, looking down mildly amused at the plates Felix placed on the counter.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?”

“That’s a lot.” She laughed as he continued to pile more pasta onto his plate.

“But it’s skinless chicken breast.”

“Four of them on one plate.” She laughed again, pointing at his plate. “And they’re huge. Are these from chickens on steroids?”

“All right,” he said, feigning annoyance but secretly enjoying her good nature. “It’s all protein. I need it to keep the energy up. The training is only gonna get more brutal now. And in case you didn’t notice, there’s a lot of me to keep energized.”

“Oh, I noticed,” she said, chewing her bottom lip.

He kissed her, laughing at her tinged cheeks. They brought their plates out to the patio table where Felix had outdoor heaters on. It was a little chilly out, but next to the heaters you might even work up a sweat.

“So the photos,” he said, getting right to it.

He’d poured her a glass of wine to go with her meal, and she sipped it now, staring at him intently.

“You might’ve heard about the stories revolving around the scandal with Gio and Bianca and all.” She nodded but didn’t comment, and her expression was unreadable, so he went on. “Shelley was someone I’d been with a few times right around the time I started seeing Bianca. I didn’t know that things would progress between Bianca and me the way they did. By the time I realized I was seriously falling for Bianca and for the first time ever looking forward to being in love—being in a real relationship—Shelley informed me she was pregnant. I panicked.”

He waited for a reaction, but there was none. Instead, she twirled her pasta with her fork, took a mouthful of it, and wiped her mouth with her napkin then waited. Clearly, she wasn’t going to interrupt until he told her everything. So he continued. “My former publicist, Andy . . .” He cleared his throat because this was the part he was most ashamed of. “He was a swindler, which in this business can be a good thing, but he went beyond just sweet talking and making killer sales pitches to get endorsement deals. He immediately thought Shelley was just trying to extort money out of me, that she wouldn’t even be having the baby if it weren’t mine. He was able to find some dirt about her family, bad shit that could ruin her dad, who was a well-known pastor in his town. Andy told me to ask her nicely not to have the kid and, if she refused, to tell her about the dirt we had on her dad and threaten to go public with it.”

Finally, there was a reaction. She lifted what he always thought was a cute little brow as she took another sip of her wine. Only now it scared him to death. He knew what she was thinking, the same thing everybody else was when Shelley did the interview and ousted him about the threat. That he was a repulsive, selfish pig.

“I never threatened her with that.”

“I know,” Ella finally spoke up. “I read her interview where she recanted her story.”

It almost made him want to smile that Ella actually sounded and looked annoyed with Shelley, but there was so much more to it, and he was determined to be honest. No matter what. He’d learned his lesson already, and he’d be damned if he fucked this up, not with the way he was already feeling for Ella. This was so much deeper than anything he’d ever felt for Bianca—for anyone.

“I never threatened to blackmail her. That much is true. I did bring up her not going through with the pregnancy, and she was actually considering it. But I was desperate,” he said, his tone forewarning. “The tabloids had gotten wind about Shelley and that I might’ve cheated on Bianca but nothing more. At that point, Shelley still hadn’t decided if she was keeping the baby or not, but with all the other stories flying, I did finally confess to Bianca about having seen Shelley even after I’d begun to see Bianca. She was already beyond pissed about just that. I knew if I clarified by ‘seen’ I meant ‘I’d slept with her and she was pregnant’ we’d be done.”