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“My point is that my schedule is about to get insane, and so is yours when you open this shop in three weeks. When are you going to have time for a new relationship?”

Ugh. He was right.

“You know what, Chadwick?”

He pressed his right hand to his chest as though he was trying to calm his heart rate. Or maybe protect himself from the oncoming onslaught.

“You suck. A lot. And you know what else?”

“Hmm?”

She studied him, noting again the way he seemed afraid to meet her eyes. For all his bluster, swagger and confidence he was actually a vulnerable little boy sometimes, wasn’t he?

She narrowed her eyes, trying to sort out what she saw. “You’re not the big bad playboy you pretend to be. And I’m going to figure out who you really are.”

Mullens watched Athena move about the kitchen as they filmed their second video of the day. The idea was to stockpile footage, have someone edit it, then schedule it all to go live on her channel closer to the cookbook’s release date.

Or maybe she just wanted to get all the videos involving him done and over with so she could return to ignoring and despising him.

Which might not be such a bad idea if she truly was intent on unearthing his secrets.

Part of him wouldn’t mind having a woman share his life—the real stuff—but another part of him wanted nobody anywhere near the pain he’d buried long ago.

That would be a sure way to send a woman running. Even a sweetheart like Athena.

She was working on the second recipe of the day, her moves confident, her energy high. This was her happy place. Maybe even more so now that she’d secured a date with a man who was Mullens’ opposite.

Although she’d let him flirt with her in the first video.

Nibbles. Crossing the line and sucking on her fingers.

The thought made him grin like he’d achieved a lifetime goal.

Athena was tasty.

And she’d felt it, too. That sexual connection between them. The tension. The attraction.

Not that she seemed eager to give in to those feelings. She wanted a boring old professor with a high falutin’ mind, not a millionaire who crashed into other jocks out on the ice.

He should back off. Forget her. Let her go.

Mullens wasn’t anything like what she wanted, from the way he behaved on down to not having a close or loving family.

Athena was literally starting a business with her sister and always texting or calling her parents, whereas he no longer had a sibling, and his parents were long done with him.

It was just him and his fancy cars, and anyone who cared to spend a little time with him.

And yet here he was, looking for an opening to flirt with Athena as if it might lead to them becoming something special to each other.

“Toss in about a tablespoon of oil. Like this,” Athena said, gracefully dropping a dollop of olive oil into a heated wok.

“Why not coconut oil?” Mullens asked, pulling himself back to the here and now. He pushed aside the cooked chicken he’d cubed. “That would taste good with the sweet potato, wouldn’t it?”

She gave him a surprised look.

Crap. He was supposed to be playing up the role she knew—the clueless man who didn’t know the difference between arugula and iceberg lettuce. The guy who thought “the kitchen” was a trendy new bar.

“The smoke point of coconut oil isn’t high enough for the heat we’re using.”

“Your coconuts are smokin’,” he said, dropping his voice to a suggestive register.

“Someone save me,” she muttered under her breath, tossing the vegetables into the wok.

“I know mouth-to-mouth.” He leaned close, aware he was within striking distance.

Athena looked up from her task, her eyes lingering on his lips.

“Imagining what that might be like, Tina?”

“Actually, imagining how many lips have touched yours.” Hers curled in the most adorable way as she went back to abusing the food over high heat, breaking down fibers or some such thing.

His few conquests suddenly felt like less of a badge of honor than they once had.

By the time they were done cooking their stir-fry, Mullens was sweating from keeping up with Athena. He wasn’t bad at food prep, but he wasn’t a ninja like she was. He had a feeling she enjoyed keeping him hopping, asking for ingredients he was still working on.

Coach could learn a few tricks from this woman when it came to getting a player to hustle.

“Man, is it just me, or is it hot in here?” He wiped his brow with the hem of his shirt, not caring if he was showing the world his abs and breaking food prep rules, or whatever Athena would surely find to scold him over.

“It’s just you.” She gave him a sly smile that stunned him.

He literally didn’t know what to say, so turned to the camera and stared blankly at it. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Athena’s shoulders shaking as though she was holding in a laugh.

“You been into the cooking wine again?” he asked.

“Never.” Her expression suddenly grew serious, and he looked around to find the steady, assessing gaze of her sister locked on them.

He checked his watch. Yup. Just about time for Athena to move on to her next job—whipping this building into shape.

Wait, no. Tonight was a family dinner, bringing back memories of his own family, when his sister was still with them.

She’d been a great fan of pancakes, and as a surprise he’d made her a huge feast one night.

It ended up being their last meal with her.

She’d been thrilled, her hands moving a mile a minute as she used sign language between bites, telling him what an awesome brother he was and how much she loved him.

Carrot cake pancakes with whipped cream, sliced bananas and lots of blueberry syrup.

They’d laughed, eaten, and then the next day it had all fallen apart, her being raced to the hospital with a pain in her gut that had been serious enough to take her life.

Their parents had never said what it was exactly, just that her body, as fickle as it had always been, had simply given up its fight against one of her many underlying conditions.

They’d told him it hadn’t been the pancake feast. That it was just poor timing.

But Mullens could only believe that they were trying to spare his feelings.

Meddy was looking at her watch, chewing on her lower lip and jiggling her leg as though she was running late. Athena kept a tighter schedule than Mullens did, and it made him wonder what she was hiding from. Did she keep busy as a tactic to avoid thinking about or feeling something?

A sliver of guilt rippled through his mind that maybe she was avoiding thinking about him and how his attitude encouraged the team to give her a rough time.

If he could go back to the day they’d met in that meeting room, he’d change it all. He would simply walk out and collect himself instead of trying to hold it in. He would be mature and not snap at her over the carrot-and-walnut pancake recipe.

Mullens let out a long, slow breath and shoved his fingers through his hair, trying to ground himself in the here, the now.

Forget the past. Forget the pain. Channel himself in this moment.

Athena waved a forkful of root vegetable stir-fry in front of him. “Try it.”

“What’s with the fork?”

“You prefer chopsticks?” She huffed a laugh when she realized what he meant. “You think I’m a slow learner? There’ll always be a utensil between that mouth and my body from now on.”

“Aw,” he said, trying to play up his faked disappointment. “That’s no fun.”

“Exactly.”

“You don’t enjoy fun?”

“No, I do. It just looks different than your version.”

“So you don’t love hanging out and feeling good with someone?” His body was close enough to brush against hers. She was turning a delightful pink, but stood her ground. Maybe she was afraid to step outside the camera’s view and wreck the footage. Or maybe she liked it right where she was.

“Is that how you define your love life?” she asked. “Hanging out and feeling good with someone?”

He lowered his mouth, taking the forkful of stir-fry. Unsurprisingly, it was delicious.

“You’ve never dated a hockey player before, huh?”

There was a bright flash in her eyes. “Who says I haven’t?”

Was that a challenge? No. It was something else. Truth?

Truth and pain.

His breath caught just above his sternum as his thoughts collided. “Who was he?”

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Lonnie,” Athena’s sister interjected from her spot just offstage, glancing up from her cell phone.

“Meddy!”

“What? He would have just pulled out his phone and looked it up online.”

“Online?” Mullens asked. Lonnie. Hockey player named Lonnie… No. Absolutely not. There was no way.

That crazy forward from New Jersey?

Mullens heard a gasp, realizing it was coming from himself. His whole body felt like it had been lit up from the inside as the truth blossomed, stealing his breath away.

“You’ve dated hockey players!” He slapped his hands on the counter, then turned to the camera. “Guys! Guys ! She dates hockey players !”

Forget boring, stuffy old professors. She needed someone fun.

Maybe a professional athlete. Someone who’d make her light up and laugh.

He wasn’t saying a professor couldn’t do that for her, but he was pretty sure that her looking to date one was simply a knee-jerk reaction from dating Lonnie.

Heck, Mullens would probably go that route himself after a go-around with that yahoo.

He sidled closer to Athena, so close she could barely work without elbowing him. Actually, she did elbow him. Possibly on purpose. But it lacked her usual conviction.

“Wanna go out with me?” he asked, lowering his voice in a way one of his exes had described as sexalicious. “You don’t have to cook, and I’ll only bite if you ask nicely.”

Her face had gone bright red, and she clamped her jaw at an odd angle like she was fighting the urge to scream.

“What? Is that a yes? No? I’ll think about it?”

“She’s having an aneurism,” Meddy said with amusement.

Athena simply shook her head and added liquid coconut oil and chilli powder to the vegetables. She left the wok on high heat for less than a minute, tossing the contents, then pouring them out into a serving dish.

“Can I try?”

She snatched a clean fork from the stainless steel countertop, scooped up a mouthful of steaming veggies and held it out for him to take. She waved it impatiently when he didn’t respond. The food smelled wonderful, but he knew what would make better footage.

He shook his head like a stubborn toddler, crossing his arms. “Only if you make choo-choo sounds.”

She gave a dramatic, full-bodied sigh. “Aren’t you a big boy? Can’t you feed yourself?”

“No.” He angled closer, keeping his mouth closed. It was either this or grab her around the waist and pull her in, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t game for that.

Plus he didn’t especially want to create footage where she was kneeing him in the family jewels. That would surely go viral when the guy working in the editing room thought it would make a funny outtake.

Meddy giggled from behind the camera, and Athena shook her head in exasperation. “Choo, choo!” her sister said encouragingly.

With a dramatic sigh, Athena said in a voice one might use with a baby, “Open up, here comes the veggie train. Choo-choo!”

Mullens couldn’t believe he’d gotten her to do that. In front of the camera, no less. She really was a different person in the kitchen.

Obediently, he opened his mouth, and she dropped in the food. His taste buds exploded with a burst of flavors.

“How does that taste better than when I make it?” he asked in wonder, his mouth still full. At one time his mom would have murdered him for such poor manners. Now he wasn’t even sure if she’d bother to tune in to the show.

Athena laughed, then stopped abruptly, studying him.

Uh-oh.

“More?” he asked hopefully.