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Mia’s words haunt me for days.

Every time I shut my eyes, memories flash through my mind. Good memories, great even. Only…now they’re tainted with the truth I’ve learned. She regrets everything. She wishes it never happened. And I don’t know what to do with that information.

Sure, she’s not the first one to say those words to me.

I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, leaned a little too heavily into the playboy reputation swimming and media branded me with.

I’ve had women scream at me in public, drinks thrown in my face, and unfortunately, even received a slap or two.

They were all well-deserved reactions, but still.

None of those reactions mattered, though.

They were reminders of what I was doing to myself, and of how I was filling my life with things I’d regret.

Ultimately, they were fleeting moments in my life.

Moments I wouldn’t dwell on too long. I thought I would finally let go of them once the world seemed to understand I’d grown up.

Except that never happened. I was never given the chance to be honest about who I am with anyone. Except Mia.

And that’s why it hurt so badly. Because this one—this one matters.

For the first time in years, I had tried to build something with someone. I was dedicated to learning everything I possibly could about Mia Sheridan. To make her feel seen and heard. I wanted to get to know her on a level deeper than just the mutual attraction already there.

There has been something about her from the moment I caught her in my arms in Charlotte.

I slipped into the reputation I was known for with ease, but Mia never bought into it.

No matter how flustered I made her—no matter how hard Josie was trying not to freak out—she just pulled herself together.

She wasn’t flustered for a minute; she went right to business and introduced them as the owners of Adair Swimming , the blog this club is named after.

Even when I surprised her, she never broke her composure.

It was one of the first things I learned to admire about Mia.

I was hesitant to push for anything more with Mia.

I knew back then what I did to women, and I didn’t want to put her through the same heartache.

She deserved someone better—still does. When she pulled herself into my lap that night, every warning bell was blaring in my head, telling me to run before I fucked up one of the few good things in my life.

But then I set my hands on her hips, and she was leaning in until our lips were barely touching.

She brushed her long, silky dark hair to the side as she asked me to kiss her.

I was unable to resist.

I checked in so many times. She was the one who kept pulling me back in for more.

More I was happy to give, but the fear was there.

The very real possibility I would hurt this woman.

We should have talked about it more that morning, but she was gone early.

Woke me up long enough to let me walk her back to her room, hoping Josie wouldn’t be too worried .

I kissed her goodbye at that door and held onto the fleeting feeling of almost for a whole year. A year I spent building something real. I thought we were doing it together, but I was very, very wrong.

When we met in Indianapolis the following summer, everything felt great.

I had plans to see if she wanted to be something more, take it to an official level, and then it all came to a screeching halt.

She went from being this bright light in my life to nothing but a cold shoulder. She wouldn’t even look at me.

When I’d asked Josie if she knew what was going on, the way she joked about the reputation I had back then cut me deep.

I’d put on a brave face, met her joke with one of my own, but I watched the way her smile faltered—she saw right through me.

I spent weeks combing through messages, replaying every moment over, trying to figure out where I screwed it up; because it had to be something I did.

After a week’s worth of text messages went unanswered, I finally took the hint and let her go.

Now she’s throwing everything back in my face—proving my worst fear. Proving that it never meant anything to her.

When Bryce and Carter originally approached me about this position, I was hesitant because they mentioned Mia doing their media.

It had nothing to do with me not wanting to see her.

Over the last few years, whenever I let my mind wander, it always found her.

Of course, I wanted to see her and what her life was like, but I respected her too much to force her to confront me and our past. It took a lot of convincing from the two Olympians and a quick glance at Mia in Paris for my resolve to crumble.

Whatever second chance I was hoping for clearly isn’t on the table.

And that’s fine, because we’re two different people now. Who knows, we might not even be compatible anymore .

If I could only believe my own lie.

Mia lets out a small shriek of surprise when she rounds the corner to head outside. I somehow manage to stop the two of us from colliding and quickly drop my hands from her shoulders when she shoots me a glare. She mutters out her thanks before shoving past me.

“What the hell happened between you two now?” The whine in Bryce’s voice has me turning toward him, eyebrow arched. “You were fine. Sure, you didn’t get along, but I didn’t have to worry about you becoming an HR nightmare!”

I cock my head. “Do we even have HR?”

He sets the stack of papers he was holding on the desk and leans against it. “Listen here, asshole. I am HR. I don’t want to deal with a nightmare. Please don’t make me.”

The mental image of Bryce trying to recreate something that looks remotely like a human resources department is laughable to me.

He’s never been the type of person who will use buzz words or tiptoe around a problem in the guise of keeping things professional.

He’d much rather tell it like it is. Which is one of the things I’ve always admired about him.

Especially when he used that specific talent to have my back and pushed me to keep fighting after the accident. But that’s not something I should allow myself to dive into too much. Not when there are other things that need to be done.

“I promise you won’t have to fire either one of us for unprofessional conduct.” He doesn’t look convinced. “Don’t give me that look, man! I warned you this would happen. ”

He moves around the desk, wagging a finger at me. “No, you told me that the two of you wouldn’t get along. Which is fine. We decided we could work around that. What you failed to mention was something could happen between you two that makes it worse. What happened?”

As if he’s the only one who wants to know the answer to that question. “I don’t know, man. We just talked.”

His eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “You just talked ? What the hell? Is that a euphemism for old people or something?”

I glower at him. “I’m only three years older than you, asshole. And it’s not a euphemism for anything. We literally just talked.”

“Then you need to not do that again,” he decides with a nod. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “And how is that going to work?”

“I don’t know!” He throws his hands up. “Carter and I can be your carrier pigeons or some shit.” He pokes me in the chest—actually pokes me.

I fight to keep the laugh back when I see the seriousness in his gaze.

“I have a delicate balance here, O’Brien, and I will not have the two of you messing it up! Got it?”

With one last poke to my chest, Bryce is turning to walk away from me, and I can’t help but push his buttons a little more. “All right, we won’t talk anymore. But are you going to give her the same lecture you gave me?”

He turns around. “No way in hell. She scares me.”

I can no longer hold in the laugh, which only seems to irritate him more since he storms off with a scowl.

From the very first moment he saw her, Bryce has always been a little afraid of Mia.

And it’s not him being dramatic. She’s fiercely protective of her best friend, and Bryce was someone who didn’t always treat Josie right. Of course, he was on her shit list .

But in the short few weeks I’ve been here, I’ve witnessed the shift in their dynamic.

She knows Bryce loves Josie more than anything and will do whatever he can to keep her happy.

She’s stepped back a little, loosened the protective shield she’s always had on the younger woman, and trusts Bryce to pick up the slack.

Hell, I’d even say a friendship between the two of them has been coming together.

He’s lucky; he has Josie to help soften Mia’s ire, whereas I am doomed to face it for the rest of our lives.

Over the next few days, I manage to listen to Bryce’s demands.

It helps that Mia seems to be going out of her way to avoid me whenever we have to be at work at the same time.

Usually, she’s shut in her and Josie’s office or, when she needs marketing material, she’ll turn around, and leave whenever she has the chance.

Which is about to become harder, though, because Bryce has officially cleared me to take over the coaching of the high school team.

The team is made up of a number of kids from around the city who either don’t have access to a swim team through their school, the team they’re on isn’t serious enough to help them with their goals, or their parents are determined to have their kid coached by an Olympian.

Those kids are the ones I tend to check in on the most, not wanting to see their parents follow the same path mine did.