"Jimmy, please, don't go there again. Look, this is probably a moot point anyway. Arabella is most likely too wrapped up in her own life to take the time needed to come here and work with us."
"We'll never know unless we ask."
We'll never know echoed in his head. "That's right. And we're not going to know." Grady gestured toward the pool. "Right now, we need to keep Oliver and Jesse from drowning each other. Then I'll fire up the grill and we can sort out the details over dinner. We've still got a lot of beer to drink."
"Sounds like a plan."
"You get those two under control and I'll head to the kitchen for the steaks."
"I'll do my best. But I can't promise anything."
Grady chuckled and then pushed up from the chair. But as he walked into the house, he couldn't keep his mind from drifting back to the old questions and to the only woman who had ever broken his damned heart. What was Arabella like now? Did she ever think of him? Did she have regrets? How could she just walk away without looking back? Hadn't she loved him?
Was she involved with someone?
The last thought made Grady's heart jump, and he opened the fridge with more strength than needed. In truth, Grady and his brothers were all gun-shy when it came to lasting relationships, not that it wasn't damned easy to figure out why. They'd lost their dad in a car crash and their mother to a horrible disease that attacked her own body.
Whoever had come up with the notion that loving and losing was better than not loving at all was full of bullshit.
Loving someone and losing them sucked.
And Grady wasn't about to give anyone that power over him again-especially Arabella York.
CHAPTER TWO
I WANT IT THAT WAY
"Hello, Maxine," Arabella said, bracing herself for where the conversation would likely lead. She gripped the cell phone tighter and swiveled her chair away from her desk.
"Hello, dear, how are we this morning?" Maxine's low, melodic tone did little to soothe Arabella's frayed nerves. "At one with the universe, I hope."
"Well . . ." Arabella inhaled a deep breath. She didn't know what it meant to be "one with the universe," but she was certain that her personal state of the universe was way off-kilter. "Oh definitely," Arabella replied in a breezy tone that failed to match her dark mood.
"Good, good . . . good. Did you read through the notes I sent in my latest email?"
"I did." And Arabella despised nearly every suggestion.
"Ah . . . brilliant . . . brilliant! I do hope we're on the same page," Maxine said, but failed to pause for Arabella to respond. "Hip, Hop, Health needs quite a few changes before I come on board," she continued in her low, singsong voice. Arabella had quickly learned that behind Maxine's Zen-like persona was a total control freak. "Quite. A. Few."
Kiss. My. Ass. If there were any other way to save her dance studios from financial ruin, Arabella would jump at the chance. But right now, financial help from the famous holistic fitness guru remained her only hope of survival. Arabella remained silent, fearful that all she could manage was a feeble moan.
"No offense, but the whole . . . hip-hop thing is just so . . . wrong."
Why didn't people realize that anything that began with no offense was going to be offensive? "Wrong?" Excuse me?
"Completely, I'm afraid."
She counted to ten before responding. "Maxine, with all due respect, my Hip, Hop, Health brand is popular and doing just fine. Because of the success, I simply expanded too quickly and so I'm in need of financial backing along with your endorsement, but not a complete change."
"I can only back what I believe in. Hip-hop is so . . . passé."
"Dancing is and always will be a fun way to stay fit."
"Ah . . . you millennials all think that everything has to be . . . fun."
"It doesn't hurt," Arabella mumbled.
"We need a balanced approach combining the mind, body, and spirit . . . none of this bouncing and hopping all around the studio to loud music. Peace . . . meditation. Eating clean and lean."
///
"We promote a healthy lifestyle at Hip, Hop, Health."
"No . . . no, no." Maxine made a low clucking sound. "Ah . . . we must cleanse . . . deepen our awareness of . . . self."
Arabella was aware that she wanted to hang up, eat dark chocolate, and drink some red wine, the latter two of which were proven to be healthy.
Maxine continued. "I'm thinking we can change the name to Hope, Healing, Health. Brilliant, right? It just came to me. . . . Ah, sometimes I surprise myself. What do you think? Oh, and instead of those wild dance routines, we need to have our students create their own freestyle dances . . . more stretching, swaying . . . chanting, setting the soul free! I'm thinking we need drums, bells. The ideas just keep flowing over me like a waterfall. Are you with me? Can you feel the energy?"