the progress they’d made in their relationship.
He’d walked away, because she’d given him no indication that she needed him.
But she did need him.
With a heavy sigh, she sunk into her chair and faced her family.
If there was ever a chance that this thing between her and Cole could blossom into something more, she’d just completely ruined it.
Chapter Fourteen
Cole ran on the treadmill, music blasting in his ears from his earbuds. He’d had to get out of that restaurant.
He wanted to punch something. To punch until his knuckles were bloody and bruised—a perfect match for his soul.
They had lost. After all the ridicule and torment from her brothers, he couldn’t even deliver a stupid, fucking plastic trophy. It was the reason he’d shown up on this island in the first place. And if he couldn’t do that, what made him think he could make the Boys and Girls Club a success?
It had been easy to agree to keep his fling with Penn under wraps. Whatever her reasons for keeping things a secret, he had his own. But the moment her father had accused him of being a bad influence, something had shifted. He’d realized he might want more than what they’d agreed to.
He had been hoping for a declaration, for some indication that she felt the same way. He was willing to support and defend her to the ends of the earth, but she still didn’t trust him enough to have his back. To fight for him. To fight for herself.
Any hope of a future that might have sparked inside him had been extinguished.
So the moment his phone had beeped in his pocket, he knew he shouldn’t have looked. But he had looked, and the image staring back at him was his worst nightmare. Someone had taken a picture of him and Penn dancing on stage. And it had gone viral. Jack had been the bearer of bad news and sent him the link to the Toronto Gossip site where speculation about a so-called relationship between them was the top story.
And wasn’t that just the cherry on top of this disaster of a vacation.
Fuck!
He didn’t need the media nosing around into his past. He didn’t need anyone trying to make him into something he wasn’t. He was no knight in shining armor. He wasn’t going to sweep Penn off her feet and whisk her away to a happily ever after. This picture would only cause him grief at work and in his private life.
So he’d hit the gym. The only space in the world that gave him peace. Until he’d arrived here and realized that Penn had the same effect as the treadmill. She’d given him peace when he’d least expected it.
When he looked up, a movement in the mirror caught his attention.
He took his earbuds out but didn’t stop running. “I can see you in the reflection, Penn.”
“And here I thought I was being all stealth-ninja.” She walked into the gym slowly, carefully, as if walking across a bed of hot coals, with her concentration fixed on him.
She stopped at the back of the treadmill. Her frown was the heaviest he’d ever seen.
Losing the cup was just another on the list of bad things that had happened in his life. He feared that list was going to keep getting longer.
“You’re upset.” It wasn’t a question.
“So what?” His broody emotions had always been the fuel to their love-hate relationship. The two of them were like oil and water. They just didn’t mix, always in a constant battle for the upper hand.
“Talk to me, Cole,” Penn pleaded.
The pain in her voice caused him to stumble on the machine. With a curse, he yanked the safety clip and jerked forward when the treadmill stopped abruptly. Panting heavily, he hung his head, both hands gripping the bars along the sides while he tried to catch his breath.
“Are you upset we didn’t win the cup?”
He lifted his gaze, but not his head, and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her shoulders were slumped forward, tears threatening to fall.
With a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, she said, “There’s always next year.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. Despite being utterly shattered inside, humor seemed to be the only emotion that didn’t break him open in a chasm of hurt.
Did she think this only had to do with the cup?
He finally turned and faced her, and she backed up a few steps when their eyes met. He didn’t mean to scare her. But in the end,