The Art of Forgiving a Greek Billionaire by Marian Tee Page B

into someone who seemed to have been born to move in the shadows – and a man who could make a woman cry in the dark for the most sensual reasons.
    She said hastily, “You know what? I think I’m good, after all. I’m going to move again—” She tried to get moving, but her body protested and she fell back to the floor. “—in a minute.”  
    He stood up from his seat and nudged her bare leg twice with his foot until she was forced to turn over on her stomach. In an implacable voice, he said, “NOW.”
    With a groan, Mairi forced her limbs to work, pushing herself up with a groan.
    Arms stretched out, palms down, she slowly lowered herself down until her body was an inch from the floor. “One.” She raised herself up again, and her muscles protested anew at the effort she exerted. She lowered herself. “Two.”  
    “Good. Eighteen more to go.”
    Without stopping her push-ups, Mairi said, “Shut up.”
    Since Mairi wasn’t looking up at him, Drake allowed himself a slight smile. A week ago, the young woman on the floor had been lackluster, a fake bright smile never leaving her lips. Her dark eyes had been just as bright, telling him that she would rather commit suicide than shed another tear.
    Mairi had not argued when her aunts came to visit and told her that Drake would be living with her as her “life coach”. When her aunts left, she had been very polite to him the way only someone lost in misery could be.   But that had only lasted for a few hours since the next day, Drake had forced Mairi out of bed before dawn and gotten her into Day 1 of her training.
    Looking back at Mairi, Drake noticed that she was slowing down. “If you don’t finish the rest of your push-ups in thirty seconds, you’ll do twenty more.”
    “ARE YOU SERIOUS?”
    A scream.  
    She was really moving on.
    “Twenty-eight seconds and counting, Mairi.”
    Shit, Mairi thought, but she didn’t bother arguing anymore. She completed her push-ups in the nick of time and dropped herself back to the floor, gasping in exhaustion. “I hate you.”
    “No, you don’t.”
    “I do. I’m just too tired to prove it.”
    Drake crouched down so she could see him smirk at her. “No. You don’t.”
    This close, it was impossible to ignore how handsome Drake was. The way he smirked was also intensely appealing, almost sexual, and she hastily looked away. It was stupid to feel like she was betraying someone every time her heart skipped a beat for another man. Stupid but inevitable, like her heart could only belong to just one person – and it was not even Mairi who owned her own heart.
    She could feel Drake’s gaze on hers and she tried to ignore the way it lingered on parts of her body that he really wasn’t supposed to stare at. God, sometimes the way he looked at her made Mairi feel like she was naked when it was usually the opposite, like now, with Mairi covered from head to toe in sweats.
    Her whole life, she had been basking in the sun in Florida. For the better part of the year, she had been under the Mediterranean sun in Greece. Both experiences had left her ill-prepared to handle the sub-zero temperatures of a New England winter.
    “Are you really sure you understand what you’re here for?” she asked in a deliberately light tone, needing a little banter to clear her head. Drake Morrison was still staring at her in a way that made Mairi want to question her aunts for sending him to her.  
    When Drake didn’t answer, she continued, “Damen Leventis is a threat to my heart . Not my life.” She had to pause after that. It never failed to surprise Mairi – never failed to relieve her that saying his name was getting easier and easier. The pain wasn’t completely gone. She didn’t think it would ever leave. But at least she was coping.
    She finally turned her head to meet Drake’s gaze so she could glower at him. “You’re training me like I have to be the next Lara Croft or something.”  
    In many ways, it was the same ,