Chapter One

Dedication

For every woman struggling with her self-image (so… this book is for most women, unfortunately). May the day come (soon) that we all know that we’re far, far more than a number on a scale or a clothing tag.

 ****

Tessa Mahoney shoved her sweaty hair off her forehead, and squinted at the Stairmaster timer. She’d been on the machine for two-and-a-half hours so far that morning, and had thirty minutes more to go. She buckled down, pushed past the exhaustion and soreness in her legs. Her fat, floppy, flabby legs.

She stared at the wall in front of her, focused on the number ‘109’ in black magic marker. It was written on a piece of plain white paper stuck on the wall, and it was her goal for that week. She weighed two pounds more than that now, but she’d sleep for a bit, and then do another three hours on the Stairmaster before starting her nine p.m. shift at Dangerous Curves that night.

Her stomach growled, and she ignored it. It was almost nine a.m., she’d left the bar at six o’clock, and so far that morning, she’d had just plain yogurt to eat. As usual, she’d have just plain salad after her workout that night before heading into Curves. Dinner at work was optional, in her opinion, but Tessa got the feeling that she’d maybe have to eat something, just to keep Gabriela Torres happy, and off her back.

Gabi… and him.

He came to mind now, full-blown and gorgeous and terrifying. Steel blue eyes, cold and hard. Close-cropped blond hair that he ran his large hands through when he was angry, which seemed to be happening quite a lot lately when she was around. A huge, intimidating, wickedly distracting body, especially those arms and that chest. The man was pure, solid muscle and Tessa knew that first-hand, either fortunately or unfortunately. She’d been held tight in those arms, held close to that chest… and she still felt breathless when she shut her eyes and recalled those few brief moments.

Curtis.

Longing for him rose in her, starting in her stomach and moving up her body. It was like honey, thick and sweet, and it slowed her down, made her relax and made her attention wander. She lost her stepping rhythm, faltered, recovered with a gasp. Damn him. Damn him for being in her head, for crawling under her skin. For making her lose her focus.

Him doing all of that was all the more annoying because the man was – in no uncertain terms – an asshole. Tessa scowled as she remembered him telling her that she was losing weight too quickly, and that she needed to take better care of herself. Like her body was any of his goddamn business. Just who the hell did he think he was, anyway?

But then that memory crept up on her, the one that she’d fought night and day to ignore and forget ever since it had happened four weeks earlier. She struggled with herself mightily and – yet again – she failed to push it down, push it away. Tessa was beginning to suspect that she didn’t manage to do so because, on some level and for some bizarre reason, she didn’t want to ignore it. She also thought that she was equally reluctant to forget it.

She’d been at her boss, Jax Hamill’s, engagement party. His radiant future wife, Sarah Matthews, had just offered Tessa some food, and she’d told Sarah that she’d already eaten. It had been a lie of course: Tessa had barely eaten that day, and she certainly hadn’t touched anything at the party.

Tessa had fled to a far room to pull herself together, and gaze out the windows at the Rocky Mountains. She’d just managed to calm herself down when she’d heard that sexy, rough voice say her name behind her.

She’d jumped, spilled her water all over the place. His blue eyes had stared down at her like an x-ray, hard and deep, not missing a single thing. Curtis had looked her up and down, up and down, and Tessa had just wanted to run screaming from the anger on his gorgeous face.

But that wasn’t what had thrown her. Oh, no, not at all. What had thrown her had been him telling her how happy he was that her boyfriend Kevin Masters had dumped her a few weeks before.

Curtis had actually stood there and told Tessa that Kevin had never loved her for herself, that Kevin had just wanted a hot piece of ass on his arm for his work events… and that that wasn’t her. Curtis told her that she was so much more than just that – and that he wished that she’d see herself as other people did. As he did. God, the look on his face when he’d told her all of this: it was a look she hadn’t thought Curtis could ever show.