Beckett had meant to keep those words to himself. But having the spitfire in his arms was making him careless.
Gianna tried to shrug out of his grasp, but he merely tightened his hold. When he saw the glint in her eyes, he stepped in closer so she couldn’t kick him.
“Talk,” he said.
“Why should I talk to you? Dr. Jekyll Mr. Pierce.” She struggled against him and then stomped her foot. Gianna closed her eyes and took a deep breath and then another one. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I shouldn’t be taking my mood out on you.”
“I came here to apologize to you. Not the other way around.”
“Still, I shouldn’t be venting negativity on anyone.” She paused and frowned up at him. “Even you.”
He thought it wise to contain his laughter. “That’s very kind and mature of you. Now, I’d like to apologize for being a horrible ass the other day at the gym. I was upset and I targeted you unfairly. I’m very sorry for what I said and the way I treated you.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Just like that?” Most of the fight seemed to have left her. But it had been replaced with resignation.
Gianna tried to shrug her shoulders under his hands. “It’s fine. It happens.”
“It’s not fine and it shouldn’t happen. And I want you to know that I’ve felt like crap about it since Monday morning.”
Her lips quirked. “That does make me feel slightly better.”
“I also want you to know,” Beckett said, leaning in slightly to look into her eyes, “that it was completely out of character for me.”
“I know,” she sighed.
“How?” he asked, brushing a curl back from her face and tucking it behind her ear.
“I know you.”
“We just met,” Beckett argued.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t know you,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Are you trying to convince me that you’re not the good, solid, thoughtful man I thought you were?”
Beckett frowned. “No. I just expected that I’d have some proving to do to make you believe me.”
“What does it matter what I think of you?” Gianna asked, tilting her head to the side. The skin of her neck was dotted with tiny beads of sweat. Some joined together to trickle lower, winding their way down her chest to the valley between her breasts.
“I don’t know, but it does,” Beckett told her. He gave in and traced that delicate line from her neck to her shoulder before brushing a finger over her collarbone.
She didn’t stop him, merely watched him curiously.
“I knew something — besides me on an elliptical — must have upset you Monday,” she said, drawing his attention back to her face, her mouth.
“It was my father’s birthday, and, at the time, I thought I was the only one who remembered.”
He saw it then, the rush of compassion in her eyes, the softening of her face. “Oh, Beckett. I’m so sorry. That must have hurt.”
“It was a false assumption that had me remembering how lucky I am to have my family. Now, let’s talk about you. What brings you to the shed today? And don’t think that I’m going to let the irony of the yoga instructor beating the shit out of a punching bag slide by.”
Gianna sighed again. “If I were a camel I’d be covered in straw.”
“An interesting way of saying lots of little things upset you?”
“Leading the witness,” Gianna teased. Her wry smile loosened some of the knots he’d carried in his gut for the past few days.
“I’m a good listener. You can tell me and I won’t judge — because I can’t, I’m just a lawyer. I won’t tell anyone either, because I think this counts as attorney-client privilege.”
She took another deep breath and he thought she might be brushing him off again, but she surprised him by relaxing in his arms.
“I was upset already by a conversation with the kids’ dad this afternoon. And when I brought them home, Aurora announced that So-and-So’s mommy lets her have a cellphone and an iPad and by that logic I’m mean and she hates me because I’m not running out to the store to buy expensive technology for her five-year-old self. Then I get an email from Evan’s teacher who tells me he hasn’t bothered turning in his homework two days in a row. And this is after he’s told me that he finished it in school and that ‘everything at school is going fine.’”
“Monsters,” Beckett said, shaking his head. She rewarded him with a small smile.
“So I put Aurora in time out and gave Evan a homework assignment that he has to do for me before he can start on his school work, which I will now be checking every night. And then I came out here to release my aggression so I don’t maim my children.”
“Do they know they have a heavy bag to thank for a life free of maiming?”
“They think I’m meditating.”
Beckett chuckled. “Do you want to talk about your conversation with your ex?”
Gianna shook her head. “It will all work out. It always does.”
She closed her eyes and took another slow, deep breath. Beckett was so close he could see the freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose.