Page 38 of Strictly Against Policy

I scoffed, tearing my eyes from the back of her head. “Why would I do that?”

Andy shrugged as we watched Anthony finish his set. “You two seemed friendly just last week.”

“Friendly?” I asked sharply. “We’re not friendly.”

After helping Lina move, things had seemingly returned to normal between the two of us. I admit I hadn’t pushed her buttons as much, and the pharmacy became quieter this past week. But we weren’t friends.

Andy raised a dark-brown eyebrow at me. “Then why did we help her move?”

I shrugged stiffly. Andy’s eyes instantly flickered to my shoulders to look at her. I held back revealing anything too personal about Lina’s life. “She needed help. And I offered.”

My brother-in-law laughed out loud, and through the mirror I watched Lina stumble out of the corner of my eyes. She quickly glanced over, saw him, and whipped her head in the other direction. The skin on the back of her neck flushed into this ruddy color. I sucked in a sharp breath through my tightly clenched teeth as irritation burned across my chest.

I glanced at Andy as he watched his brother finish another set of Romanian deadlifts. Although we always joked about how I was the favorite child between my mom and his parents, the truth was that the twins were always the favorites. They were everyone’s favorites. If not both of them, then it was almost always Andy.

Everyone loved Andrew N. Hughes. Lina was no different. He still made her stumble over her words and feet, and she blushed like a teen around him. Even now.

A fiery breath escaped my chest as I turned on my heels. The drumming of my heart synced to each of my heavy footsteps. Lina looked surprised when I approached her and almost stumbled again.

Instinctively, I reached out to balance her. My hand ghosted over the curve of her slim, bare waist respectfully. Once she was upright, I pulled my hand away, flinching, before my fingertips could graze across the fire radiating from her skin.

“How fortunate am I to have to see you on the weekend,” I said, taking a step back from her.

“What a misfortune for me to have to see you on one of my days off too,” Lina mumbled. Her eyes traveled to my naked chest for a moment and back up to my face. An eyebrow raised pointedly. “What are you doing here?”

“My brother-in-law invited me to try out the well-equipped gym here.” I grinned.

Lina blinked. Not a single word was uttered, but I knew her. She wanted me to leave her alone. She enjoyed her alone time. And she was clearly a woman with strong boundaries. Simple as that.

Those very boundaries didn’t mean she deserved to be labeled as robotic or frigid by someone like me. That was the thing about her that I hadn’t realized before catapulting myself into her life . . . Lina Lee was kind. Underneath her icy exterior, she loved the people she cared about deeply.

When her armor thawed, there was no denying she was hard-working, independent, and self-sufficient. Our pharm techs loved her, as did our patients. My skewed view of her obscured the truth, but now I was willing to admit to it.

Lina wasn’t emotionless. Lina wasn’t cold and calculating. Lina Lee wasn’t mechanical. She was all human—with fears, love, and warmth.

I was entirely wrong about her.

“I didn’t realize Andy was also the solicitor for this gated community,” she said, tugging me out of my thoughts.

I leaned in and whispered. “Look, I’m not here because I want to be. I’m here because I think Julie and Andy are trying to set us up.”

“Set us up how? And why?” she asked. Irritation weighed her voice down into this sultry-sounding low voice that caressed down my back.

“Hey, Lina!” said Anthony, approaching us.

Andy followed eagerly behind him. The two flashed their thousand-watt grins. Just as Andy was about to say something, both Julie and Shoua walked into the gym. Their loud laughter easily filled the nearly empty gym.

As my sister and cousin greeted their respective partners, I turned to Lina and whispered in a low, sharp tone. “If they invite you to anything, decline them if they’re being too much.”

Lina’s brows crumpled together. An emotion flashed across her eyes. Her mouth parted to say something when my sister turned to her.

“Hey, Lina!” greeted Julie, waving eagerly at her. Lina’s expression softened as she smiled at my sister. It was one of those rare smiles I’d only gotten a chance to see last week. “Did you enjoy the chocolate chip cookies I brought by?”

I blinked, mouth ajar. What?

“They were amazing. Thank you for even thinking of me,” said Lina. “They’re great with coffee, by the way.”

Julie grinned, and I interrupted her before she could continue. “You bake Lina cookies? Since when?”