'Yes, I'm sure. Could you just tell him I'm here, please?'

The guy pressed some numbers on the phone in front of him and there was a brief buzzing sound. Moments later, Gawain appeared in the reception area.

He was already in a white vest top, looking slighty sweaty. Either he'd been doing a workout, or his first client of the day had already been and gone.

'Hi Annie, how're you doing?'

Gawain held out his hand and didn't look entirely unfriendly.

'Hi,' Annie said, shaking it and trying not to faint, die or throw up with fear.

But Gawain was already striding off. 'Follow me.'

She was shown to another bright white and black room where Gawain served her a shot of wheatgra.s.s juice. 'Bitter but beautiful,' he promised, handing her a questionnaire.

More like bile and bleuuuuuurghh, she thought as she took just the one gulp and filled in her answers.

Gawain watched over her shoulder and as she neared the end, he came to his conclusion: 'Unfit but not unwell. Good. We can work with that, girl. We're going to work hard with that.'

He smiled encouragingly as he opened the door to the gym, and Annie, dazzled by the bulging biceps and the bright white smile began to fall in under the Train with Gawain spell.

'You are going to feel pain with Gawain. But you will gain with Gawain. Every single day that you train with Gawain, you will gain with Gawain,' he began to chant at Annie as she hauled her great lardy b.u.m onto the seated bike.

After a minute or two of sedate cycling, she decided this was OK, she could do this. But that was when Gawain gave her the bad news.

'OK Miss Annie, that was the warm-up.'

As she tried to crank up the pedals, Gawain encouraged her with all kinds of visualizations: 'You're about to win gold at the Olympics ... there's someone right on your tail, at your shoulder now, come on, girl, race, race! You want to take gold!' Panting hard, Annie just focused on the bike's timer. Hideous only 25 seconds had gone past. How could this be when her heart was hammering and her lungs were heaving in and out like bellows? 35 ... 42 ... time seemed to have ground to a halt. 41?? It was going backwards. Her breath rattled in her chest and she wondered if she was about to die.

'Come on, you can do this ...' Gawain urged.

When she looked again: 58, 59 ... 60. She'd made it! Gawain told her to pedal 'nice and easy' for a minute.

He also looked at her with some concern.

'I'm not used to dealing with someone who's so out of shape,' he admitted, but before Annie got too downhearted, he helpfully added: 'So it's a learning experience for both of us.'

Before she knew it, Annie was pedalling her heart out again. The beautiful gym with its arched windows and state of the art machines was almost empty, apart from skinny girl who was in the corner on some upright machine which looked like the modern version of a medieval rack.

'Water,' Annie gasped, 'I need water.'

'Yes, you're right, we are going to re-hydrate in just 16151413 seconds. C'mon, pedal. PEDAL! Faster. Faster!'

As they repeated the 'one minute fast, one minute easy' routine on every machine in the room, Annie's state of mind seemed to hover between,'I'm going to die, right now, and never see my lovely children again' and when Gawain's voice was right in her ear, urging her on 'I can do this. I can get fit, I can shift the weight. I really can!'

It was almost as intense as childbirth. Almost as much pain too. As she slid off each machine, Annie clung to Gawain's arm, needing his support. There was no way she could ever work this hard in a gym without Gawain right beside her 'You're already fitter and you're already stronger,' he told her, so convincingly that she almost believed him. 'The aerobic part is almost over, Annie girl, then we're gonna tone.'

Tone. Tone? What could it mean? She felt so hot it was like delirium, so sore it was like death.

Skinny girl was finished on the machine in the corner, and patting at her ever so slightly shiny face with a towel, then sipping from a chic lilac water bottle. Two guys and another supermodel-like being had also appeared now. But Annie was in too much pain to care.

Gawain was strapping her into the torture device in the corner of the room. Her feet were being fixed into weird strappy pedals, and grips were being placed in her hands.

'This is like a cross trainer, but much more effective. We can tilt and wobble you while you work. We can hit every muscle. Muscles you didn't even know you had are going to hurt you so bad tomorrow.'

She couldn't wait.

Annie tried to pump her arms and legs the way Gawain was demonstrating, but she felt as if she was trapped in treacle. Nothing moved.

'Right ... OK there, I'll just move those weights down a notch.'

Finally she started. Shuffling her legs forward, pumping her arms.

'Now out to the sides. Raise, and lower,' Gawain urged, again demonstrating. Leg out to the side, arm out to the side. Was he serious?

Annie scanned the gym, searching hopelessly for some sort of help. She now took a proper look at the guy pounding furiously on the treadmill in front of the window. His face was in profile, tilted slightly away from her, but his bright blond hair and broad shoulders gave him away.

It was Taylor! It had to be right there on the treadmill, just feet away from her!

Now Annie found the strength to pound. She began to punch her arms forward as hard as she could, imagining she was pummelling Taylor in the face with every move.

Smack! Smack! Punch! Wallop!

'Whoa ...' Gawain ordered, 'hold on now, I need to put the weights up again.'

But Annie couldn't wait. She had Taylor in her sights and blind fury said she wasn't going to stop.

As Gawain loosened one of the elastic straps, Annie let fly with a left hook.

Ping!

The elastic strap shot out of its mooring and a small metal clip flew across the gym.

As if in slow motion, Annie watched as it made straight for Taylor, and caught him on the cheekbone, just below the eye.

'What-the-f-?' His hand shot up to his cheek and when he felt blood he paused in surprise.

Pausing on a treadmill going at full throttle is always a mistake. Taylor's feet were whipped out from under him and then he was stumbling, tripping, falling and flailing for anything to break his fall. With a horrible b.u.mping, grinding crunch, he was thrown backwards off the machine.

Gawain leapt forward to press the treadmill's emergency stop, stepping hard on the supermodel's water bottle and sending jets of water in every direction.

Annie, one arm free of her machine, pulled at what she hoped was a release lever, but suddenly found her legs whipped up into the air by their elasticated straps. Now she was dangling like a trussed chicken.

'Heeeeee-lp!' she squawked. But no one paid her any attention because they were all crowded round Taylor.

He sat up and put a hand to his cheek again.

'Can you move your ankles, man?' Gawain asked.

'You better hope so,' Taylor snarled, 'or I am going to make trouble.'

Everyone backed away from him a little.

He got up carefully, circling his ankles and wrists, feeling himself over for damage. And as he looked around the room at each of them in turn, Annie saw that it wasn't in fact Taylor. Ah.

This man was older and he looked angry and threatening. His accusing eyes fell on Annie, who was dangling helplessly on the machine, but thankfully Gawain stepped in just in time, full of charm.

'This is my fault,' he told the man. 'Fortunately you seem to be OK. But I think I should offer you a month's free membership and a personal training session to make up for this accident.'

The man grunted his agreement. Then he dusted himself down and got back onto the treadmill, leaving Gawain to rescue Annie from the machine.

'Now don't worry,' Gawain a.s.sured her, when their session was finally over, 'I'm going to give you your specially designed programme for month one. Then you log on to my website, pay your membership fee and get your second programme.'

'But it won't be the same,' Annie protested. 'I'm not sure I can do this without you, Gawain.'

What had Train with Gawain done to her? Annie wondered. She, the gym-hater, the gym-aphobic, was already trying to work out how she could fit in a session tomorrow. He'd made her believe that even she could shape up.

'You can also download this week's "Playin' with Gawain" gym music, with my special words of encouragement.'

'Really? You're speaking on it?'

'I'm speaking just to you, girl, listen to me and move! The next time you come to New York, we'll meet again and I am gonna marvel at how wonderful you look and how amazing you feel.'

Now she understood why Connor had crossed the Atlantic just for this man.

'You should be on TV,' Annie told him, as she headed to the lift. And at that she pulled up sharp and spun back to face him.

Would Gawain want to be on TV? Could he come over to Britain and be on TV ... with her? Wouldn't it make for a great show? She needed to phone Tamsin and pitch the idea!

'I'd love to be on TV, hasn't happened yet though,' Gawain laughed. 'See you soon, Annie,' he said, clasping her hand, looking deeply and sincerely into her eyes. Then he was gone and she was in the elevator.

As she left the building, Annie understood why there was an electronic lock on the door. It was for Gawain's protection from his adoring fans.

Wandering forlornly down the street, Annie saw a cafe. Inside she ordered a freshly squeezed carrot and apple juice, not because she was now a health freak but because even the thought of coffee and a m.u.f.fin, after the punishment she'd just given her body, was making her nauseous.

At the table, waiting for her juice, she decided to phone Dinah. Her sister was a gym bunny, a fitness fanatic, she would want to hear every last detail of Annie's pain with Gawain, trademark.

She dialled her own home number first, wondering if Dinah and the babies would be there. It only took a couple of rings before Annie heard her sister's voice on the other end of the line.

'h.e.l.loooo, it's me! Guess where I've just been?'

'Tiffany's?'

'No.'

'Ermm ... Macy's?

'No.'

'I don't know, Annie. I give up. I don't know the names of all the fancy shops out there. I've never even been once.'

'Dinah, babes, it's not even 7a.m. over here. I'm not shopping, I'm recovering from my session at the gym with Connor's trainer Gawain.'

'You are not! You have not! Really?'

'Really!'

'Annie, I am so impressed. This is really, really good news.'

See, that was Dinah; totally sweet, wishing her well, wanting her to succeed on the treadmill.

'It was amazing, I will tell you everything, but first you have to tell me about home. How is everyone? How are my babies? And Owen? Has he sold off the entire contents of the house down the market yet? And Ed? All I've had from Ed in two days is texts!'

'Everyone's fine. Well, the children, yes, don't worry about any one of them for a second. Min's had a tiny little cold, but she's already perking up.'

'Oh, my little love.'

'But Annie ... something is up with Ed. I was going to phone you as soon as I thought you'd be up. Something isn't right. He's so quiet. He seems worried. It started the day before yesterday and ... he left at 8.15 this morning, but he didn't take his briefcase. I honestly don't know if he's gone to school or not. To be honest, I'm quite worried.'

Annie didn't like the sound of this at all; now she wished she had coffee. Very strong, black coffee. Not this wimpy do-gooder drink in front of her.

They said their goodbyes and Annie quickly dialled Ed's mobile number. 'Could I have an espresso over here?' she called over to the waitress as she waited for him to answer.

'Ed!' She felt a rush of relief as she heard him pick up, 'Ed, you're there. Thank goodness! We're all so worried about you. Are you OK?'

'Ye-es ... I think I'm OK,' he replied. But she knew him so well that she immediately knew he wasn't telling the truth.

'Of course you're not OK. This is me, Ed. Please, don't think you need to tell me anything that isn't true. I love you. You're my best guy, babes. What is it? I'm panicking over here. Take a breath and just tell me.'

Ed gave a long, deep sigh.

'It's OK. We can handle it,' Annie a.s.sured him.

'I've been suspended from school, Annie. There's p.o.r.n all over the school's internal computer system and somehow ... I have no idea, Annie, I really have no idea at all ... but it's all been linked to me.'

Annie clutched at the table in front of her. Not for the first time that morning, she thought she was going to faint.

Chapter Twenty-Seven.

Business Elena: Navy jersey dress (Perfect Dress free sample)