Free The Making of Mia by Ilana Fox Page A

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     in the evening …’
    Jo took a deep breath and desperately hoped she wasn’t coming across as shy, or as if she had a crush on him. ‘Late at night
     after closing,’ she said. ‘When everyone goes to bed I go out and run on the roads.’
    ‘What? In the pitch-black? What if you got hit by a car?’
    Jo shrugged and grinned in what she hoped was an offhand way. ‘It hasn’t happened yet. And you have to admit it’s working.’
    William’s eyes travelled over Jo’s body and despite wanting to cross her arms over her stomach, she pretended she didn’t care
     he was looking at her.
    ‘You know, I go running too – and I’d be happy to help you train if you like …’
    Jo couldn’t stand the thought of William seeing her hot, sweaty and red in the face but at the same time she wanted a running
     partner, she wanted someone to urge her on when her legs burned and she didn’t think she could run any more. She wanted to
     spend some time with him.
    ‘Six o’clock every morning, and then again mid-afternoon,’ William said. ‘Are you in?’
    Jo looked at William, and clocked his broad shoulders, muscled arms and beautiful blue eyes.
    ‘I’m in.’

Chapter Six
    May 2002
    ‘You’ve got to keep on going, keep on going, Jo, you can do it!’
    Jo thought she was going to die. She was sure of it. Every muscle in her body, despite being hidden by layers of fat, burnt
     with a hot white heat. Her throat felt sore from the cool breeze and her nose ran, dripping on to her T-shirt, which was soaked
     with sweat.
    She couldn’t take much more of this.
    William ran behind her with a stopwatch. He was wearing a tight fitted T-shirt, and Jo knew if she turned round she’d see
     the outline of every single muscle in his torso. ‘Come on, it’s only fifty more steps to the tree, come on, Jo, come on!’
    She couldn’t do it, she just couldn’t do it, she thought. But Jo knew she couldn’t stop either. Focusing her eyes on the dusty
     track, Jo imagined the tree was made of chocolate. Oh God, she thought, chocolate. If she just kept on going, if her legs
     didn’t give up on her, she would let herself have some Dairy Milk. Her whole body felt as heavy as lead. She wasn’t sure if
     she would ever get to the tree, and just as Jo’s body screamed out for mercy she was there.
    William stopped beside her as she doubled over in pain, out of breath and feeling like she was going to throw up. ‘Nineteen
     minutes, Jo! You beat your record by nearly six minutes!’
    Jo wanted to thump him. She collapsed on the dewy grass and looked up at William, who didn’t even seem puffed.
    ‘I am never, ever doing that again.’
    William grinned and brushed his blond hair from his eyes. ‘Sure you are, and next week we’ll beat this time by ten minutes.
     Just you wait and see.’
    William infuriated her, but he was right. They’d been working out for six months, and during that time he was always there
     by her side. When Jo ate breakfast he was there making sure she ate enough – he persuaded her that porridge with semi-skimmed
     milk needed to be eaten alongside wholewheat toast with low-sugar peanut butter; that the salad she ate for lunch needed to
     have lots of grilled chicken and a dressing. He convinced her that she’d lose more fat if she ate enough to give her more
     energy, thus ensuring she could work out more. If Jo could have had her way she’d have eaten nothing and exercised all day
     long, but William made sure she ate, and David and Dominic made sure she worked. She had been promoted to serving customers
     in the bar, with David’s reasoning that she looked nice behind it. For the first time in a long while, things were looking
     up.
    On Jo’s twentieth birthday, in June, William handed her a birthday card, and she tried desperately hard not to go bright red.
     William had recently had his hair cut, and somehow his eyes shone an even darker blue because of it. His face was slightly
     tanned,