“No,” she said softly. “No one is ever going to be good enough for her.”
I stared at the bar top.
“But if there was a man,” Regan continued, “I’m sure it would be you.”
The breath left my chest.
“Regan.”
“It’s just the timing that’s all wrong.”
I closed my eyes.
“She has to start her life,” Regan said. “She has to write her own story. She finally has a book with nothing but empty pages in it.”
“She has to find her own destiny,” I finished.
Regan’s hand stayed on my back.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Maybe that leads her back to you. Maybe it doesn’t.”
The ocean kept moving.
It had no respect for wrecked men.
I laughed under my breath, but there was no humor left in me. “This is just infatuation anyway.”
Regan’s hand lifted from my back.
I picked up the tequila. “I’ve known her less than a week. That’s hardly an epic love story.”
Regan snorted as she finished her drink.
I looked at her.
She set the empty glass down, slid off the stool, and gave me a look that made me feel fifteen and stupid.
“Yep,” she said. “That’s what they all say.”
Then she walked away, leaving me alone at the beach bar with the tequila, the ocean, and a truth I didn’t want.
I had spent all day pretending to be a man who could flirt and laugh and move on.
I had gone to dinner with pretty girls who smelled like coconut lotion and expensive shampoo.
I had watched Destiny get pissed and told myself that was good.
I had told Nate I knew better.
I had told Regan this was nothing but proximity and adrenaline and a kiss under bad circumstances.
But when I turned my head down the dark beach, toward the hidden stretch of coastline where the villa waited behind walls and guards and palms, the tie pulled so hard I had to grip the edge of the bar.
I couldn’t see her.
That made it worse somehow.
Because wanting her wasn’t about seeing her in a window or watching her move through moonlight.
