Page 62 of Last Resort

Spite is a mean, nasty bitch and they have it in fucking spades.

I walk for a bit. Down paths I’ve walked a hundred times before, but this time without my head buried in my phone.

Ocean’s Edge is beautiful. It’s the perfect location, the right setup, let’s just hope what Sutton and I are doing is enough.

But enough for what? To appease my brothers? To really flip this around? To feel like I truly fulfilled the promise to my dad? To . . . what? Now that I’ve been forced here, what exactly do I want out of this other than it being my last resort?

A couple chases each other down the beach and shrieks. I watch their silhouettes against the moonlit sky and smile. Did my mom and dad really dig their toes in the sand here? Did they play in the water and fall deeper in love with this place as their backdrop?

I have no clue, but I’m pretending they did. I’m pretending that my dad had a moment of clarity, of remembering this place, and that my decision to let him buy it was the right one. That just like the dementia stole his mind from us, it didn’t also steal that one last moment that I thought was real.

The lights are on in the villa when I get home. Home? That’s what this is to me now? Maybe that’s what it feels like. Coming home to her. Knowing she’s actually there for once. Maybe waiting for me.

Maybe wanting me.

I know she’s purposely made herself scarce when I’m here. She even jokes around the office about her absence to try and prevent the inevitable chatter that she’s sleeping with her boss.

I’m wishing that chatter was correct right about now.

I move toward her room where the door is open and the light is on. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed in a tank top and shorts, her hair wet, her skin still pink from a hot shower. She has a pencil between her teeth as she types away at something on her laptop.

Jesus. When is she not stunning?

“Honey, I’m home,” I say.

Her eyes flash up to me and a soft smile adds warmth to them. “Hello, dear. How was your day?” she asks as she takes the pencil from her mouth and sets it down on the nightstand.

“The usual. Don’t you ever stop working?” I ask as I walk into her room and fall face first onto her bed.

“We have a lot to do in a short amount of time,” she says as I turn my face and look at her. Of course, right in front of me is her bare thigh as a temptation of what I can’t touch. “I don’t have any time to waste. Besides you’re not paying me to rest on my laurels.”

Turning on my side, I prop my head up on my elbow. “No, but I’m also not working you to the bone.” I push her laptop with my finger. “We’ve been here a month, and I don’t know anything about you outside of work stuff.”

“That’s a lie,” she says wryly, but she closes her laptop and moves it to the table beside her. “You know what kind of panties I wear.” She quirks a brow, thinking she’s being witty but when I just continue to stare at her, she sighs. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“Where are you from? Where are you going? Something in between,” I say.

“That’s an awful lot of ‘personal’ for a man who doesn’t like to mix with his employees,” she says but there is a playful quality to her voice that says she doesn’t mind. I hadn’t thought when I walked in here that I’d be asking her these questions either, but it would be a lie if I said I wasn’t intrigued by her. How did she become so . . . talented? Intuitive?

And she’s not wrong. I rarely get invested in employees . . . or women I want to fuck.

“You’re teaching me to change my ways.” I smile. “What’s in it for you is a much nicer Callahan Sharpe.”

“Too late. I already know that,” she whispers as she reaches out and runs her fingernails through my hair and over my scalp. I close my eyes and lean into her touch.

“You’re going to put me to sleep.”

“Either that will or information about me will because I’m not a very interesting person.”

I snort. “I doubt that.”

“I’m not.”

“I want to know, anyway.”

“Okay,” she murmurs as her fingers continue to work their magic. “I was born in a small town in Upstate New York. Nothing remarkable about my childhood other than I couldn’t wait to turn eighteen so I could escape the everyday fighting in my house. My parents were alcoholics who cared more about the next bottle than worrying about making sure their daughter was prepared for life.”

“I’m sorry.”