Page 68 of Last Resort

“Well then.” Callahan scoots his chair back and stands, making sure he remains in control of the situation. “Until next time.”

“Until next time then.” Solomon stands slowly, deliberately, and nods in goodbye. “Gia told me to tell you hi.”

Callahan freezes. It’s slight and most likely would go unnoticed to anyone else, but the hitch is there.

“She said she looks forward to seeing you again while you’re here.” Solomon offers a smarmy expression, almost as if he knows something Callahan doesn’t. But before Callahan can say anything else, Solomon is out the door.

“Prick,” Callahan mutters under his breath.

“Gia, huh?” I cross my arms over my chest and lift a brow playfully. “See? I was right. You’re out having torrid love affairs all around the island with mystery women.”

“I have meetings, Sutton. Dinner meetings. Client meetings. All kinds of fucking meetings that are so damn boring they make my ears want to bleed.” He waves a hand at me as if I’m dismissed. I sit there stunned. What the hell? And why does the mere mention of another woman’s name eat at me? “There are women in some of the meetings. None in others. I don’t really think I have to explain myself to you.”

“No one said you did,” I say, surprised by his demeanor. That, in and of itself, already has my mind running a million miles an hour to the point where “Gia” and Callahan are already riding away in the sunset and living happily ever after. “I was just—”

“Yeah. I know.” He stacks his papers up and shoves them under his arm. “I’ve got meetings,” he says without meeting my eyes and walks out without saying another word.

I stare at the door he just exited and sigh.

Okaaaay. Perhaps I haven’t been imagining his distance these last few days. Perhaps he regrets his openness from the other night. What had I expected? That we’d be . . . moving forward?

Is there really anything we would be moving toward?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Sutton

“No. It’s like we had that great night of kissing, then the weird meeting where he kind of exploded on me, and now . . . Now it’s like we’re in the same spots at the same times but we don’t really see each other.”

“How is that even possible? You’re supposed to be working together,” Lizzy says.

“We are . . . but it’s not exactly like we’re talking about anything other than resort matters. He spends a lot of time in his office behind closed doors talking with people back home about the financial aspects, looking at budgets and whatnot. Things I only need to know the end result of. I mean, we’re getting down to a few weeks left so . . . I don’t know. Maybe beyond that, he’s checked out.”

“I doubt he’s checked out. If he were, he’d be out on the beach with a rum punch in hand like you should more often.”

“I have one in hand right now. Does that make you happy?” I ask and take a sip of it.

“So let me see. You’re working side by side without really talking and at night you’re not seeing each other.”

“Right. At night he’s usually at dinner meetings elsewhere on the island with who knows who.”

“Ah, so this is the Gia aspect.”

“Oh my God,” I groan. “I sound like a jealous bitch when I have no right to be jealous. I mean, maybe I played too hard to get so he moved on? Maybe I—”

“Maybe you need to stop sounding like a needy girlfriend for a second so we can dissect this slowly,” Lizzy says in her no-bullshit voice.

And this is why I love her.

“Yes. You’re right. Please, dissect away while I have another sip of my drink.”

“Sip away.” She chuckles. “So clearly Callahan is a busy man.”

“Yes.”

“And you feel like after the other night—the kissing and that’s it—that he’s distanced himself from you.”

“Either that or I’m overthinking and reading into everything.”