“I’d like that.” The words are hard to get out, and I’m so grateful my voice doesn’t relay the emotion swelling inside of me.

  Our days are numbered. He knows that, I know that, but we’ve yet to address the huge elephant in the room.

  We make small talk as we sip wine and eat. We give theories about how the rocks were stacked just so and discuss how relieved Brady is going to be to have us out of his hair when we’re gone. We talk about Keone and his astute instincts. We discuss my top-ten list and what are my favorites for reasons other than business.

  Small talk.

  Insignificant.

  Filling space.

  And when the sky turns deep pinks, purples, and oranges as the sun begins to dip, we both lean back in the hammock next to each other, his arm behind my head and wrapped around my shoulders. We fall into a comfortable silence.

  The breeze whirls around us as Mother Nature puts on a show.

  “I’m sorry our last days have been me being sick and you taking care of me,” I finally say. “Thank you.”

  He presses a kiss on the crown of my head. “To be honest, I’ve enjoyed hanging at the villa with you. We’ve spent so much of our time here avoiding being at the same place at the same time, that it was just nice being with you without having to watch every look I give you or word I say to you. No outside noise. Just you. Just me.”

  “It has,” I murmur, enjoying the steady beat of his heart beneath my ear where it rests on his chest. The sun keeps falling, and I keep waiting to find the courage to bring that elephant front and center.

  There are five days left, and we’ve yet to say a freaking word about what happens after that.

  And while I know that expiration date looms, I still need to hear it from him. I still need to hear the tone of his voice and feel like I matter. Like this matters. Because every part of me feels that I do, that it does, but it feels like Callahan is purposely ignoring it so he doesn’t have to face it.

  Bite the bullet, Sutton.

  “So have you decided where you’re off to after this?” I ask. Definitely not the question I need to voice, but it’s a start.

  “Not yet.” He runs a finger up and down my arm. He hesitates as if he has more to say, but nothing comes.

  “I’m sure wherever you’ll go, you’ll find what you need there.” I try to keep the sadness from my voice, try to prevent the tears that are welling from spilling over . . . try to keep it together. “Wine,” I say and awkwardly get out of the hammock. “I need more wine.”

  I occupy my fidgeting hands by pouring more wine into my glass but not even taking a sip of it. He shifts behind me. I hear his footsteps in the sand, but I keep my eyes focused on the sunset in front of us.

  Ask me to go.

  Tell me you’ll stay.

  Say something.

  “This doesn’t have to be it, Collins,” he says, as my heart constricts in my chest. “I’ll be in and out of Manhattan. The States. We can make this work. We can—”

  I turn and put a finger on his lips to stop him. His eyes search mine. They are laden with an earnestness, a hope, I never expected to see, so this only makes it harder for me to do what I need to do.

  He’s saying the words I wanted to hear, but deep down, I know they’re just words. Deep down I know I deserve more, better . . . everything.

  So much has changed in such a short time for me that I’m not afraid to raise the bar for myself. I spent years with Clint, afraid to want more, to aspire for more because I feared his reaction to it.

  But I look at the man before me. The handsome, powerful man standing here who thinks he’s callous and selfish and without purpose, but who I know to be the exact opposite. He’s empowering and encouraging and has helped instill a confidence in me that I’ve never had before. A self-assurance that I’m not ashamed of.

  He’s shown me it’s okay to want more. That there is nothing wrong with that.

  And even more importantly, I know I can voice that confidence right now without fear of being belittled for it.

  Deep down, I know he’ll understand why I’m about to say the things I need to say.

  Even if my heart is breaking while I do so.

  “It’s okay, Callahan. You don’t have to make promises you don’t intend to keep,” I say. Breathe, Sutton. “We both walked into whatever this is knowing that there was an expiration date to us—”

  “Fucking Brady,” he mutters and laughs.

  “He’s right though, and that’s okay.” I smile and stroke the side of his cheek. I want to choke on every single word I’m saying. Words I know he needs to hear, that I need to say, but that will only serve to devastate my heart. “You’ve waited your whole life to have freedom and wings to fly.” I lean up on my toes and brush a tender kiss to his lips. “Go fly, Callahan.”

  He shakes his head, confusion suddenly in his eyes. “You could come with me then. We could travel and—”

  “I can’t,” I whisper, my voice more than breaking this time as I steel myself from the want to say yes and the need to say no. “I put my aspirations on hold and my happiness in someone’s hands before. I can’t do that to myself again. I’m on the cusp of achieving so much that I’ve worked for that I have to look out for me.” The first tear slips over and his expression falls at the sight of it.

  “Sutton.” He cups my face, and I press my lips into his palm, closing my eyes for a beat.

  “The problem is that I know I’d wait for you. Because you, Callahan Sharpe, are worth waiting for. I’d wait and take the little scraps you throw my way when you come into town, but I deserve more than that. I deserve the things you aren’t ready to give yet and so . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” He offers me a crooked smile, a brave face, and I feel better knowing he’s hurting too.

  He leans in and presses the most bittersweet of kisses to my lips before wrapping his arms around me and pulling me in.

  We stand like this for some time.

  Breathing each other in.

  Holding each other tight.

  Reveling in the moment while regretting the ones that we know we’ll have to deal with in the coming days. I’ve known him such a short time, but I know he’ll be taking my heart with him when he leaves. In a bittersweet twist, knowing him has helped me grow enough to be certain that saying no is the best thing for me. Long-term. And hopefully for him too.

  He does deserve to fly.

  And I deserve to soar too.

  Callahan

  I watch her sleeping. The rise of her chest. The soft exhale out. And my chest hurts in a way I’ve never felt it hurt before.

  I close my eyes and prepare myself for the lie I’m about to tell.

  For being the chickenshit I’m about to be.

  For walking away this way instead of a long, drawn-out goodbye, because it hurts too fucking much to be with her and know I won’t be in a few days’ time.

  I glance over to where my bags are packed, waiting at the front door, before I sit on the bed beside her and brush the hair off her forehead.

  “Sutton.” My voice is broken already on her name. “Sutt.”

  Her lashes flutter open in the early morning light. Alarm flashes through her eyes. “What—is—”

  “Shh.” I lean forward and kiss her lips. “Everything is okay.” I lean my forehead against hers and just breathe. “I have to go.” Her body stills. “I’ve been called back to meetings. I . . .”

  “No.” It’s a soft sigh of disbelief that has her hands reaching up to touch my face.

  “I know.” I choke the words out. “I’m sorry.” And those two words are for so much more than for how I’m leaving.

  They’re for not being man enough to stay.

  For not being the man she deserves.

  For not realizing any of this sooner.

  “Callahan,” she murmurs as she brings her lips to mine. “Please.” She kisses me again. “Not yet.”

  I lean back and see the tear escape the corner of her eye and fall to the pillow beneath her head. It stomps on my heart that already feels like it’s breaking. “I know.” I press my lips to hers again. “I know,” I say between kisses. “I know.” I repeat it as we both strip our clothes off with a quiet urgency. “I know,” I whisper, as I push my way into her and begin the process of saying goodbye.

  It’s her eyes on mine as we move together.

  It’s her fingers linked with mine as I try to show her what she means to me.

  It’s her name on my lips as I try to memorize the look on her face.

  We say goodbye in the early morning light with the palm trees rustling in the breeze outside and with what feels like a hurricane of emotion raging inside me.

  We say goodbye with quiet kisses and gentle sighs.

  We say goodbye after I’m dressed again, her body pressed against mine as I hold her there and kiss the top of her head.

  We speak in looks, in tender kisses, in a glance over my shoulder to where she stands in the hallway before I walk out the door and out of her life.

  The image of her sticks with me as the driver takes me to the tarmac where the Sharpe International private jet awaits me.

  It’s all I see as the jet takes off, Ocean’s Edge Resort a shrinking speck beneath me.

  I’m such an asshole for doing it this way.

  For being this way.

  For proving her right.

  She does deserve better than me.

  “Maybe one day you’ll fall in love and bring her to this place too, Callahan. Your mother would love that.”

  “I did, Dad,” I murmur below the hum of the jet’s engines before leaning my head back in my seat and closing my eyes.

  But I didn’t know how to keep her.

  Sutton

  In the distance I hear the roar of a jet overhead. It’s too early for commercial flights so I know it’s him. Callahan Sharpe. My Johnnie Walker.

  I love you.

  Those three words repeat in my head just as they were on the tip of my tongue when he looked over his shoulder and met my eyes one last time.

  I know he wasn’t called back early for meetings.

  I know because if that were the case, Ledger would have told me that when I talked to him last night on the phone. When I set up a meeting with him in the office in Manhattan for the coming week.

  Callahan left to make it easier on him . . . on me . . . on what? I have no idea.

  While I’m hurting, I’m almost grateful to him for doing it this way. Long goodbyes are brutal and he just saved us that.

  But he also proved to me that I’m right in my decision.

  That I need to put myself first, because with Callahan Sharpe, I’d be at his whim. I’d be the one left behind when things got too real, and he didn’t know how to deal with them.

  I pick up my phone to text Lizzy, to tell her what just happened, but my fingers don’t move.

  Maybe I don’t want to believe it yet. Maybe I need to just sit in the silence for a bit more and have the moment to myself to realize this really is over. That he really is gone.

  That I really did love him.

  “Goodbye, Callahan,” I whisper into the silence. “Thank you for helping me find me again. Thank you for loving me regardless.”

  Sutton

  “I get to see you in hours,” Lizzy yells into the phone, making me laugh.

  And the laugh is most definitely needed because I’ve just said goodbye to everyone at Ocean’s Edge. It was much harder than expected.

  And maybe it was even harder because my heart was already wounded to begin with.

  “I know. I’ve missed you.” My smile is bittersweet as the driver takes me to the airport.

  “We have so much to catch up on.”

  “So much.” I try to infuse happiness in my voice, but fuck, it’s hard to do.

  “Are you sure you don’t need to stay here at my place?”

  “No. The Sharpes have offered me their suite for a week or two until I can find a place of my own.” I shake my head, trying to understand how this all unfolded. The call from Ledger temporarily offering the suite to me since he knows I’ve been out of town for months and probably need time to find a new place to live.

  And me taking it. While I can’t wait to spend time with Lizzy, I also need to unwind and sort through everything on my own.

  Time alone will allow me to do that.

  “Oh,” she says. “They are so trying to schmooze you to leave Roz and come work for them doing this full-time.”

  “They are not.”

  “Bullshit.” She snorts. “How do you feel about the possibility?” Her voice softens. Seeing as she was the shoulder I cried on over the past few days, she knows everything.

  “I don’t know. Honestly. I just don’t know.” I glance around one last time at the beaches as we drive past. “It’s not like he’s going to be there. Hell, by now he’s probably in Tonga or somewhere like that. It’s just . . .”

  “Give yourself time to figure it out.”

  “I will. I promise, I will.”

  I’ve had three days of silence since Callahan left. I’m not sure why I hoped for him to at least reach out with a call or a text, but I should know better.

  I’ve never minded quiet before, but the silence left by his absence has been almost unbearable. And while the two of us started off our time at Ocean’s Edge in weird territory, he was always here. Always talking. Always a presence I couldn’t ignore.

  Having an all-access pass to him once we were behind the villa’s doors the past few weeks has made this even harder. Knowing what I’m missing. His laughter. His glance across the room. His soft smile. His tender and demanding touch.

  His friendship, more than anything.

  I emit a quiet sigh to try and control the tears welling in my eyes. The same tears I’ve fought every moment since he departed.

  I’ve missed him more than I thought possible.

  “We’re here,” my driver says.

  And when I look up, the car is pulling through the gates of the airport and up to a jet parked on the far end that says Sharpe International on it.

  Lizzy’s right.

  They definitely are trying.

  The question is, what am I going to do about it?

  Sutton

  I go through the motions at work upon my return.

  The debriefing with Roz. The company-wide meeting she calls where she praises me and the whole staff claps in celebration. The one-on-one with her afterwards where she pats my back and offers me a promotion.

  It’s everything I strove for and yet when I stand in Sharpe International’s suite after a long day, all I feel is empty inside.

  Yes, there will be more jobs to immerse myself in. Yes, there will be more locations to fall in love with. But I know that Ocean’s Edge will always hold a special place in my heart.

  I have what I wanted, I achieved the goal I set for myself, but sitting in this luxurious hotel room, all I can think about is him. About that first night. About everything that happened since and wonder what if.

  What if I dare to want more?

  What if I don’t settle?

  What if I had said yes to Callahan?

  But none of it does me any good.

  And late at night when I snuggle into the expensive sheets in this luxurious bed, I pretend he’s here with me.

  And I smile through the tears.

  Sutton

  It’s like déjà vu sitting here in this imposing conference room.

  Nerves still rattle and my pulse still pounds, but it’s for completely different reasons this time.

  “We’re offering you a full-time position at Sharpe International,” Ledger says, his hands clasped in front of him.

  Ford nods and smiles. “We’re more than impressed with the role you played in turning Ocean’s Edge around. It’s been, what? Eleven weeks since you began working there and we’re already seeing an uptick in reservations and secondary spending for our periphery items. The staff surveys are positive and with the interior renovation set to begin in a few weeks’ time, we think that once that is complete, we’ll achieve an even larger return on our investment than we expected.”

  “That’s great news.” I smile. “But it wasn’t all me, I assure you. You have great staff there, and Callahan was an excellent partner to work with.”

  I’m not blind to the glance that Ledger gives Ford. Is it because they miss him being here with the company? Is it because they are glad he’s gone? Is it because they think I’m covering for him? I wring my hands where they sit in my lap beneath the table.

  “We’ve told him as much the last time we spoke with him.”

  Where is he?

  What is he doing now?

  I take a deep breath, push my emotions aside, and quiet the questions I want to shout at them but can’t. “He’ll probably be pleased to hear that. Or pissed,” I say. “It can go either way with him.”

  They both laugh while I dance an awkward tightrope and try to figure out how to act.

  “So, the job offer,” Ledger redirects. “We know Roz has given you a promotion as she should have after the excellent work you did for us, but we’re greedy. We want you for ourselves.” He smiles. “Of course, compensation and the like would all be negotiable, but I assure you it would be a fair share higher than Roz’s.”

  “I’m sure somewhere in the contract you signed with her, there’d be a non-compete or whatever technical term there is for it,” I say, caught completely off guard and fumbling to buy some time so my brain can process the question he just asked.

  “There is,” Ford says with a nod. “But rest assured, Roz and the firm would be taken care of with other projects of ours to make up for the loss of you.”

  “Bribery.” I chuckle nervously.