His answers?

  “Right away.”

  “Right away.”

  “Because I wasn’t sure where things were going with us. If Blaze was the guy you wanted, I wasn’t going to brute-force him out of your life.”

  “Did you know he was involved with someone else?” I asked, studying his face for any tells.

  “No, but I was . . . hopeful.”

  Now, Cole leans down to kiss me and to shut down my idea of a quickie. “Tonight. You can come over to my place, and I’ll wine and dine you.”

  “Ohhh, a coveted dorm invite?! Things are serious.”

  He looks at me kind of funny. “I don’t live in a dorm.”

  “What?”

  He laughs. “I have a two-bedroom villa on property.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  I don’t know why this is so shocking to me. Why did I think Cole lived in a dorm like the rest of us poor schmucks? He’s on the executive team. None of them live in the dorms. I guess I just wanted to imagine him that way, stuffed into an eight-by-ten room like the rest of us.

  “But you use the cafeteria?” I ask, still trying to piece things together in my head.

  “Because I don’t have time to cook most days.”

  Oh.

  “But you do have a kitchen?” I clarify.

  “Yeah, a big one. New appliances and everything. I cook sometimes on the weekends.”

  I am flabbergasted. I can’t stop. “How many bathrooms?”

  “Two and a half.”

  “View?”

  “The beach.”

  I smack his shoulder playfully. “Cole Clark! Stop it right now!”

  He laughs. “You’ll see it tonight. We can cook together if you want.”

  “I want!”

  Cole helps me pack up my things while I hurry to get ready for work. I don’t have to go downstairs right now. I checked, and I’m not supposed to be at my post for another hour, but I want to have as much time with Cole as possible before we get whisked away to opposite ends of the resort all day. He carries my duffel bag down for me, and we hold hands the entire way to my dorm. I keep expecting people on the path to stop and do a double take when they see us, but it’s a big resort, and my little love story isn’t all that relevant to most people. It’s not like Cole and I were all that obvious with our antics over the last year. Short of Camila and Lara, I doubt anyone else even realizes how much attention we paid each other in the shadows.

  Outside my dorm, I take out my keys and unlock my door. Then I fling the door open with a show-stopping “Ta-da! It’s slightly more tidy than the last time you saw it.”

  Cole saw my room the night I was drunk, but it doesn’t stop him from doing another curious perusal. I would do the same with him. I will, later.

  “What’s your favorite part?” I ask, anxious to pick his brain. I want to know everything there is to know about Cole Clark.

  “The shrine of me you have tucked away in your closet.”

  I panic for a second, as if I actually do have a shrine in my closet and he’s known about it this whole time!

  Then he shakes his head and laughs. “The poster of the glacier,” he says, pointing at the series of framed prints I keep over my bed, right beside my bulletin board.

  “That’s actually my mom’s picture! She took it.”

  He eyes me skeptically.

  I smile gleefully while I nod. “For real. My parents are marine biologists. They travel all over. For a while my mom dabbled in photography as well, just for some extra cash. She doesn’t do it so much anymore, but yeah, that one is hers. She’ll be happy to know you liked it. I’ll tell her.”

  “They know about me?” He seems surprised by the idea.

  I nod.

  “Like they know about Blaze?” he continues with a slight edge to his tone.

  Oh god. My cheeks redden. Why’d he have to go and bring that up?!

  “I only ever had one conversation with them about Blaze, and the connection was spotty. My mom thought his name was Blake the whole time. Anyway, they . . . know that wasn’t really going anywhere.”

  He doesn’t hide his smile. “Oh, interesting. It’s just . . . the way you went on about it seemed like they were practically planning the wedding.”

  “Yeah, yeah . . . listen, all’s fair in love and war, right? It’s not like you didn’t use every weapon in your arsenal too. What about that time at the pool when you were flirting with Tamara right in front of me?”

  My blood boils just thinking about it, but Cole frowns like he’s having a hard time remembering what I’m talking about.

  “The day you intimidated Blaze, Tamara strolled right up to flirt with you.”

  “If she was flirting with me, I didn’t even realize.” He shrugs. “She was just talking about work, if I’m recalling the right conversation. I don’t know, I talk to a lot of employees every day.”

  “So it was barely a blip on your radar?” I step closer. “Am I just a blip on your radar?”

  His eyes rake over me, and I swear dangerous thoughts are swirling behind his gaze.

  “You’re something else entirely.”

  He drags a hand through his hair and looks away, likely trying to cool himself off. I love that I have this effect on him.

  “So you’ve told your parents about me?” he asks, circling us back to a neutral topic.

  Oh god. This is embarrassing. “Yes . . .” He rears back, worried. “But not in the way you’re thinking,” I hurry to amend, reaching out to grab his forearms. “They think you’re my friend.”

  “I am your friend,” he reminds me.

  “Yes, but well . . . they think you’re just my friend, plain and simple. None of the other complicated enemy stuff. I didn’t want to worry them with all the ways we tormented each other, and also, a part of me had hoped this whole time that maybe . . .” My voice lilts here, like I’m still too self-conscious to admit the truth. “I wasn’t actually lying to them, you know? That eventually you and I would figure out how to happily coexist.”

  He likes this. “Well, you’ll have to call and tell them the truth now, won’t you?”

  “What?” I ask lamely.

  He grabs ahold of my waist and hauls me up against him, shaking me as he delivers a Jane Austen–esque monologue. “Turns out, Mother, I was blind to my own feelings! He was never my enemy! Not truly. And now I’ve found—I’ve found I love him madly!”

  Okay, Matthew Macfadyen from 2005’s Pride and Prejudice.

  “Ha ha.”

  He leans down to kiss me, unbothered by my sarcasm. “I really have to run. I’m going to be late.” He’s already walking backward to the door. “Tonight, six thirty! Meet me in the lobby, and I’ll walk you over to my house. It’s a date.”

  A date.

  Who would have thought?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  COLE

  I’m en route to my least favorite activity here at Siesta Playa: meeting with Todd. This hurricane has given me a nice little reprieve from him. We’ve been so busy putting out fires that he hasn’t had a chance to pull me aside to continue executing his brilliantly idiotic plan of laying off valuable employees. His reasoning for the whole thing isn’t even sound. He thinks he’s going to save the resort a few bucks and our CEO’s going to congratulate him for it? What happens when the guests start realizing that the service here took a nosedive? That all our best people—the ones who make their stay here worthwhile—are gone because of Todd’s inability to see past his own thickheaded ideas?

  It doesn’t matter. I won’t let Todd get to me. I’m in a good mood. Paige will do that to you, make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I’m walking like I’m in a bouncy house—lighter than air after last night and this morning.

  I love her.

  I pass a cleaning lady, and I almost grab her by the shoulders and spin her around to tell her.

  “Did you hear? I love Paige!”

  Surely those gardeners over there want to know.

  “Guys! I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it!”

  The other reason I’m in a good mood? The Survival Preparedness convention wraps up today. The loons are leaving. Sayonara until next year! You’d think after this hellacious experience with the hurricane and power outages they’d rethink a return visit to Siesta Playa, but I know better. They’ll be flocking here more than ever come next August. I shiver just thinking about it. Maybe I can convince Paige to take that week off with me. We’ll book a trip somewhere, anywhere.

  I turn down the executive hall, checking the time. Todd texted me this morning.

  He texts me a lot, actually. It’s always memes that were barely funny five years ago and therefore definitely not funny now. I don’t even know where he finds these blurry JPEG relics from the past. A chain email?

  I don’t usually respond to his texts unless they’re directly work related, but like death and taxes, they just keep on coming.

  This morning’s text was about this impromptu meeting. Despite walking Paige to her dorm, I’m still right on time. I knock once and then let myself into his office since his door’s already open.

  He sees me and nods. “Cole, good. Come on in, son. And shut that door behind you, will you?”

  Being referred to as “son” by Todd is nausea inducing, but I do as he says, closing the door.

  He’s standing at his window, cracking open peanuts and trying to drop the empty skins into a trash can at his feet. Trying being the operative word. His aim is off; most of the shells wind up on the floor. When he sees me notice, he kicks the mess with his foot, trying to disperse it. Yup, that oughta do it.

  “Take a seat. You want some peanuts?”

  He shakes the two-gallon bag in my direction.

  I pat my stomach. “Had a big breakfast. Thanks, though.”

  “Ah,” he grumbles. “Trying to be careful with that dainty figure of yours?”

  Dainty. Right. A tanker truck is dainty compared to Todd.

  But I don’t say this. Of course not. I merely nod because with Todd, it’s best to say less. If I’m not careful, eventually I’ll put my foot in my mouth one of these days. He’ll figure out what I really think about him, and then the jig is up. I’d hate for that to happen when I can practically smell my freedom. Paige’s too.

  I’m officially onto him. Even with the hurricane, I’ve been working around the clock on this dilemma with Todd. Connie in accounting finally sent over the thick packet of expense reports I asked for a couple of weeks ago. I’d requested everything from the last year, hoping it would be enough. Turns out, it was.

  I started running through them meticulously, day by day. Tracking the routine expenses of a resort as large as Siesta Playa is no easy feat. What I was searching for was akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Once I realized that I could rule out any expense reports that didn’t include Todd’s signature, my stack shrunk by a sizable amount. In the expense reports from March, I found my first discrepancy. It was a bill for $5,458.02 paid to Turtle Cove Equipment, LLC. The bill was signed off by Todd, and it stood out for two clear reasons. For one, on the expense report under “Description” it simply read: “Entertainment and Hospitality Department—supplies and equipment.” On top of that, there were no receipts submitted with the report. None.

  It should have immediately bounced back when he submitted it. Expense reports have to include itemized receipts—that way they can be easily tracked and verified. If this random LLC was providing us with, say, scuba equipment, there would have been a receipt to show for it.

  I’d imagine the accounting department came back to Todd with these issues, but Todd likely used the power of his director title to push it through, no questions asked.

  In May, again, Todd signed off on another bill from Turtle Cove Equipment, LLC, for close to $10,000 using the same generic description. In July, there was another bill for $35,000.

  At first, I didn’t outright assume these were inaccurate or fraudulent expense reports. We have a large entertainment and hospitality department that encompasses all the indoor and outdoor activities available for our guests. Sailboats, snorkel gear, yoga mats, bingo-night supplies—it all comes out of the E&H budget. All their equipment has to be maintained and routinely replaced, and that gets expensive.

  But . . . then I remembered a string of annoying texts from Todd that came through in late July, where he was bragging about the shiny new Corvette he’d just purchased.

  Cherry red. You likey?

  The text included a picture of him posing in front of the car trying to do a cocky power stance with his legs spread wide and his arms folded over his massive chest. Woof.

  It’s not out of the question that a person in his position could afford a car like that, but he’d just purchased a boat the month before—I knew because he texted me about that as well—and Todd doesn’t strike me as the type of guy to be that savvy with money. A new boat and a new car? Something wasn’t adding up . . .

  Now, Todd tosses another peanut into his mouth, and then he swipes his hands together to get rid of some of the peanut dust. When that doesn’t work well enough, he wipes his palms on the back of his pants.

  I merely sit, watching.

  When he’s satisfied, he points to me. “We did good over the last few days. You and me, we kept this place up and running when no one else could have. Mr. Durliat will be here tomorrow to assess the resort and get a progress report for any lingering damage. He’ll no doubt commend us for our efforts over the last few days. It was my quick thinking that saved countless lives.”

  Todd’s never had a quick thought in his life. I imagine his brain moves like molasses, same as his limbs. Another peanut gets tossed into his mouth. I’m surprised he has the dexterity to deshell them at all. I’d expect him to pound his meaty fist down onto them like a bear.

  “Now, I know staff is back in place and we’ve resumed normal life,” he continues. “However, I think we lucked out with some good damage from the storm. Those dorms that flooded, a few roof issues—in my opinion, it’s enough to justify continued layoffs. We can play up the issues with the generators too. Mention a drop in upcoming stays because of fears about the weather . . . that sort of thing. I’m sure you and me can come up with good stuff.”

  First of all, the resort is well insured, so any damage caused by the storm will be covered, easily. The roof had a few shingles fly off that have already been replaced. The generators have been diagnosed and serviced. The flooded dorms are already getting repaired, starting today. In the end, any savings earned from laying off countless staff members will only go to line Todd’s pockets, or should I say Turtle Cove, LLC’s pockets. It doesn’t matter. They’re one and the same, and I know that now.

  My silence irks him enough that he turns from the window and gives me his full attention. It’s as if what he’s about to say should really interest me.

  “Now here’s the thing, Cole. I’m prepared to promise you a share in the windfall. Seven percent of anything that comes my way.” He winks like this should be enough to knock my socks off. “When I meet with Mr. Durliat tomorrow, I’d like you to be present. I’ll hint at a possible promotion then as well . . . now, it won’t come with a raise, per se, but there could be a title change, something more properly befitting my second-in-command around here.”

  I fear my general distaste for him is written across my face, but if it is, he doesn’t see it.

  Seven percent of his stolen money and a fancy new title.

  Well gee golly, mister. Sign me up!

  “I don’t know what to say.” Because truly, I don’t know what to say that won’t come out sounding condescending.

  Todd holds up his hands and shakes his head like he’s trying to look humble. “Now, don’t go thanking me yet. We’ll see how all this pans out. In the meantime, you know the drill.” He zips his lips. “Let’s keep things hush hush.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Tomorrow. Eleven o’clock here in my office.”

  I stand and give him a mock salute, which he absolutely eats up. “Tomorrow, sir.”

  Then I walk out of his office knowing I need to hurry if I’m going to make it back to my office for a scheduled call with Joel Mira, Siesta Playa’s CFO.

  Enjoy your last twenty-four hours in power, Todd. Don’t worry, I’ll let you take your peanuts with you when you’re escorted off the premises.

  Even with my hectic day, I haven’t forgotten about Paige. She lives eternally on the periphery of my mind so that when I have a spare second or a moment to myself, she’s the first thing I think of. As the workday draws to a close and it’s almost time to meet her, I start to get nervous. Stupid, I know. What is there to worry about? I keep checking my watch every five seconds, and I’m shocked that more time hasn’t lapsed. Surely it was 5:15 forty-five minutes ago.

  “What time do you have?” I ask the receptionist.

  “Five fifteen.”

  Damn.

  I haven’t seen Paige all day.

  Between my meeting with Todd and my call with Joel, I also paid a visit to the accounting department on top of putting out all the usual daily fires in our resort.

  The preppers are on their way out, begrudgingly dragging their bug-out bags and adventure gear behind them, bemoaning their reentry into normal society. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve enjoyed watching them go. Most of them are sporting some kind of bandage or wound wrap, and it looks as if our hotel amenities—warm showers and complimentary soap—were overlooked in favor of going au naturel, i.e., overgrown beards and visible stink lines. If you didn’t know better, you’d think these guys just spent the better part of a week stranded on a deserted island instead of living in the lap of luxury.

  Outside their group, many of the guests who chose to weather the storm with us are also departing today. We feel like we’ve gone above and beyond to accommodate everyone who stayed with us this week—fully comped stays, free food and beverages, credits toward future room reservations and amenities. Even still, I’ve been subjected to my fair share of complainers. Some people just can’t be happy until you’re on the floor crying in the fetal position.