“It’s a plan.” I kiss her forehead. “Are you hungry?”

  “Not really. I kind of want to go for a swim.”

  “Then let’s go for a swim.”

  She laughs wildly as I pull her off the counter and start carrying her to the back door. Our clothes aren’t on properly; we’re still sticky and wet.

  “Cole!” Her protest is weak. I know she loves this.

  We shed any remaining clothing as we walk along the sand toward the water. I’m not worried about us being seen. The beach curves between Marcus’s house and mine, making it so we’re on our own out here, just us and the fish.

  Her bra’s forgotten. Her panties too.

  Paige is naked, traipsing into the ocean wearing an ear-to-ear smile. Already, I want her again, but it’s more than that. I’m paralyzed. I can’t take another step forward. She kicks the water and tells me to come on, but I can’t even blink, let alone walk.

  The sun is starting to set behind her, warm colors streaking across the sky. She’s encased in it, pure sunshine backlit by all that golden light. She’s the antithesis of everything I knew growing up. Vibrant and exciting. She’s all the colors of Oz, and I’m dumbstruck Dorothy.

  “Come in with me, silly,” she says, bending down to splash me with water.

  When I don’t go in after her right away, she tips her head to the side, her expression gentling.

  “It feels a little weird, doesn’t it?” she broaches. “Finally being together, I mean.”

  I nod and start to walk toward her, but she doesn’t let me reach her. She walks backward instead, drawing me deeper into the water until the waves splash up to my hips.

  When I catch her, I hold my hand up like I’m flattening it against a pane of glass. She mimics me, pressing her hand to mine.

  “You don’t feel real,” I admit.

  She smiles wistfully. “I am.”

  I swallow, and she stares at my throat, at my Adam’s apple as it bobs.

  “It wasn’t the same for me,” I try to tell her. “I knew from the beginning. I knew I wanted to be with you.”

  Her emotions tangle inside her. Her eyebrows furrow in frustration.

  “You should have—”

  I shake my head.

  I know there’s a million things I should have done, but we’re here now. It took us this long. I want to apologize to us both, but then . . . does it matter? We survived the journey, and maybe this moment is all the sweeter because of it.

  My fingers shift and lace through hers, and then I bend down to steal a kiss, then another.

  Later, we lie in bed, utterly exhausted. The spaghetti was made and devoured; the chocolate ice cream was shared at the kitchen island. I had her on the bed after, my real dessert. Her legs spread and her hair fanned out around her. She fisted the sheets as I dropped my mouth between her legs and watched her unravel like a loose spool of thread. If I close my eyes, I can remember the details. Her toes curling as she came, the flush that covered her chest and neck, her smell, her taste.

  I’ve never felt so defenseless. Loving her isn’t getting easier, I’m realizing.

  Having her hasn’t eviscerated all my fears; it’s heightened them.

  Lying in bed, stroking her arm, I feel like my heart’s completely abandoned me for her. She looks up at me with all the innocence of someone who doesn’t realize this. To her, I’m just Cole.

  “Promise me you won’t break my heart,” she says with a teasing tone, but I see the reality in her eyes. The truth lurking there.

  The concept of breaking her heart is laughable. I think my body would self-sabotage in an effort to keep her happy and safe. But she can’t comprehend that, so I just say, simply, “I promise.”

  My bedside clock is taunting me.

  “We should get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow.”

  She strokes my chest, focusing more of her attention there than on my words. “Oh?”

  I nod reluctantly. “Todd has a meeting with Scott, and he’d like me to be there.”

  “Oh!” She sits up, suddenly interested. “Is this it?”

  “This is it,” I confirm.

  “Oh . . . wow. Okay, so? What’s the plan? Tell me everything.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  COLE

  Todd’s takedown has been a long time coming.

  I’ve thought long and hard about how I want to go about it. Something quiet and tasteful could have sufficed, but I deserve a gotcha moment, preferably on camera. A slow pan of Todd’s face as he realizes that he’s royally fucked.

  In lieu of a PowerPoint, I’ve opted for something tangible. A clear-front, bound presentation with a cover à la your sixth-grade book report. I made four copies. One is in the hands of Scott Durliat at this very moment.

  Our CEO is the opposite of Todd in every way. Tall, trim, well dressed. He has salt-and-pepper hair, cut short and neat. There’s a severity to his features that makes it feel like he means business. When he first arrived, I watched the valet crew skitter to their places, the receptionists stand tall, shoulders back, smiles on. He brushed past everyone on his way to the conference room where we now sit.

  I’m positioned across from him, hands folded on the table.

  He flips through pages of my report, reading slowly, digesting what I’m trying to spoon-feed him.

  Everything is there: copies of the expense reports going back three years, as well as all the account transfers. I had the head of our accounting department contact our bank. You see, when you write a check to someone, they have to endorse the check when they go to cash or deposit it. This signature goes onto the back of the check, in zone one. The institution that receives the check also has to mark the item before it’s processed back to the originating financial institution. That mark goes in zone two. The originating institution (i.e., our bank) received electronic images of the front and back of every processed check. Every single one of them was endorsed with Todd’s signature.

  He really is stupid. Embezzling money from your company is reckless. Signing the fraudulent checks with your full legal name before you deposit them? Now that’s just . . . bafflingly dumb.

  I can see the rage setting in for Scott—$86,924’s worth of rage.

  He’s like me, exacting and ill tempered. Though maybe I’ll be less ill tempered moving forward now that I’ll no longer have to deal with Todd and I’ll have Paige in my bed every night. Paige.

  “He also verbally promised me a share of the windfall if I stayed quiet and worked alongside him on this,” I tack on. That part didn’t fit well within my organized presentation. Besides, I thought it was best delivered face to face anyway.

  “That fucking bastard,” Scott hisses under his breath, refocusing my attention on the task at hand.

  He slaps the report closed and tosses it onto the conference table. It slides across until I stop it with my hand.

  For a moment, his sharp gaze locks on me, and the heat is still there. I’m the messenger about to be killed.

  “Has the accounting team seen this yet?” he asks.

  “I reviewed it with Joel but no one else. He helped me hunt through the expense reports so we could total up everything, and he also reached out to our bank concerning Todd’s checks. I wanted to be absolutely certain. Joel was going to reach out to you first thing, but I told him I was already meeting with you today. Should we get him on the phone?”

  He nods, and I stand to reach for the conference phone on the table. It’s a quick call.

  Joel is as mad as Scott.

  They go through the reports together while I sit quietly. Joel confirms my findings. The dominoes fall into place, and I have a hell of a time keeping the smile off my face.

  A surge of power has me buzzing as the clock ticks down. Karmic retribution is just so . . . satisfying.

  Todd is due to join us any minute. He’ll be surprised to find Scott and I are already here. After all, the three of us weren’t due to meet until 11:00 a.m. Never mind that Scott and I have been here for over an hour.

  The call ends, and Scott’s gaze flits back to me. He’s only now remembering I’m in the room.

  “To be clear, you’ll be replacing Todd. Active immediately. Work out compensation with HR. Figure out what you want. Obviously, we’re not in a position to negotiate here. I don’t want this getting out. You’ll sign an NDA. Do you understand?”

  Replace Todd?

  What? No! I couldn’t possibly . . .

  “Done,” I say, confident and succinct.

  I can already picture Cole Clark, Director of Operations on my email signature.

  Mwhahah.

  “Also, sir, there’s one more thing I’d like to discuss before Todd gets here . . .”

  Epilogue

  PAIGE

  The day Todd is fired will go down in infamy. We all hurried over to witness his removal from the hotel. It was . . . loud, among other things.

  His booming voice carried throughout the resort almost from the very beginning.

  From down the executive hall, we were treated to several outbursts, including but not limited to:

  “You’re firing me?!”

  “Fuck you and fuck you!”

  “You’re replacing me with this kid?! He’s a total idiot!”

  There was no going gently into retirement for Todd. His reaction was on par with being wrongfully arrested and convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. And to be clear, in the beginning, he wasn’t being arrested (that came later). The two security guards should have been enough on their own. They were supposed to escort Todd to his office so he could collect his personal items. Then things took a turn when Todd tried to carry out cash that he was apparently stowing in one of his desk drawers. The money was in a nondescript duffel bag that screamed illegal, though he claimed it was just his gym clothes. Never mind that Todd hasn’t seen the inside of a gym since ’87.

  “This is my property!” he shouted as a security guard tried to take it from him. “I’M CALLING THE FUCKING COPS!”

  No need there. The police were already on their way just as Todd had moved the spectacle from the executive hallway out into the main lobby. Mad that he wasn’t leaving with his bag of stolen money, he tried to make up for it by stealing stationery and pens from reception on his way out. One of the computer monitors got wrenched free as well, but that didn’t last long. Security got that back immediately.

  Sensing his opportunities starting to dwindle as the sirens drew closer outside, Todd settled for breaking the fourth wall. We were no longer audience members at the Greatest Play I’ve Ever Seen; we were participants. He started shouting at us all at the top of his lungs. Spinning in a wide circle, his finger wagging, spittle flinging everywhere. “YOU’RE ALL WRONG! I WAS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO THIS PLACE!”

  Then he ducked out of the reach of one bumbling security guard and made it over to the sitting area, where he pushed a guest down in an attempt to get away. With nothing left to lose, he started throwing the stolen Siesta Playa pencils and pens behind him like he was dropping banana peels in Mario Kart.

  Guests continued to flock to the scene, filled with the same morbid curiosity as the rest of us.

  I was manning the excursion desk, so I had to be there.

  Cole was across the lobby, standing beside our CEO.

  For everyone else, Cole kept his expression stoic and sincere. But when our eyes locked, the barest hint of a smile sneaked out. I already knew we would be breaking down this entire scene later over a shared bottle of wine.

  “What was your favorite part?” I’d ask him, topping off his glass.

  Cole would puff out a breath, overwhelmed with options. “What was there not to love? Oh, maybe when he tried to jump over the back of the couch but failed miserably?”

  “That’s when the police finally got him, right?”

  It was a day that will live in infamy at Siesta Playa. The dragon was vanquished once and for all by none other than our very own in-house knight. News about Cole’s role in Todd’s exit spread like wildfire through the resort (which was partially my fault because I spilled the beans to Lara and Camila, and neither of them knows how to keep a secret). Immediately thereafter, anyone who was on the fence about Cole immediately switched course and acted as if they were always on his side from the start.

  “Cole Clark? Yeah, I always liked that guy.”

  “Cole? Best director we’ve ever had here. Super-cool guy too.”

  “Cole wears slacks and a sweater on Wednesdays, so I wear slacks and a sweater on Wednesdays.”

  Of course, I get the benefit of liking Cole before it was cool to like Cole.

  He’s my boyfriend now. My official boyfriend. I know it sounds braggy, especially when you see his abs, but it’s only because I am, in fact, bragging.

  Our slow and torturous start has the benefit of launching us into a no-holds-barred frenzy of a relationship where at any moment of the day, if the timing and situation are right, we’re gonna be making out. My lips are perpetually red. My hand has permanently conformed to the shape of Cole’s ass. I have every dark corner of this hotel cataloged in my head: which ones have enough space for Cole to haul me up against the wall, and which ones will afford us a tiny bit of privacy, but not enough to get really carried away.

  This is our running tally:

  Number of guests who’ve accidentally caught us kissing: 4. (To be fair, they were all part of one family. The mom gasped and covered her children’s eyes, but it’s not like they could really see anything . . . )

  Number of times HR has had to call us in for a debrief on Siesta Playa’s relationship policies: 1.

  Number of times I’ve been late for work because Cole has kept me up too late the night before: 2.

  There were a few weeks right in the beginning where we tried the good old-fashioned dating strategy of swapping where we stay each night: a night at his place, then a night at mine. Outside that, we’d meet for lunch and dinner—frantic for more time together—and then, when we were nearing the one-month mark, Cole suggested that I inform HR that I want to move out of my dorm.

  It happened one Sunday morning when we were on the pebble path walking from the cafeteria to my dorm. We both woke up late craving the crispy bacon and syrup-covered pancakes the staff cafeteria makes on the weekends. It was worth the schlep from Cole’s place to the cafeteria because we got to eat with Lara and Camila, and afterward, once our bodies were more syrup than blood, we decided to stop off at my dorm so I could grab a change of clothes. Our hands were interlaced as we strolled on the path with no real plan in mind for the rest of our day.

  “We could go down to the beach?” I offered.

  “I kind of want to hike.”

  “Oh, that could be fun!”

  Then BAM.

  “What if you moved out of your dorm?”

  I glanced over at him with big round eyes.

  “I’ll be homeless then,” I said, dumb as a rock.

  Cole smiled a crooked little smile. “You’ll be moving in with me . . .”

  I’m not sure if he meant for me to move in that day, but I did. We turned right around on that pebble path and headed back to my dorm so we could pack it up. I don’t have all that much, actually. I’ve always been a lady of few items. My clothes fit into a big duffel. My miscellaneous junk filled a few boxes. Then Cole borrowed one of the resort’s golf carts and we hauled everything to his place in two easy trips.

  I became the second toothbrush in his bathroom, the soft pink pillow on his otherwise blue-and-white bed, the misshapen ceramic mug on his kitchen shelves.

  He was the one to suggest that we hang my mom’s series of photos over the couch in the living room, and we FaceTimed my parents to show them the setup once we were done.

  “I love it!” my mom exclaimed. Then she asked more seriously, “So it’s officially official?”

  “I know it’s fast . . . ,” I started, worried my parents were going to warn me away from acting rashly. Moving in with someone is a big step; I understand that.

  I expected a lot of things: a reproachful frown, a drawn-out warning about taking things slow, possibly even a horribly belated birds-and-bees speech. Sweetie, sometimes when a man loves a woman . . . they touch . . . intimately.

  My mom did the exact opposite. She guffawed. “Are you kidding?! If I had to listen to you talk about Cole, complain about Cole, wax poetic about Cole for one more minute, I was going to lose it. For the last six months it’s all you brought up.”

  Oh dear god.

  “It was endless, truly. I thought we were going to have to come there and sort it out ourselves—”

  I clamored for my phone.

  “Sorry! Mom?!” I made sure to speak very loudly over her. “Mom?! Weird. You’re cutting out!”

  “Paige?” she asked, coming through crystal clear.

  Then, oops, my finger pressed the red button to end the call.

  I didn’t move. I squeezed my phone in the palm of my hand as I willed the color to drain from my cheeks. No such luck. After a beat or two of awkward silence—without much choice—I slowly lifted my face toward Cole. The torture was one sided. He was smiling sinfully at me. He’d never been happier in his life. He’d never let me live this down, I knew it.

  “So . . . just how much did you talk about me to your mom?”

  I winced and closed my eyes before assuring him that it was “a normal, infinitesimal amount. Hardly at all.”

  “Oh? Hmm.” He didn’t buy it. He pointed to my phone. “Should we call them back to verify?”

  Panicked over the idea, I chucked my phone, and it skittered to a stop on the floor clear across the room. The screen probably cracked, but what did I care?

  Cole only gloated more, and I was forced to take matters into my own hands. I pivoted and turned to face him, scooting closer. Already, his breath hitched. Then I climbed up and over him until I was sitting on his lap with my hands delicately placed on his shoulders.

  Immediately, his hands found my waist and he tightened his grip, ensuring I wasn’t going anywhere.