My Boss’s Secret by Taryn Quinn

Nine

I staredat my mystery woman’s grandmother as a thunk came from the connecting suite. Her concerned denim blue gaze flew to mine before she quickly jogged to the door between the rooms and flung it open, with me right behind her.

The room looked undisturbed, just as it had when I’d came here to get “Bunny’s” belongings.

I still didn’t know her name. She hadn’t even given me that much. I’d thought her grandmother might, but she’d called her Bunny and I didn’t feel right asking.

None of this felt right anymore.

The concierge had opened the room for me, since he’d handily seen us leave together the other day. He shouldn’t have, of course. I could be anyone. Possibly even one of those serial killers on the podcast she enjoyed.

I did too. What did that say about the pair of us?

That you fit together. You knew it from the first glance.

Her grandmother hurried through the room and stopped beside the small dresser, lifting her fingers to her lips. “Her carry-on isn’t here.”

I strode past her to the door to the hallway and pulled it open, already certain she was long gone. We were only moments behind her, but that was enough.

She could be headed back to my bure. That was the logical assumption. She’d overheard us, maybe had gotten annoyed that we’d discussed her in her absence, or that I’d pulled a Bishop move and tried to orchestrate her life by getting her things without asking first.

A bad habit with me. It hadn’t started with her. No, that particular compunction had started over three years ago, when I’d decided the best way to ensure I always got the outcome I wanted was to control as much as possible in my orbit.

No spontaneity. Nothing unplanned. And no decision made that I didn’t have my hand in.

It worked in business and it had worked in pleasure—until her. Until her grandmother had reminded me that a forced decision wasn’t a decision at all.

I could lock her away in my bure and never let her leave. Keep her there with fancy clothes and inventive sex and sweet nothings whispered over delicious dark chocolate and fruit.

But eventually, the haze would clear. And the fantasy would end.

I was beginning to think that it had already.

My first instinct was to go after her. To talk it out. Maybe even admit that I wasn’t able to settle for less with her. It had been so long since I’d found a real connection with anyone. She had to feel the same, right? No way in hell could this…thing be one-sided.

But I didn’t move. Why had she run? If she’d heard us talking and she was pissed, she had a voice. She could use it. Why not barge in and tell us how she felt?

Why just turn around and leave?

You know why. She doesn’t want more. Sure, she likes the sex. Likes your face and your money and your attention. You’re a good vacation fling. Period.

Her grandmother was speaking to me. Her voice buzzed in my ears like a horde of flies, circling my head.

Had she even looked at the picture? I’d asked her not to peek, but I’d also asked her for more without saying the words. She’d declined one, why not the other?

I took a deep breath and walked up the hall in the direction I’d assumed she’d gone. Why, I had no clue. I didn’t say goodbye to her grandmother, didn’t even attempt to search for my manners.

What difference did it make now?

I couldn’t say precisely why she’d chosen to run, but I knew deep down in my gut she had. Already I felt empty in a way I hadn’t since I’d arrived on the island.

I hadn’t known the hollowness in the center of my chest was loneliness. Even misery. I hadn’t known because those weren’t feelings I allowed myself anymore.

Now I was steeped in them. Drowning.

I rounded the end of the hallway, walking as if it was all I still knew how to do, my feet soundless on the carpet. One foot in front of the other. How I lived my life. I’d just keep walking until my soles were numb and I didn’t remember anymore.

Easier that way.

Then I made the mistake of looking down the hall. My gaze landed on a glittery shoe, tilted over on its side.

I rushed forward and grabbed it from the floor, my ears throbbing with my frenetic pulse. The heel was broken. Snapped almost off.

So much for these being high-end.

She’d loved these shoes. And she’d left it behind, broken and discarded.

I wasn’t making myself into a metaphor. I just was not. Besides, if I was broken, that had happened before she’d come into my life.

What was one more slice off what remained?

I started to rip the heel the rest of the way off, but I stopped. I couldn’t do it. Nor could I reply when her grandmother came up behind me and laid a hand on my back. Her gaze dropped to the shoe I held. Our eyes locked, and the pity in her expression said without words what I already knew.

Better to leave than to be left. When would I ever get that fucking message?

Not today.

Her grandmother had seen my commercials. Somehow she knew Preston—well, if her startled look and her “oh, dear” had held any weight. I could solve part of this right now and ask for her granddaughter’s real name and address. Force her to talk to me if she had indeed chosen flight rather than fight.

But asking was another kind of weakness, and pride was all I had left.

Actually, it was questionable at the moment if I had even that. Because I opened my mouth, the question lodged in my throat, the words begging to get out.

Tell me who she is. Give me that, at least.

Before I could, she shocked the hell out of me by grabbing my face and pulling it down to hers. She whispered in my ear, “just wait,” before she hurried up the hall in the direction she’d come from.

What the hell did that mean?

I pushed a hand through my hair, my gaze fixated on that damn shoe. I wanted to throw it against the wall. Obliterate it under my heel. I didn’t want a visible reminder if I couldn’t have her. I wanted them all to disappear as quickly as she had.

Instead, I gripped it that much tighter and went back to my bure to fucking wait.

* * *

By nightfall, she hadn’t come. I hadn’t expected her to.

I fell asleep eventually. My dreams were wild, chaotic. I couldn’t process them. Lots of storms breaking over the ocean, sharp bolts of lightning crashing into the tumultuous sea. After one of those dreams had me rearing up in bed, panting and disoriented, I opened my eyes to see the very same storm rolling in outside the open glass doors to the ocean.

Naked, sheened with sweat, I walked to them and pulled them closed on a gust of wind. And I strode to the wet bar and splashed some dark liquid into a short glass, swallowing it quickly so that the burn in my throat spread into my chest and down through the rest of me.

The next time, I skipped the glass and just drank from the bottle.

It was late the following day when I finally pulled myself out of my alcohol and exhaustion fueled stupor. I fought off the hangover with Advil, water, and a punishing run on the beach in the now blazing sun. It felt as if my calves were burning—and my skin matched equally once I was finished—but I was spent enough to not care anymore.

Almost.

The time rolled by, and I didn’t watch the clock. I slept, I drank, I kicked the stupid painting every time I passed it.

I wondered if I could set up a bonfire on the beach. It would make some damn good kindling. What did I care if they kicked me out of this place? It was almost time to leave, and I was never coming back.

Shewas never coming back.

I still could not let it go. Not if there was any chance she could still be here, and I could still find the way to reach her. Convincing people to see things my way was what I did. I was a freaking expert at it. Or so I’d once believed.

Like a pathetic sap, I went to all of the places I’d seen her alone. Futile expedition, that was. I’d just arrived at her hotel again when I remembered I was supposed to meet Preston at Lonegan’s to talk over some work shit, something I did not care one iota about. I was also nowhere near home.

Biting off an oath, I called my best friend.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked. “You on your way?”

Not exactly.

I shoved my sunglasses up on my head. Damn blinding sun was pissing me off as much as everything else was right about now. How had I ever believed this was paradise?

Far as I was concerned, paradise was now a dark room with an endless supply of bourbon.

“I’m still in Fiji. Shit went sideways. Needless to say, I’m not going to be at the bar tonight. Sorry.”

I hadn’t been able to leave. An idiotic part of me hoped that she hadn’t left the island, and she was just hiding in plain sight somewhere, hoping I’d find her again like I had the first time.

The idea made my breath quicken as I crossed the lobby, my gaze darting from person to person as if the possibility really existed she could be here. It wasn’t too late.

I hadn’t lost my last chance.

“Fiji?” Preston’s voice spiked. “You didn’t tell me you were there. And you said you met a woman?”

“Oh, I met a woman, all right.” The words tasted as bitter as the leftover alcohol coating my throat.

“What happened? I thought you were in love and all that.”

I snorted. Love. Right. What the hell was that, anyway?

“All thatis correct. Until she ghosted me.”

Static filled the line, and for a second, I thought we’d lost the connection. I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now—at least anyone who wasn’t her, as lowering as that was to admit.“If I can’t find her, I’m catching a flight tonight.”

“You’re still looking? And um, just for curiosity’s sake, her name isn’t April, is it?”

“No,” I growled.

As if I even knew her name. I hadn’t wanted to shock uptight, moralistic Preston by admitting we’d never even given each other our names, so it had just been easier to fib.

Also, that whole falling in love concept when someone didn’t even want you to know who they were was a little hard to explain. Much easier to lie.

“Thank God.” More static filled the line.

“If what she told me was even her name.” Since I knew Bunny wasn’t her real name, the bridge to the truth I was perched on was shaky. But I wasn’t ready to come entirely clean yet. At least not until I was in person with my best friend. “We only did first ones. Now I’m questioning everything.”

“Okay, what did she look—”

A voice came across the hotel intercom, warning of more inclement weather due in soon. Naturally. Why not? I’d have to see how bad it was supposed to get and come up with a plan to get home.

So much for my pointless search. It was obviously for the best. Wasting any more time on someone who didn’t even have the courtesy to say goodbye—even if it was just to tell me to fuck myself via a Dear John letter—was below even me.

“Sorry, man, I have to go. We’ll reschedule that meeting in a few days. Whatever you need.”

“Sure, don’t worry about it. I’m sorry about this.”

I shut my eyes. “Me, too, Shaw.”

Time to close the chapter on my Cinderella for good.