The landline rang cheerfully from within the kitchen. I didn’t bother reaching for the handset in my own room because I knew my mother would pick it up quickly. No one in the house needed to worry about picking up the phone. My mother refused to have a cell phone for friends or neighbors to call. She wanted them to call the landline as a way to remind every one of her status in the Hamptons.

I returned my attention back to Cole’s social media page. He wasn’t active like my mother’s Facebook profile. The last time Cole had even posted anything was a picture of a sunset over three weeks ago.

No phone calls. No text messages. At least, on my personal phone. I had been so desperate to get out of my stifling apartment in the city to keep myself distracted that I had left my work phone sitting on the charger. Still. Cole had my personal number. He knew how to get ahold of me.

Fear shot through me before settling icily in the pit of my stomach. Cole never once struck me as the type of man to turn into a ghost when it came to relationships. He had promised that we would talk when I returned to Manhattan.

He told you to leave, Violet. He told you to spend some time away. If that doesn’t scream rejection to you—

I squeezed my eyes shut with a watery sigh. It didn’t matter if that was his purpose by sending me away. I saw that look in his eyes. I couldn’t get it out of my head, no matter how hard I tried to forget. It was the look of a man completely wild with lust, but also with guilt, torn between what I wanted, and the conflict raging in Cole’s heart.

There was only one way to settle it. I grabbed my phone to find Cheryl’s phone number at Crayton, Inc.

“Crayton, Inc,” Cheryl said cheerfully. “This is Cheryl. How may I direct your call?”

“Hi, Cheryl,” I parroted, holding the phone tightly to my ear. “It’s Violet Summers. I just wanted to call to check in on work.”

“Oh, I’m glad to hear that you got home okay. Mr. Crayton said you weren’t feeling well, so he gave you the week off.”

My throat squeezed tightly. “I was just a bit homesick, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure that everything is okay at the office.”

“Everything’s fine here,” Cheryl said. I could hear the frown in her voice. “Are you okay, Violet? You sound like you want to ask me something.”

“No, nothing. Well…” I hesitated for a moment. I didn’t want to raise any more alarm bells in Cheryl’s mind, but I was dying to hear Cole’s voice. “Is Mr. Crayton in the office? I actually do need to talk with him.”

“You’d have to try him on his work cell. He left the office this morning after telling me he was going to take a week off of work as well.”

“He’s taking some time off, too?”

“That’s what he told me,” Cheryl said. “I imagine you’ll be here next week, right? Mr. Crayton mentioned I could take the next week off.”

Relief washed over me at that. At least I still had my spot as his personal assistant if Cheryl was planning to take the next week off. I still couldn’t erase the uneasiness in my stomach.

“Yeah, I’ll be there next week.”

A knock echoed in my room. I turned in my chair to find my mother opening my bedroom door with a smile.

“I have to go, Cheryl,” I said, reading the excited expression on my mother’s face with an inward groan. “I’ll try Mr. Crayton on his cell if he is out of the office.”

“Have a good week. Get some rest, honey.”

“What is it?” I asked after putting my phone down on my desk. “You look way too excited for something. Who was on the phone?”

Mother perched herself delicately on the edge of my bed with her tan and smooth legs crossed at the ankles. She waved a flippant hand.

“No one important,” she said. “I have a proposition for you, actually. That’s why I came up here.”

I tensed warily at that. “What sort of proposition?”

“A day in the city doing some shopping.” She smiled at me. “Maybe some new clothes will cheer you up out of this strange funk you came home in.”

“I’m not in a funk, Mom. I told you that I’m just tired, nothing else is bothering me.”

“Baby, you’re pale as a piece of paper. There are bags underneath your eyes. Something is going on with you.”

“Nothing is going on with me,” I said, defensively. I reached up to touch the puffiness under my eyes. “I’m just stressed with work, that’s it.”

“That brings me to my next point. I’m hosting a party this weekend that I think you would be interested in.”

“What’s different about this one?”

“There is a young man named Ryan who—”

“No,” I interjected, shaking my head adamantly. “No, Mom. Don’t play matchmaker, please. I already told you that I’m not interested in dating anyone right now.”

Not anyone besides Cole.

“I don’t understand what is going on with you,” Gloria said. A puzzled frown spread across her face. “When I was your age, honey, I was at all the social events I could go to with your father. It’s important that you find someone who can provide for you, who can keep you financially secure. Ryan Collins’s father is an oil tycoon who is now single. Imagine your future with someone like him. You wouldn’t have to worry about a day in your life, Vi.”

Ryan Collins happened to be one of the biggest douchebags in the Hamptons. He hosted endless parties with his friends, drank all day, and cheated on any girlfriend he managed to rope in. He was attractive, with his chiseled body and sandy blonde locks, but I still grimaced at the thought of sleeping next to a guy who didn’t understand the concept of loyalty.

“Ryan is a tool bag,” I said. “You know how many girlfriends he has had over the past year?”

“That’s beside the point. His inheritance solely relies on Ryan getting married so—”

I got up from the desk chair with a noise of disgust. “Why is me marrying someone like that so important to you?”

“I just want to make sure that you are going to be secure in the future,” mother said, startled by my reaction. “Honey, we’re in a different class than most of the population. Your father worked very hard to make sure of that.”

“And that’s why you shouldn’t be pawning me off to some guy who cheats on everyone he’s with.”’

“This is the twenty-first century, Violet. Don’t be so dramatic over it. I can’t force you to marry someone you don’t like.”

“You can sure as hell pester me,” I muttered, sliding my feet into a pair of flip flops next to the bed. “Why do you keep bringing this up?”

“Because I know how hard it is to have nothing. Your father and I weren’t always rich, Violet. We had our utility bills disconnected so many times that I still couldn’t count for you.”

“I’m not in that position,” I said. “My job at Crayton, Inc makes sure of that. Why can’t I find someone to love on my own?”

Her eyes narrowed at me curiously. “Is there someone that you love? Because that would explain a lot of things about your behavior since you’ve been back.”

I kept my face carefully expressionless, despite how my heart rushed at the truth of it. Was it even love? Or just lust at this point? I didn’t even know what to think of my feelings for Cole.

“That’s not the case,” I said, and her face slipped into disappointment. “Do you want to go shopping or not?”

The next three hours ticked by in a haze of various stores. When we got home, I dumped all the bags on my bed and pulled out the clothes for the house staff to take to the dry cleaners. I held up the small cocktail dress that my mom insisted I should wear for the party, just to cheer me up.

I rolled my eyes as I tossed it on the bed. I couldn’t remember a time when the social class didn’t matter to my mom. Growing up in Manhattan put me in a special class that everyone wanted to be in, where money wasn’t an issue. It also felt suffocating at times.

The house felt oppressive in particular at the moment. Grabbing my phone from my purse, I snuck down through the back stairway to head in the direction of the beach. It was still warm out and the last bits of summer still clung to the coastline. It would be cold, but fiery and beautiful with the change of Autumn around the corner.

The beach was empty when I reached the gate. I slipped out of my shoes and pushed the gate open to bury my feet gladly into the hot sand. The spray of sea water filled the air as waves crashed down on the sandy beach. The ocean stretched on endlessly into the horizon. Cold water rushed up to touch my toes while I walked along at a slow pace, trying not to reach for my phone.

I didn’t want to appear clingy, but I missed Cole’s voice. Spending the past few weeks with him every single day had solidified the fact that I enjoyed his company. There were things about Cole that the rest of the world didn’t know about, and those were the things that I wanted to keep to myself. Like his favorite brand of whiskey, or how he took his coffee first thing in the morning. Intimate details.

A shiver went up my spine that had nothing to do with the cold sea water. I still remembered how it felt to be filled completely from the inside. How close Cole had felt to me with his bare and sculpted chest mashed up against mine. The way he had breathed so hard and jagged into my ear in pleasure. And those hands. Those wicked hands that rubbed me in all the best ways. He had overwhelmed every inch of me in the best way possible.

My stomach fluttered at the memory, but now I felt empty with the silence. Cole never struck me as the type of man who would take care of a woman the way he had taken care of me at my apartment. I knew that he had slept with many women over the years, but that was different. I had overheard that conversation with my dad one time after Cole’s divorce.

“It’s just nothing to me,” Cole had told my dad at the time. “I don’t even go to their place. They come to mine, and I tell them to leave before they fall asleep.”

Cole didn’t say to leave permanently. He knew that I needed the time to process what happened. That was the only reason why he had done that. It was foolish reasoning, but I chose to stick by it to get through the weekend without my mom pestering me the entire time about why I didn’t sleep or eat the way I normally do.

I stopped a mile down the beach when my phone buzzed in the back of my jeans. Heart thudding wildly, I pulled my phone out to read the text message on the screen.

Are you wearing denim jean shorts that expose those sexy ass legs of yours? Or that white tank top that I can see your black bra through?

I frowned down at the unknown number. Panic shot through me as I looked up to scan the beachline to settle on the parking lot where a black SUV was parked facing my direction. The passenger door opened, and my heart leaped up through my chest when I saw Cole give me a wave. The relief going through me made me weak and wobbly as I jogged up the sandy beach, flip flops in hand. I ignored the hot asphalt on the soles of my feet as I jogged up to where Cole was standing beside the SUV.

I didn’t care if there was anyone that we knew looking at us. I wrapped my arms around him in a tight hug, relishing the feel of his strong body against my own as he carefully cradled me against him. He smelled of fresh cologne.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling back to look up at him with a breathless smile. “I’m so glad you’re here! Cheryl said that you weren’t in the office today and—”

“I needed to take some time off, too,” Cole said.

“Was this you that texted me?” I asked and held up my phone to show him the message. “Or do I need to worry about some stalker in the distance?”

Cole reached into the backseat of his SUV to pull out two iPhones. He handed the unopened box to me with a small smile.

“I got us new phones,” he said. “They aren’t connected to work, so we can talk this way freely without it being on a company phone. Or your phone, too.”

My heart refused to slow down from the excitement bubbling in me. After years, and I mean years, of waiting for this, it was finally here. I looked up at Cole as he flipped up his Ray Bans to smile down at me.

“Does this mean what I think it means?” I asked.

“It means exactly what you think it means,” he returned with a grin. He held up a finger though before I could burst with energy. “We have to keep this quiet though, Vi. Can you do that?”

“Absolutely. I’ll do whatever you want as long as I have you at the end of the day.”

“Good. Now.” He took a step back to gesture for me to hop into the passenger seat. “Why don’t we go somewhere private to talk before someone on the beach sees us and tells your parents?”

“Where are we going?” I asked, my body already thrumming with anticipation.

“My house. If that’s all right with you?”

“Yes.”

I swallowed thickly as I slid in the passenger seat. Cole slid in next to me, and it took all of my self-control to not lean over and kiss him like I wanted to. I didn’t care where we went. I just wanted to be with him.