The sun streaming through the windows pulled me from my sleep. The sounds of the ocean trickled in from the hallway, and I remembered that I never went back to close the porch. And it felt marvelous in the suite. There was a bit of humidity, just enough to glisten the tanned skin of the woman curled up at my side. I looked down into Kylie’s sleeping face and saw her peel her eyes open, awakening for a third chance at the romantic happily ever after she found in the idea of a next morning.

I sure as hell wasn’t fucking it up this time around.

“Morning,” she said as she stretched her legs.

Her pussy graze my thigh, and it made my cock jump.

“Good morning, beautiful,” I said with a grin. “How are you feeling?”

“Mmmmm.”

That hum of hers would be the death of me if she didn’t stop.

“I slept great,” she said as a lopsided smile appeared on her face.

“I’m glad,” I said. “You up for a little breakfast?”

“Can we stay in and eat it?”

“Trust me, I’m not sharing you with the public if I don’t have to.”

“Well, then I hate to burst your bubble, but my plans were to go exploring on the town today.”

“Oh, your plans,” I said.

“Yep. Don’t know what you’re doing, but after breakfast I’m getting a shower, cleaning up, and going to explore Los Angeles.”

“Then it sounds like I’ll be sharing you after all. Come on, I’ll order us some breakfast and we can eat it on the balcony.”

“Just not in the hot tub. I think it’s still napping.”

“It must be tired from all the roughhousing it experienced.”

She giggled up at me with that beautiful sound, and I wrapped my arms around her. I rolled her on top of me as a squeal left her lips. I ran my fingers through her knotted hair before bringing her in for a kiss, tasting the remnants of my body against her tongue. I massaged her back, allowed my hands to walk along her naked form so long as she graced me with it. Our kiss deepened and my cock throbbed, but instead of grinding against me, she pulled away.

“Such a naughty boy,” she said as she slid from my body.

Her eyes fell to my cock, and I flexed it for her viewing pleasure. She smiled at me before she disappeared into the bathroom and I heard the sink turn on. Fuck. She really was going to leave me dripping onto my own damn skin. I sat up and groaned, shaking my head at how this woman had me on her leash. I’d never been entranced with a woman like I was with her. She could have asked anything of me and I’d stop at nothing to make sure she had it.

It was dangerous territory to be in for a man with the kind of wallet I had.

I walked back into my room and picked up the phone. I ordered us a sprawling breakfast so she could eat whatever she wanted. Smoked salmon piled high on a cream cheese bagel. Toast. Sausage. Bacon. Eggs. Waffles. Some sliced fruit and freshly pressed orange juice with a bottle of their finest champagne to accompany it. Caviar tailored specifically for dessert and some cheeses to put on toasted crackers. After I was done placing the order and charging it to my room, I dipped into the shower to clean myself up.

I got out and listened as Kylie thanked someone at the front door.

“Ryan?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you order breakfast for an army? Or is someone joining us?” Kylie asked.

I dried my hair off with a towel as I walked into the room. I had pulled on a pair of pants but not a shirt, and her eyes lingered on my chest. Fuck me, I loved it when she looked at me that way. I dropped the towel and walked toward her, reaching out for her hips. I pulled her beautiful body into mine and dropped my lips to hers for a kiss to start off the meal.

A little appetizer that foreshadowed much more to come.

“Eat whatever you want, and what we don’t eat is fine. I wanted you to have choices. That’s all,” I said.

“Well, it smells wonderful. Thank you,” she said with a smile. “But next time, don’t order so much. Your wallet is supposed to be on vacation along with us.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a grin.

We sat on the balcony and ate in silence. We gazed out over the water, taking in its sounds as families started venturing out onto the sand. Mothers clung to their children and husbands carried loads of bags and umbrellas, stumbling in the sand, trying to be the best men they could be for their familied. I held Kylie’s hand as she sipped on her mimosa, and I saw her gazing out at the families, grinning at the children screaming and running toward the ocean.

I saw a glimmer of something in her eyes before it faded away into nothingness. I could’ve sworn it was longing.

“I’m sorry for my ultimatum,” I said.

She turned her gaze to me, the families she was envious of long forgotten about.

“You need to take all the time you need to work through your feelings. I should have never forced something like that on you.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I mean, it’s not fine, but it’s how you work as a businessman. Sometimes it’s hard to turn work off and be simply a person.”

“I understand all too well the pains of a first love. It took me almost a year to work through it after Adam’s mother left.”

“She was your first love?” she asked

“She was. I didn’t do a lot of dating in high school. I was too busy sticking my nose in books. And when I got to college, I took every class I could think of that might benefit me in my journey to owning my own business. When I met her, it was like a train had crashed over me. She was stunning.”

Kylie turned toward me and sipped on her mimosa as she dropped my hand.

“Tell me about the first time you met her,” she said.

“You want to hear that?” I asked.

“I do.”

I drew in a deep breath and allowed my mind to sink back to that moment.

“She was wearing a red-and-white plaid dress. Spaghetti straps. Short. Way too short for a nineteen-year-old in college. She wore these black flats and her dark-brown hair was up in this French twist thing. She was sitting in the cafeteria with some of her friends, poking at a salad of some sort that she’d made. She was laughing at a joke one of her friends had made, and Doug caught me staring.”

“I bet he gave you such a hard time for it,” she said with a giggle.

“He really did. In fact, he was the one who gave me the push to go over and talk to her. I went over and introduced myself, and she looked up at me with those same blue eyes Adam has, and I asked her for her name.”

“Adam’s never told me her name,” she said.

I furrowed my brow before I let out a deep sigh.

“Minnie,” I said. “Minnie Bowman. She was something else altogether. I fell for her immediately. I was a goner before I ever knew what that meant. And six months later, we were pregnant with Adam. I proposed to her on the spot, told her I could take care of her no matter what. That I’d work my ass off to make sure she and our child wanted for nothing.”

“You did what a man would step up and do.”

“No woman deserves any less, especially one carrying his child. But things went sour quickly with us. By the time Adam was twelve, she was doing nothing but siphoning my money and jetting off on the weekends without me to God only knew where.”

“Wait. She took vacations without you?”

“All the time,” I said. “With her friends. A couple of times with men I thought she might’ve been cheating on me with.”

“What?” Kylie asked.

“It killed me, watching the only woman I had ever really loved drift away from me like that. We fought about work, about how I was never around, how she was practically raising Adam on her own and she deserved the vacations to get away. And I understood. She did deserve them. She dropped out of college to have Adam and stay home so I could build up my company to provide for them. There are days, even now, where I wonder if I did enough to salvage what we had. But there’s one important lesson I took away from it.”

“What?” she asked.

“The only thing we can truly count on is that things change. People change. The world is always changing. And I think Adam fights against that because of how he saw things change between his mother and me. I’ll always hold myself responsible for not sheltering him enough from our arguments and our eventual downfall.”

“Ryan.”

“Yep?”

“We aren’t in control of how we are raised,” Kylie said. “But we are in control of how our childhood affects us as adults. The decisions your son is making now with his life are not a reflection of your parenting. They’re a reflection of the kind of man he is choosing to become. He’s a reflection of the kind of ideals he’s willing to latch himself onto while casting the other ones aside. You raised a good man. I witnessed that for three and a half years. But then he made the conscience decision to become a different man, one I couldn’t stand by, one I couldn't create a future with. That isn’t your fault. That’s Adam’s.”

I gazed into Kylie’s eyes and the world faded away. There were moments where I took in her lighthearted and carefree spirit, an energy that seemed to rush through the veins of someone in their twenties. Then there were moments like this one, where I watched a woman well beyond the span of her years rear her head and give advice that no woman her age should even be privy to. It gave me a glimpse of her maturity, of her education, of how she had learned her lessons in life and been dealt a treacherous hand she was still trying to muddle through.

“You are an inspiration, Miss Baker.”

That beautiful smile offered itself up to me as my hand found hers again. I brought it to my lips to kiss, and I watched her cheeks tint with a beautiful flush. It was a deep flush that matched the tan color of her skin. She reached her hand out and cupped my cheek, running her thumb along the span of my cheekbone as she drew in a deep breath.

“Adam called me up this past Monday and wanted to get lunch,” she said.

I brought my hand up to cup hers before bringing it into my lap.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“It made a lot of things harder. He said he thought he wanted to get back with me and try to work things out.”

“He thought.”

“Yeah,” she said with a snicker. “He didn’t even know that for sure. He said we had a lot to work on and he didn’t know where it would take us, but he thought we needed to sit down and work it out and then everything would be okay. And it made me so angry, Ryan. I was so angry at him for making it all so simple.”

“Because it’s not,” I said. “It’s not that simple.”

“It’s not. He wants things to be like they used to be, and they can’t be. We’re different people than we were four years ago. I told him he never made firm decisions and stuck with them and never knew what he wanted because deep down he was scared of sticking with a path and finding out it was the wrong one. I told him I couldn't hold on to his ‘I thinks’ and his ‘possiblys.’ I don’t work that way. I work in definitives.”

“What did he say? Do you want to talk about it?”

“I do,” she said breathlessly. “I really do, Ryan. Is that okay?”

I scooted to the edge of my seat and set my drink down.

“I want nothing more than for you to talk to me, Kylie.”

Tears rose in her eyes.

“I told him I wanted a house, a family, to settle down. And he told me to stop talking about it, like it actually hurt him to hear. But I told him he had to listen because that’s our fundamental difference. I told him I deserved someone who was heading in the same direction as me, and the only thing he could think to tell me was that he loved me. And it hurt, Ryan. It hurt so much to hear that from him because I know it’s true. I know he loves me. But that doesn't mean we work.”

I was elated she was finally opening up to me, but it broke my soul to see her so distraught. I scooted my chair closer to hers and plucked her drink from her hand. I took her hands within mine and brought them to my lips, trying desperately to shoulder her pain, to suck it from her bones.

Anything to take it away from her.

“He told me that he could—couldn't get…anywhere he wanted to be without me.”

I crooked my finger underneath her chin and brought her gaze to mine.

“What did you say?” I asked.

She sniffled, and I watched the rest of her heart break behind her eyes.

“What did you tell my son?” I asked again.

“I told him I couldn't get anywhere I wanted to be with him,” she said breathlessly.

I wrapped her up in my arms and pulled her into my lap. She cried her tears of pain, like the tears I’d cried late at night those first few months without Minnie. She shook on my lap, allowing her emotions to finally course through her system. I knew what this point was. I knew what this all meant. Kylie was finally digesting, finally finding her footing. After four years of growing with someone, she was finally coming to terms with the fact that she and Adam were no longer an item.

And she was confiding in me with her most vulnerable emotions.

“I’m right here,” I said into her hair. “I’ve got you.”

“That’s why I couldn’t give you a decision when you asked. I’ve got all of that—”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It doesn't matter because the ultimatum doesn’t exist.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. Do you hear me?” I asked.

She lifted her head to look into my eyes, and I wiped at the tears on her cheeks.

“I get it,” I said. “I get the pain. I get the sleepless nights. I get the bleeding heart. And to top it all off, I’m his father. And I can’t imagine the kind of corner that puts you in.”

“Yeah,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “That’s a thing too.”

“So here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to finish talking about whatever it is you want to talk about, and then we’re going to go explore the city. I’m going to buy you a new outfit, get you a new bathing suit, and we’re going to have lunch out.”

“I told you, Ryan. I don’t want you spending—”

“Nope. You don’t get a say in this. I’m treating you to something nice today. You deserve it. You’ve earned it. And it’s my money. We’re going to go shopping, get some lunch, then go get a nice massage somewhere. Then we’ll spend the rest of the day on the beach before ordering a succulent surf-and-turf to the room for dinner.”

“You really don’t have to do that,” she said.

“I know I don’t, but that doesn't mean I’m not going to,” I said.

She laid her head back on my shoulder, and I cradled her body against mine. I felt her breathing even out and her fingertips slowly draw circles along my chest. I kissed her head repeatedly until the shaking of her body settled down. And every time she turned her lips to kiss my neck, my body filled with more joy than I could’ve ever conjured myself. I wanted to spoil her today. I wanted to buy her things. I wanted to treat her to all the wonders of LA before relaxing on the beach with nothing but the ocean and the sand and the beachside bar.

I wanted to do all of this for her.

It was a foreign feeling, wanting to treat a woman to my money and what it had to offer.

She drew in a deep breath before she sat up. She turned to face the ocean as my hands settled into the dip in her waist, steadying her just in case she still felt weak. She picked up her mimosa and finished it off. Then she stood up and turned to me with her hands outstretched.

“Come on, sugar daddy. Let’s go shopping,” she said with a grin.

“Sugar daddy, huh? Does that mean I get a little reward for the bestowing of a fancy afternoon?”

She pulled me into her body and rose to her tiptoes. Our lips connected, and for a sudden moment, the world ceased to exist. Her salted tears lined her lips as my hand came up to cup her cheek, holding her to me as my free arm slid around her waist. My heart stopped in my chest. Everything ceased to operate around us as the world spun about my head. I breathed in the scent of her body wash, the feel of her skin, the way her fingertips curled into my chest.

The second she pulled back, I missed her—more than words could explain.

“But you’re only buying me the bathing suit. There’s no need for a—”

I pressed my finger to her lips, silencing whatever control she thought she had of the situation.

“I’ll buy you whatever I damn well please, Kylie Baker. This is our weekend. Let me treat you to it.”

“I don’t want your money, Ryan,” she said.

I’d never get tired of hearing those words fall from such a perfect woman.

“That doesn’t mean I won’t give it to you,” I said. “Now come on. There’s an entire town waiting for us to paint it whatever colors we wish.”

“Are you going shirtless?” she asked as she took my hand.

“I’ll slip into something. Don’t want you to be too distracted.”

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself,” she said with a snicker.

“I saw how you were staring at me. Admit it. I’m irresistible shirtless.”

“I can resist you just fine.”

I whipped her around and pressed her into the wall before pinning her wrists above her head. Her breathing sped up as my knee pressed between her legs. Then I slowly rose up to her heated core. I pressed into it until I lifted her from her feet, watching her scramble to stand on her tiptoes. She gasped and flushed with want. Her eyes dropped to my lips as I fluttered them along hers. She tried to kiss me, but I pulled away, and the whimper that fell from her lips was sweet.

“What was that?” I asked in a whisper. “You said you could what?”

“Jerk,” she murmured.

I quickly pecked her lips before settling her down on her feet.

“Let me go put on a shirt. Then we’ll head out for the day,” I said.

“You’re still a jerk!” she exclaimed.

“In all the best ways!” I yelled back.

Yep. It was going to be a lovely day in town with her, which would lead into a night I knew I would never forget.

Hell, this entire weekend I would never forget.