After the most perfect weekend, with the most perfect boyfriend, Maizee showed up at the bank. Again. It was almost like a dark cloud had descended on her as she drove from her place to Gladstone Financial, Getaway Bay Branch. While the front doors faced the beach, there was no salty spray to be felt, and no breeze to keep her cool.

Just the tellers. The desks. Her glassed-in office where she was supposed to pretend like she was busy.

She thought about another type of glassed-in object—the submarine that went around Lanai and showed people the underwater life up close and personal. She’d told Lawrence she wanted to be a tour guide for an operation like that, and she wondered if Getaway Bay had anything similar.

Surely they must, she thought to herself as she sat at her desk and woke her computer. The Getaway Bay tourism industry had to be two or three times as big as Lanai’s, and surely there was something she could do where she wouldn’t have to stare at a screen and analyze numbers all day.

She simply hadn’t realized that she didn’t want to stare at a screen and analyze numbers all day. She wished she’d have known that when Winn had broken up with her. Then she could still be on Lanai with her family, maybe with the glass submarine job….

But then you wouldn’t have met Lawrence, a voice in her head said, and of course it was right. If she hadn’t left Lanai and her family, she’d probably still be wearing sweats at night, eating her way through pints of Ben & Jerry’s like they were going out of business and she was going to single-handedly save them.

Lawrence waved to her as he reached the stairs, and she lifted her hand in return. Then she dropped it quickly and glanced around the bank like she’d done a terrible deed. By the time she looked back to the stairs, Lawrence had gone up.

She’d never been in his office, and sudden curiosity burned through her like a flame. Could she invent a reason she needed to go up there and speak to him? Who would even ask?

“This is Maizee Phelps,” Polly, another woman who worked at the bank, said. “She can help you with the loan application.” She flashed a smile in Maizee’s direction and left a couple standing in the doorway of Maizee’s office.

She shoved aside her thoughts about Lawrence and jumped to her feet. “Welcome to Gladstone Financial,” she said. “Come in and sit down.” She grabbed another chair from the back of the room and pushed it close to the one already positioned at her desk.

After closing the door, she rounded her desk and sat down too. “Tell me your names.” She smiled like she was most delighted to meet them, and after a few minutes of chit-chatting about Hawaii and the weather and how lucky they were that Tropical Storm Flo had decided to turn, she said, “So, tell me what you’re looking for in terms of a loan.”

As she helped Barry and Elaine Alsop through the process of refinancing their home, she remembered why she’d liked this job in the first place. She did enjoy interacting with people, liked helping them and ensuring that they were taken care of, liked how powerful and in-charge she felt as she answered questions they didn’t know that she did.

Forty minutes later, the Alsop’s left with their loan application, and Maizee sat back in her chair, feeling more accomplished than she had in weeks. She wasn’t the loser loan officer that had been dumped by the handsome branch manager after a year-long engagement, the woman who hid her face when she went in the grocery store so she wouldn’t have to see the pitying looks on people’s faces.

She was Lawrence Gladstone’s girlfriend, and a good loan officer, and she didn’t need to hide her face from anyone.

Turning to check her computer, she caught sight of a man walking her way.

And oh, how quickly she ducked then, definitely hiding her face behind the monitor of her computer. Her stomach swooped and her blood turned to ice.

What in the world was Winthrop Porter doing here?

This was her island, and he had no right to be here. Anger simmered in her veins now, melting the ice and encouraging her to lift her eyes above the monitor.

He was gone.

She tried to recall what he’d looked like as he’d walked toward her. Angry? Purposeful? Nervous?

Why had he come from Lanai?

She half-stood at her desk, her calves quivering with the effort it took to perch like that in her heels. “And where did he go?” He wasn’t anywhere to be found in the bank that she could see. Not the lobby. Not in line. Not talking to a teller.

Not sitting at someone else’s desk.

Which left only one place he could’ve gone—and that was upstairs.

With trembling fingers, she left her office and approached Polly’s desk. She helped customers with new debit cards and opening new accounts. “Did you see that man who just walked in?” she asked. “Tall, sort of blonde, sort of not, blue eyes?”

“Yes, he asked to see Mister Gladstone.”

Maizee spun toward the staircase, and it suddenly seemed so ominous. “Did he say why?”

“Said he had an appointment. I pointed him in the right direction.” Polly put her hand on Maizee’s arm, which caused Maizee to jolt and jump away from her. “Why? Who is he?”

Maizee didn’t want to answer. She also didn’t want to run into Winn, nor did she want to be in this building while her ex-fiancé and her current boyfriend were chatting. “My ex-boyfriend,” she said, downplaying the relationship she’d had with Winn. “Polly, I need to run out for a bit. If anyone comes in for me, will you get their name and number?”

“Sure thing.” Polly wore a look of compassion on her face, and she didn’t ask another question before Maizee practically bolted for the door.

Maizee didn’t return to work that day, and Lawrence didn’t text. Worry ate at her skin, gnawed at her stomach until she was sure she wouldn’t be able to go in tomorrow either.

Maybe Lawrence had truly had some business with Winn.

Maybe neither of them knew she hadn’t come back to work.

Maybe Lawrence was simply waiting for her to make the first move again.

So many maybe’s, and Maizee didn’t want to think about any of them. So she pulled into the theater in town, bought herself a solo ticket to whatever was playing next, and then treated herself to the largest bucket of buttered popcorn available.

The movie didn’t do much to distract her, but she did take the leftover popcorn home and turn it into something even more delectable—caramel buttered theater popcorn—with some butter, brown sugar, and marshmallows.

She changed into a pair of yoga pants and a Back to the Future T-shirt she’d bought at one of those funny online boutiques. As she stirred the caramel over the popcorn, Roger sat obediently at the no-dogs line, just outside of the kitchen. He didn’t even bark, and as Maizee chewed through warm, gooey, buttery popcorn, she tried to say, “This isn’t for dogs, bud.”

Afternoon would soon fade to evening, and she stood over the kitchen sink, looking out her back window as she ate another handful of popcorn. What was she going to do? Why hadn’t Lawrence texted?

In the end, Roger’s patience won out, and she gave him a single puff of popcorn. Then she pulled her hair up into a rough ponytail, leashed the pup, and stuffed a handful of dog treats in her pocket. “Let’s go for a walk, boy,” she told him, and he nearly pulled her to the ground in his enthusiasm to leave the house. Maybe he’d gotten a sugar rush already.

She’d reached the end of the block when a sleek, navy-as-midnight Mercedes-Benz rounded the corner at a crawl. A moment later, the driver braked hard, bringing the car to a stop. Maizee had stopped too, and her first thought was about what she was wearing.

Lawrence got out of the car before she could so much as release her hair from its hideous ponytail. “Hey,” he said easily as if he saw her in such dire conditions every day. “You left work early?”

“You’re just now finding out?” she asked. “I left at ten o’clock this morning.”

Lawrence slowed in his approach toward her. “Why’s that?”

Maizee glanced up and down the street, uncomfortable out in the open now when she wasn’t before. The addition of Lawrence to her sleepy neighborhood changed everything, and Maizee wasn’t sure if she liked that or not.

He closed the distance between them and took one of her hands in his. “You look fantastic.”

“I’m wearing a shirt that says ‘Save the Clock Tower.’” She scoffed, ridiculous tears pressing up and behind her eyes.

“I like Back to the Future,” he said with a slow smile. “Why’d you leave early today?”

“Winthrop Porter arrived,” she said, snapping the P’s in his name. “And I freaked out. Didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want to think about what you two were talking about.” She pressed her forehead to his breastbone, almost desperate to know what they’d talked about but too embarrassed to ask.

He stroked his free hand down the back of her head and took Roger’s leash from her. “Let’s walk, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.

Maizee didn’t know what to do with the tenderness in his voice, but when he stepped, so did she. He went to his car first and turned off the ignition. “It’ll be okay here, right?”

“It’s not a high-crime neighborhood.”

“I just meant here on the curb.” He peered at her as if she’d revealed something crucial. “Oh, wow.”

“What?”

Lawrence straightened and let Roger weave back and forth in front of them, something Maizee would’ve never done. The terrier was supposed to walk on her left side, not in front or behind her, but beside her. She didn’t have the energy to say anything. So what if her dog developed bad habits? It wasn’t like she walked him every day.

Lawrence’s feet ate up half a block before he spoke again. “Does my money…bother you?”

“Bother me?”

“It changes how you view me.”

“Well, uh, yeah. You’re a billionaire. You own and operate a multi-billion dollar financial institution.”

“And yet, I’ve been challenging myself to do things I’ve never done.” He didn’t look at her and Roger continued to do whatever he pleased.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

He took a deep breath. “It means that money doesn’t make a person infallible.”

“I know you’re not perfect.”

“Do you?” He stopped and looked at her, tugging Roger to let him know he needed to come back. “If you knew I was coming over tonight, what would you be wearing?”

Maizee stared at him. “Not this.”

“Exactly.” He fingered the hem of her T-shirt, which somehow sent chills through her whole body. “But I like this. I like seeing you be you.”

Maizee thought about the heaping bucket of caramel corn on her kitchen counter and how she would’ve thrown it in the dishwasher last minute just to hide it from him. “I don’t understand,” she said.

Lawrence chuckled and lifted her knuckles to his lips. “I am not looking for the perfect woman. I’m looking for the perfect woman for me.”

She frowned, sifting through what he could possibly mean by that. So she missed him leaning toward her until his mouth grazed hers. Then he kissed her like she was the perfect woman for him, and she forgot that she was wearing sweat pants and that her breath probably smelled and tasted like burnt, old popcorn kernels.

“Mm,” he said, his mouth barely leaving hers. “You taste like sugar.” He kissed her again, right there on the street for anyone to see.

“I like you, Maizee Phelps,” he whispered next. “Just the way you are.” He tucked her into his side, turned, and walked back toward her house.

Maizee went with him, because his kisses had turned her muscles to marshmallows, and she feared she might not be able to stand up by herself.

She wasn’t sure she believed him. No man had ever liked her just the way she was. Winn had made that very clear.