Alice set her alarm for five o’clock a.m., hoping to beat the heat by rising early for a run.

When they checked in yesterday morning, she’d asked about running trails and was gratified to learn that while there wasn’t a path specifically designated for runners, from one side of the resort to the other was about two miles on a flat, paved trail, and the concierge advised that before seven a.m., it was a runner’s paradise.

She tied the laces on her running shoes and stretched her legs, then tucked her room key card in her sports bra as she pulled the door shut behind her.

Purposely looking away from Carlos’ room, she turned toward the tennis courts at the west end of the property to find the trailhead, estimating the temperature at about seventy-five degrees. Warm but bearable.

Unlike her memories of last night…which were hot and almost unbearable.

 After leaving the table like a ninny, she’d hidden in her room for the remainder of the evening, pretending to be asleep when Carlos knocked on her door an hour later, telling her that he’d brought her a sandwich for dinner.

It was an unfamiliar role for her—coward—and Alice found she didn’t like it at all. But the alternative? Facing him? No thanks.

She’d turned up the air conditioning and buried her sorrows in her pillow.

Her sorrows.

Her terrible sorrows.

Only we know, you and I, how much we suffer for this love.

Love.

Is that what this was? Love? This awful ache in her gut and her chest and her head since last night? Because if so, love sucked.

Not that she knew much about it.

I’ve never been in love, she admitted to herself as she turned the bend and saw the tennis courts up ahead.

Dated? Sure.

Sex? Absolutely.

But love? No.

It had been elusive so far in Alice’s life.

But these feelings growing within her were so overwhelming, so overpowering, the only way she could contextualize them was to compare them to how she felt when she had started Alice Story Imports—full of painful hope, able to think of little else, and desperate that she find some satisfaction for the growing need inside of her. At the time, she’d known with little ambiguity that she was in love with her new company and desperate for it to succeed.

But was she in love with Carlos too? Had she fallen in love with him at the same time? Was that how it had started, sharing every step with him along the way? But how dare such feelings manifest themselves when she hadn’t given her express permission for such a potent emotion to let loose inside of her?

She reached the trailhead and stretched again, looking at the white-sand beach and aqua-blue ocean to her right. Taking a deep breath, she set forth at a moderate pace, anxious not to overheat as the sun became stronger.

Recognizing the feeling inside of her—even if she was hesitant to name it—was one thing, but coupled with her recent memories of their intimacy last night, it was going to be harder and harder to fight it.

As they’d danced, he’d held her. Held her. And she’d never felt so protected or supported in a such a fundamental, physical way—never felt like she could simply close her eyes and let someone else be in charge for a while. It was far more intoxicating than the wine they’d been sharing, this notion that Carlos was strong enough to shoulder some part of her life that she’d neglected so pitifully—namely, romance and love. When it came to relationships and matters of the heart, he was, despite his age, more experienced than she. And regardless of that experience—some of it certainly gratuitous—she knew, in the deepest reaches of her heart, that she could trust him, that he’d never intentionally hurt her.

Running steadily passed the beach on the paved path, she allowed herself to marvel at this amazing fact for just a moment. A man as charming as Carlos, as drop-dead gorgeous, who’d clearly been a player for most of his adult life, was the one man on earth she trusted—and knew she could trust—above all others. If she ever gave her heart to him, she knew that it would be safe.

But it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter how she felt when he held her, or that she trusted him, or even that they were attracted to one another.

None of it mattered because they were impossible, and it would be best for both of them if she crushed whatever romantic feelings she had for him and made it clear that his advances or attentions were unacceptable and unwanted.

Why?

Well, for starters, she was an heiress from an old, WASPy Main Line family while he was from a lower-middle-class Puerto Rican family. They were an unsuitable match. How could he feel comfortable on golf courses and tennis courts, at country club cocktail parties and art museum galas? He’d be way out of his comfort zone, wouldn’t he? And wouldn’t she be a laughingstock? A cliché? An older woman who fell for her much younger assistant. What fodder for her country club friends. The gossip would be gruesome.

Then again, Alice wasn’t a stranger to gossip—when she’d quit her father’s company and started her own, she was the topic of gossip for months. I can handle that, she thought shrewdly, but her eyes narrowed at the thought of anyone taking a shot at Carlos. She wouldn’t allow it. She wouldn’t subject him to it. It would destroy his credibility as a businessman in Philadelphia to be seen as her “boy toy.” When it was over between them, she’d still be a Story with her own company, whereas he’d be a punchline.

Which brought her quickly to reason number two: she was thirty-three years old to his twenty-six. No matter how mature he was, seven years was an extreme difference in Alice’s eyes, and she was uncomfortable with it. He was in third grade when she got her driver’s license. She was graduating college when he was still in high school. It was a significant spread.

Not to mention, she felt the loud ticktock of her biological clock inside. She was running out of time to start a family. She had read the “thirty-five at thirty-five” research and knew that once she passed age thirty-five, her chances of getting pregnant naturally over the course of a year dipped to 35 percent, not to mention the chance of miscarriage raised to 20 percent and the chance of gestational diabetes would be at a whopping 50 percent.

No, she couldn’t wait.

Once she decided on whom she wanted—and, frankly, a man like Ramirez would be a smart choice—she wanted a honeymoon baby, and one more to follow quickly after so she was finished by thirty-five. And because Alice had no intention of giving up her company or her job, her husband needed to be a man who could and would support them having a full-time nanny to look after the children, or someone who wanted to stay home and look after them himself.

This plan was problematic with Carlos for several reasons.

The first? She didn’t know any twenty-six-year-old men who wanted kids. Most of them were still sowing their wild oats: dating, screwing, and having fun. Kids came later, when a man was older and settled in his mid- to late thirties.

The second? Carlos hadn’t been raised like Alice. How would he feel about her going back to work after giving birth? She didn’t know for certain, but she imagined that Carlos might be a little more old-fashioned when it came to children and expect his partner to stay home and raise them. Her trust would kick in after a year of marriage, so money would never be a problem, and Alice intended to love her children dearly, but subjugating her entire career to raise kids? Absolutely not. It wasn’t happening.

If men could be breadwinners, leaving the rearing of children to their partners, Alice didn’t see why the same couldn’t be true for women.

Her feet hit the pavement hard as she panted, the rising sun scorching her back as she segued to reason number three, the coup de grace: she was his boss.

And dating an employee crossed every ethical line she knew of.

She’d taken the same workplace ethics course at Wharton as every other MBA student, and she knew the facts: when a person in a position of greater power in a professional environment becomes romantically involved with an employee, it is never, ever a private matter or a stabilizing influence. It’s disruptive to other employees, prompting questions about fairness, favoritism, transparency, credibility, and accountability. It subjected the company to an HR miasma and possible legal nightmares.

Alice’s company was a well-oiled machine, thanks, in great part, to Carlos’ role as office manager. But that cohesion would be destroyed when other employees caught on to their liaison. What they had worked so hard together to build would be taken down by their irresponsibility.

There were no circumstances on earth under which she would let that happen.

What was the alternative?

There was only one. If they truly intended to pursue a romantic relationship, one of them needed to find a new job so that business and personal matters could remain separate.

But she certainly wasn’t going anywhere—it was her company.

And asking Carlos to find another position after the loyalty and trust he’d shown her was absolutely unthinkable. Not to mention, he was one of her greatest assets, and she worried about how smoothly her company would run without him.

He had insisted last night that it was possible for them to find a solution, but Alice vehemently disagreed. The only solution, she decided as she came to the end of the path, panting as she leaned over and rested her palms on her knees, was for them not to start something that had no future. So now she needed to let him know—in no uncertain terms—that a romantic relationship between them was one hundred percent out of the question.
It had only taken two miles—and fifteen minutes—to make her decision.

And easy decisions were usually right.

Except, as she straightened up and looked at the bright-blue water, sparkling with sunlight that kissed wave peaks like diamonds, her eyes filled with tears that blurred the pretty scene.

Her body wanted him.

Her heart wanted him.

Some strong and deep part of Alice Story already loved Carlos Vega, and now that she’d recognized that love, forcing herself to turn her back on those feelings—while still seeing him every day—would be agony.

Reaching up to swipe at her eyes, she started running slowly back down the path toward her room, her steps as heavy as her aching heart.

***

Carlos had hit the gym a little after five, hoping to see Alice on the treadmill—he’d heard the sound of her hotel room door opening and closing ten minutes before, and he knew she was going for an early-morning run. But she wasn’t there, and his heart had dropped with disappointment as he proceeded with his own workout.

It was an angry workout.

A frustrated workout.

He thought back on last night, on the feeling of Alice in his arms as they danced to that sweet, sentimental song under the stars. The way it felt for her fingers to curl into his shirt and caress the skin on the back of his neck. She was delicate but strong, and after knowing what it felt like to hold her, not clueing her into his feelings would have been like lying.

It hadn’t gone well, he thought, staring at himself in the mirror as he did fifty curls with thirty-pound dumbbells, beads of sweat running down his hairline and dripping onto his white T-shirt.

She’d essentially told him that there was absolutely, positively no future for them, and yet he could have sworn that she was just as attracted to him as he was to her. They certainly respected and cared deeply about each other, even though most of those emotions had been developed in an office environment. Why—in her mind—was the jump from attraction, respect, and caring to love so impossible? Because for him, it had happened a long time ago.

Dropping the weights onto the rack, he jumped back on the cross-trainer and set it for a punishing pace.

He truly didn’t care if they were from different worlds, because he meant what he’d said last night: for the past three years, they’d shared the same one. And they were so fucking good at sharing it, it made him crazy that she wouldn’t even consider sharing more.

And her age?

Fuck her age. Seven years was nothing to him. His parents were ten years apart.

Besides, he was sick of girls his age, girls like Alicia-Felicia-Leticia. He was sick of one-night stands and playing the field. He’d fucked many, and it had been fun. But now he wanted more. When he thought about his cousin Diego, who had a new baby girl, or his older sister, who was pregnant with her second baby, Carlos felt a surge of longing to start a family of his own. But he wanted that family with the woman he loved.

And for better or worse, he loved his boss.

He loved Alice Story.

Panting from exertion, he pressed the stop button on the machine and stepped off, appreciating the burn in his legs. Better than the god-awful burn in his stupid fucking heart.

He grabbed a towel from the basket by the door and swung open the door of the gym, stopping in his tracks when he saw Alice, dressed in next to nothing and as sweaty as him, holding onto the chain-link fence of the tennis court on his right as she stretched her legs.

Mierda.

He took a deep breath and dried his face, heading over to talk to her. They still had five more days on this trip. Leaving things as they had last night wouldn’t be comfortable for either of them.

“Alice!” he called as he approached her, watching as she froze at the sound of her name. She was bending at the waist to touch her toes, but after a second, she rolled her body up to face him.

And oh, mami. His fantasies? The ones about what Alice wore while she worked out? Requited. She wore a black-and-magenta sports bra with high-waisted black Lycra shorts that showed a strip of her toned stomach. And fuck, she looked just as good as he knew she would. Firm muscles, white skin, and small curves he ached to touch. His heart skipped a beat, and his mouth watered.

“Morning,” she said, her voice tight. Tense.

“Morning,” he said, scrubbing the towel over his short, bristly hair. “Sleep okay?”

He could see on her face that she hadn’t, but she nodded. “Just fine. You?”
“Fine.”

“You know,” she said, “it’s good we ran into each other before today’s meetings. I need to speak to you.” She gestured to the path that led back to their rooms. “Walk with me?”

He knew her tone. It was the one she used when she fired someone or when she told a business partner that she didn’t intend to renew a contract. She had bad news, and it had everything to do with him.

“Sure,” he said, sounding cool even though his insides were in a knot.

They set out at a leisurely pace, but he noted that she made sure there was enough space between them that their arms didn’t brush together.

“Carlos, you’re a very valued employee at Story Sisters. I don’t know how I would have started my own company without you. I will always be grateful for your trust and loyalty.” She paused, clearing her throat. “And neither of us could have foreseen that something as seemingly innocent as a dance would have led to the disclosure of inappropriate feelings, but unfortunately, it did.”

Or fortunately, he thought, because I’m not sorry you know how I feel.

“I regret letting my emotions get the better of me and leaving you alone at the table. I hope you’ll forgive that rudeness on my part.”

“Alice—”

“But that doesn’t change the fact that what happened between us cannot happen again. In fact, I shouldn’t have indulged the conversation for as long as I did. The moment you admitted flirting with me, I should have cut it off at the knees. I apologize for engaging in any dialogue that might have led you to believe that there is any chance for a romantic relationship between us. Because there isn’t.”

He clenched his hands into fists of frustration by his sides. “You’re making a mistake.”

“No,” she said evenly. “I’m doing what’s right.”

“This is complicated,” he said. “And I get that, Allie, but—”

“This conversation is over,” she said, “and if you bring it up again, I’ll assume that your position at Story Sisters isn’t important enough to—”

“You’re threatening me?” he cried, reaching for her arm and spinning her around to face him. He searched her eyes, finding them rolling with emotion. “Are you that scared of what’s going on between us?”

She flinched, her chest heaving as she inhaled a sharp breath and held it for several seconds before releasing it. “Let go of my arm.”

He uncurled his fingers. “Fine. Whatever you say, boss.”

Shaking his head with disappointment—in both her and the situation—he turned away from her, walking on his own back to his room and ignoring her as she called out to him.

He opened his door and slammed it shut, punching the tiled wall in his room, which bloodied one of his knuckles.

“Fuck this,” he hissed, throwing the gym towel to the floor, then whipping his shirt over his head and his underwear and workout shorts down his legs.

Entering the bathroom, he turned on the hot water and stepped into the shower, searching his mind for a past conversation with Alice that would give him context for this one. But he came up frustratingly blank. He’d been in hundreds of meetings with Alice and listened to her on a thousand different phone calls, but he’d never seen her back away from a situation because it scared her. Not with her father. Not with her sisters. Not with her banker or her employees or investors or the guy at customs who occasionally held one of their shipments for longer than necessary. Alice didn’t retreat from battle or conflict; she mastered it and made it her bitch.

But the idea of being with him?

It had shut her down in a way he’d never witnessed before. She didn’t know what to do with her feelings for him and his for her. So for the first time that he could remember, she was running away.

That’s how affected she is by this, he thought. By you. By the idea of us.

It was the only thought that calmed his racing blood and made him close his eyes in surrender to the hot water sluicing over his aching, tired body.

Alice was in the deep end of the ocean right now, and he wasn’t sure she knew how to swim. But a man in love doesn’t leave his woman to the sharks. No. He swims out, puts his arms around her, and pulls her safely back to shore even if she insists that she’s “fine.”

Opening his eyes, he ran his soapy hands through his hair.

Then again, sharks have their uses, he thought, letting his lips quirk up in a tiny grin as he narrowed his eyes and planned his next move. Yes, indeed. Sharks could sometimes be useful.

***

“You see, Miss Story…” continued Francisco Galletín, the head vintner at Bahía de Plata, launching into another thirty-minute explanation about the soil and climate.

Alice nodded politely as he glanced up at her from where he knelt in the dirt, but she was having trouble concentrating. They’d toured the wine-making operations all morning, stopped for a quick bite, and then continued in the vineyards for most of the afternoon. At this point, she was covered in sweat and dust, which itched like crazy. And whatever sun block she’d rubbed on before breakfast had been sweated off hours ago. When she occasionally scratched herself, her skin burned from the irritants and sunburn, and all she really wanted was to get in a cool shower and stay there for hours.

A throaty laugh distracted Alice from Mr. Galletín’s discourse, and she turned around to see his assistant, Ana María, place her hand on Carlos’ bare arm as she threw back her head with mirth. They had stayed behind at the winery to “inspect” the bottling process together at Ana María’s suggestion. But the only inspecting going on was of Carlos’ bicep by Ana María’s hand.

Since they’d been introduced this morning just after breakfast, Carlos and Ana María had been inseparable, walking at the back of the group, chuckling together, and speaking in rapid Spanish.

Alice’s stomach flipped over for the tenth or twentieth time, but she whipped her head around before Carlos could notice her pique. Especially after the disgraceful ending to her lecture this morning, at which point she’d embarrassed both of them by resorting to idle threats, she had no right to him and no right to feel jealous of another woman’s attentions toward him—no matter how much they were bothering her.

“When we first contracted the grapes from Spain…” Mr. Galletín continued, leading Alice farther away from the shade of the winery and deeper into the hot, dusty vineyard rows. Her high heels were ill-suited to the dirt, but she did her best to keep up and appear interested.

Carlos certainly wasn’t having trouble appearing interested.

Not at all.

In fact, Ana María had to be the most fascinating creature on the face of the entire fucking earth, the way Carlos held on her every word, letting her practically maul him in public. It was none of Alice’s business if they wanted to get to know one another better (a thought that made bile rise up in her throat), but they could at least be a little more discreet about it, couldn’t they?

Yet another laugh floated out from the winery porch to Alice’s ears, and she flinched.

Glancing over her shoulder at them—damn it!—her eyes slammed into Carlos’. He blinked at her, and his lips quirked into a small grin before he turned back to Ana María and said something in Spanish that had her reaching for him again, this time to flatten her hand on his chest in the exact place where Alice’s hand had been last night during their dance.

“Oh!” she blurted out, jerking her gaze away from the happy pair to find Mr. Galletín’s surprised face looking at her.

“Yes? Miss Story? Did you have a question about the seed maturation process?”

She took a deep breath, just about at the end of her proverbial rope.

“Señor,” she said, “this is all so very fascinating, but I’m feeling a little overheated. Might we…”

“Ay, sí,” he said, gesturing back to the winery. “Yes, of course. Some refreshment? I can ask Ana María to—”

“No!” she exclaimed. The thought of sitting down with Carlos and Ana María for refreshments was a little too much for Alice to bear. “I mean…I think I’d like to return to my room and freshen up before our dinner tonight.”

“Ah. Of course. Yes. A good idea, Miss Story,” he said, his weathered face cracking into a grin. “Our sales team will be on hand to answer all your questions at dinner.”

“How lovely. Thank you for your kind welcome. And”—her head was swimming, but she gestured lamely to the vines that surrounded them—“valuable and thorough instruction about the growing process.”

“But of course.”

“If you’ll just point me in the right direction, I can make my way back up to the resort and—”

“Ana María!” he called. “Terminó el paseo. Quizás puedas llevar a Miss Story a su habitación?”

“Con placer,” said Ana María, who turned away from Carlos and approached them. She was beautiful, young, and fit and wore a black short-sleeved T-shirt; high-cut, cuffed khaki shorts; and sensible hiking boots, which did nothing to make her long legs look less feminine and everything to make her look sensible and cool.

Carlos, walking behind her, locked his gaze with Alice for a moment, then dropped his eyes to Ana María’s ass before looking up at his boss again.

“No!” said Alice, her heart in knots, dust and sweat making her eyes water. “Not necessary, Ana María. I can find my own way back.”

“I’ll take you back,” said Carlos, the sound of his deep, familiar voice hurting her.

“I don’t need your help,” she said, but her throat was so dry, her voice broke on the word help.

Ignoring her, he turned back to their hosts. “Gracías, Francisco y Ana. Nos vemos más tarde a la cena?”

Ana María nodded with a winsome smile, saying something to him in Spanish before turning back toward the winery with her boss.

Alice’s insides rolled with fury, confusion, and, more than anything, white-hot jealousy, such that she had never known.

Turning away from their hosts, she spoke only loud enough for Carlos to hear: “Don’t deprive Ana María of your company. I can find my own way back.”

“I’ll see her later at dinner,” he said calmly. “I don’t mind walking you back.”

She reached up to push a burning bead of sweat from her forehead. “Don’t do me any favors.”

“I’m not. I’m doing my job.”

“Was it your job to flirt with the vintner’s assistant nonstop all day?” she spat.

“Hey! Why are you angry with me?” he asked, taking her arm as she tried to walk over a rock cropping in heels.

She snatched her arm away, embarrassing tears blurring her vision. “Leave me alone.”

“God damn it, Allie,” sighed Carlos, taking her arm again. “You’re going to twist your ankle.”

“I’m not your responsibility,” she choked out, leaning on him as she stepped carefully over the rocks and back onto the dirt road that led up the hill to the resort. She pulled away from him again, brushing a hateful tear from her sunburned cheek as she started walking at a brisk pace. “I’m fine now. Go back to your—your—Ana María!”

“What do you want from me, mujer?” he shouted at her back. “You’re not into me, so what does it matter who I talk to?”

More frustrating tears brightened her eyes as he confessed this, but she didn’t care. She was tired and sunburned and covered in sweat and dust and grime. But the thing that hurt most of all was that she wasn’t strong enough to let go of him, no matter how much she needed to, and he seemed to have no problem moving on quickly from her.

Had jealousy not reared its ugly, green-eyed head, all would have been fine. Maybe over time, they could have even found their equilibrium again. But now she knew: it was too late for that.

Her feelings—inconvenient and unwanted though they were—were here to stay.

“You are a horse’s ass!” she cried, whipping around to face him. “I am into you, can’t you see that?”