IT TOOK ALL of three seconds for Ellie to get completely on board with Max’s kiss. She knew exactly why he was doing it and should she ever decide to come up for air – she’d thank him.
Her hands instantly raked up into his hair to hold him to her. Not that she needed to – those strong arms of his banded around her waist and she was pressed against him from head to toe.
Wow.
In her teenage fantasies, Max Santos kissed her. And it had been sweet and romantic and nice. This kiss was all that on steroids. She went from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye and if they weren’t in the middle of the resort lobby, she’d be tempted to climb him like a tree!
Ellie was vaguely aware of voices around them but even that was forgotten the moment Max’s tongue touched hers.
Then it started all over again.
Heat.
Need.
Sex.
Yup. Her brain was pretty much fried right now. And if she could just get them to move a little to the left, then maybe…
“I think they’re gone,” Max said against her lips.
Huh. So that’s what a bucket of ice water felt like, she thought to herself. Slowly she stepped away from him but couldn’t make herself look directly at him. She was sure she was fifty shades of red and wished the floor would just open up and swallow her.
“So…uh…thanks,” she muttered. “I um…I need to get back to work. See ya.” Then she turned and all but ran down the hall and back to the safety of the Barefoot Brides offices.
Pulling open the door, she walked right into Willow.
“Oh!” they both cried.
Willow reached out to steady her. “Sorry about that. Are you okay?”
“Huh? What?”
Her boss studied her for a moment. “You’re all flushed. Are you all right? Did you run into Harry and Monica out there?”
“Harry and…”
Without a word, Willow took her gently by the arm and led her back to her office. Once they were inside, she closed the door and motioned for Ellie to sit.
Great. Now she was going to be reprimanded by the boss because Max Santos had kissed her stupid and she couldn’t form a complete sentence. Could this day get any worse?
“Can I get you some water, Ellie?”
She shook her head. “No. Really. I’m fine, Willow. Thanks.”
“Are you sure? She sort of came through the door like a linebacker and you’re all flushed and out of breath. I just figured you must have run into your ex out there. He and Monica just left a couple of minutes ago.”
“I…I saw them,” Ellie began nervously. “But they didn’t see me.” Although, she couldn’t know that for sure, but it seemed logical. Maybe they had seen a couple kissing in the lobby, but she doubted Harry would realize it was her.
“Oh,” Willow said, sounding relieved. “Well, that’s good. But…”
Unfortunately, Ellie knew where this was going. “But they’ve booked with us.”
Willow nodded. “I know it’s going to be awkward but I promise you won’t have to have direct interaction with them. Gussie, Ari and I will handle all of the one-on-one stuff and you’ll strictly be behind the scenes.”
Nodding, Ellie couldn’t help but feel more than a little sad. Just when she thought she was starting over, over the humiliation of being cheated on, she had to deal with this.
“Ellie,” Willow said softly, “I’m really sorry.”
Taking a steadying breath, she straightened in her seat. “I’ll be fine. Really.” Then she paused. “Can I ask when the wedding is going to be?”
“Next month. End of the month,” Willow said. “A Sunday brunch.”
She nodded again, trying to process the information even though she didn’t want to. Then she thought about something Max had said earlier. “Um…did they happen to mention what made them come to Mimosa Key for the wedding? Harry’s family is primarily on the East Coast and from what little I know of Monica’s family, they are too.”
“Well, we are fabulous,” Willow said, going for light and humorous.
Ellie forced a smile.
With a sigh, Willow said, “Look, remember what we said the other morning about brutal honesty? Well, here it is – Harry mentioned knowing a woman who used to live here. That made his fiancée make a face like she’d sucked on a lemon. So we quickly changed the subject. I don’t think either of them know you work here, but…”
“Harry’s never been cruel. Inconsiderate, yes, but not cruel. I don’t think he’d choose to have a wedding here just to rub it in my face. Monica might. She was just that type of person.” Feeling like a complete fool, she said, “Either way, I promise it won’t affect my work.”
“I’m really sorry this all came up in your first week. Not the greatest way to start off a new job, huh?”
That had Ellie laughing softly. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I just feel like an idiot that you and Ari and Gussie had to witness this in my first week.”
“Believe me when I say we all have a history and it doesn’t always come out at the best time.”
“Thank you for being so gracious.”
“We’ll all get through this together,” Willow replied with a smile. “So Ari mentioned she sort of pushed you out the door earlier. Where’d you go?”
“Oh…um…I just sort of walked around a bit outside.”
“The grounds here are awesome, aren’t they? Every inch of it is perfectly manicured.”
Ellie swallowed hard, trying hard not to think of Max. “Yes they are.”
“The crew who takes care of it is amazing. You know it gets done because nothing is ever overgrown and everything is always so pristine, but they’re really never in the way about it. The guests all comment on it – how much they enjoy not seeing and hearing lawnmowers and trimmers buzzing around. Honestly, I don’t know how Max and the boys get it all done.”
A small shrug was Ellie’s only response.
Willow’s gaze narrowed. “Are you sure you’re all right? You’re getting all flushed again.”
Dammit. “I’m fine. Really. I…I should get back to work. I have that seating board idea I wanted to present at the meeting tomorrow morning and I need to finish it up.”
“Okay…but if you need to step outside or leave early, let one of us know. We have a light schedule this afternoon so we’re good.”
With a murmured thanks, Ellie let herself out and made her way to her desk and picked up the nearest piece of paper she could find to fan herself with.
****
It was overcast with the threat of some rain and Max and his crew were doing their best to get their work done and the equipment put away before it hit.
“Hey, Max!” someone yelled out. “We’re getting ready to put number five away but we’ll need to look at it. Something’s clanking!”
Nodding and giving the okay sign, Max made a mental note to look at the equipment maintenance schedule and get that mower looked at as soon as possible. He had a team of mechanics who handled most of the repairs, but occasionally he did have to take things off the island and over to Naples for work. Either way, it would get done. It always did.
A breeze blew over him and rather than it relaxing him or cooling him off, Max realized it irritated him. Okay, maybe not the breeze itself. If he were honest, he’d say he’d been fairly irritated for over a week.
Ellie.
He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since he’d kissed her in the lobby.
And he was still a little out of sorts over the whole thing. At the time, he simply acted on instinct – hadn’t thought it through at all. But once she started kissing him back? Hell, he could not have cared less about who saw them. As much as he kept reasoning with himself that he was doing it to help Ellie out, the truth was…damn. The truth was that it stopped being a distraction tactic the second her lips opened to his.
A rather un-masculine sigh came out before he could stop it.
Now he’d gone and scared her off. He was lucky she didn’t report him to Lacey and Clay for sexual harassment. Looking back, Max realized he could have just as easily taken her by the hand and walked in another direction and pretended to be doing something else. There were a dozen different places they could have gone in a pinch to get her out of the way of her ex. But no. That would have been too easy. Nope. He had to go and take something simple and complicate the hell out of it.
Which meant if Lacey or Clay did come after him about it – or even Willow, Arielle or Gussie – he’d just have to plead stupidity and hope they all understood. Maybe they’d…
“Hey, Max! You got a minute?”
Max didn’t need to turn around to know who was calling out to him.
Clay Walker. Gifted architect and co-owner of the Casa Blanca Resort.
And…technically…his boss.
“Oh…hey, Clay,” he said, doing his best to sound casual. He walked over to where Clay was standing and shook his hand. “What brings you by?” Hopefully he was the only one who could hear the nervousness in his voice.
“Lacey and I are looking to spruce up the property over by our place and I wanted to talk to you about it and see if you could give me a hand with it. I’ve been playing around with some designs and wanted to get some more colors and textures around the place and…”
A wave of relief washed over Max. Work. Clay wanted to talk about work! If it wasn’t completely inappropriate he would have hugged the man!
And that would have been beyond awkward.
Focusing on the design Clay had pulled up on his tablet, Max tuned back in to what was being said.
“…we’ve got quite a bit of greenery and we’ve made sure we have a selection of plants and flowers around the resort property, but now we want to have some of it closer to home. What do you think?”
“I think it’s totally doable. Do you have a list of plants and flowers you want or do you need me to come up with some or – if you want – we can totally drive into Naples and go to the nursery there and custom pick what you’re looking for. That would be my personal choice. This way you can see them, feel them and really get a better idea of what you’re going to have and maybe incorporate them into your designs so Lacey can see them too. And then…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Clay said, chuckling. “Slow down. You’re speed talking right now. Are you all right?”
“What? Huh? Oh, yeah. I’m good. Really. I’m fine. It’s good.” Smooth, dumbass. Why don’t you say ‘good’ one more time for good measure?
The look on Clay’s face showed he wasn’t quite convinced. They’d known each other for a long time – long before Max came to work at Casa Blanca – and…hell, maybe he really did just need to talk about it.
With a weary sigh, Max looked at Clay. “You got a few minutes to talk?”
Clearly surprised, Clay nodded and the two of them began to walk toward Max’s office. While on the way, they talked about resort business – equipment maintenance and upcoming events that were going to require a little specialized care from the grounds crew. Once they were in the office, Max handed Clay a bottle of water and they both took a seat.
“So what’s going on?” Clay asked.
“Have you met Ellie Shaw yet? She’s with the wedding girls.”
Clay chuckled. “Barefoot Brides,” he corrected lightly. “And no, I haven’t met her. Why? Is there a problem?”
“There could be…”
“Uh-oh…do I need to call Lacey?”
Max rested his elbows on his desk and sighed. “Can we sort of make this…off the record?”
“Shit, Max. Come on. What’s going on?”
Max gave him the basics on Ellie’s ex getting married at the resort and how she’d been trying to dodge him.
“That doesn’t really sound like an issue. So she hid out in the tool shed,” he said matter-of-factly. “I suppose that could be an insurance issue if she had gotten hurt, but…”
“I’m not done,” Max interrupted wearily. “We were walking back through the lobby last week and as we were heading toward the office hallway, her ex and his fiancée were heading our way. It would have been obvious if she took off running and…I panicked.”
Clay’s gaze remained neutral. “I think I would have heard if you punched a guest.”
“That might have been the easier route.”
“Max…”
“I kissed her.”
“And?”
He was confused. “And…what? I kissed Ellie in the middle of the damn lobby.”
And then it hit Clay. “Ooohhh…she didn’t ask you to kiss her. You just kissed her. Got it. So was she upset about it? Did she complain to Willow, Ari or Gussie?”
Max shook his head. “Not that I know of.” He raked a hand through his hair and leaned back in his chair. “If she had, I probably would have heard by now, right?”
Clay nodded. “I take it you haven’t spoken to Ellie since this happened.”
“Exactly. Haven’t seen her either. For all I know, she quit because of me.”
“That confident in your kissing skills?” Clay teased, but as soon as Max shot him an annoyed look, he turned serious again. “Okay, you want my advice as your friend or employer?”
“Let’s go with friend first.”
“I think you’re making more of this than you need to. It was an awkward situation and you simply reacted. If Ellie were upset about it, you would have heard about it. The gossip grapevine around here would have been all over it and I don’t doubt for a minute that one of the girls would have been over here to call you out on it.”
Max felt himself relaxing. “Okay. Thanks. Whew…”
“Now as your employer…”
“Shit…”
“Yeah,” Clay began. “You need to go and make sure she’s all right – but talk to her in front of one of the girls if you can. Or I can go with you.”
“Okay,” Max said. It was no more than what he’d been telling himself. When he looked at Clay he noticed the expectant look on his face. “You mean now?”
“No time like the present.”
This time the curse that came out was a little more colorful. “It’s a Friday, Clay. They’re probably in wedding mode. I can’t go walking around them like this.” He motioned to his dirty work clothes.
Rather than respond, Clay pulled his phone out and typed out a quick text and then waited a minute. Max heard the ding of a response and watched as Clay rose from his seat.
“Come on. Ari and Ellie are still in the office and they have about thirty minutes before they have to be on-site. Let’s go clear this up.”
Max followed like a man being led to his own execution and wondered why he even thought that talking about this would be helpful.
“Stop looking like that,” Clay said, grinning. “It’s not going to be that bad.”
“Um…it’s going to be awkward. That’s pretty much a given.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence and were in the lobby when Max spotted Ellie walking at a brisk pace away from the Barefoot Brides offices. He stopped and pointed her out to Clay.
“I thought you said they were going to be in the office for another thirty minutes. It took us less than five to get here.”
Clay shrugged. “That’s what Ari texted. Maybe something came up?”
“Maybe.” Max looked around the lobby area and saw a well-dressed couple walking toward the offices and even though he had only gotten a quick glimpse last week, he was pretty certain it was the ex again. He looked in the direction in which Ellie took off and barely gave Clay a glance as he said. “I gotta go.”
Maybe Clay called after him. Maybe he didn’t.
Either way, Max was going to find Ellie.
Who would have thought hide-and-seek could be this much fun?