The man can’t relax.

He sits in the beach chair next to mine vibrating with a kind of nervous energy. His hand keeps reaching for a phone that’s not there. I couldn’t force him to leave it in the suite, but it’s buried at the bottom of my beach tote—freshly laundered by the resort’s staff after they pulled it from the bungalow—and he can’t reach it without going through me first.

“What’s on your mind, Charlie Cash?”

He considers me with those blue eyes. I bought an oversized hat and sunglasses from the resort gift shop on the way out, but he’s letting the sun have its way with his sandy hair. For all I know, it’s on purpose. We might be slathered in sunscreen, but he’ll find some way to get back inside and get back to work.

“My brother, Adam.”

“Your second brother. You have just the two brothers, right?”

“Two brothers, two sisters.”

“Two sisters?” A wry smile comes to his face. “How did I not know you had two sisters?”

“Why would you have cared, back in high school?”

“You’re right.” I laugh. “I wouldn’t have. What are they like?”

He glances out toward the ocean. “They work for the family business.” There it is. His expression changes, and he’s back to his thoughts about whatever emergency is consuming him. I’d bet a thousand dollars that it’s a manufactured one, if I didn’t have to pinch every penny from now on.

I let the silence linger as long as I can, but Charlie doesn’t seem to notice that he’s supposed to keep talking. Finally, I give a heavy sigh. “Just check.”

“Oh, no,” he says, grinning, but his entire body is turned toward my bag in an instant. “I can’t do that. I’m officially on vacation—”

I dig deep into the bag and come up with his phone. “It’s impossible to relax when you’re like this.” I dangle the phone in front of him, and he snatches it from my hand with a speed I don’t see coming.

To his credit, he doesn’t look down at the screen right away. He looks into my eyes, sliding his thumb down the side of his phone. “I’m completely at ease.”

I squint out at the ocean. “You can’t stand it. You can’t stand to be disconnected from your business for even a second. Stop pretending it isn’t true.”

He shakes his head. “You sound like my sister, Julia. She’s the one who put her foot down about this vacation.”

What? His younger sister has that kind of sway? I don’t know whether I think it’s hot or pathetic, that Charlie Cash thinks so highly of her. “Your sister made you come here?”

Now he does turn toward the phone, angling it so he doesn’t have to bend his head very far to see the screen and swiping at the windows there deftly. “She didn’t make me come anywhere.” He scoffs, but then his expression turns thoughtful. “She strongly suggested it, along with my closest CEO.”

I have to pick my jaw up out of my lap, but Charlie is focused on reviewing his messages. He doesn’t see. I’m taken aback on more than one level, that’s for sure. It’s not often that men like Charlie have people around them who will insist on making him do something he doesn’t want to do. Then there’s the fact that I don’t know much about him. I don’t know how extreme his work habits have become. Is there something beneath the surface that I’m not seeing?

There’s no time like the present to find out.

“Are they plotting a coup?”

Charlie laughs out loud. “No. They think I work too much.”

I look pointedly at the phone in his hand and wait until he catches my eye. “They have a point.”

He tosses it back into the bag, then stands up and rearranges his chair so that it’s closer to mine. “You’re being awfully judgmental. Aren’t you skipping out on work to be here, too?”

It’s a knife twist in my gut, because I’ve all but abandoned my plans to figure out what’s next in my life. I’m still going to do it. I promised myself I would come out on the other side of this with a direction, and I’m not breaking the promise. I’m only…taking a detour.

Still, I don’t want Charlie to know that. Not exactly.

“I’m on vacation.” Keep it vague. Good idea. “That doesn’t mean I’m skipping work. You, on the other hand…”

“Are you accusing me of cutting out on my business when they need me?” He’s joking, but there’s a tinge of seriousness in his tone.

“No.” I can’t tear myself away from him. “I’m wondering why you don’t trust anyone to run it for you while you take a vacation. Have you ever been away from the office?”

Charlie looks me straight in the eye. “Yes. I’ve been away. But I’ve always been working, since I took over.”

“You’ve got a tight grip.” Something shifts, and I’m not joking—I’m practically pleading to know more. But I won’t let that show in my voice, or on my face. I’m not going to let on that every second my need to know him better grows and grows.

Charlie sighs, and for a moment I see him as the man instead of the shining myth walking down the beach. “If you look away, even for an instant, it can all go down in flames.”

My throat tightens. This is the most real I’ve ever seen him. I open my mouth to comfort him, to say something, but the voice that speaks isn’t mine.

“Hey there.”

It’s such a harmless greeting, but the voice is dripping with honey and sex. There’s a woman leaning over Charlie’s chair, blocking my sunlight.

He blinks up at her. “Hi.”

“I’m looking for a man,” she says, pouting a little bit. “He wandered by a little while ago. Sandy hair, I’d call it, and tall…”

Jealousy, piercing and pure, surges in my heart as this woman, this unbelievable bitch, lists off all of Charlie’s features. I feel so possessive that my hand curls into a tight fist to keep from reaching out and locking my fingers around his wrist as far as they’ll reach and hissing up at her that he’s mine.

He’s not mine. 

He’s not at all, and somehow that makes it even worse.

I swallow the jealousy and it curdles in my stomach, but I can feel my body folding around it, trying to reject it. Their voices blur together in the rush of my ears. This is ridiculous, I tell myself sternly. This is not appropriate; he is not your boyfriend. Calm down. Calm down.

Four cleansing breaths later, and Charlie is telling her that he’s very sorry, but he hasn’t seen anyone like that.

She stares down at him, a little grin on her face, like she’s trying to decide if he’s fucking with her.

He’s not.

“I’ll keep looking, then,” she says in that languid tone, and moves on down the beach.

Now I’m the one who can’t relax. My fingernails are making half-moon crescents in my palms.

Charlie takes one look at me. “Whoa,” he says, taking me in. “Do you need to talk?”