Charlie holds my hand all the way back to the suite. We’re both sun-kissed and warm, and it’s a slow, ambling walk. I use it to nurse the pain in my chest. It’s a strange pain, because I was sure I would be able to avoid feeling it until I got back to the city. It’s also unique, because that pressure I felt to tell him everything—to let him know me—still hasn’t subsided completely.

I’m playing a dangerous game. I can’t tell Charlie Cash the truth about my vacation, or the rest of my life, because that would destroy this bubble that we’re in. That’s the last thing I want to do. Now that there’s a light in his eyes when he looks at me, I don’t want to give it up.

“I thought I’d be over it by now.” I say it out of nowhere, speaking the words into the quiet between us, because I can’t keep the thought from thundering around in my mind.

Charlie gives me a look. “By now? We haven’t been here that long.” Then he turns thoughtful. “How long were you together, in the end?”

“Well, there was the time we broke up because he went on a study abroad, and then there was about a year and a half right after college where we did our own thing, but then he moved back to the city…” I tick off the years in my head. “Six years.”

Charlie shakes his head, disgusted. “What a coward. He should have been honest with you.” He looks like he could spit on the ground, but a man like Charlie would never do that. “I can’t stand that—the lying.”

It sends a shiver down my spine. I haven’t lied to Charlie. Not really. I just haven’t told him everything. There’s a difference.

“It was pretty awful to discover,” I offer. I don’t want to get too deep into this. I want to hear Charlie’s voice. That’s all I want right now, as pathetic and weak as that might make me. “Tell me more about being the man in charge.”

He gives me a half-grin. “It’s not very interesting.” Then his expression shifts. “Right—you probably want to know what my dad did.”

“I do,” I admit, and that makes him laugh.

“Since you’re so subtle about it…” He pauses, and the corners of his mouth turn down. “I hate to say anything that will make him seem—”

I think of my own dad telling me that I’m cut off. Even under the circumstances, I wouldn’t want to lead with that. I wouldn’t want Charlie to think badly of him. “I get it. He’s still your dad, even if he did something stupid.” I purse my lips. “I’m assuming he did something stupid.”

“Stupid would be an understatement,” he says, looking down at the sand underneath our feet. “Everything started going to shit a few years ago, when some city employees found out he’d been bribing people on the zoning committee to put his projects through without a lot of scrutiny.” Charlie’s cheeks go a little red. “Those laws exist for a reason. Lives could have been at risk.”

“Wow,” I say softly.

“That same year, Cash Industries got hit with an audit. That’s when we found out he’d been keeping a slush fund of money under a fake project name and using it for his own purposes. I’m the CEO because of a hasty board decision in the middle of the night. That’s why you’ve never heard about any of it. On the outside, it looked like a son taking over for his father.”

“You’re not that big of a deal,” I tease, but it’s not quite true. I’ve heard of Cash Industries more than once since I got out of college. It’s just that I never connected it with Charlie. I haven’t been thinking about those kinds of things. Life kinds of things, I guess you could say. “Where is he now?”

“Retired.” He says it with such scorn that it makes my gut go cold. “A community in Florida. All by himself, unless he found a woman who would put up with him. I don’t really know.”

I squeeze his hand.

“It seems like you’re keeping things going really well,” I tell him as we cross over onto the tile near the pool and stroll through to the lobby. There aren’t many people at the swim-up bar now. It occurs to me to suggest a drink, but Charlie doesn’t even glance over. His eyes are still on me. 

“I’m doing my best.”

The look on his face makes me roll my eyes. “Let me guess…it occurred to you that you haven’t checked in since we left for parasailing?”

He gives me a sheepish smile. 

“You know, you’re going to have to let someone take over the reins eventually. You can’t keep micromanaging all of Cash Industries from your tropical vacation spots.”

“Spots? We’re doing this more than once?”

“I’m not making any promises. I think I’m done making promises.”

It almost makes me laugh out loud. I haven’t been much for big commitments in years, but right now, I want to promise him something. The urge is strong. But I don’t have anything to offer him. Aside from a hot mess of a life.

“I don’t believe that,” Charlie says. “You promised me this would all be worth it.”

I narrow my eyes. “No, that was you, when you dragged me out of bed at sunrise this morning.”

“It was?” He pretends to be confused, and it’s cheesy as hell, but it makes me laugh. “You’ve promised me plenty, though—”

“I have not.”

“—with those hips of yours.”

I don’t know why, but it makes me blush.

“Make me one more promise,” he says suddenly.

“What?” I get a sense of vertigo, like he might propose, or something equally ridiculous. 

“Promise me you’ll come to dinner.”

“I’ll come,” I say impishly.

Charlie takes my hand and we race for the elevator.