The lobby of the hotel was packed with Spring Breakers and my best friend, Sophie, could barely contain herself as one sexy guy after another went by.
“Brielle, do you see this? I am definitely in heaven right now. Come on let’s get to our room so that we can change and head out to the beach. If this is what’s inside, I can’t wait to see what’s outside!”
“Hang on a sec, I dropped my room key. Do you see it? I swear it just fell out of my hand.”
We looked around on the ground but couldn’t find my key.
“This is ridiculous, I just had it!” I exclaimed in exasperation.
“You gave it to the cute guy at the desk didn’t you? You want him to come to our room, right? I know you, Brielle, you little hussy!”
I looked at my friend and burst out laughing. “You have officially lost your mind!”
We were giggling and still looking for my key when I heard someone behind me.
“Are you looking for this?”
The familiar deep, rich voice wafted through the air flooding all of my senses and I turned and looked up into the most beautiful male face I had ever seen. Declan. Damn it. What is he doing here?
My mind went blank as I stared into his hypnotic, crystal blue eyes and I couldn’t breathe. I really couldn’t catch my breath for a couple of seconds there. I realized that I had been staring at the gorgeous specimen in front of me for a while when I noticed a small smirk touch the corner of his mouth.
“Brielle? This is yours I presume?”
Crickets. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Sophie had to jump in and save me.
“Yes! Thank you! I guess Brielle must have dropped it in all the excitement of being here. How are you Declan? It’s good to see you.”
I could hear the excitement in her voice and tried not to roll my eyes at the thought of having to hear her go on and on about him the second he left. As soon as Sophie had found out my mom was dating his dad she couldn’t stop talking about it. She was obsessed with him and the fight world and she was constantly begging me to hook them up. But there was no way I could do that because of the feelings I had for him. It pissed me off more than anything that he got under my skin. As much as I couldn’t stand his arrogant ass I could not stop thinking about him.
He looked back and forth between Sophie and me with amusement. His eyes searched mine and he gave me a smile that made me want to melt.
“Good to see you both.”
I just stared at him and I’m pretty sure I looked like an idiot. A man had never left me speechless in my life! I was trying to think of something clever to say because well, hello, I couldn’t let him just walk away. Just when my brain decided that it wanted to start working, his phone rang. He glanced down at it and gave us a mesmerizing smile.
“I have to take this. It was nice to see you ladies.” His eyes lingered on me as he walked away and I just stood there looking back at him.
“Earth to Brielle! What is wrong with you? Why didn’t you speak to him?” Sophie was barking at me and the shrill tone of her voice snapped me out of my trance.
“Sophie, I don’t know! I was totally paralyzed and couldn’t think of a thing to say!”
“Why? You see him all the time, don’t you?”
“No, I hardly see him at all. He’s just so full of himself it makes me sick and I guess I didn’t want to say anything to him.” That second part wasn’t really true but I was not going to let anyone know how I really felt about Declan.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll run into him again.”
“Great.” I kind of said it to myself but she heard me.
“Brielle! He might be family one day so you better play nice!”
What she didn’t know yet was that he was going to be family. His dad had proposed to my mom and they were getting married in a couple of months. I didn’t say anything to her yet because I needed time to digest what it was going to mean for me.
She could see that I was bothered so she put her arm around me and smiled.
“What do you say we push Declan out of our minds and go start our Spring Break?”
I smiled back at her. “Sounds perfect.”