by Ashley Munoz
Lord.
“OMG, you know him?” Caitlin stepped closer, gripping my forearm.
“Who knows what?” Sondra asked, returning to the front from the office. Her eyes bounced between the three of us, and suddenly she was beaming. “Is this about how Ryan Prince knows you? Oh my gosh, I have been dying to hear this!”
Shit. This was going to be a long shift.
“Look, calm down.” I took a step back, contemplating for a second whether I should just make a run for it. I looked every one of them in the eye, keeping my back to the lobby and, unfortunately, the entrance as I said, “Ryan and I went to college together, that’s it.”
A deep, smooth voice chimed in from behind me. “Oh, Bex, baby, that wasn’t even close to it.” By the way my coworkers’ faces went slack and their mouths dropped open, I knew Ryan was standing there.
Fuck.
I closed my eyes for just a quick second, said the Lord’s prayer at warp speed in my head, and turned on my heel.
Leaning against the counter in a pair of tailored denim jeans and a crisp white t-shirt, Ryan smiled at us.
“Ryan, nice to see you again. How can we help you?” I jumped right into customer service mode, because Ryan wasn’t my friend, or my anything other than my customer.
Ryan’s dark blond hair was hidden under a ball cap again, his tanned face shadowed by the bill, but those aqua eyes sparkled with amusement. His perfect lips slung to the side, as if he was fighting a smile.
“I would like a personal tour of the facility. Last night was a little crazy with all the photographers and phone calls.” Those familiar eyes hardened with the last two words.
Why would he care about my phone call?
“Absolutely. I can have Sondra show you around and get you all the pamphlets so you have the phone numbers and information for all the activities offered here.” I smiled while turning toward Sondra. Her shoulders drooped, her face ashen…she looked like she was about to faint.
“No. I’d like to request that you show me around. Since we have history, I’d feel more comfortable with you being the person who’s with me, so I know my personal info and location won’t be shared,” Ryan explained smoothly, carefully drawing a shape into the counter.
“Sorry, but you can’t request that kind of service, and besides, you had everyone sign this.” I pulled the NDA from Caitlin’s grip, waving it in front of him. “No one will share anything.” I tried to keep my smile in place, but I was sure he heard how forced those words felt.
“That’s strange…the owner of the resort called me today, and he’s an old friend of my dad’s—I’m sure you remember that they live in the area.” Judgment-filled eyes bored into me as if he was tossing an accusation at me. “He told me I could request a personal tour, or even have my very own resort representative help me with whatever I need so I don’t have to subject myself to unnecessary publicity.” He finished with an amused smile.
Shit times infinity.
“Well…” I tried again, gathering what embers I could to add fuel to my fire, but Sondra doused it.
“Mr. Prince, it would be our honor to have Bexley help you. There’s a resort cart she can use to drive you around if needed, to show you where the different sports centers are located, along with our restaurants and market.” She carefully grabbed the backs of my arms and pushed me around the edge of the counter.
I was going to kill her.
“No, I—” I tried again, only to have her cut me off.
“As supervisor and acting manager, I am asking you to help our customer.” She said the last part of her sentence through clenched teeth and narrowed eyes. I had a feeling it was a threat. I thought back to one of the conversations Judy had with me when I signed on.
“Our customers are the number one priority. Their satisfaction comes ahead of our own comfort.”
“Okay, Mr. Prince, I’d be happy to give you a tour,” I replied tightly, holding my hand out toward the stairs.
The blue glove on my hand made my gut sink. Right.
“Uh, let me just…” I pulled the gloves off and tossed them in the garbage can, and if I could have lived my entire life without Ryan Prince ever seeing me peel a pair of latex gloves from my hands, I would have died a happy woman.
“Thank you for accommodating me,” Ryan said as he followed me down the stairs.
“Don’t mention it,” I said, trying to force a smile, but my insides were shriveling into tiny pieces of nothingness.
“So, down here are the racquetball courts.” I pointed toward a white door, about to push it open, but Ryan continued walking toward the opposite hall.
Okaayyyyyy.
“I like your hair.” He walked ahead of me, so I had a beautiful view of his toned back under his t-shirt.
I touched the shorter ends of my hair. My hairdresser had said she thought I should try a layered medium cut with highlights. It was cute and I absolutely loved the vibrancy of the white blonde that the highlights captured in my hair.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, holding in my smile. No one else had mentioned anything, which was fine. They were eighteen and I was thirty, but even Logan hadn’t noticed, which he shouldn’t anyway, but we had lived together for five years.
“Why the sudden change?” he asked, passing the volleyball court and the game room. Why ask for a tour if he wasn’t going to see anything?
“Um, I had it planned for a few weeks, just wanted a summer cut I guess.” I shrugged my shoulders pointlessly. He still walked ahead of me, obviously not having been truthful about his desire for a tour.
We walked past the pool door and the locker rooms before Ryan turned on me so fast I almost fell backward.
“Liar,” he accused with a laugh as he shoved his shoulder into the wall.
“I’m not…” I started, fumbling for words.
“You always used to shrug your shoulders like that when you lied.” Aqua eyes searched my face, landing on my nose and then my mouth.
And he always called me on it.
“So, why the change?” he pressed.
Why did he care? I should have changed the subject, asked about Henna.
“Shay is trying to set me up on a date. I’ve canceled a few times because I hadn’t had a chance to get to the salon or do any waxing…you know.” Did the word WAXING just leave my mouth? My face flushed as I pleaded with Jesus to take me home.
“So…you’re single then?” Ryan turned away from me, heading toward the tennis courts, the courts we weren’t technically allowed to enter because of the match going on.
“Uhhh…yeah, I am,” I replied, hating the fire that had caught in my chest.
“Interesting,” he softly murmured, still walking toward the closed door.
As he swung it open, a neon green ball bounced over the closest net while the elderly couple dove to hit it with their rackets.
“We shouldn’t be in here right now—the members hate it when we come in while they’re playing.” I tried to whisper as Ryan walked around the edge of the court, toward the back wall. There was a massive heavy artificial wall made of a heavy rubber tarp material, creating a drape over the brick. Who was I kidding? These people would likely beg to have celebrity Ryan Prince interrupt them.
Ryan ducked behind the long wall mat. “Why this curtain thing?” he asked, trailing down the darkened wall, where we were hidden from everyone in the room.
“It helps keep the wall in shape when the balls bounce against it, and it’s easier to grab them—they don’t bounce all over the place when they hit the rubber,” I explained, following after him.
The sounds of the room echoed around us while we secretly walked through the dim space, my heart jackhammering in an unnatural rhythm while I continued to watch those muscles shift under his t-shirt.
“Can I ask you something?” Ryan asked, just above a whisper.
I had to lean closer to hear him. “What?”
He spun, his strong hand clamping down on my waist and sp
inning me toward the wall. Pressing my body into the brick, he leaned close to my ear, his lips skimming the sensitive skin there.
“You owe me a conversation.”
He waited; seconds passed as the sounds of the room wrapped around us. It was on the tip of my tongue to utter back that what he’d said wasn’t a question, but I bit my tongue instead.
“Ten years too late, but I’m still expecting you to open those pretty pink lips and share with the class why it is you left. I don’t care about this bullshit tour, so why don’t we cut to the chase where you agree to get coffee with me.” His firm grip was bruising on my hip, but it was my legs that felt shaky.
I closed my eyes, wishing so badly that I didn’t love the feel of him against me, or that familiar spicy smell he’d always had tickling my nose.
“Okay,” I whispered, keeping my eyes lowered.
There was no way I’d tip my face up to look into those aqua orbs, no way I’d allow my lips to be anywhere close to his.
Finally, he stepped back, letting me go, and then he was pulling his phone out of his back pocket.
“Put your number in,” he demanded, his voice catching just the slightest bit.
I carefully took his phone in my hand, hating how heavy and fancy it was. The one he’d had back in college was always scratched or dented, usually hanging on by a thread.
I was expecting a picture of Henna to be his screensaver, but it wasn’t. It looked like a picture of him at the top of some mountain, but no girl was present. A strange relief settled inside me upon seeing it.
I pressed the contact tab, and the relief was suddenly ripped away upon seeing how many female names were programmed. Samantha: winter, Lydia:fall, Jasmine: FL Lights premiere, Henna: West Coast/summer…the list went on and on, and my stomach churned at the realization that the boy I used to love had grown into a man who saved women in his phone according to what seemed like the season in which he saw them.
Or, if I was honest with that dark part of my brain that was putting all the pieces together, they were organized by the season in which he decided to fuck them.
They were seasonal fuck-buddies.
Gulping, I tapped on the icon to create a new contact and put in my information. I saved my name as Bexley Black: college fling.
Handing the phone back to him, I wiped my palms on my shorts, trying to get the feel of his life off me. It wasn’t that I was judging him, I just…I was insanely jealous. It wasn’t one woman he’d decided to see after me; it was an entire harem he’d decided to dick around with. For some reason, that made my heart throb with pain.
Ryan grabbed the phone, inspecting the information I’d put in, and his face fell as a mirthless laugh escaped that impressively sculpted chest of his.
“Really, Bex? College fling? You think you’d need a label like that in my phone for me to remember you?” His eyes glittered with hurt I hadn’t intended on delivering. Why did he look so upset? Why did his voice sound like it’d tipped just slightly like Cole’s did when he got upset?
“I didn’t want to assume you’d remember me…seemed like you had an easy enough time forgetting me these last ten years.” My stupid, thoughtless mouth delivered the statement while my brain was screaming at me to take it back.
A furious rage replaced that glittering hurt. Anger, offense—god, whatever else I’d left this man with—surfaced, threatening to burn me to ash where I stood. How could I be so thoughtless? I had been the one to leave, not the other way around.
I had ruined us, yet here I was blaming him for not coming after me.
Shame simmered, burning my chest, stretching up my neck, to my jaw.
“Yeah…you’re right, it was easy.” The man I’d left scoffed, pushing past me, leaving me all alone behind the fake wall with the sound of tennis balls slamming against it.
8
The last two days had been horrific. I worked from five in the evening to closing, which, for our center, happened to be ten at night. I wasn’t recovering as quickly from all the cleaning and staying on my feet all shift as fast as I hoped. To make matters worse, I had finally gone on one of the blind dates Shay had set me up on.
It was so bad. The guy who showed up had on Wranglers, cowboy boots, and a dirty Carhartt vest. There was no shirt under the vest…just naked skin and what he maybe considered muscle. There was at least five days’ worth of scruff on his jaw, and he chose to chew his wad while we were inside the restaurant. He opted not to eat to savor it.
I almost puked.
It wasn’t Shay’s fault entirely…she said he cleaned up much nicer while he worked security at the hospital and she didn’t even know about the chewing habit, which she knew was a hard pass for me.
The bad date in addition to the back-to-back shifts at the resort had me running on fumes. I’d thought I had gotten into some kind of routine, but then Ryan Prince and Henna James had shown up to ruin everything.
Since Ryan had requested for me to give him the tour a few days prior, Judy had created an itinerary where I escorted the couple around every single day.
So, I spent my shifts waiting in the cart while the couple played tennis, racquetball, and pickleball. I called and set up paddle boarding lessons for them; although Ryan mentioned growing up around here and not needing them, I set them up regardless. I scheduled spa appointments for Henna, a couples massage for the two of them. I drove them to the market store and the lounge diner for breakfast.
Originally, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Although Ryan was standoffish and a bit cold, he ignored me for the most part and never did anything without Henna, which was fine. I didn’t need to talk to him anyway. He’d mentioned wanting to get coffee, but after that day on the tennis courts, he hadn’t brought it up again.
Everything was starting to feel routine once more; even the kids had gotten used to my late-night shifts and missing dinner. Shay had nearly moved in at this point, but we both knew it was only until school started, as then I’d be working days and home in the evenings. Just when I thought I could ease into my new normal, Ryan had requested that I be there to check him and Henna in to swim. It would be a reserved hour where they had the pool to themselves.
Ryan swam laps, mostly ignoring Henna, who chose to sunbathe, until she didn’t. When she wanted his attention, she slipped off her bathing suit cover, revealing her black Brazilian bikini. It was probably designer and cost almost as much as my house, regardless of the fact that it barely covered her tits and was literally just a string up her ass.
Not that she needed to cover anything. She was perfect. No cellulite, no awkward tan lines, just perfection, and my stupid, donut-loving butt hated her for it. Still, it was nothing compared to the inferno in my chest when she swam over to Ryan and started kissing him.
Their fevered kisses turned into a hot-and-heavy grope session, and before I knew it, they were literally dry-humping in the pool. I couldn’t take it anymore; I stood, leaving them alone, fuming toward the locker room so no one saw the tears lining my eyes.
He could request whatever the fuck he wanted, but I was still a person and I would have never done that to him. There had to be some kind of code that exes lived by, right? I mean, I hadn’t cheated on him, had never left him for another man…I knew he had been hurt all those years ago by me leaving, but it hadn’t been for something as painful as choosing anyone other than myself.
Hours after that, I received another request to drive the two of them to dinner in the resort’s company SUV. They didn’t want to cause a stir by pulling up in their own car or give the illusion that they’d left their villa.
Unfortunately for me, Judy happened to be working late and told me I needed to do it. So, I went, escorting my ex and his fuck-buddy to dinner. They didn’t talk in the back seat, didn’t do anything but look at their phones, which was fine by me; I preferred silence.
Unfortunately, my phone rang, breaking up the loud silence. My phone being connected to the Bluetooth in the car meant it auto
matically answered the call.
Heaving in a lungful of oxygen, I answered. “Hello, this is Bexley.”
“Mommy?” Bella whined into the phone, permeating the surround sound through the entire freaking car. I could hear Henna mutter “Ow, geez” in the back seat.
I turned down the volume as much as I could while keeping my hands on the wheel.
“Bella, what’s wrong?” I asked, carefully flicking my gaze to the man in the back seat. His eyes were already on me, heavy and severe.
“Cole stole Poppy from me and now I don’t know where she’s at. She could be cold, or hungry…” Bella trailed off, crying into the phone.
For fuck’s sake.
I let out a silent sigh as a tiny flicker of embarrassment slammed into me. “Bella, did you put Poppy in your brother’s fish tank again?”
My daughter went silent.
“Bella, answer me. Did you put Poppy in with Beta Baggins again?”
I could hear a snort from the back seat.
“Poppy woves him. They awe meant to be, Mommy! Cole keeps trying to bweak them up, but I won’t wet him.” She sniffled into the phone, her lisp erasing all her Ls and Rs. I let out a sigh, turning the car toward the lounge.
“Bella Reese Woods, I have told you a million times not to put that troll in the fish tank!” I scolded her tersely, hoping she’d stop acting up.
“But Mommy!” Bella argued, “you weft your pwince and you no know what true wuv is. Even Daddy says you broke his heart and now it’s only half as good at working wight.” My five-year-old daughter spewed the words out, her tiny voice escalating with anger and hurt at me not understanding her.
But all I could do was stare out the windshield as shock and horror seized my lungs. What the hell had Shay told her? What the hell had Logan told her? Why did I feel like the entire fucking world was judging me all the time?
And if that wasn’t the worst thing to have happen, someone cleared their throat in the back.