8. William
8
WILLIAM
“ I don’t know if I’m there yet,” Kristin said, staring down at her plate as she picked at the remnants of her salad. When she finally lifted her face, pain reflected in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I reached across the table and took her hand. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to be sorry.”
Her stiff hand slowly relaxed, and she laced her fingers through mine. “I’m just used to dealing with everything myself. I don’t like depending on others.” She laughed nervously. “Or sharing things.”
“Not even what was bothering you this morning?”
She shook her head. “I don’t do well with the whole trust thing.”
“Is that why you haven’t agreed to our date yet?”
There was a nervous smile on her lips. “Maybe.”
“Maybe,” I mused. “I might take it personally if you don’t give me a chance to get to know you.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
I studied her face. She was barely holding it together. I didn’t want to add more pain to her load. “I’m just teasing. If you don’t want to go out, I respect that. I won’t press it.”
Kristin gave a genuine smile this time, the corners of those pretty eyes crinkling. It made my heart swell. Seeing her smile was like spotting a flash of lightning. I wanted to see it again.
“Fine,” she clipped. “You asked me how old I was, so now I’m asking you. How old are you, Will Solomon?”
“Thirty-eight.”
She choked on her water, jerking her hand away like she had been burned. “Jesus. Okay, I wasn’t expecting that.”
“What?”
She pressed her palms to her flushed cheeks. “I didn’t think you were that much older than me. But you’re, like, my parents’ age.”
“And?” I pressed, having already done the math.
Thirteen years wasn’t nothing, but I’d also never been drawn to someone the way I was to Kristin Boyd. I didn’t give a shit what other people thought about seeing me with a twenty-five-year-old woman. I wanted to see her as much as she’d let me.
She wouldn’t get out of answering this time.
Kristin stammered. She’d never been so flustered around me before.
“So, you have thought about our date.” I couldn’t keep the satisfied smile off my face as I scraped the bottom of the takeout container. “The age thing wouldn’t bother you if you hadn’t.”
Kristin took a long drink of water.
“You can stall all you want,” I chided. “I’m a patient man.”
She glared at me before relenting. “ Maybe I’ve thought about it.”
“Okay,” I said casually. “And your hang-up is that you think I’m going to die of old age between dinner and dessert?”
Kristin laughed under her breath .
“Seriously, Kris, I know there’s a little bit of an age difference, but how am I that close to your parents’ ages?”
“I wouldn’t consider thirteen years a little age difference.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
She sighed. “My mom was sixteen when she had me. She’s forty-one now.”
“Well, would you look at that?” I mused, grinning as I packed up the leftovers to take back to my room. “You just shared something.”
She snorted. “And to think I was gonna miss you when you check out next week.”
I laughed. “Sunshine, I live in New Bern. I can still come bother you whenever I want.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You live in New Bern?”
I nodded.
We cleared the wrought iron table and pushed the chairs in. Kristin straightened out her polo shirt and checked something on her phone. Texts from someone named Logan filled her screen.
For a split second, a surge of jealousy coursed through my veins. Easy, dude.
“I live in Havelock,” she offered up.
“Really?” I said, sounding far too giddy. I cleared my throat and composed myself. “That’s like twenty minutes away from me.”
Kristin smiled. “I know.”
“How much time do you have left on your break?”
She looked at her phone and sighed. “Ten minutes.”
“Take a walk with me?”
I didn’t give her a chance to say no. I left the Revanche bags on the table and took her hand in mine, leading her down to the water’s edge. The current moved quickly, and a steady breeze took the edge off the blasphemous Carolina heat.
Kristin’s hand fit inside mine. I stroked the back of her fingers and looked down at her as we walked along the boardwalk .
“You wanted to know why I was in foster care,” I began. “Parental neglect. I don’t remember a lot of it, and I guess that’s a good thing. I remember being hungry all the time. Scared when men I didn’t know would show up. My mom was always drunk or high. She had a revolving door of boyfriends that provided her with a fix.
“When I got older, I started asking questions. My foster parents told me that one of the old ladies who lived beside us at the trailer park called child protective services. My mom didn’t even try to fight for me. It was probably a good thing she didn’t. I think that would have made it worse for me. I was lucky, though. My foster parents were great, and I keep in touch with them. Some kids in the system aren’t so lucky.”
Kristin stared at the water quietly for a while. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
I sat down on the boardwalk and let my legs hang over the edge. “Don’t be.”
She sat down beside me, dangling her perfectly white shoes over the water.
I took a chance and leaned back on my hands, bracing my arm behind her back. “Every superhero has a tragic origin story,” I said. “It’s the price I pay for being awesome.”
Kristin laughed and leaned into my shoulder. It may have been an innocent gesture, but it made me feel on top of the world.
I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her in close.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked. She may have been the quiet type, but I’d learned the wheels were always turning in her mind.
“I was thinking,” she said, pausing to giggle. “That you smell the way I think Hugh Jackman smells.”
I laughed. “Is that a good thing?”
“Yeah, that’s a good thing.”
As much as I didn’t want this to end, I glanced at the time and offered my hand as she got up. “You should probably head back. I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
She dusted off her dark green pants and took my hand, slipping her fingers between mine. We strolled back toward the courtyard together in silence. After a moment, she looked up at me, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it and looked down at her feet.
“Everything oka?—”
“I’m scared that, uh— shit ,” Kristin said abruptly, pausing as her eyes welled up. Her grip on my hand tightened as she exhaled sharply. “I’m scared I’m going to lose my job.”
My mind fumbled over how to respond. Her sudden vulnerability caught me off guard, and I didn’t want to say something to fuck it up. Chase’s warning echoed in my mind.
Kristin’s a private person. If she decides to open up to you, don’t shit all over it .
I cleared my throat. “Kristin, that—I don’t understand? You’re amazing at what you do. Why would you think that?”
“Some big holding company bought the inn a few weeks ago.”
Fuck. My back stiffened. How much did she know?
“Everything’s up in the air, and I don’t know if I’ll still have a job if they decide to bring in new staff.” She looked up at me and smiled sadly. “That’s what was bothering this morning.”
“Wow, that sucks,” I said gently, offering a sympathetic smile to mask the conflict in my mind. “That’s gotta be hard to deal with.”
“It’s the way my life goes, I guess,” she said, voice tinged with regret. “I just don’t know what I’ll do when it happens.”
“Kristin—” I cut myself off, unsure of what to say next. Everything inside of me wanted to put her mind at ease—to make her feel safe. But I knew I couldn’t do that.
Not yet, at least.
But I needed to say something. “Thank you. ”
She stopped walking and looked up at me, confused. “For what?”
I turned to her and smiled. “For telling me what’s on your mind. It’s not fair that you’re going through that. I wish I could fix it for you. I’m sorry.”
She squeezed my hand. “Thank you for saying that. But there’s no need for you to be sorry. You didn’t cause any of this.”
Shit. Unease boiled inside of me. It’s like she knew, and she was testing me.
I scrubbed along my jaw with my free hand, quickly weighing my options. Fuck. My hands were tied.
Revealing anything too soon would’ve put more than one job at risk. It would’ve only made things worse for Kristin. I’d have to find a way to make her understand when the time came. But right now I needed to gauge how much information had been shared with the staff. It was supposed to be zero.
I did my best to sound relaxed. “How, uh—how much do you know about the sale? Are you getting new management?”
“Not much. Most of what I know is from Hannah Jane, only because her boyfriend was involved with the sale. Isaac can’t really tell us any specifics, though. Apparently, there were a lot of non-disclosure agreements with the whole deal—or something like that.”
“Isaac?” I asked as we approached the table. Oh, fuck.
I grabbed the bags from lunch and tried to hide my panic.
She nodded. “Yeah, Isaac Lawson—that’s Hannah Jane’s boyfriend. You know, like, the Isaac Lawson. He lives here with her, but he travels a lot.”
“Holy shit,” I croaked, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
So that’s why Lawson’s assistant wouldn’t stop pestering me. Not that I had answered any of his calls. I was starting to regret that .
“Yeah, pretty crazy.” She sighed and shook her head. “I just hate being in limbo. I can’t afford to be out of a job, even for just a few weeks.”
I met her eyes and smiled sympathetically. “I wish I knew what to say.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a downer,” Kristin said, tugging her hair out of the loose ponytail it was in. She raked her fingers through it, then put it back up. “Thank you for lunch, Will. It was very thoughtful.”
I lingered in front of the door leading to the lobby. “So, about that date?”
Kristin smiled. “I’ll think about it. If I’m being honest, I kind of have a lot going on right now.”
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Same time as always.”
Taking a leap of faith, I asked, “What about your number? Can I, you know, text you or something?”
She looked down at her phone. Just like that, her walls went back up.
“Is this part of those trust issues you talked about?”
Kristin trapped her lip between her teeth. “A little.”
“How ‘bout I give you my number instead.” I pried the phone from her death grip, and quickly keyed in my information. “If you make up your mind about that date, you can let me know.”
“Kristin!” A booming voice roared from the lobby.
Kristin jumped away from me, and her attention snapped to the rotund man strutting towards us.
“You’re late,” the man snapped. “Your break ended two minutes ago.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to me, then hurried inside, leaving me standing in the courtyard without a glass slipper.
“Spenser Crenshaw.”
I stood on the balcony of my hotel room, pressing my phone to my ear. “This is William Solomon returning your?—”
“ Don’t you dare hang up on me! ” Spenser’s panicked voice cut me off, all but shouting. “You are the hardest man to get in touch with on the face of the earth.”
I remained silent, letting him collect himself.
His anxious breathing abruptly halted. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” I said flatly. Any other day, messing with this guy would’ve been hilarious. But I needed to track down the hotel manager to apologize for making Kristin late, and then call Elena to make sure she kept Rich on a short leash. “Is Mr. Lawson available to speak or not?”
“I’m connecting you to Mr. Lawson,” Spenser said. “He’s on a plane, so it might take a minute. I’m begging you—for the sake of my sanity—please stay on the line.”
“Just breathe, buddy,” I said, stifling a laugh. “I called you this time, remember?”
Silence.
I paced the balcony impatiently. Kristin’s voice had left me anxious.
When she mentioned the possibility of losing her job, it sounded like she was going to hyperventilate. Being forced to find a new job would suck for anyone, but Kristin seemed convinced she wouldn’t survive.
Things would be made right with her manager—I would see to it. But I also wanted to fix whatever problems had stretched Kristin so thin in the first place.
Spenser’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Mr. Lawson, you have William Solomon on the line.”
“Thanks, Spense,” Isaac said.
With a click, Spenser dropped off the call.
“Isaac Lawson,” I said with a chuckle. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your assistant blowing up my phone every day for a month?”
He gave an affable laugh. “You are not an easy man to track down. I was about to hire some Blackwater guys to pin you down until I can get back in the country.”
At least they wouldn’t take me far. Their training center was right up the coast on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. Hell, I could probably scrounge up my ID card to the main gate if they let me go home first.
Lawson didn’t need to know that, though. I liked to play my cards close to the vest.
“I’m a busy man,” I said. When I want to be.
“I respect that, so I’ll get to it.” Isaac cleared his throat. “The Taylor Creek Inn in Beaufort is, uh?—”
“Where your girlfriend, Hannah Jane, works,” I filled in. “I’m up to speed.”
The line went quiet for a moment. It was the sound of someone realizing they weren’t holding all the cards in a conversation. I loved that sound.
“Might I ask how you came across that information?” Isaac said hesitantly. “Miss Hayes and I are keeping our relationship private. I’d appreciate your discretion.”
“No worries, Lawson. I know how to keep my mouth shut, which is the reason I’m returning your call. I need to know if you can do the same.”
“I, uh, don’t really understand?”
“The financial health of the Taylor Creek Inn is on rocky ground,” I said, pausing hesitantly. Under most circumstances, I wouldn’t share this information with anyone.
“Go on,” he prodded.
I sighed. Time to put my cards on the table . “After we got our hands on the books, we noticed some discrepancies. My team of auditors are going through the records, tracking cash flow, all of that stuff.”
“The delicacy of the situation isn’t lost on me, Solomon,” Isaac interjected with irritation in his tone. “But I don’t see how this involves my relationship with Miss Hayes.”
“I’m staying at the inn for a couple weeks to see if I can sniff out any other problems. I know you have a personal interest in the matter, so I need you to keep your mouth shut. I’ve gotta be able to talk to the staff without them knowing who I am.”
I liked numbers, but they could lie just like people. In fact, they were better at it. They could hide behind the poker face of account transfers.
Money doesn’t just magically go into the wrong fund or get earmarked for the wrong thing. Someone was stacking the deck, and I wanted to know who.
“I understand,” Isaac clipped. “Can I ask how involved you plan to be in the management of the inn?”
I chuckled. “Lawson, you’ve never been one to hold back, so don’t start now. If you’re asking if I’m going to sell it for parts or clean house, the answer is no. The inn is valuable to me in more ways than one. The day-to-day will remain largely untouched, but things need to be stabilized. The story the accountants tell is pretty grim. The Taylor Creek would be facing bankruptcy by the end of the year if we hadn’t caught wind of money going missing. We’re making every effort to prevent that. Which, again, makes your discretion imperative.”
He sighed, sounding almost relieved.
Frankly, Isaac’s woman worried me more than he did. I had overheard her directing a rowdy wedding party over the weekend. She struck the fear of God into a herd of drunken groomsmen. If the Department of Defense ever needed someone to whip things into shape, Hannah Jane Hayes would be perfect for the job.
“I appreciate the heads up. ”
A knock came at the door.
“I’ve gotta let you go, Mr. Lawson,” I said, trapping my phone between my ear and shoulder. I pulled the balcony doors shut and strode across the room. “For future reference, if you need something, there’s this wonderful thing called texting. I don’t do the whole assistant thing.”
“Assistants are great. You’re just terrible at being a billionaire.” He laughed under his breath.
“Yeah, yeah.” I ended the call and tossed my phone on the bed.
Hurrying to the door, I peered through the peephole but didn’t see anyone. I opened the door and craned my head out, peering left and right. Still, no one.
My foot hit something, and I looked down.
A white Taylor Creek Inn gift bag had been placed at the foot of my door. My name was written in beautiful cursive on a tag attached to the handle.
I picked it up and peeked inside while the door closed behind me. Tossing the tissue packing paper in the trash, I reached inside and pulled out a bottle of cinnamon creamer.
A business card had been tucked into the bag as well. I pulled it out and couldn’t help but grin. It was identical to the one Kristin gave me the first day she cleaned my room. This one, however, had the image of a smiling sun doodled on the back.
And her phone number.