Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
When I arrive at my hotel, I toss my things on the couch and head straight to my laptop. Then, I do what I’ve done every day since June Taylor first walked into Daytrip.
Whatever I can to make her every whim come true.
I spend hours finding every contest for tickets to the festival she mentioned, inputting her information for each entry, then mine just in case, and then for each of the fifteen burner accounts I’ve created on the Daydream server, which I’ve redirected to her email.
Is it ethical?
Absolutely not.
When IT inevitably catches wind of it, will I have to explain it to them?
Absolutely.
Do I care?
Not in the least.
The only thing I can seem to care about these days is whether or not June gets her way, and in this case, I want her to get those tickets.
Most of the contests close tonight or tomorrow, so if by Wednesday she hasn’t heard anything, I’ll have to take a different approach to make her hopes come true.
I have a few feelers out to friends to see if I can get tickets for the festival and stage it as if she’s won them, but that’s my last line of defense.
In my perfect world, June would win the tickets through the contest she showed me, and believe that, once again, her luck is making everything work out.
It’s sick and twisted, but I love nothing more than the little smile that lights up her face when she thinks something has worked out for her.
The way her eyes light up with excitement anytime something lucky happens to her, the way she looks at me with those wide, joy-filled, summer sky blue eyes, eager to share the news of her latest windfall with me.
It’s why I haven’t been able to stop myself from making it happen at every turn.
The first day I met her, despite my miles-long to-do list, she was the only thing I could think of for the rest of the night.
The next morning, I spent nearly two hours at the coffee shop she recommended, hoping she would stroll in and I could bump into her, talk to her, prove to myself that just like every other person I’ve met, this obsession was fleeting and surface-level.
I did the same thing every morning for a week, and by Friday, I was ready to throw in the towel, to return to sanity, to try and forget the woman who had ruled my thoughts for nearly a week.
Then she walked into Daytrip that afternoon, and something snapped in me. I caught the tiniest glimpse of her on the security camera I had up to keep an eye on for the new contractor coming in to give me a progress update.
It felt like fate, like the kind of luck or universal push she’s always going on about.
Giving her the job was an impulse, a desire to learn a little bit more about the woman who had consumed my thoughts. I needed to know if she really was sunshine personified or if it was fake, some perfectly crafted act I couldn’t quite understand.
I convinced myself it was logical. She needed a job, and Sutton had work for Rowan, so she couldn’t be here forever. I needed someone who lived in the area to help me out.
“Sutton,” I said, the words coming out harsher than anticipated.
“Yes?” she asked.
“There is a woman who just walked into the building. She needs a job.” Her face scrunched up, part confused and part irritated, as seems to be her way with me.
Rowan had sent her to keep an eye on the place and fill in gaps for me, since I didn’t have an assistant of my own.
He offered to let me hire one time and again, but I kept turning him down, wanting to prove I could manage this job on my own.
Until right now.
“I’m sorry?” she asked, rightfully confused.
“A woman is coming into the back room in a few minutes with the head of Taylor Contracting. I want you to offer her a job.”
She continued to stare at me, lost and a bit concerned. I scrubbed a hand over my face.
“Offer…offer a stranger a job?”
I knew it sounded completely ridiculous.
I knew that it was so far out of the realm of common sense.
I knew all of these things, but it felt like some kind of sign from a power I didn’t realize I believed in until just then.
Luck, or the universe, or fate, I didn’t know, nor did I care.
I just knew I hadn't been able to focus on work for five days after a mere five-minute interaction, and now she was here in my business, and I needed her out of my system.
“Yes. An assistant position. I’ll need someone to help out once the resort opens, and you have to go back to your real job.”
Her brows furrowed, but if there was one thing that I’d learned from my weeks of working with Sutton Donovan, it was that she loved chaos and she loved a scheme.
She smiled knowingly, then shrugged. “Okay.” She grabbed her tablet, tapped a few times to find what she was looking for, and then turned it to me.
“This was my position when I started, and is what Rowan has approved for you if you ever wanted an assistant of your own. Does this look right?” I barely even looked before nodding.
“All right, I’m on it,” she said, then headed out of my office.
I got absolutely nothing done in the next thirty minutes, staring at the door and waiting for her to return. When she did, there was a wide, pleased grin on her lips.
“Done. She’s going to be perfect for you.”
Every day since then, I have wondered whether she meant she was perfect for the job of my assistant or if Sutton knew something I didn’t.
That night I went home on time, not staying in the office late for once, because I finally had a name, a means of finding out more about her.
June Taylor. Fifth-grade teacher at Seaside Elementary.
Went to a state school on a full-ride scholarship.
Won the senior art fair in high school with the most incredible self-portrait I’ve ever seen.
There was a smiling picture in the town paper of her beside it, and like the creep I am, I downloaded it.
I’ve stared at it more than I would like to admit since that day.
If it wouldn’t have tipped me into stalker territory, I would have printed and framed it, but thankfully, I’m not that far gone.
Yet.
Unfortunately, having her name didn’t ease my obsession. It only fueled it. I spent the entire weekend trying to find out anything and everything I could about her, and each new snippet made me more interested, more enamored with the woman.
Then, in another stroke of fate, we found each other once more, the night before she was to start working for me. Try as I might, I couldn’t find it in me to be responsible, to walk away, or, at the very least, to tell her she would be my new assistant.
I’d convinced myself that one night would get her out of my system, cure me of this incessant need to learn more about her.
I was wrong. So terribly wrong, because when I woke up the next morning, my body cocooned around her warm one, I knew I would never wake happier ever again.
I also know there was no universe where I could have her.
Even if we weren’t complete opposites, wanting different things from life, even if she didn’t deserve someone just as sunny and bright as her, I’d tricked her.
I’d lied by omission, and things like that never stay hidden for long.
The mere thought of seeing that betrayal written on her face was enough to take my secret to the grave.
It’s why I set the tone that very first day, acting rude and cold and putting a wall between us.
Even then, I knew in my bones if I let it happen, June Taylor would become my everything in a way I couldn’t undo.
I thought being a broody asshole would push her away.
A bright, beautiful speck of sunshine like her surely wouldn’t want to deal with an asshole who brushed her off, who threw away her attempts at kindness and friendship, but what I didn’t understand in my weekend of stalking her was that June Taylor is the most stubborn person I’ve ever encountered.
She didn’t see my brush-off as a warning; she saw it as a challenge.
My need to make magic happen for her didn’t end with getting her a job.
No, it was simply the start. On her first day, I’d gone to Seaside Coffee early, getting two dozen donuts, including four chocolate frosted with sprinkles.
I told myself it had nothing to do with it being her first day, and when that assurance felt hollow, I told myself it would be the first and last time.
Even then, everything I was doing was to make June happy.
I was making my coffee and pretending I wasn’t watching when she spotted them.
That was when I realized the happy little smile that plays on her lips when a stroke of luck happens wasn’t a fluke, something that only happened because she was excited to win a lottery ticket.
She didn’t jump that time, didn’t squeal or cheer, but the light was there, a light that, despite her constant chipper attitude, isn’t always shining.
I think that was the moment I fell, the moment there was no coming back from.
After, all I wanted to do was make all of her wishes come true.
That’s why I kept going to Seaside Coffee and selling them out of chocolate-frosted donuts with sprinkles so I could make sure she has one in the break room.
That’s why I found her earring and placed it where she would find it.
It’s why I spent hours searching for four-leaf clovers, digging them up, and replanting them where she sometimes sits along the side of the building.
That’s why I found and invested in the company that makes the coffee syrup she likes, so they’d make it year-round.
I bought her first art piece, not just because it was stunning and I wanted a piece of her forever, even after I’ve left this small town, but because I wanted her to believe the universe was pushing her toward building that dream.
And it’s why I’m trying to win her concert tickets.
I want June to have all the luck in the world, even if I have to manufacture it.