Chapter Seven
T he next morning, I lie in bed, listening for evidence of Rafe on the other side of the door. He returned shortly after I did last night, and I opted for the mature response—locking myself in the bedroom and calling down to the front desk, begging for another suite.
I tried to explain to the nice people at the Naupaka Resort that they don’t want a murder investigation tainting their property. Apparently, they didn’t take my threat seriously because here I still am.
Meanwhile, Belinda is ignoring all of my many emails and phone calls, so I’m stuck.
I shower and dress in a pale pink sleeveless button-up, grey pencil skirt, and my favorite black heels. When I’m sure Rafe has vacated the suite, I head downstairs for breakfast. As I wait for my order, I scroll through my phone, and Molly’s name pops up on FaceTime. I stuff in my earbuds and answer.
“Morning,” she chirps. “How are you?”
I blow out my cheeks. “Give me a minute.”
I fill up my plate from the buffet and find a secluded table in the corner, propping my phone against the saltshaker. Then, I recount every gory detail from last night. When I’m done, she’s wearing a grin so wide I can see every one of her teeth.
“What are you smiling about?”
“I’m just happy you and Rafe are getting along so well.”
I snort and take a bite of my eggs. “I wanted to strangle him.”
She nods solemnly, but her smile can barely be contained.
“What is up with you?” I ask. “You’re trying not to say something.”
“Nothing. Interesting news about Hannah, though.”
I wave a hand. “Yeah, I’m sure they’re just having a rough patch and will figure it out.”
“Tris,” Molly replies. “It’s been at least several months, according to my notes. They aren’t getting back together.”
I snort a laugh. “Stop it. You don’t have notes.”
Molly’s smile is wide. “Okay, well, I’m glad you haven’t killed him. This Andy guy sounds nice.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
That earns me an impatient sigh. “Tris, I don’t care who it’s with, but it’s been over a year since your last date. That’s not normal at your age. You have to let the past go and allow someone in.” She peers into the screen, giving me a somber blink of her eyes.
I huff out a laugh. “Shut up. I’m not abnormal .”
“Your virginity is growing back at this rate. You’ll be a religious miracle. Disciples will make pilgrimages to wash your feet.” I snort and roll my eyes, glad I thought to put in my headphones. Still, I dart a cautious glance around the room, but I’m safely distanced from eavesdroppers.
“It’s not that bad,” I protest. I know she’s right, and I’m met with a wall of judgy silence. I roll my eyes. “What would I do without you to worry about me?”
“I have no idea.”
“I gotta go,” I say, checking my phone. “I need to be upstairs in ten minutes.”
“I’m expecting hot sex stories,” she says, and I huff.
“I’ll talk to you later.”
We say our goodbyes, and I head out of the dining room, checking the WMC event app as I walk. My schedule includes a half-day session called “Leadership I: Inspiring the Change You Want to See in the World” and then everyone is invited to a boat cruise departing midafternoon. Pushing all thoughts of Rafe to the side, I focus on the positive. A boat ride sounds amazing, and maybe I’ll learn something this morning.
I enter the conference room to find a nondescript square with grey walls and scratchy carpet filled with tables arranged in large U shapes. Half the attendees were assigned to this room and the rest to another. Lan waves me over, gesturing to an empty seat between her and… Rafe.
Why did I think I’d spend the next three weeks avoiding him?
I hesitate, scanning the room for other options, but it’s hardly fair that he gets to chase me away from my new friend. As I make my way over, I feel the tactile rake of his gaze. It drags up from the tips of my toes, and I can’t be sure, but I swear he pauses on my mouth before finding my eyes. My lips tingle, and I roll them together.
Dark circles shadow his eyes, suggesting the couch probably isn’t that comfortable. His hair is artfully disheveled in that way where it looks like he wasn’t trying, but he probably was. He’s wearing dark grey pants and a pale pink dress shirt. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and I’m convinced he must be testing me. His muscles give a sexy little flex as he squeezes his pen.
Not sexy. Just… regular.
It’s a totally platonic and uninteresting flex. It’s not affecting me at all.
What’s really weird is that we kind of match in our pink button-ups and grey bottoms.
As I drop into my seat, his gaze tracks over me again, and the corner of his mouth ticks up while the barest crinkle hugs the corner of one eye.
My breath flutters, and my heart skips.
That wasn’t a smile, not exactly, but it wasn’t nothing.
“Tris, meet Gabrielle,” Lan says, pulling my attention from Rafe.
Gabrielle smiles and reaches out a hand. “Nice to meet you.” She’s a Black woman with deep brown skin, high cheekbones, and short curly hair. She’s super stylish in a yellow short-sleeved sweater and cropped black pants.
“Tris,” I reply. “Great to meet you, too.”
“What happened to you last night?” Lan asks. “You were talking to that cute guy one moment, and the next, you were gone.”
“Yeah,” I say, conscious of Rafe leaning towards us. He’s not even pretending he isn’t listening. “I suddenly developed this giant pain in my ass, and I wasn’t really in the mood for conversation anymore.”
Lan and Gabrielle both frown, and I hear Rafe snort. My fists ball in my lap.
“Are you okay now?” Lan asks in a tone of equal concern and confusion.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Hopefully, whatever it was got the message and learned to piss off.”
Gabrielle and Lan exchange a wary look.
I’m saved from having to answer any further questions when today’s instructor calls for our attention. She starts handing out papers for our first team-building exercise, and we’re assigned to groups of four: me, Gabrielle, some guy named Pete, and, of course, because the entire universe is conspiring against me, Rafe.
Our task is to construct a fully working Ferris wheel from a collection of household objects and a partially assembled motor. The exercise itself shouldn’t be hard, but apparently, this will demonstrate how some people are leaders and some are followers. I wonder at the point of sharing all this beforehand, but I guess they know what they’re doing.
Sitting before us is a box of dried linguine, a few cans of Play-Doh, a small motor, bamboo skewers, a pile of rubber bands, paper, pens, paper clips, and a pile of thumbtacks. Each group huddles around their tables as we all set to work.
“Okay, so we use the linguine for the spokes and Play-Doh to hold it together. The skewers as pivots to make it spin,” I say.
“That should work,” Gabrielle says. “I can set up the motor.”
“Hmm,” Rafe says, rubbing his chin with his other hand on his hip. He hasn’t shaved this morning, leaving a shadow on his cheeks and along the precise line of his jaw. The rough sound of his fingers against the grain causes a tickle below my navel. “I think we should use the skewers. The pasta won’t be strong enough.”
Immediately, the tickle dissipates, irritated at his questioning. “Sure it will,” I counter. “It’s thick pasta. We’ll use the rubber bands to secure a few pieces together to strengthen them.”
“That’s just extra work when we could just use the skewers. We’d be done faster.”
“I wasn’t aware we were so short on time.”
Rafe taps his temple, and a nonzero percentage of me wants to bend his finger back until it snaps. “Time is money, Trishara. One day, you’ll learn that.”
“Is that supposed to be some kind of dig? Why don’t we take the time to do it right? Ensure there are no accidents and delays due to poor construction?”
We continue firing questions, and we both know neither of us is talking about the Ferris wheel anymore. I know we’re remembering the first argument we ever had, along with a similar one last year about a reactor design that both our teams were working on. Gabrielle and Pete watch us with guarded expressions as Rafe and I continue to lob carefully veiled digs, swimming in the murky deep end of appropriate office behavior.
“Should we take a vote?” Pete ventures. “Pasta or skewers? They could both work.”
“Shut up, Pete,” I say, not taking my eyes from Rafe.
“Don’t tell him to shut up,” Rafe says to me as if Pete isn’t there.
“Fine, then you shut up.”
“This is why I got the team lead position,” Rafe says. “You aren’t a team player.”
Red. All I see is red.
Crimson explosions of blood and cinnamon hearts dripping sugary scarlet juice down my chin. Fiery and hot and raging. I’ll lob Rafe into the sun.
“I didn’t get it because I’m not the boss’s son. Everyone knows that.”
Whoa. I know it. He knows it. We all know it, but I can’t believe I just said it out loud.
Tension crackles like an electric storm. Rage simmers in his gaze as I imagine him tossing me in the back of his trunk and spiriting me away to his secret lair carved deep inside a mountain.
That tingle returns. What is wrong with me?
Our voices have risen, and everyone in the room is watching us, including, to my utter dismay, Diane Hart, vice president, superwoman, and bestselling author. She must have slipped in to observe, and I’m arguing with Rafe like a lunatic.
“Is there a problem?” the instructor asks, clearly irritable at being upstaged by our outburst.
Rafe and I stare at each other with so much heat that I’m surprised the carpet doesn’t catch fire.
“Not at all,” he grinds out.
“Then focus on your task. You’re distracting everyone.”
“Fine,” I say. “Use the skewers.”
“Use the pasta,” he says, and I let out a sigh dramatic enough to garner me a Daytime Emmy.
“Are you kidding me? Do you just live to irritate me?”
Again, there’s that smile that isn’t quite a smile, his eyes burning with an intensity I’m sure the devil himself would covet. The fist he makes causes the veins on his arms to stand out, and I trace them with my gaze, traveling up to his face where he’s watching me like a jaguar stalking prey across the Sahara.
My stomach flips and then crashes so hard it makes my knees go rubbery.
I’m a masochist. I need therapy.
Gabrielle, bless her heart, attempts to dispel the tension by grabbing the pasta and gathering it into small bundles.
“You finish these,” she says to Pete as she darts uncertain glances between us.
“Tris, you assemble them.” She hands me the Play-Doh, probably to distract me like one might with a toddler. I set to work under the weight of Rafe’s stare.
“You help her.” Gabrielle points to Rafe, and he nods.
We say nothing as we construct our wheel, one segment at a time, molding pieces of Play-Doh to hold it in place. The room is crowded, and our elbows and hips and thighs keep bumping. With each brush of his body against mine, I go weak and fluttery and absolutely stupid.
As it turns out, Gabrielle is the best leader in our group because she gets us focused, issuing orders and instructions, and before long, we have a perfectly working Ferris wheel that spins merrily on its bamboo skewer pivot.
Gabrielle claps her hands and gives a little hop as it whirrs into motion. Pete grins, and I’m guessing he’s just relieved we’ve finished without becoming our scapegoat again.
“Sorry I told you to shut up,” I say, feeling like an asshole. “I wasn’t in my right mind.”
“It’s cool.” Pete skirts a glance over me and then to Rafe with an expression that says this is none of my business .
I’m furious with Rafe for getting under my skin. How am I supposed to stay away from him when we share the same room and fate is conspiring to throw us together?
“Good suggestions,” Gabrielle says to me. “It works great.”
“Great job with the motor,” I respond, and she smiles proudly.
The class instructor walks over to observe our work, noting something on her clipboard.
Diane is still seated in the room’s corner, her legs crossed and her arms folded as she studies us like rats in a lab. She’s wearing another sheath dress, this time in cream, with a chunky statement necklace.
What a fool I made of myself. Maybe I can talk to her one-on-one later and explain what happened. Surely she understands what it’s like to be passed over for a promotion simply for being a woman?
Eventually, everyone in the room completes their projects. Some work better than others, and one falls apart completely when they switch on their motor. I cringe, thankful ours remained in one piece, even if our group was a disaster.
“Thank you,” the instructor says. “I hope this was an informative exercise in leadership and how teams naturally find their rhythm.” The look she directs at Rafe and me is so sharp that it nearly draws blood. We share a glance, and I know we’re both dreaming up spectacular ways to make the other one suffer.
“Now that the work part of the day is over, it’s time for some fun. We’ll meet at the hotel marina in one hour to embark on our afternoon boat tour. A late lunch will be served. Bring your swimsuits. You’re dismissed.”
A general swell of excited chatter ripples through the room as everyone gathers their things and heads upstairs to change.
“Meet me in the lobby, and we’ll all go together?” I ask Lan and Gabrielle as they pack their bags.
“Give me your phone,” Lan says, and she enters her number into my contacts.
I head for the elevator, and while I’m waiting, Rafe arrives to stand next to me, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He ignores me and stares at the doors like he’s trying to burn a hole through the metal. I consider telling him to take a different elevator, but we’re going to the same place, and I don’t have the energy.
(And maybe we’ve antagonized each other enough for one day.)
The elevator dings, and we ride in silence as it slowly climbs to the top floor. Just as the doors slide open, Rafe’s phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket, hanging back as I head down the hall.
“Hey,” I hear him say as he follows several paces behind. “What’s up?”
There is a weariness in his voice that makes me look back.
“Hold on just a minute.” He presses his phone to his chest as we enter the suite. He kicks off his shoes and dumps his bag on the sofa before stepping onto the balcony and firmly sliding the door behind him.
He paces for a minute, running his hand through his hair before facing the balcony, leaning on the ledge with an elbow, his head dropping forward. It’s a posture of defeat.
An unfamiliar knot of worry twists in my stomach. I’ve spent the better part of five years consciously and unconsciously aware of every move Rafe Gallagher makes. Our close proximity is concentrating that awareness, calcifying it into something I’m not sure how to name. It sits lodged in my stomach like I’ve swallowed a chess piece.
Turning away, I enter the bedroom, close the door, and walk to the dresser to pull out my swimsuit. It’s then I notice the balcony door at this end has been left open, possibly by the cleaners. The gauzy white curtains billow into the room like ghosts as I catch snippets of Rafe’s voice drifting from the far end of the balcony.
I should close the door. This is none of my business.
“Hannah,” I hear him say in an exasperated voice that I thought he mainly reserved for me. This is an egregious violation of his privacy, and I’m a terrible, horrible person who will roast in the flames of hell. But I also move closer to the door. “Can you please stop?”
I hold very, very still, worried he might hear me if I so much as blink. My hand grips the handle as I will myself to close it. But my curiosity is as hungry as a shark scenting blood.
I lean forward ever so slightly, wishing the ocean would shut up and stop muffling his words.
“I know that,” he’s saying now. “Look, the next few weeks are going to be really intense. I won’t have much time to talk. We’ll discuss this when I get home, okay?”
I frown. Sure, we’re busy, but they’re also giving us plenty of free time. Even after checking emails from the office, he should have time to address whatever seems so important. It definitely sounds like something’s wrong, though.
Rafe has gone silent, and I wonder if he’s hung up when he speaks again. “Hannah, I gotta go.” I can hear the strain in his voice. Like he’s doing everything in his power to remain patient. “There’s a thing I have to get to.”
Then he goes silent, and I hear the balcony door open as he reenters the suite. I resume changing, listening as Rafe bangs around in the kitchen, slamming the cupboards and muttering to himself.
This is none of my business. Rafe isn’t my friend, and his problems aren’t my responsibility. But he almost smiled at me today, and our fight about the Ferris wheel was so ridiculous that I find myself opening the door. Wearing my high-waisted red polka-dot bikini, I pad into the kitchen in my bare feet.
“You okay?” I ask, regretting the words the instant they’re out of my mouth. Why am I getting involved?
He runs a hand down his face and then through his hair, causing it to stand on end. He’s undone the top buttons of his shirt, and I catch a fleeting slice of an exquisite collarbone attached to a smooth, hard chest.
“Not really,” he admits, bracing his hands against the counter. He’s opened a beer and is staring intently at it as if it might break into song.
“Do you want to talk about it?” His gaze flicks to me, and for once, there is no menace in it. No dark, brooding glare. His supervillain is dormant.
If anything, he looks anguished and vulnerable, and something about that unlocks a door somewhere deep in my soul. I see several things cross his face. Distrust. Fair enough—why am I being nice to him? Frustration. But for once, it’s not directed at me. And finally, weariness. But I have no idea what that’s about.
He shakes his head, and I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or relieved when he says, “No, I don’t want to talk about it. You should go get ready.”
I open my mouth to reply, but there’s a dismissal in his tone, so I refrain. I don’t take it personally. Whatever this is, he needs a moment, and it isn’t my place to push him. This has nothing to do with me.
“Okay, if you change your mind, you know where I’m staying,” I joke as I gesture to the bedroom.
Though his face doesn’t change, something else happens. It’s not a smile, but it’s not that twisted smirk, either. It’s a flicker in his eyes, so subtle that I’m sure anyone else would miss it. But I see it because I’ve logged five years studying Rafe’s every gesture and silent look.
Amusement. The tiniest spark of laughter lights up his eyes like faceted shards of topaz. It squeezes my lungs like a fist.
“Sure,” he says. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
I nod and then return to the bedroom to finish getting ready.
No, it wasn’t a smile, but it was… something.