Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Cade
I left Missy in the warm glow of the dining room and headed upstairs to change and get to work.
I hated leaving her there with her soft curly hair catching the candlelight, her laugh mingling with the murmur of the other guests, but I knew I had to go before I talked myself into staying with her all night.
I made it halfway down the hallway before the familiar tug pulled at my chest. I always wanted to stay with her. Always had.
But work waited.
Back in our shared suite, I changed into my work clothes, then grabbed my tool belt, checked the charge on my flashlight and cordless drill, and headed out.
The resort was quieter in the evenings since there were far fewer guests wandering around after dark.
I didn’t see any staff on the main floors, but when I stepped into the basement, a half dozen people were rushing around, some in the laundry rooms, others delivering food carts from the kitchens.
The air shifted when I descended the stairs.
Down there it always smelled like concrete dust, old wiring, and the faint salty breeze that somehow worked its way through the vents.
I stepped into the electric closet and flicked on the lights.
The bulb’s buzz filled the silence. I knelt beside the outdated circuit panel that I needed to upgrade.
I’d had what I needed delivered before my arrival and spent time unboxing the new panel and circuits. Then muscle memory took over as I worked, leaving my mind free to drift.
And, of course, it drifted straight to Missy.
Our conversation at dinner replayed in my mind, how excited she sounded as she talked about her bakery, the resort weekend, the things she was building on her own.
Not because she wanted to prove anything, but because she could finally follow her own dreams. Talking to her felt so damn easy, like breathing. It always had.
As I loosened the first panel screws, old memories surfaced.
I could still see us as kids— Missy with her pretty dresses and big laugh, dragging me along on adventures that usually ended with one or both of us in trouble.
My parents adored her. Hell, my mom once joked that she’d keep Missy even if she had to trade me in.
It wasn’t like that with Missy’s parents.
Her mother, Elizabeth, had always been kind to me. She saw me. Talked to me. Asked me things.
As an adult, I can finally see it for what it was—interest in me and her daughter being more than just friends.
After all, I came from wealth just like Missy did.
Older wealth than the Sharpe family. I was a good match for her daughter.
In our late teens, when it was obvious we were just friends, her attitude toward me shifted.
But Gerald Sharpe? He’d treated me like chewing gum stuck under his Italian loafers. Like I wasn’t worth the dirt under his manicured nails. He’d loved Levi though. My parents tell me that the two still hit the golf course together several times a month.
In all honesty, the pair were a good match— womanizers who believe they are better than everyone else. It was the number one reason I had hated Levi from the first moment I’d met him. It was so easy to see through his facade.
I twisted a wire a bit too tightly and made myself ease off.
Gerald was a narcissist wrapped in a tailored suit. The man had been cheating on his wife for years. Everyone knew it. Hell, I had figured it out when I was only ten and overheard whispered arguments from the Sharpe mansion kitchen while waiting to walk Missy to school.
There was even a time, years ago, when I wondered if my mother had been mixed up in his orbit. She never said a word, and my dad pretended he’d never noticed anything was off. That silence had its own gravity. I just didn’t know which part of it was truth and which part was denial.
It was one of the reasons that, when I finally settled down, I was going to make damn sure my eyes never wandered. Whatever happened, I was not going to end up like them.
And now? The mess was blowing wide open.
Elizabeth was divorcing Gerald and finally breaking free.
She had moved into her own townhouse in New York and was working at Sharper Image again after years of being absent.
Not dancing, since her old injury kept her off the stage, but choreographing.
She sounded lighter, freer, in the little updates that Missy shared with him, at least when she wasn’t bitching about Missy’s life decisions.
Meanwhile, Gerald was parading around all the social events with a new twenty-year-old dancer on his arm every week.
Like he could replace youth the same way he replaced wives.
Like his ego needed constant feeding. The man hadn’t worked a full day in the past ten years.
Hell, I doubted he even know how to run Sharper Image at this point.
Poor Max and Missy were stuck in the crossfire.
I fitted one of the new breakers, the metal clicking softly as it locked into place.
Missy didn’t talk about the divorce much, not unless I asked. Even then, she kept it surface level. But I knew it hurt her. Knew it made her question loyalty, love, whether people really stayed when things got hard.
That part bothered me more than her father’s affairs ever had.
Because I’d spent most of my life wanting to be the one who stayed.
My hands stilled on the wiring as that truth hit deep in my chest. Being around her today, on the ferry, walking the island grounds, sitting across from her at dinner as she talked with that glow in her eyes, it just made it worse.
Wanting her wasn’t new.
Admitting it to myself was.
So I forced myself to keep working, letting the whir of the tools and the scent of dust drown out the thoughts that had been growing louder all night: That I had always wanted her.
That she deserved more than what her family gave her.
And that I wasn’t sure how much longer I could pretend I didn’t feel the way I felt every time she smiled at me from across a table.
By the time I’d wrapped up the last connection, labeled the new panel, and put away my tools, it was well past midnight.
The resort was silent, peaceful, with soft lights humming low in the hallways and the sound of the distant surf brushing against the island cliffs.
My body was tired, but my mind… that was another story.
Missy had been floating in and out of my thoughts all night like a song I couldn’t shut off.
I made my way upstairs, trying to keep my boots from making a sound on the carpet as I approached our suite. I eased the door open quietly, not wanting to wake her if she’d already gone to bed.
But she wasn’t in her room.
She was curled up on one of the oversized sofa chairs in the shared sitting room.
There was a soft white resort robe wrapped around her like a puffy cloud.
An empty bottle of wine sat on the table with a glass next to it.
Obviously, she’d come back to the room and enjoyed some quiet time, as a book lay open and forgotten in her lap.
Her long honey-colored hair spilled down her shoulder in loose waves, the tie of the robe slipping just enough to show one smooth knee tucked under her.
She looked peaceful.
Unplugged from the world for once.
I closed the door gently behind me and slipped off my work boots before walking over to her. I took the book from her lap and set it on the table.
The sound must have stirred her, because she shifted, blinking up at me through sleepy lashes. Her eyes were soft, unfocused, warm in that way they only ever were when she was half-dreaming.
“Cade?” she murmured, voice thick with sleep.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
But before I could say anything else, before I could reach for a blanket or gently coax her upright, she reached for me. Her fingers curled in my shirt and she pulled me down.
And kissed me.
It wasn’t like the one we shared in the bakery or at her door. This time the kiss was soft. Warm. Unthinking. Dreamy.
A half-asleep Missy kiss.
Her lips brushed mine, gentle but sure, and everything in me unclenched.
Every tight muscle from hours bent over wiring, every thought I’d been fighting, melted.
I let myself sink into her warmth and softness, just for a second.
Just long enough to memorize the taste of her, the sound of her soft sighs.
She smelled like vanilla lotion and lavender shampoo.
Home.
But she swayed a little, her forehead slipping against my cheek as her body sagged.
She was barely awake.
And as much as I wanted her—God, I wanted her—I wasn’t going to take advantage of sleepy, not-quite-conscious Missy.
So I gathered her into my arms, lifting her easily. She gave a tiny sound, like a content hum, and her head dropped against my shoulder as if I were the softest pillow she’d ever felt.
“Come on,” I whispered against her hair. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Her room was dim with the balcony curtains drawn shut. But the moonlight glowed softly behind them. I carried her to the bed and lowered her onto the mattress.
But she didn’t let go of me at first.
Her fingers curled into my hair, tugging, trying to pull me down with her.
“Stay,” she said, almost begging.
God. The word hit me dead center.
I braced one hand on the mattress beside her shoulder, leaning down just enough that I could feel the warmth of her breath, her lips still slightly parted from kissing me moments before.
I could have stayed.
I wanted to.
But she was half-asleep, probably a little drunk. Vulnerable. And I was not going to cross that line we’d agreed not to cross unless she was fully awake and fully choosing to do so.
I brushed her cheek with my thumb. Her eyes fluttered open for half a second and I noticed how unfocused they were.
“Go to sleep, Missy,” I murmured.
Her fingers slackened in my hair, and her breathing softened as she melted into the pillow.