Chapter 2
B y the time the sun started dropping low behind the dunes, I couldn’t stand the heat inside the house anymore.
The fans were trying their best, bless them, but the air was heavy and clung to my skin like guilt.
The kitchen was spotless, the fridge still pathetic, and I’d already flopped on every couch cushion like a sweaty cat.
The only logical choice was to head down to the beach with a drink and let the breeze do what the ancient air conditioning couldn’t.
I grabbed the solitary bottle of wine from the fridge, an acrylic wine glass safe for the beach, and padded down the wooden steps barefoot, feeling the planks hot under my soles and the early evening light painting everything gold.
The beach behind the house was quiet, only a few gulls shrieking overhead, the horizon soaked in watercolor streaks of lavender and rose.
It was the kind of soft, cinematic light that made you feel like something important was about to happen.
I found the old driftwood log halfway between the dunes and the tide line and sank down onto it, pulled my knees up, and took a sip.
Salt in the air, sugar on my tongue, sand between my toes.
For a second, it was easy to imagine I was fifteen again, listening to the boys crashing into the water, pretending not to care when I heard Fitz’s laugh.
God. Fitz.
It still irritated me how easily his name lived in my head—the way it always had.
I tried not to think about how it would feel to see him again.
He’d obviously be older, and even more put together, probably.
He’d been heading toward that guy forever.
Polished. Effortlessly elegant. Too tall for his own good.
I imagined him arriving tomorrow with Sloane in matching linen and with designer luggage that probably cost more than my bakery’s espresso machine.
I definitely wasn’t expecting to hear the approach of someone padding through the sand behind me.
“Didn’t think anyone would be down here yet,” came a voice I knew like the inside of my cheek—something hidden, tender, and impossibly familiar.
I turned. And there he was. Fitz Whitmore in a pair of low-slung swim trunks and nothing else, his hair tousled, a towel slung over one shoulder.
“Jesus,” I said before I could stop myself. “You trying to give someone a heart attack?”
His mouth pulled into the half-smile I remembered. “Just you, Winslow.”
My heart tripped. I hated that it did. I hated that the way he said my name—last name, always—still made something coil low in my belly like it was twelve years ago and he was shirtless and beautiful, and I was stupid and didn’t know better yet.
I blinked, trying not to stare. “I thought you weren’t coming ‘til tomorrow.”
He walked toward me, kicking up bits of shell and sand. “Jack got stuck with some work thing last minute. They asked if I’d swap ferry times so one of us could make sure the house was open, AC was on, you hadn’t burned it down.”
“Charming,” I muttered. “And here I thought I had the place to myself.”
“Well now you have me,” he said, sinking onto the other end of the driftwood log, keeping a careful amount of space between us.
Ha, what a joke . I most certainly did not have him, would never have him, and desperately wished I didn’t want to have him. “I thought your girlfriend was coming,” I asked, my eyes on the horizon.
He nodded. “Yeah, she’ll arrive tomorrow. Early ferry.”
I nodded back, pretending my stomach didn’t do that annoying twist it always did when she came up. “I’ll make sure there’s extra oat milk or whatever it is Sloane survives on.”
Fitz chuckled, low and short. “She drinks half-and-half, actually. She’s classic, not trendy.”
“Of course.” I rolled my eyes, looking straight ahead, as if the ocean would conspire with me to be annoyed.
We sat there for a minute in silence. The waves pushed up against the shore in a rhythmic trance and the breeze lifted the edge of my shirt. I caught him looking at me, just for a second, and I snuck a glimpse back.
He looked good. Unfairly so. His hair was longer than I remembered, thick and pushed back from his face like he’d run his hands through it a few times.
His skin was already tanned golden, and his shoulders were broader than I remembered.
Everything about him felt more solid now—like the boy had finally settled into the man, and somehow that made it worse.
I cleared my throat. “You gonna swim?”
“Always do when I get here.” He looked out at the water. “Gotta reset the system.”
“You mean wash the smug off.”
That earned a grin. “ Something like that.”
I took another sip of my drink. “You gonna be able to survive two whole weeks without wait staff and all the amenities?”
“I managed to get by every summer, same as you, right?” He looked pointedly at me with a piercing glare.
As I met his gaze, something thick bloomed between us then—old, slow, and hungry. I looked away first. “Anyway,” he said, standing, brushing sand from his hands. “I’ll let you enjoy your alone time with your bottle of rosé.”
“You’re on your own for dinner because there isn’t a lick of food in the house. I was gonna head out?—”
He interrupted. “Stay. I brought provisions. I was thinking I’d cook something. That is…unless you want to bake us something.”
I smirked. “Baking in this heat? Without the AC fully up and running? Couldn’t be me. You’re lucky I’m not stretched out naked under the fan.”
He raised an eyebrow and laughed before jogging toward the shore.
I couldn’t help but sneak another look at him, all toned lean muscle from tennis, sailing, and running — and healthy meals prepared by a private chef, no doubt.
But you couldn’t let his soft, cushy life of privilege fool you; he was strong, his body elegant in its power.
He walked through the breakers and then dipped down and swam a ways out before turning back toward the shore.
He didn’t stay in long; just enough to christen the summer vacation with a swim in the ocean.
I openly stared as he headed back up the beach.
The saltwater rolled down his hard lines and abs, and those swim trunks clung in all the right places.
The cut of his V line showed prominently and I unabashedly peaked at the bulge made prominent by his soaked bathing suit.
He grabbed his towel from the log, shook the excess saltwater from his hair, and looked down at me with a smirk and a nod toward the house. And then he headed on, his towel slung low on his hips.
I stayed there a long time after he was gone, my drink sweating in my hand, the tide inching closer to my feet.
It was just the two of us in the house tonight—and I wasn’t ready. But I had never been ready for Fitz Whitmore. That had always been the problem.
T he scent hit me before I even made it to the porch steps—charcoal, rosemary, and garlic butter.
The sky was bleeding peach and coral across the horizon, and Fitz was at the grill, barefoot and still in his swim trunks, tongs in one hand and a glass of something amber in the other.
His back was to me, shoulders broad, towel wrapped around his neck.
I paused for one second too long, watching the muscles shift beneath his tan skin as he flipped a steak with easy, practiced grace.
He turned just as I hit the top step. “You cook?” I asked, one brow raised.
He glanced back at the sizzling steaks. “Better than I charm. Worse than I fuck.”
My brain stopped moving. Fully. Stopped.
He’d never— never —said anything like that to me before. Not when I was sixteen and tongue-tied in denim shorts. Not in college when I tried to flirt and he shut it down with a look colder than an iced latte.
I blinked. “I—well—okay.”
Smooth, Charlie. Real eloquent.
His smirk didn’t help. “ Cat got your tongue?”
“Just choking on the smoke from your ego,” I shot back, louder than I meant to.
I marched into the kitchen before I could hear him laugh—because I knew he would—but he called after me. “There’s arugula in the fridge if you’re feeling helpful. And cherry tomatoes. Think you can handle a salad, chef?”
I opened the fridge and blinked. It was stocked.
There were bags of pre-washed greens, fresh goat cheese, strawberries, fennel bulbs, olives in brine, and even a small mason jar of homemade vinaigrette with a label that read “for Jazz.” That made me smile.
Next to that was a dozen brown eggs, a carton of half and half, two blocks of fancy French butter wrapped in gold foil, and an aggressively organized row of LaCroix.
On the lower shelf, I found a pack of thick-cut bacon, chicken breasts marinating in something citrusy and herbed, and a sealed container of seasoned hummus with a stack of sliced bell peppers and cucumbers arranged in a glass Tupperware like he was hosting a Mediterranean picnic.
There were three kinds of mustard, a jar of imported fig jam, and a chunk of Manchego wrapped in parchment like it was a prized artifact.
And I laughed out loud when I spotted a stack of string cheese wrapped in plastic in the back.
“You did all this?” I called over my shoulder.
“I’m not a heathen.”
“Color me stunned. I didn’t know you knew how to grocery shop.
I figured the Whitmore estate expected delivery.
” I pulled the ingredients out and set them on the counter.
Salad was easy. The dressing was already done.
I sliced the tomatoes in half, crumbled the goat cheese with my fingers, and tossed the arugula with just enough dressing to gloss it.
The strawberries I sliced and rough chopped some pecans I found in the pantry.
And then I spotted the heavy cream. Lemons. Sugar. I had a pot on the stove before I even fully thought it through.
“Whatever you’re doing in there,” Fitz called, “if it ends in flames, I’m blaming Jack for inviting you.”
“First of all, I went to culinary school, you moron,” I called back. “And secondly, it’s called a lemon posset. No fire involved.”
“That sounds made up.”
“You sound made up,” I muttered, stirring the sugar into the cream until it just started to bubble.
Twenty minutes later, we were sitting on the porch at the same table we’d had since I was a kid—feet up on the rail, mismatched plates between us, a breeze cutting through the heat.
The steaks were good . A perfect medium rare, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
The salad was beautiful, obviously. And the possets were chilling in the fridge.
Fitz took a bite, chewed, and looked out at the water. “So. A bakery.”
I sipped my wine. “Yes. That’s what it’s called when you make pastry and sell it to people.”
“In a beach town. With no cars. On an island.”
“Correct.”
“Sounds…practical.”
I smiled tightly and rolled my eyes. “Thank you.”
“Is that the dream, then?” he asked, slicing a bit of steak. “Make lemon bars barefoot and marry a man who owns eight pairs of flip-flops?”
I set down my glass. “No, Fitz. I’m planning to find a man who wears boat shoes year-round, represses all his emotions, and judges the cost of someone’s worth by where they summer and whether they attended an Ivy.”
Fitz gave me a sideways look. “You’re feisty tonight.”
“And you’re still a dick.”
He smiled. A real one. It cracked across his face like a secret breaking free. “You used to follow me around like a puppy,” he said. “Now you bite.”
I leaned back in my chair. “You used to be hot. Now you just talk too much.”
He let out a low whistle. “Damn, Winslow. That wine really loosened your tongue.”
“You don’t need to worry about my tongue. Or my future for that matter. Thanks for the judgey disparagement and the decent steak though.”
He didn’t reply—but his knee brushed against mine under the table and he didn’t move it. And maybe, just for a second, I let it stay there.
I stood, grabbing my empty wine glass. “There’s lemon posset in the fridge—unless you’re too posh to eat dessert with only three ingredients. I’m gonna shower and crash,” I called, not turning around. “Help yourself, or don’t. I won’t be up worrying about your choices.”
I didn’t hear his reply. But I did hear the fridge door open as I hit the top of the stairs, and I didn’t know what that meant, but it felt like something.