CHAPTER ELEVEN
Callahan
She taunted me.
Sat there and fucking taunted me with her bullshit comments about how one should experience other Sharpes and see which one fits the best. Then she excused herself from the table with a smirk and said she had to review a few more things before she went to bed.
What the hell was that all about?
But I’m the one who slipped, fucking showed my cards, when I hadn’t planned on it. I was so damn preoccupied with not being affected by her, or rather not letting her know I was affected by her, that I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Then I spent the rest of our bizarre battle of wills grasping for straws as I tried to put her off me.
Piss her off and think that I didn’t want anything more with her than the night in the suite to make it easier for me to push her away.
To not act on the desire that thrummed in my veins each and every time our eyes met.
The irony? I didn’t want more than that night with her. The sex was incredible but like always, when I shut that door and walked away, for all intents and purposes, I was over it. Over her.
Wasn’t that the whole point? A rebound. Sex without strings. No regrets.
But clearly I wasn’t over her.
Not when I ordered her Starbucks. Certainly not when she walked her fine ass out of the conference room to leave me picking my jaw up off the floor and adjust the hard-on in my pants.
And definitely not now that we’re stuck working together over the next few months.
It’s going to be one long, miserable stretch to want someone and not be able to act on it.
You promised that you wouldn’t, Callahan.
The woman has moxie, that’s for sure.
And why is it such a turn-on?
Fuck me and my promises.
I stand with my hands on my hips staring into the moonlit night.
I don’t see the flames of the tiki torches or white clapboard fronts of the buildings.
I don’t hear the steel drums or smell the scent of the ocean.
I don’t even know that I’m in paradise because right now I’m sitting in my own personal hell.
All I can think about is that little tug of war we just had in front of Brady. All I can focus on is the sound of her soft laugh and the defiance and challenge in her eyes.
Needs improvement, my ass.
The woman is definitely something else. Doing something that most can’t—push my buttons.
My phone rings. Ledger. Just what I fucking need.
We’ve yet to discuss the other day but in classic Sharpe form, we won’t. We’ll brush everything under the goddamn rug and pretend like it never happened.
So that means he’s only calling for one thing.
I roll my shoulders and am grateful this time around I’ve had a drink before I talk to him.
“Ledger.” No niceties. He doesn’t deserve it.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He laughs the question out.
“What am I missing here?” I move a few feet outside of the walkway to have some privacy.
“You’ve been there one day and you’ve already cancelled your first meeting? Christ, Callahan. Couldn’t you at least try?”
Every part of me tenses—my jaw, my fists, my shoulders—and yet when I speak, my voice holds that aloofness that I know for certain pisses him off. “Ah, and I thought you weren’t keeping tabs on me.”
“Earn the right for me not to, and I won’t.”
Has he been drinking? It’s not like him to tie one on in the middle of the week. “What do you want, Ledge?”
“Same thing I’ve always wanted. For you to man the fuck up and do your part. Par for the course, you’re not.” He emits a sarcastic chuckle. “How were we ever from the same father?”
His words hit me like a battering ram. We have our differences, our father’s differing treatment of each of us being the main thing, but he’s still my brother. Still my best friend. Or . . . was. Every part of me riots against the words he just said.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear you say that, brother,” I say between gritted teeth.
“And then we’re going to start this conversation over before you really piss me off and I block you from my phone so that you can’t call and treat me like a child yet again.
” I draw in a deep breath. “So, what is it that I can do for you?”
“Stop playing these bullshit games. You’re there to work, to set an example for the staff of what’s expected, not fuck around like a rich playboy.”
“Back the fuck off, Ledge,” I warn.
“Why? You’re going to keep doing what you do, and I’ll keep doing what I do.”
“So that’s how it’s going to go?”
“Apparently.”
“Then maybe you should check Silas’s flight log,” I say, referring to the pilot of the company’s private jet.
“It’ll tell you that I was stuck on the tarmac during the scheduled meeting because of lightning from a sudden thunderstorm that passed over the island.
Sixty-six minutes sitting on the tarmac to be exact.
And so I rescheduled the meeting that took place about two hours ago and just finished, not that I have to explain myself to you or anything.
” Fucking hell. I walk from one side of the clearing to the other.
“I love you, Ledger, but I don’t exactly like you right now. ”
“Now you know how I’ve felt on and off over the past fifteen years since Mom died.”
The dig is there. Not even subtle. Not even anything. Just there out in the open.
I have nothing more to say to him so I end the call without another word.
The darkened ocean stretches out before me, its waves lapping against the shore, but I clench my jaw so tightly that my teeth hurt.
Fuck. I’m so damn sick of this shit.
A light turns on in a villa near me and the silhouette of a woman passes in front of the curtained window. I stare absently at her as my frustrated desire comes back riding shotgun next to my fury at my brother.
My feet move without thought. There is only one thing I want right now. One person who can give that to me.
I kept the promise for twenty-four hours. That’s longer than most attempts. At least I’m making progress.
Hell, if I’m going to be accused of being the black sheep, I might as well earn the title.