CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Callahan
“Some people not happy, man,” Keone says in his distinct island accent as he pours a draft beer.
“Why’s that?” I ask.
“Just hearing rumblings.”
“About?” I ask, already dreading this conversation and it hasn’t even really started.
“They giving raises over at some of the other resorts.”
“But we offer better medical benefits.”
“That only matters, man, if they sick. It doesn’t help pay the rent though.” He holds up a finger and walks to the other end of the bar to take an order.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
This is the last fucking thing we need here. I’d like to think we’re slowly getting shit in order. Slowly. Brady is a little kooky, but the man is a godsend when it comes to wrangling all the things Sutton is implementing while managing the staff at the same time.
It allows me to immerse myself in the bullshit numbers so I can get this over and done with. So I can walk the fuck away. From the resort and the family business.
There’s a grass shack on a beach somewhere that’s calling my name. One where cell service is scant, the surf is strong, and the days stretch forever.
I take another sip of beer and wonder what my dad would think in this situation. My brothers forcing me to be here. Their insistence that I physically manage instead of manage from afar like they do.
Don’t get your hands dirty, Callahan. That’s what you hire people for. You have to be felt but not seen, heard without having to scream, strong but not be an asshole.
Well, I’ve definitely failed that last part, haven’t I?
And the irony that Sutton threw in my face that I don’t get my hands dirty while my dad used to tell me not to isn’t lost on me.
But maybe she’s right. Maybe being made to feel like an idiot over not knowing we’d implemented ecotourism as a part of our resort portfolio is a prime example of why I don’t belong here in the first place.
And yet here I am. Trying to give life to something our father so desperately wanted. The funny thing is I thought it would hurt more being here. That being at a place he was so hell-bent on purchasing would make me sad.
It’s done just the opposite.
Sure I want the fuck out of here as soon as my time here, my penance, has been served, but it’s not so bad on the whole.
And doesn’t that have everything to do with Sutton?
Christ.
When have I ever let a woman lead me around by the balls without at least a little squeeze now and then?
Never.
Fucking never.
And yet when I leave the bar, she’s still on my mind. She’s so much easier to focus on than the constant texts from Ledger and Ford demanding status reports and updates.
If they want to really know, they’ll show up and find out the status themselves. They’ll probably dismantle every single thing we’ve done just to say I’ve done it wrong in the process.
Spite is a mean, nasty bitch and they have it in fucking spades.
I walk for a bit. Down paths I’ve walked a hundred times before, but this time without my head buried in my phone.
Ocean’s Edge is beautiful. It’s the perfect location, the right setup, let’s just hope what Sutton and I are doing is enough.
But enough for what? To appease my brothers? To really flip this around? To feel like I truly fulfilled the promise to my dad? To . . . what? Now that I’ve been forced here, what exactly do I want out of this other than it being my last resort?
A couple chases each other down the beach and shrieks. I watch their silhouettes against the moonlit sky and smile. Did my mom and dad really dig their toes in the sand here? Did they play in the water and fall deeper in love with this place as their backdrop?
I have no clue, but I’m pretending they did.
I’m pretending that my dad had a moment of clarity, of remembering this place, and that my decision to let him buy it was the right one.
That just like the dementia stole his mind from us, it didn’t also steal that one last moment that I thought was real.
The lights are on in the villa when I get home. Home? That’s what this is to me now? Maybe that’s what it feels like. Coming home to her. Knowing she’s actually there for once. Maybe waiting for me.
Maybe wanting me.
I know she’s purposely made herself scarce when I’m here. She even jokes around the office about her absence to try and prevent the inevitable chatter that she’s sleeping with her boss.
I’m wishing that chatter was correct right about now.
I move toward her room where the door is open and the light is on. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed in a tank top and shorts, her hair wet, her skin still pink from a hot shower. She has a pencil between her teeth as she types away at something on her laptop.
Jesus. When is she not stunning?
“Honey, I’m home,” I say.
Her eyes flash up to me and a soft smile adds warmth to them. “Hello, dear. How was your day?” she asks as she takes the pencil from her mouth and sets it down on the nightstand.
“The usual. Don’t you ever stop working?” I ask as I walk into her room and fall face first onto her bed.
“We have a lot to do in a short amount of time,” she says as I turn my face and look at her. Of course, right in front of me is her bare thigh as a temptation of what I can’t touch. “I don’t have any time to waste. Besides you’re not paying me to rest on my laurels.”
Turning on my side, I prop my head up on my elbow. “No, but I’m also not working you to the bone.” I push her laptop with my finger. “We’ve been here a month, and I don’t know anything about you outside of work stuff.”
“That’s a lie,” she says wryly, but she closes her laptop and moves it to the table beside her. “You know what kind of panties I wear.” She quirks a brow, thinking she’s being witty but when I just continue to stare at her, she sighs. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“Where are you from? Where are you going? Something in between,” I say.
“That’s an awful lot of ‘personal’ for a man who doesn’t like to mix with his employees,” she says but there is a playful quality to her voice that says she doesn’t mind.
I hadn’t thought when I walked in here that I’d be asking her these questions either, but it would be a lie if I said I wasn’t intrigued by her.
How did she become so . . . talented? Intuitive?
And she’s not wrong. I rarely get invested in employees . . . or women I want to fuck.
“You’re teaching me to change my ways.” I smile. “What’s in it for you is a much nicer Callahan Sharpe.”
“Too late. I already know that,” she whispers as she reaches out and runs her fingernails through my hair and over my scalp. I close my eyes and lean into her touch.
“You’re going to put me to sleep.”
“Either that will or information about me will because I’m not a very interesting person.”
I snort. “I doubt that.”
“I’m not.”
“I want to know, anyway.”
“Okay,” she murmurs as her fingers continue to work their magic.
“I was born in a small town in Upstate New York. Nothing remarkable about my childhood other than I couldn’t wait to turn eighteen so I could escape the everyday fighting in my house.
My parents were alcoholics who cared more about the next bottle than worrying about making sure their daughter was prepared for life. ”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She offers a soft smile that says please don’t pity me.
“I had some money I’d received in inheritance after my grandmother died—she was the glue of the family and I knew with her gone, things would only get worse.
So I took that money and I left. Found my way to Brooklyn where I roomed with three other college students.
Went to college and got my degree while I was working as a gofer for Resort Transition Consultants.
I slowly worked my way to the front desk, then to an associate, then a junior account manager, and on and on until . . . this.”
“I’m impressed,” I say with all sincerity because in my world, people don’t work their way up. They are born into it. Handed it. But Sutton is so very different. “Truly. That explains why you know the ins and outs of every facet. And your family?”
She shrugs. “Is it bad if I say that they are my parents and I care for them as my parents, but them not being in my life is the best thing that I’ve been able to do for myself?”
I nod, but don’t understand in the least. Yes, my brothers are currently being assholes to me, but growing up we were always united as a family. Even if it wasn’t easy trying to live up to the Sharpe name, we had each other.
Maybe that’s why what they’re doing now hurts so much. Dad is gone. Shouldn’t we be unifying instead of pulling apart?
Is that why I’m here instead of at my grass shack? To honor our father, but also to maybe win back some of what we were? To get my best friends back?
I sigh softly and focus on the feeling of her fingers scratching my scalp. It’s easier to not think about it. Easier to want and wish than to worry and wonder.
“What else did you ask?” she asks as I look over to her where she’s twisting her lips and looking down at me.
“Where am I going? At some point, when I get enough experience, I’d like to branch out and start my own firm.
I think there’s something to be said about the risk and reward of finding clients and taking on their projects for myself. ”
“I can understand that.” I reach out and draw a lazy finger up and down the line of her thigh. “Tell me about your ex.”
“My ex?”
“Yes. He’s the reason we met after all, right?” I smile and grab a pillow to pull under my head. It smells like her shampoo. “Shouldn’t I know about the schmuck who didn’t do a good enough job to keep you?”
Her eyes soften as she chews the inside of her cheek. “Can I say I was lonely and na?ve and did everything wrong and leave it at that?”
“I doubt that.”
“When no one has taught you how to love, Callahan, you take the first sign of affection sent your way and cling to it even when it’s not healthy.
” Her eyes dip and study her fingers moving through my hair.
Her shame is written all over her face, and it guts me to see it.
“I’m not proud of it, of staying with him for as long as I did when he preferred me to fail rather than flourish for his own ego’s sake.
But I’m proud of myself for walking away from it.
It didn’t hurt this opportunity came along at the perfect time to do just that. ”
I hate that my gut twists at the thought of another man touching her. Of another man hurting her. “And sometimes I think things happen at the right time just when we need it most.”
What the hell does that mean, Cal? You’re not talking about her, right?
There’s no way you’re talking about her.
“And as far as everything in between, I think I’m still figuring that out as I go.” She gives a definitive nod as if she’s content with her answer. “What about you, Callahan? Tell me about you.”
Christ. I opened that door, didn’t I?