Page 38 of Grand Escape

Adam started walking away but quickly turned. “Do you think I can trust Teddi not to poison me with a margarita?”

It was my turn to laugh loudly as he strutted away. He didn’t need to bother giving me his room number for the charges, and for some reason, he skipped the cash tip this time. This was a good idea since we were about to head out on our third “date,” and Adam giving me cash made me feel uncomfortable.

“Thank God, your little lovers’ spat is over,” Brianna said as she came over for her wines.

Frowning, I slid my clammy hands down my apron. “Why is everyone obsessed with my love life here?”

I wasn’t worried about management. We didn’t have a non-fraternization clause. We were trusted and valued employees.

Brianna raised a brow at me. “Maybe because you never had one?”

“And maybe this is the reason why,” I shot back, but I knew differently.

I’d never been interested in having a love life before Adam.

Adam

After ordering a margarita on the rocks from Teddi, I sat at the pool for a while, taking in the reckless bachelorette partygoers looking for fun on the precipice of commitment. Wild and flirty young girls, carefree like Becca should have been, but she wasn’t.

Cal’s words rang in my ears as I showered the sand off outside my villa.

“You can’t take the fall for this, Ad. Becca was sick. We knew she was always different. She never was going to change and be who you wanted her to be ... like a sorority girl you knew in college.”

Watching those women, I knew he was right. Becca had always felt too much.

If there was a feeling to be had, she had it tenfold. If there was an emotion to show or hide, she did both in spades. My mom had tried to get her help, but when Becca moved out, no one could control whether she took her meds. But I’d done my best by stopping by, calling, texting, and then swinging by again.

But Cal didn’t. He let Becca be, allowing her to enjoy what little life she had.

Leaning my head back, I stretched my neck from left to right and back again, my wet hair flinging droplets all around me.

I used to think my way was the right way and that Cal believed he was the better brother. In the end, we’d both failed Becca. Cal had moved on from it, though, and I hadn’t.

Was that why I was here? Why couldn’t I let go ... always on a continual loop at home? It wasn’t until I arrived at this Caribbean postcard of an island that I realized I’d done my best when it came to Becca, and couldn’t have done anything differently.

Turning off the water and snagging the towel slung over the side of the shower wall, I walked toward my villa. As I stepped inside, the bed called to me. I’d been up since before dawn, out in the sun for hours. It had been a long day.

I stood there for a moment, wondering why Becca had turned out the way she had, and a young woman like Rylan was such a stoic survivor.

Becca had wanted for nothing. Dad passed away when we were three, and Mom had raised us on her own. He’d had a life insurance policy, and that money had allowed Mom to stay home with us, spending countless hours helping us with projects and shlepping us places. I never had a nanny, and now I made enough to hire one when I have kids, but would think twice about it. After hearing Rylan’s story, I was hesitant to raise kids in extreme wealth, yet here she was, making her own way.

I lay down on top of the sheets, my head sinking into the pillow, and closed my eyes. It was only around five p.m., and I’d been up for twelve hours.

A dreamlike state overcame me in which I really went after Rylan, declaring this wasn’t a vacation thing. But she continued to hold on to some notion that it was a fling, and wouldn’t go all in.

As sleep overtook me, I wondered why.

Was it me? Her parents? Both?

Rylan answered her door with a turquoise towel wrapped around her tanned body, and another equally bright towel wrapped like a turban around her head. “Shit. I meant to call your villa. I’m running late.”

“You know, we should exchange cell numbers,” I said as I casually walked into her staff villa. It looked like mine, but with fewer furnishings and minimal personal items scattered on the counters.

Where my villa had a wet bar, hers had a tiny kitchenette. Instead of decorative blinds, she had white wooden shutters. Otherwise, Rylan lived in a glammed-down hotel room.

“Later,” she told me. “I’ll hurry now. Sorry, but a huge party came in right at a quarter to six. I ended up staying to help make drinks for them, and no one wanted just a glass of wine. There were twenty different made-to-order drinks on the slip. Every single order included some high-end specialty liquor, and not one was a combination we offered on the drink menu.”

I sat down in the chair near the kitchenette. “No biggie.”

---