Page 29 of The Plus-One Deal

“Well, please let him know we’re all very grateful, not just my staff, but the guests who were waiting. If he’d like any spa treatments, that’ll be on us, anything special from room service, just say the word.”

“I’ll tell him,” I said. “Will that be all?”

Price nodded, then caught himself. “Actually, no. I also stopped by to tell you your hot tub’s back up. The heater is working now, if you’d like to use it.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Good of you to stop by.”

Price headed off, glancing back once at Conrad. I went back to my laptop, but the screen made my eyes cross. It had been a long day, and a long night before it, and now that I thought of it, a soakdidsound nice. I headed up to our roof terrace and turned up the heater, then trotted back down and slipped into mybathing suit. By the time I was changed, and my hair all pinned up, the water was warm and bubbling away. I slid in, grateful, and wiggled my toes. Bubbles tickled between them, making me giggle.

I stretched out my arms and lay back in the water. Knots loosened between my shoulders and down my back, and the headache I’d been nursing since breakfast melted away. I groaned with relief and let my eyes close. Steam rose up, soothing, and I let myself drift. Tomorrow we’d be out of here, or maybe the next day, and all this with Conrad would feel like a dream. It already did, kind of, even as it unfolded.

I became aware of shadows shifting behind me, falling over my shoulders then slipping away. I didn’t open my eyes, just leaned back and smiled.

“Conrad?”

“Mm-hm.” He circled around me to lean on the railing, gazing out over the garden to the beach beyond. I waited for him to say something else, and when he didn’t, I sat up in the water.

“What are you looking at?”

“It looks perfect in this light, the ocean, the beach.” He tilted his head to look up at the moon. “You wouldn’t guess, looking out there, there’d been a storm.”

“It’s beautiful,” I agreed. “Night time in paradise.”

“It even smells good.” Conrad took a deep sniff. “Some kind of flower out here, I should find what it is. See if I can grow it in the garden at Constel. Imagine going on your lunch break in the middle of Manhattan, and you sit down to eat, and it smells like this.”

“You can’t—” I began, and bit my tongue hard. I’d been about to say to him,you can’t take it home.But that would’ve meant we couldn’t takeushome. Which, yeah, we couldn’t, but I didn’t want to say it.

Conrad stepped back and sighed. “It’s like a whole other world, apart from our real lives. Like we took a sidestep somewhere and stole these few days here.”

My breath hitched in my chest. It was like he’d reached in and plucked the thoughts from my head. Was he thinking, too, how anything could happen? How we could take our time here to explore our what-ifs, to taste what we could’ve had if our lives had been different? When it came time to go, it would be like awakening, like leaving a pleasant dream to rejoin the real world. Wecould,if we wanted. The question was, should we?

Conrad came over and sat by the hot tub, dangling his legs into the water. I hopped up next to him, onto my towel. People came here for honeymoons, anniversaries, vacations. They came for romance, for an escape from the world. We could have both those things, no strings attached. But, if we did, would our friendship survive it? Could we really go back and just?—

Conrad leaned in.

I held my breath.

If we kissed now, we would cross a new line. We’d be doing it because we wanted to and no other reason, not for my business, for our charade. No one would see us. It would be just for us.

I closed my eyes and stretched up, ran my hands through his hair. He pulled the pin out of mine so it tumbled down my back. We kissed, sweet and gentle, a brush of our lips. A shivery promise of more to come. I inhaled the scent of him, his skin, hiscologne. He whispered my name, and then my laptop pinged, an obnoxiousbing-bongdrifting upstairs.

“Ignore it,” I said.

Conrad’s phone chirped.

“Damn it.” He pulled it out and held down the button, but it chirped again twice, and his face darkened.

“Problem?”

“I want to say no, but I really should take this. But?—”

I pressed my finger to his lips. “Go ahead. Take it.”

Conrad stared at me for a long moment, eyes burning with what could’ve been want or frustration. Then he kissed me once on my forehead and hurried away. I flopped back, head spinning, and kicked my feet in the bubbles. Who’d texted Conrad? What was so urgent?Wasit even urgent, or had he changed his mind? Had I changed mine, and he’d somehow seen it? Sensed my hesitation before I even felt it?DidI want this with him, or was it a mistake?

I scrambled upright, frustrated, head spinning from the steam. My towel was damp from me sitting on it, but I snatched it up anyway, tied it around my waist and headed inside. I found my own phone on the table by the fruit bowl and flopped down on the couch and thumbed it to life.

Hey. You awake?

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