Page 66 of Beached Wedding

Fliss derided that with a curl of her lip, but continued to stare at the basket. “You got another one? What’s in it?”

“Stuff that won’t travel.” Fox opened it. “Help yourself.”

Izzy and Whitney moved with Fliss, all drawn like magnets.

“Oh, my God!” Izzy snatched up the champagne and hung her mouth open as she displayed it to Whitney.

“Wow.” Whitney crowded around the basket, scooping out jars and crackers and packets of truffles. “This is really high-end stuff.”

“I’ll leave you to your tickle fights and go for a work out,” Fox said, tense beneath his sardonic expression. He crossed to the dresser for a fresh pair of board shorts, sending a more somber look toward me as he passed. “I’ll talk to the front desk, too.”

About getting his own room. I bit the inside of my bottom lip, nodded once, stomach tight against a crease of nausea as he left.

“There’re glasses and everything.” Whitney was saying, drawing the flutes from the basket and sidling a glance at me. “What exactly was Fox planning? And what stopped him from execution?”

“Nothing,” I said with annoyance, trying not to blush or look guilty. Or devastated. “It’s from Harry, the guy he saved.”

“How was the heli-tour?” Fliss asked.

“Really cool.” I tried to find the enthusiasm I’d felt on the first half of the flight. “He took us over the water to where lava was spitting into the ocean, making clouds of steam. Then westopped on the top of a mountain and hiked to a grotto. Swam a bit, but we weren’t hungry so we came straight back.”

Three pairs of eyes stared at me, seeming to expect a higher level of gushing.

I shifted uncomfortably, feeling transparent. Could they tell Fox and I had had an encounter that had left me in agony?

“Well, it sounds like taking you on that tour was the least he could do after wrecking your wedding,” Izzy pronounced. “I say we celebrate all the single ladies.”

“Hey,” Whitney said with a frown of consternation.

“Unless youwantto be with someone. Then you get to celebrate that,” Izzy corrected easily. “What do you say?” she asked me as she showcased the champagne like a game show hostess.

“What the hell.” I nodded for Izzy to peel the foil off the cork. According to Fox, if I wanted to drown my sorrows, I should do it with the good stuff.

FOX

Iworked myself to quivering exhaustion on every machine, then ran on the treadmill until I was empty. After grabbing a shower and a protein shake, I booked my own room. They hadone. I went back to the suite to pack up my stuff.

I was hoping the women had made their way to the villa. I couldn’t face Ashley’s baleful glare again.

I’ll go back to not even wishing.

I wasn’t trying to disillusion her. I was trying to hang on to what I had—which included her. And I wouldn’t be flat broke if Shane and I dissolved the business, but it would still hurt. I enjoyed a certain level of security because I had fought for it. I wanted to keep it.

As a child, I’d had a constant sense of being adrift with very few anchor points, all of them borrowed and tenuous. Creating this feeling of having roots and community had been years of blood, sweat, and tears. The next house I bought was going to bemine.

As for the business, I never wanted to go back to working for The Man. I likedbeingThe Man. I loved owning T&B, loved having the control to set goals and achieve milestones.

Granted, some of that had felt a little colorless after Ashley had gone back to Canada. In the short time she’d been there, she’d become a fixture in my days. When she’d gone home, I’d known it was temporary, but it had been a taste of what life would be like without her and I hadn’t liked it.

A bleak space was opening in front of me, one that I was fighting looking into. That’s why I had stuck around this week, to put off having to face losing her from my life.

I pinched the bridge of my nose where the protein shake was driving a cold spike of ice cream headache into my sinuses.

If Ash and I couldn’t find our way back to being friends, if I couldn’t at least know she was on the other end of a text or a call, I didn’t know what I would do. I had to figure out how to smooth things over with her.

Without sleeping with her.

But oh, I wanted to sleep with her. Talons of want were lodged in my guts, reminding me why I had to pack and leave her room. Put more space where I didn’t want it. It was for the best, even if it killed me.

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