Page 9 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

I led her past the kitchento the spiral staircase up to the roof. A short landing hid theutility door—which I hated and had already put in an order toreplace with something still up to fire and security code but lessindustrial—that opened onto the rooftop terrace. From certainvantage points, one could see the entire resort; thanks to artfullyplaced hedges and railings, the rest of the resort couldn’t see us.A small café-style table and chairs were grouped near the pool,with more seating in the form of sturdy but luxurious outdoor sofasand armchairs arranged beneath a permanent canopy.

I went to the wet bar there and grabbedmy stuff, and she followed me, plopping down on a love seat andkicking her sandals off before dropping her feet on the big squaretable.

“Okay, you win,” she said,toying with the end of her ponytail. “There are advantages to thepresidential suite.”

“Thank you for concedingthe win.” I took the armchair closest to her. Not sitting rightnext to her, but not so far from her I couldn’t pass a joint. Safe,respectable, not-creeping-on-my-best-friend’s-little-sisterdistance.

“It won’t happen often. I’mvery stubborn,” she informed me, fully unapologetic. “And I’m beingnice and not pointing out that the private villas have directaccess to the ocean.”

“Pools don’t have sharks,” Iimmediately countered.

“Is that really a plus,though?” she mused, squinting her luminous blue eyes slightly.“Sharks are cool.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “I actuallyswam with sharks once,” I said as I set about rolling up our joint.“In the Bahamas.”

“At another one of yourresorts?” she asked.

“That time? No. But I was intown to check out someone else’s resort.” My completely one-sidedrivalry with Glynn properties had driven me to visit several oftheir resorts around the world. The Nassau one had nearly made meweep with envy.

“So, you go around and scopeout the competition?” She asked suspiciously.

“It’s not that weird.” Itwas probably very weird. It’s not like I had a ton of fellowresort-chain-owning friends I could compare behaviors with. “And itwould be chintzy of me to only take vacations at my resorts becausethey’re free to me.”

With one notable exception that Iwouldn’t discuss with her at the moment. Ascend properties were thedestination swinger resorts and kink clubs worldwide. I needed topay a visit to one, badly, and soon. But I hadn’t invited her up tomy room to talk about kinky stuff. In fact, I was pretty sure Scottwould kick my ass if I told her about the place.

Unless she already knew about them,which seemed like a distinct possibility, if the cruise storyhadn’t been exaggerated.

“I would honestly live at aplace like this. I know people do that all the time.” She motionedaround us. “Live in hotels.”

“I’ve heard similar. But itseems like they do that… mostly in big cities…” I tried to split myconcentration between the task in my hands and the task in my mind,and my hands were winning out.

“Tell me about the sharks.”She whipped from topic to topic at a speed I had a difficult timekeeping up with now. What the hell would happen when I wasstoned?

Since she’d offered me thechance to brag, though, I would take it. “Well, I was very brave,obviously. It was a guided scuba tour where they drop this bigchunk of bait and you go and dive down and let them circle you.Watch them eat. Hope they don’t eatyou.” I paused before wetting theglue strip on the paper. “I’m sorry I’m going to put my tongue onthis.”

“Billionaires don’t havespecial moistening apparatus for cannabis cigarettes?” She affecteda snooty accent as she said it, then dropped it, laughing. “It’sokay. The fire will burn up whatever awful pathogens are in yoursaliva. Continue with the sharks.”

“There isn’t much else tosay.” I racked my brain. “The water was nice.”

“What kind of sharks werethere?” she asked, leaning forward like a journalist who’s gottenan interview subject to open up. “Tiger sharks? Great white? Thoseones who look worried all the time?”

“You’ll have to forgive me,but I don’t remember. It was enough that they were sharks. I didn’tneed to know the species of every single one of them.” But I wishedI’d paid attention, now. Apparently, trivia was a great way toimpress her.

Trivia, and not a fucking awesome hotelsuite. On a resort that I personally owned.

I handed her the joint and pushed alighter across the corner of the table. “Ladies first.”

“Okay, but I’m not a lady,”she warned, lighting up.

“Yourbrother mentioned that.” Maybe she wouldn’twantto know that herbrother had mentioned it. I wouldn’t want my sister to talk aboutmy sex life to everyone she knew.

“I’m sure he did. I’m surehe warned you all about me,” she said, her voice tight as she heldin her inhale. She passed the joint to me and exhaled. “And my bodycount.”

“He did warn me that youwere a heartbreaker.”

She scoffed. “That’s not fair. I rarelyhave serious relationships. I’m not out there breaking anybody’sheart.”

That, I couldn’t believe. Becauseserious relationship or not, if I had a woman like Charlotte foreven a week, I’d mope about losing her.

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