Page 35 of Six Nights in Paradise

“Yeah, me too. I needed to hear your voice.”Oops. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.I heard a little gasp on the other end of the line and then nothing.

“Same here,” she replied after a moment, her voice low and wistful.

She needed to hear my voice, too? Silence hung in the air between us. Why was this so awkward? I’d been inside her. My mouth and hands had explored every inch of her body. Put a few thousand miles between us, and suddenly we didn’t know how to talk to each other. After several long seconds, I cleared my throat.

“So, what did you want to tell me?”

“Oh!” she chirped excitedly. “I got the job!”

“Congrats. That’s awesome! You must’ve really impressed them to already be offered the job.”

She snickered. “I think it’s more like they were desperate to fill the position and I was readily available.”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short. I’m sure they were able to see just how amazing you are.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and smacked the edge of it into my forehead. Why the hell did I keep saying shit like that?

Because sheisamazing, a little voice piped up from the back of my mind. Even so, I needed to lay off all the compliments and affectionate little declarations. Whatever this was between us needed to move slowly. Saying things like that to her made this more serious than I was willing to get at this point.

“I also, um,” she began, stammering a bit.Uh oh, this couldn’t be good.“Had lunch with Jason’s wife.” I made the mistake of taking a sip of my water while she was speaking and nearly choked on it, spitting it halfway across the room.

“Youwhat?” I croaked between coughs.

“Are you okay?” she asked with concern.

“Yeah, go ahead.” I collected myself, taking another drink of water to soothe my throat.

“I ran into her coming out of my interview. She recognized me and was pissed.” She let out a little chuckle.

What on earth could she find funny about that?I wondered. She proceeded to relay the entire incident to me and the conversation that followed. The poor woman sounded broken but determined. While I felt terrible for her, I was relieved for Taylor’s sake. Meeting with Jason’s wife and having an open, insightful conversation with her seemed to lighten the burden of her guilt even more. I knew confiding in me helped and I’d been able to make her see she wasn’t to blame for Jason being unfaithful, but having his wife’s understanding and forgiveness did far more for her conscience than I ever could.

“I’m glad you ran into her, then.”

“Me too. I hate to say this, but I hope she doesn’t stay with him. He’s a pig and she deserves so much better. But if she can find it in her heart to forgive him and he stops screwing around on her, I hope she can be happy with him again.”

It amazed me how sweet and compassionate she could be. I thought Jason deserved to be kicked in the nuts and forced into celibacy for what he’d done to them. I knew first-hand what it felt like to have an unfaithful partner, to see them with someone else every time you closed your eyes. God, I could just imagine that man bun flopping around every time Gianna spread her legs for Antonio.

“Dalton, are you still there?”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m here.”

How had I let thoughts of my ex-fiancé slip back into my mind while talking to Taylor? I was getting over her. Taylor was helping me forget about Gianna and how she’d torn my heart out. At least, she had been. While we were secluded on that island, she brought me back to life in more ways than one and made me forget how much Gianna hurt me. But Gianna’s persistence over the last few days unnerved me, and all those old feelings for her kept trying to resurface. I worked to push them back down, but with every text and phone call, a little bit would break through the surface again. Every time her name flashed across my screen, a multitude of emotions came flooding back.

I was growing leery of my relationship with Taylor. We hadn’t put a label on it, and I was in no hurry to, but we had something special. I just didn’t know if either of us was ready for it. Her heartbreak was nearly as fresh as mine. Were we both in danger of being each other’s rebound?

Taylor switched gears and told me a little about her new job. When I started to yawn, she giggled and offered to let me go. I apologized for yawning in her ear, but she assured me it was alright and gave me strict orders to get another cup of coffee. Before we hung up, I made sure she knew it would be late her time when I finished up and I’d probably wait until tomorrow to call her. Her time zone was three hours ahead of mine, and I didn’t want to keep her up until midnight just so we could talk.

The next day ran a little more smoothly. It was Friday and everybody was ready for a break, including me. I would come into the office tomorrow and work solo, taking advantage of the solitude and lack of distractions and interruptions. I could get twice the work done and possibly be one day closer to going home.

Gianna was at it again, asking when I would be back in town. I was tempted to tell her to leave me alone, that I had no desire to see her now or in the future, but I just couldn’t do it. I was worried something was terribly wrong since she was so insistent on telling me in person. My thoughts immediately went to her mother who’d had a cancer scare a couple years ago. She ended up having a total hysterectomy to ensure it wouldn’t spread and had been given a clean bill of health at every check-up since. Had that changed? I hoped that wasn’t it.

With that in mind, I shot back a quick text, my response softening.

Me: I’m hoping sometime next week. I’m going to work all day tomorrow to see if I can speed things along.

Gianna: Okay. Have a good day, D.

She was using my nickname again. She used to call me D all the time, but had stopped sometime in the last couple months. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but looking back, that must have been when she started falling out of love with me.

The day passed quickly, and since we’d made a lot of progress, I accepted an invitation to join the rest of the team for drinks after work, leaving the office at a normal time for once. We enjoyed a couple rounds at a swanky uptown bar, and I was able to get to know some of them a little better. Gary, who’d been sulking since our meeting, finally loosened up and joined in the conversation.

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