Page 7 of Love Without Control

“We could meet up tomorrow night after karaoke. My friends may already have plans for Saturday though,” I told him, not wanting to overcommit. I’d see how things went tomorrow.

“I look forward to it,” he said, his accent thick in my ear. Then he spun me under his arm before pulling me back against him. His body was warm and firm, the muscles bunching beneath darkly tanned skin. “I’ll meet you by the staircase leading to the beach at ten.”

“Sounds good,” I told him, pressing a kiss to his cheek as the song ended. “See you then, Felipe.”

“Well, someone was getting cozy with the hunk,” Madalynn teased as we entered the elevator at the resort.

“Yeah, he seemed nice,” I said.

The elevator stopped on the third floor, and Juliette and Arya disembarked, calling that they would see us at breakfast. More passengers got off on the fourth and fifth floor and the Papadopoulos twins on the sixth, leaving only me and Holly to ride to the seventh.

“I hate that we’re not all on the same floor,” I lamented as we walked down the hallway toward our rooms.

“I know. Arya requested it, but the resort said they were already almost fully booked. I guess when you get free rooms, you take what they have left.”

Arya had won the vacation package from some radio call-in contest, and it included airfare and three rooms. Since Holly had wanted her own room, she’d paid extra for it.

“I’m going to grab my ice bucket and have a big glass of water before bed,” I said when we neared Holly’s room.

She paused in the act of inserting her card in the little slot. “Want me to walk with you?”

“No, silly. I’m just right there,” I told her, pointing to my room on the opposite side of the corridor and three doors down. “And the ice machine is across the hall from me.”

“Okay,” she agreed, quickly hugging me before opening her door. “I feel gross, so I think I’ll take a shower before hitting the sack.”

“See you at breakfast. I’m looking forward to the fruit bar again. That pineapple was so sweet this morning.”

“Me too. Bye, Evie.”

“Bye,” I said, skipping backward down the hallway until her door closed. When I reached my room, I pulled the key card from my bikini top and froze. “Shit, where’s my phone?”

I frisked myself like an idiot, though it obviously wasn’t in the tiny bit of clothing I was wearing. “Noooo, my dad is going to kill me,” I groaned, slumping against the wall. That phone had cost around six hundred dollars, and while that wasn’t a lot to someone with as much money as Paul Bouvier had, he was not a man who appreciated wastefulness.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I grumbled, pushing away from the wall and opening the stairwell door. I’d just go look for it, and if I didn’t find it, I would buy another one myself. I had money now, thanks to the trust fund I’d gotten from my grandparents when I turned eighteen last year.

Still, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep my same number on a replacement phone, and then I’d have to admit to my dad that I’d lost mine. I really needed to find it. Jogging down the stairs, I pushed open the door at the bottom, trying to get my bearings. This door didn’t lead to the well-lit lobby, instead exiting onto a darkened concrete patio.

Pausing for a moment, I inhaled a deep breath and shook my head. “You’re fine, Evie. You’re almost nineteen years old. No need to be afraid of the dark.”

I skirted around the corner, relieved when I saw the path leading to the beach a few feet away. It had been lit with tiki torches ten minutes ago, but they had all been extinguished, leaving me only the light of the moon to navigate by. No one else seemed to be around.

My eyes scanned the ground as I retraced our steps. Maybe the phone had fallen out while we were dancing. As I passed a copse of palm trees on my right, I noticed the bonfire was burning low down on the beach. That would probably give me enough light to search when I got down there.

Trotting down the stairs, I let out a little shriek when a dark figure appeared in front of me. “Evie?”

“Oh my god,” I breathed, patting my chest over my rapidly beating heart. “Felipe, you scared me to death.”

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, taking my hand and squeezing it.

“I lost my phone, so I came back to look for it.”

“What does it look like?”

“Um…” I held up my hand in the approximate size of the device. “About this big, silver and black.”

Felipe’s hand reached into his shorts and pulled out an iPhone, his dark brows rising. “Is this it?”

“Yes!” I squealed, reaching for it when he held it out. “Where did you find it?”

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