Page 7 of A Quick Stop in Paradise

He cringed. Being gross always worked—make them want to leave with as little to do with me as possible. “Do you… need the bathroom?”

“I’ve got medicine back at mine… let’s hope I make it that far without throwing up altogether. God, I shouldn’t have ordered a milk drink, I’m going to be puking all night.”

He wrinkled his nose, and I stepped back.

“Sorry, Jack,” I said. “Tonight was fun, though. See you around.”

He didn’t stop me, letting me shut the door and pitch convincingly drunkenly towards the corner, and I stepped into a staff entrance at the side of the building once I was out of view, leaning back against the wall inside a storage room with a sigh, eyes up towards the ceiling.

The resort bar was a ton of fun. Hookups were great. But everything great had its catch somewhere.

I hated this part.

Chapter 3

Ryan

Shane was irritable when I got back from the beach and found him in the room, doing something at his laptop with a hard look around the edges of his expression. He smiled at me when I stepped into the room, but his heart clearly wasn’t in it.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, before he turned back to his computer. “Had fun at the beach?”

“You should have come. It was amazing.”

“I’ll go tomorrow. Just had this to wrap up…”

I laughed, kicking off my sandals and rummaging through my bag for pajamas. “And you were the one telling me off for working on vacation?”

“I talked a big game. For pride comes before the fall,” he laughed, but once again not quite with it. I paused, looking at him carefully.

“Everything okay?” I said, and he nodded, closing the laptop and turning to me with a strained smile.

“Yeah, all good. Taking a shower?”

“Mm-hm. Hope your surprise task doesn’t give you too much trouble.”

He opened the laptop again, going back to it as if I wasn’t there, and I wondered if he really didn’t care about seeing me in a swimsuit. I didn’t want him to care so much that he tried to start something—wasn’t in the mood tonight and still awkwardly kind of hoped that against all odds nothing would happen on this trip—but maybe some small, petulant part of me felt spurned that he didn’t even look.

Of course, he was probably just used to me. Nothing to do with me, and it didn’t mean I was unattractive.

I took a long shower, not just for the warmth and the luxurious feel of the waterfall showerhead but also to help work out the knotted tangle of thoughts drifting in my head—and to make sure I wasn’t about to track sand into the bed—and I was working conditioner through my hair when I heard noise from the front door, Shane opening it and a quiet conversation with whoever it was. Couldn’t make anything out, and I thought nothing of it—figured it was a family member—before the door shut and Shane knocked on the bathroom door.

“Hey, babe?” he said. “Did you do something to get in trouble with the hotel staff?”

“The hotel staff?” I turned off the water, cold in a sudden flush as it left me standing dripping in the shower stall. “What happened?”

“This girl from the front desk came asking to see you. Said her name was Allison?”

“Oh, Allison…” I stepped out of the shower, bundling up my hair in a towel, patting it dry. “I asked her to take care of a discreet favor to keep my grandmother from haranguing the poor concierge. Probably something came up with it. I’ll be out to see her in a second.”

“A discreet favor to keep her quiet?Jesus, Ryan, old woman being picky with the hotel staff doesn’t warrant mafia tactics.”

“I wasn’t ordering a hit on her,” I laughed, drying myself off and pulling on my pajamas. “More like a bribe. Maybe it’s still mafia tactics.”

“Guess I knew what I was getting into with your family.”

“Indeed. Don’t make a fuss or you’re next, darling.” I washed my face and stepped out of the bathroom, walking around him to grab day clothes from my bag before I stepped into the bathroom again to get changed.

I found Allison right after I stepped outside, changed out of her concierge uniform and into a t-shirt and frayed jean shorts. She was a short girl with a curvy figure, dark blonde hair that just brushed the tops of her shoulders, and honestly, if I hadn’t been looking specifically for her, I probably wouldn’t have recognized her out of the sleek, pressed look of the concierge uniform.

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