Page 25 of The Seascape Between Us

Tall, broad and well-built, gold streaks threading his brown hair, he was Grey’s type—or at least his type when I had known him.

“Good,” Finn said, then gestured to the crew on the roof. “You must be relieved for this to finally be getting done.”

Finn had inspected the hotel twice for Grey. Once last year, after Grey’s father passed away, and he inherited his father’s properties and business dealings, then again a few weeks ago. He had seen firsthand the state of the roof.

Before I could respond, Grey cut in. “Of course he is. He was hoping to have the money to get to it in the fall, but let’s face it, with the money this place generates, he wouldn’t have been able to replace that roof until fall five years from now.”

“Fuck, Grey,” Finn admonished, turning away and shaking his head.

“What?” Grey said. “It’s true. The whole thing probably would have collapsed on top of him before he could replace it.”

If Finn and Grey had been friends as long as Alistair had implied, surely Finn wasn’t shocked by Grey’s lack of filter. He said whatever popped into his head with little regard for how his words might impact others.

Besides, he wasn’t wrong. As much as I hated to admit it, without Grey intervening, who knew when I would have finally been able to pay for a new roof?

I should have been relieved that he'd managed to solve this problem immediately. So why then, did I have to grind my teeth together to stop myself from telling Grey to go fuck himself?

I already knew the answer. I just hated to admit it, even to myself. For years, that roof had needed to be replaced, and in just a few weeks of taking on the hotel, Grey had solved the problem. Just like he’d gutted the rooms, installed a new computer system and would modernize the entire building.

He was a little over two weeks into the project, fixing and replacing items I had never been able to in seventeen years. So, with Grey running the Seascape better than I ever had, where did that leave me?

I didn’t have an answer, and the enormity of what that meant felt like a weight pressing on my shoulders, pushing me down.

“I have work,” I said, backing away to the hotel entrance. “I should go.”

Turning and heading back to the hotel, I forced my feet to maintain a normal pace and not rush away like I wanted to, while Grey’s gaze boring into my back until I finally stepped inside.

Chapter Ten

Grey

Iwatched Daniel cross the parking lot, his shoulders hunched, hands jammed in his jeans pockets, and a general air of defeat wrapped around him like a heavy coat. Guilt gave my insides a hard twist. Shit. This really hadn’t gone the way I’d planned.

“What the hell, Grey,” Finn said, still standing next to me and watching Daniel disappear inside the hotel. “Next time, just kick him in the balls and be done with it.”

“He’s fine,” I ground out.

Finn snorted. “If you say so. You clearly know him better than I do.”

I scowled. “Idoknow him better.”

In my gut, I knew Finn was right, that I’d just acted like a giant asshole, but goddamn it, Daniel’s face when he saw the roofers… I’d thought he’d be happy to see the roof get fixed. He’d told me himself it was a problem, which Finn had corroborated and gone on to explain just how serious a problem it was.

The thing was, I knew I’d been acting like a dick all week. Daniel, continuing to lie about Ryan, still got under my skin and gnawed at me with sharp, rat-like teeth. But I was trying to put it behind me, be the better person and give Daniel the benefit of the doubt.

After all, he didn’t know that I knew about Ryan and him. Maybe Daniel was worried about hurting me with something that happened nearly two decades ago. Or maybe that Brody guy didn’t know about them, and Daniel was trying to protect him. Whatever the reason, I had convinced myself that, after all this time, it didn’t matter. I needed to put it behind me.

Admittedly, no more hand-jobs in the rooms, but surely, we could settle into a comfortable working relationship. The roof had been an olive branch of sorts, and I won’t lie—I'd wanted to impress him, too. Instead, he’d looked at me like I’d kicked his favorite dog.

It’s not that I wanted him to fall to his knees and profess his undying gratitude—not that I hated the idea. Daniel had always been gorgeous on his knees. I pushed the image from my head quickly before it could take root—but a thank you would have been nice.

“So,” Finn said, dragging me from my thoughts. “Are you going to tell me what went on with you guys before? How do you know him?”

I turned my attention to the men on the roof, pretending to be enthralled watching them scrape off strips and toss them into the dumpster positioned next to the hotel. “What makes you think anything happened between us?”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Finn shoot me an incredulous look. “How could Inotthink that? After all, everything you’re doing here is so perfectly normal. You decide to invest in a hotel that your father was a partner in despite unresolved issues with said father—”

I shot Finn a warning glare. “Hey.”

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