Page 7 of The Worst Vacation Crush

Going up?

No way!

The smoothest guy I’d ever met was interviewing on the same morning and in the same building as me? My fingers frantically searched for another penny. If Kai was my competition, I needed to toss another coin into the fountain to one-up the wish he’d just made.

Forget the penny. I’d need a fistful of quarters to counteract his charms. Aloha? This was cloudy Cleveland, Ohio. Who said aloha around here? Apparently, perfectly-tanned, brown-eyed, curly-haired men who owned one hundred percent of any space they occupied.

I wondered if twenty-dollar bills worked in wishing wells.

I glanced up at the giant clock-face on the building across the street. I didn’t have time for this. Ridiculous, that’s what I was being. The Howard building had thirty floors. Thirty. And all of them were occupied by businesses, any number of which could have been interviewing that morning. The odds that Kai was after my job were slim at best.

I snapped my purse shut and hurried to the door. The longer I stood on the sidewalk inventing excuses to have panic attacks, the more I’d lose my edge. I was going to show Blue Pacific Travel Agency that I meant business by showing up first for my interview. I wasn’t about to lose that brownie point.

I stepped through the revolving doors. My heels clicked on the marble floor as I got in my cardio for the day. I crossed the wide lobby to where a small crowd stood near a wall of elevators.

A security guard kept watch nearby, with his hands resting on his belt.

“Officer, this woman is following me.”

My jaw fell open when I found myself face-to-face with Kai’s teasing eyes.

The guard puffed his chest. “What seems to be the trouble?”

I cringed inside. “Nothing. There’s no trouble. I’m not following anybody. Kai, tell him you know me.”

Kai’s teasing grin widened when I said his name. “I don’t even know this woman’s name, officer.”

“Beth. My name is Beth, okay?”

The security guard pulled a tiny pad of paper and itty-bitty pen from his chest pocket. Great. Now I was on “the list”.

Kai started laughing and slapped the guard on the arm. “I’m only joking. She’s cool, Isaac.”

“If you say so.” The guard put the paper away but didn’t stop eyeing me until a few of the elevators dinged and his attention was drawn elsewhere.

Kai stepped into the closest elevator and held the door for me. “You coming?”

He was crazy if he thought I was going to share an elevator with him after he nearly got me kicked out of the building. “I’ll wait for the next one, thanks.”

“Are you sure?” He jabbed his thumb straight up. “There are thirty floors above us. It could be a long wait.”

My eyes scanned down the wall of elevators. Doors were closing right and left. He was right. I couldn’t afford to wait. I puffed out an annoyed breath and stepped inside the fairly crowded elevator.

“Hold the door.” A male voice called from somewhere out of sight.

Kai reached past me to keep the automatic doors from closing. The scent of coconut, sea breeze, and passion fruit surrounded me. I couldn’t help but breathe him in. I had plenty of beach-themed lotions and body washes at home, but none of them smelled like that.

His was fresh, manly, and oh-so tempting.

A man in a courier uniform backed into the elevator, tugging a dolly full of file boxes along. My mental vacation to the beach came to an abrupt end when everyone on the elevator compacted to make room for the man and his load.

I moved back and found myself entirely too close to Kai. I could almost feel him smiling at the back of my head. Before I could step away, the courier parked his dolly in front of me.

The door closed, and I was trapped.

People called out their destinations and the courier pressed the buttons. Mine was already lit up—the twenty-ninth floor. It was going to be a long ride, with lots of stops along the way. That was a good thing because I had a bone to pick with the raven-haired troublemaker behind me.

“Why did you do that?” I whispered over my shoulder to Kai.

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