Page 10 of All I Desire

“I’m not against drinking from the bottle.” I glance at him holding the champagne and laugh at his slightly shocked expression. “Kidding! Yeah, here are the glasses. I do two things. I help my family run the Paradise Beach Resort and have my own business, too.”

He looks up from the bottle with an eager expression of recognition. “I’ve driven by that place. Looks really old and cool, with the pink stucco.”

“Oldest resort on the island. 1926 Mediterranean Revival.”

“You sound proud of it.”

“I am. My parents bought it in the early eighties. Now my brother and I run it.”

“Nice. And what’s your other business? You said you do two things.”

“Oh. I design jewelry.” I press my hand to my throat, touching the cool metal of my necklace. “This is one of mine.”

He tilts his head and I rise up on my knees so he can get a better look. “Beautiful,” he murmurs.

My heart feels like it’s racing, for some reason. I sit back down, feeling a bit lightheaded. “What about you? What brought you to Paradise Beach? Or do you even live here?”

“I just moved to the island. I lived over on the other coast in Fort Lauderdale for several years. Took a buyout from the airline. I bought the helicopter tour business at the airport. Found a house a couple of weeks ago. Now, all I need to do is bring my daughter over and get her enrolled in school.”

No way. He’s here, with me, like this, and he’s probably married? Just my luck. A chill washes over me. “Oh. So you’re married?”

He twists the wire on the champagne neck. “Divorced. I have primary custody of our daughter. We’re doing it that way because my ex recently got a promotion. She’s a pilot, too.”

I nod slowly. Hmm. My earlier inner thoughts about him being a daddy now seem stupid and juvenile because he’s a real dad. My stomach sinks at the news.

I don’t much like kids. The only children I’ve been exposed to were my twin brothers, Remy and Damien. An image of the two of them as seven-year-olds, dipping my toothbrush in the toilet, comes to mind.

Maybe that explains my stance on kids. Gah. I’ve never dated a single father before. Okay, I haven’t dated anyone in a long while. A couple of years. The last guy I dated, a local bartender, was nice enough. But he left because he’d gotten accepted into grad school in New York, and the relationship sputtered and died.

Wait. This isn’t a date. Matt and I aren’t dating. We’re not even talking about dating. We’re on a fake picnic. I steal a grape from the plastic package, feeling like a lunatic.

“How old’s your daughter? What’s her name?”

“Chloe. She’s ten, going on thirty.” He grins. “I’ll show you a picture later. Let’s get this open.”

I chew on the grape and grab the plastic glasses, eager to switch the conversation back to adult topics and flirtation.

He pops the cork and it goes flying in Nina’s direction. I let out a little whoop and she dodges it. “Love the emotion!” she cries. “Let’s get a little more intense.”

My entire body flashes hot. What does she mean by that, exactly? Ten minutes ago, we almost kissed. Kissing a single dad seems like such an adult thing to do. Possibly inappropriate, because I’ve known him for three seconds.

But I really want to kiss him.

Matt pours the bubbly into our glasses, then sits alarmingly close next to me. “Cheers,” he says.

“To strangers.” I hold up my glass and smile. “Do we look like a champagne ad?”

“We do.”

We tap our glasses and take long sips. Okay, both of us guzzle the liquid. He pours us each another glass, and we gulp those, too.

Then we stare at each other, a mixture of wariness and sexual tension hanging in the sunset-hued air. Jesus, his eyes practically glow a colorless grey against the sunset.

“Your eyes are an unusual color. What’s your heritage?” I blurt.

“Italian. Last name’s Mancini. You? What’s your last name?”

“Hastings. I’m part Italian. And Scottish. And Puerto Rican.”

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