Page 10 of Beach Reads
“I, uh, I own this place.”
“You own the restaurant?” I asked in surprise. “It seems like that would have come up in our conversations.”
“No. I own the entire resort. Well, my family does.”
“What?” My tone rose to a higher pitch than I had intended, and Colin winced. “The resort? You own the whole resort?”
He nodded.
“And the boat? That’s yours too?”
“Yes,” he said sheepishly.
“You lied to me. I thought you were just a bartender.”
“Well, I do take a couple of shifts a month in the bar. But most of the time, I’m running the business side of the resort.”
“And all the other resorts in your portfolio,” the other man added. He looked curiously between us. “Are you guys dating or something? Did you really have no idea who this guy is?”
“I still don’t know who he is,” I snapped.
“He’s Colin Hamilton. He and his family own the entire Hamilton Resorts chain. Over twenty resorts around the world.”
My heart was thumping as a sense of betrayal filled me. I recognized the Hamilton name. Of course, who wouldn’t? They were one of the wealthiest families in the country. Why would Colin have lied to me? Why did he let me think he was just a bartender when he was really a billionaire? Was this some kind of game he played with tourists?
I felt my breath coming in quick pants and my sister thankfully came to my rescue. She shot Colin a glare and took my arm. “Come on, sis. Let’s go back to our cabana.”
When we got back to our place I went right to our room and collapsed face down on the bed. I couldn’t decide how I felt. Part of me was angry and embarrassed at Colin for lying and making a fool of me. Part of me was hurt. And part of me was making the realization that I had fallen in love for the first time in my life, and it wasn’t real. At least not for him.
My sister crawled into bed with me and held me close, the way she used to do when we were kids.
“I’m so sorry Teri Bear, I didn’t know he would turn out to be a rat when I pushed the two of you together. I just wanted you to have some fun, maybe fall in love.”
“Love isn’t in the cards for me, Evie,” I said sadly. My eyes were burning with the effort of holding back tears.
She patted my shoulder. “You don’t need a man to have a good life, but it is nice to have companionship.” Her tone turned wistful. “I wouldn’t mind someone to warm my bed and make me breakfast and kill spiders.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re a successful businesswoman. You can make your own breakfast and kill your own spiders.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to.”
Colin
After I finished up my dinner meeting with that jackass John, I spent a restless night tossing and turning. I hadn’t expected Teresa and her friends to show up at that particular restaurant. They had stuck to the more casual dining options the rest of the trip, so I naively believed it would be a safe place to have my meeting. In retrospect, I should have just had the staff bring dinner to my office conference room.
John was a friend of my father’s and a partner on several business ventures. He was also a pompous asshole. He’d thought it was hilarious that Teresa believed I was a bartender, so hilarious that he ribbed me about it for a good ten minutes before I told him to shut up.
“Why are you so sensitive?” he’d asked me. “I totally get why you would want to play poor bartender. I was a bartender in college, and it was a great way for me to get laid by slutty co-eds. She’s a little older than a co-ed, but she’s quite a looker.”
“Don’t talk about Teresa like that,” I’d bit out. “She just assumed I was the bartender, and I let her go on believing it because it was nice to know, for once, that a woman liked me for myself and not for my name or my money.”
John stared at me for a long moment, his gaze appraising. “You really like her, don’t you?”
“Of course I like her.”
“I mean as more than a fling or some easy lay. I thought she was just some tourist you were having fun with.”
I bit back the urge to punch him for even implying something like that about my Teresa. “My feelings for her are none of your business.”
