Last Resort: S.I.N. Series Page 15
“And as far as everything in between, I think I’m still figuring that out as I go.” She gives a definitive nod as if she’s content with her answer. “What about you, Callahan? Tell me about you.”
Christ. I opened that door, didn’t I?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sutton
“What do you want to know?”
“How about I ask the most obvious thing since your expression says you’d rather die than talk about yourself.” I laugh. His wince tells me he is not a fan of the tables being turned. Too bad. I want to know more about this man who fills my thoughts and then plops onto my bed unannounced out of the blue. I lob a softball at him for a warmup. “Should I assume you don’t have a girlfriend since you pick women up in clubs and are currently shacking up with a woman? A rather hot woman, I might add, but a woman—”
“A very hot woman, indeed.”
“That didn’t answer the question.”
He chuckles. “No. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Is that by design or because you’ve yet to find the one?”
“It’s just how it is.” He lifts his eyebrows. “Right. Wrong. I don’t know. I don’t like complicated.”
“Says the man who was thrown into the most complicated situation ever when I walked in the door of that conference room.”
He laughs and it makes me smile. “Complicated yes, but I definitely wasn’t complaining that I got to see you again.”
Something happens in my tummy at those words, and I try to ignore the silly, feminine response to hearing them. The flip-flop of it. The fluttering inside.
To know it wasn’t dread filling him at the sight of me but rather pleasure.
For the first time since we’ve been here, I feel nervous being near him. Flustered and uncertain how to respond, I change topics. “Is it true what they say about multiples? That they are the best of friends and can read each other’s thoughts.”
“I tell you I was happy to see you again and you counter with questions about my brothers? That’s harsh.”
I chuckle. “Well . . .”
He flops back onto his back, the sigh he emits almost ominous as he fixates his stare on the ceiling. “That’s a complicated answer,” he finally says.
“Family always is, right?”
I give him the silence to work through the emotions dancing through his eyes and immediately regret asking what I thought would be a no-brainer question.
“The simple answer is yes. We can complete each other’s sentences.” He pauses and there is a sadness that falls over his features that makes my heart break. “I still consider them my best friends.”
“And the complicated answer?” My voice is gentle, fingers brushing the waves of hair off his forehead reassuring. And it surprises me how relaxed I am with him. I don’t think I ever did this with Clint—talked and touched him with this level of gentle intimacy.
I care about Callahan Sharpe.
More than I think I even want to admit to myself.
“The complicated answer is that my dad favored me and that has damaged my relationship with my brothers now that we’re older.” He scrubs a hand over his jaw. “Long story short, our mother died when we were in our teens. Nothing long and tragic, she just didn’t wake up one morning from a heart attack she had in her sleep.”
“I’m so sorry.” My heart hurts for him, for the pain in his voice.
He shrugs despite the obvious grief. “She was the love of his life.” The ghost of a smile and flicker of his eyes over to me is so bittersweet. He clears his throat. “I’m the one who’s the most like her. My demeanor, my mannerisms, my everything.”
“And so he clung to you to hold her close.”
“I’m thinking a psychologist would agree with that statement.” Another shrug, his discomfort more than obvious. “And while in any situation that wouldn’t have gone over well with my brothers, what made it worse, is I was the screw-up Sharpe. The one who didn’t live up to the expectations set for us. Ford and Ledger were penalized for every step outside of the lines, while I did so freely and blatantly. The difference was my transgressions, my fuck-ups, were often overlooked.”
“Animosity. Resentment. Jealousy,” I murmur trying to picture the dynamic and remembering the tension I felt between them that first day.
He chuckles. “Believe me, a lot of the time, their feelings are well deserved. I’m not an angel and probably exploited my father’s forgiveness way more than it was deserved, but yes, there is a lot of resentment for it.”
Callahan goes on to explain situations here and there where he was given an out while his brothers were held to the fire. His crashing the car but Ledger getting in trouble for letting him get behind the wheel. His dropping out of Wharton and how what his brothers saw as favoritism, really ended up being his own personal hell. His screwing up a major deal because of a missed error.
I can see where his brothers have issues, but I can also see times Callahan tried to force his dad to see the blatant differences in affection (if you could call it that). I respect him for admitting, right or wrong, that at times he accepted this preferential treatment as a way to escape punishment.
But to me it sounds like his punishment was handed out, just in different ways.
“We all loved our dad differently, just like he loved us differently. It’s not right or wrong, it was just as it was. And I think our father’s death could have brought us closer together, that my brothers would have let it all pass, had I not advocated for this deal to buy Ocean’s Edge.”
“Why was this a bad thing?”
“It’s a long story but it would take too much to turn this place around into the high-end resort consistent with the Sharpe brand. My brothers pored over projections and budgets, and God knows what, but the exponential disbursements to bring it to where it needs to be wasn’t cost effective.”
“Why am I just hearing this now? Aren’t I supposed to be the one in the know so I can give my client what they want?” I laugh but it lacks humor. “In my opinion, you’d recoup the costs, but it would take some time, yes.”
“And in the meantime, bring down the value of the Sharpe portfolio that we rely on as leverage for loans to buy several other properties in the works.”
“So why are you here then? Why not sell it off?”
He tells me about the meeting with the owners. About his dad’s wishes, his request for this one thing. How he granted it because he couldn’t say no. And then the fallout with his brothers after.
“You were in a horrible position. They actually blamed you for it?”
He nods. “It didn’t help that I fell off the grid after he died. I spent my time traveling here and there, anywhere that didn’t remind me of him.”
“And now of course you’ve been forced to come here where you’d think you’d be thinking about him all the time.”
“It’s been good and bad . . . but honestly, I think they were right. I think I got so caught up in the moment, in knowing he was slipping away, that I bought anything the dementia told me, because there’s nothing here visually that I’ve seen in the pictures I’ve sifted through of him and my mom. But it doesn’t matter though because the damage is done . . .”
He talks of his brothers’ ultimatums and the possibility of being forced out of his spot in the family business. Of the fight they had that day I left the conference room.
“So this isn’t what you want to be doing with your life?” I ask, partially joking, partially honest.
His groan is the sound of frustration. “I’ve never been given the option to do anything else.” He looks at me and the emotion swimming in his eyes allows me to see him in a different light. He’s not just the cocky, arrogant man I first met at Club Coquette. There’s more to the man. So much more. “My goal was to finish this project and walk away.”
“Your last resort.”
“Yep. My last resort.”
“Wait. Seriously?” I ask, his complete nonchalance throwing me. “You’re seriously going to walk away, away?”
He nods but his expression doesn’t look as confident as his nod is. “Yes. If my dad’s death taught me anything it was to live life to its fullest. I want to travel. I may have walked away from the strict confines and rubrics of Wharton but that doesn’t mean I’ve ever wanted to stop learning. I just want to do it by experiencing things outside of the life I grew up in.”
I stare at Callahan with his hair mussed and his smile soft. I’m surprised by his answer. I’d think a man of his stature would occupy rooms at the Four Seasons between jaunts on a private jet.
“Your answer surprises me.”
He shrugs. “Good surprise or bad surprise?”
“It just doesn’t seem to fit the image I have of you.”
“I’m a man of many talents,” he teases.
There are so many things I want to ask him. Where do you want to travel? How long would you do it for? Would traveling really fulfill that natural, determined drive I see in him when he’s at work?
He may not like it, but you can’t just turn those kinds of personality traits off like a switch.
I don’t ask any of the questions though because granted, he is talking to me, but that doesn’t mean his book is open to be read page by page.
So I ask the most obvious of all my questions.
“But by doing that—by walking away—wouldn’t that prove to your brothers everything they insinuate? That you don’t care about the family business? That what your dad built was all for naught? That—”
“I suffocate in office buildings, Sutton.”
“You’re not suffocating here, though.”
He angles his head to the side and the shyest smile slides onto his
lips. “Surprisingly, no, I’m not.” He looks down to where his hand is resting on my thigh and stares at it for a beat before bringing his eyes back up to mine. “This has been different.”
“More hands-on.”
“Yes.”
“It’s different when you get to see the changes you’re making versus only analyzing them on a spreadsheet.”
“It does.”
I study him. The soft lines in his face. The sun-kissed skin. The rough cut of his jaw. The wave of his hair. This man was not made for corporate life. “I have a feeling you’ve reached your personal sharing limit for this evening.” I smile. “So why are you in my bed, making it very hard for me to work, Mr. Sharpe?”
“Because mine is lonely.” He pouts like a little boy, and I’d be lying if it’s not taking everything I have not to lean over and kiss him.
“So you think if you come and occupy mine, Mr. Brownies-In-Every-Room, that you won’t be so lonely.”
An unapologetic grin lights up his face. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“I’m impressed. It’s taken you a whole month before going the direct route,” I tease.
“We’re never here together.”
“By design.” I shrug. “You’re always off wheeling and dealing or whatever you’re doing at night.”
“I’m schmoozing. Trying to negotiate prices and up our discounts since costs on the island are so high.”
I try not to let my surprise show. I had no clue. The businessperson in me wants to ask all the details, but the woman in me, the one who is highly attracted to the man beside me, keeps it light. “And here I thought you were out having torrid love affairs with all the island girls.”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
“Hey!” I pick up the pillow beside me and hit him on the head with it. In seconds, he’s tickling me and we’re wrestling for control. Laughter fills the room as I struggle against his strength that he’s willfully seceding to me, until I end up on top of him, straddling his hips.
My sides hurt from laughing so hard as I pin his hands to either side of his head in mock victory.
And all is fun and games until he stops resisting. I look down to see him looking up at me, his expression so very serious as the smile slowly fades from his lips.
The flutters turn into full-blown flapping wings.
“Callahan,” I murmur.
“Sutton,” he whispers. And that’s when I see how vulnerable he’s made himself to me. Perhaps he’s due one of my truths as well. Honesty.
“For the record, I was happy to see you again too.”
His eyes darken, his smile is ever so slight. He reaches out and cups the back of my neck as warning bells go off in my head.
“Just . . .” He sighs as his eyes dart down to my lips. “I won’t cross your line . . .” His expression is pained, his words hesitant, as I resist when he tries to pull me toward him.
“I . . .”
“Just let me kiss you. It’s been a shit day. Don’t I at least get that much?”
Our eyes meet and this time, when he pulls on my neck, I press my lips to his.
The kiss is gentle in nature when all we’ve ever been is hunger and fire. It’s a slow, seductive touch of lips and tongues and soft sighs of unspoken words.
He stays true to his word and doesn’t try to advance the kiss despite the deep ache I feel that I know he feels too.
It’s just my fingers linked with his against the mattress. Just our mouths moving tenderly at a leisurely pace. Just two people reveling in the simple yet overrated act of kissing.
“Sutton,” he groans and squeezes my hands.
I rest my forehead against his, our panted breaths filling the space between. “I know. I know.”
“It’s probably best if I go back to my cold, lonely bed.” He chuckles painfully.
“Probably.” But when I shift off him, I keep my leg hooked over his thigh and my arm around his waist.
“You have an iron will, Collins, because I’ve gotta be honest, you’re killing me slowly.”
I give a smile he can’t see as we lie like this, tangled together, until his breathing evens out and his soft snore fills the room.
An iron will?
Hardly.
But I think Callahan Sharpe just got to me by doing exactly the opposite of what I expected.
By respecting me and my wishes.
Was that the answer I was looking for?
I don’t know . . . but it feels pretty damn close.
I can tell myself to stick to my guns all I want, but he’s gotten to me. I thought he was all rough edges with a hard, sexy exterior, but there’s definitely more to him than that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sutton
He’s good at this.
He might not think he is, but he’s a natural at putting people at ease (when he wants to) and getting his point across.
I don’t blame him for finding the day-to-day boring or suffocating or whatever he called it the other night. But I do find it odd he feels this way. As I sit and watch him talk to the Ocean’s Edge employee representative, he looks like this is something he does every day.
My mind veers to the other night. Falling asleep in his arms. Waking up and studying him as he slept. The lines relaxed on his face. The thick lashes fanned against his cheeks. The dark stubble from a night of growth. It took everything I had not to reach out and touch him. To kiss him. To go back on everything I’ve stood for so far.
I forgot the ease of a getting-to-know-you conversation. The flutter in your belly when a man looks at you and how his gaze feels like fingers gliding over your skin. Of that quickening of your pulse as his rumbly laugh vibrates through you.
And that’s what the other night felt like. Getting to know each other.
We jumped right to sex, and now that I’m getting to know Callahan better, I truly do like him beyond the flirting and sexual tension that coils in every room we occupy.
The question is, what do I do about it, because at the end of the day, my dilemma remains the same. He’s my boss. I’m in his employ. And if someone finds out we are anything more than that, my job, my credibility, my morality, is compromised. I have worked far too hard and for far too long to let anything derail my professional trajectory. I’m twenty-six years old with my mind set on starting my own company.
Does it really matter though when it feels like he’s been avoiding me since?
It’s only been a few days.
The man is busy.
Quit overthinking.
But it feels like more than that. Like something has shifted.
“That’s Sutton’s thought as well,” Callahan says, pulling my attention back to the conversation at hand. “After looking at the employment contracts of some of the other resorts, we added that back in.”
“This was your doing?” Solomon asks in his Caribbean accent with narrowed eyes in my direction. “Forgive me, but I find that most consultants are just overpaid delegators. No offense, of course.”
I nod. “None taken. While we’re a long way from making final decisions on the entirety of the employment package, this is where we currently stand. We’d like you to look at the contract and make notes for our consideration.”
Callahan all but winces at the last comment. We went round after round last night with Brady and a few other managers over how much weight we should allow Solomon on this. But if he’s speaking collectively for the majority of the employees, then we definitely need to take his input into account.
Or at least let him think we do.
“We do have a list of demands.” His smile is smug if not taunting, and I’m more than certain that Callahan’s hand under the desk is fisting.
“As I expected,” Callahan says smoothly. “But as I stated already, Sharpe International is a non-union entity. Therefore, we can take what you request into account, but that doesn’t mean we have to agree to the demands.”
“You’d be silly not to. There are a dozen resorts on this island offering jobs right now,” Solomon says as he leans back and folds his hand over the folder in front of him.
“Just as there always have been,” Callahan counters rather icily. “Like I said, Mr. Freeman, please take a look at our tentative working copy. We can meet again next week to discuss your opinions.”
Their stares hold and unspoken challenges are exchanged. I question if I should interject, add some niceties to the sudden tension, but decide against it.