Her face warmed with a huge smile. “Just wait until you see it.”
She turned onto a red brick road, at the end of it stood an impressively large, ornate, white building with a red roof. The closer we came the more detail came into view—the gigantic front porch, the circular drive with the fountain in the center, and the octagonal steeped roof lines. The upper stories were lined with balconies. It was built with character and craftsmanship that we didn’t see in modern buildings.
“This place is even better in person,” I said as she drove around the circle toward the parking lot.
“It’s pretty incredible, isn’t it?”
We parked, and I heaved my luggage out of the trunk and started for the front door.
Climbing the stairs, we entered the foyer. The wood floors and pillars stood between us and the front desk and a filigree patternedelevator. A chandelier strung with crystals hung from the ceiling above a green velvet chair. The second story opened to the lobby below. It took me a moment to realize my mouth was hanging open as I looked up at the woodwork throughout the space.
“Wait until you see the library,” June said. “It just keeps getting better from here.”
I turned to meet her eyes but was distracted by a man at the front desk just behind her shoulder.
My eyes widened and I experienced the jump scare, yet again. Mr. Not-fuck-boy-lawyer had his back to me, at least this time, I calmed from shock to frustration more quickly. I half-turned from him to mumble to my sister. “Oh my God—”
I cut myself off from explaining the havoc this stranger had wreaked on my day, when he leaned an elbow on the counter and gazed out the window. My stomach dropped through the floor under my feet. My vision went dark around the edges. I knew the slope of this man’s nose, and the feel of his lips. I knew the weight of him above me, and the strength of his hands on my thighs. I had looked into his eyes and begged for more.
He was the ghost of situationships past, and I understood Scrooge’s point-of-view far better than I’d ever given it credit before.
I did not ask for this.
“Oh my fucking God!” I hissed, as June asked, “Shit, what’s up?”
But I was already scuttling to hide behind a pillar.
“Where are you going?” She swiveled her head, trying to find something that would make my behavior make sense. “What’s wrong?”
“June,” a man called, taking her attention from me crouched like the kids hiding from the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park.
“Gene! You’re early!” She beamed and walked out of my sight.
I held completely still for a moment, ignoring the concerned looks from a mother of two teenage girls a few feet away from me. After a few shallow breaths, I took a furtive glance around my hiding spot, anxious to see Jamison leave the lobby for the elevator or an exterior door. I didn’t care where he went, only that I had to avoid seeing him. The absolute horror of finding myself trapped inside this building with him made a cold sweat break on my lower spine. But I couldn’t find him.
June’s voice was a static buzz at the back of my mind, while my focus was consumed with questions likehow the hell am I going to avoid him?! The resort was a decent size, but it wasn’tthatbig. I might have to become acquainted with the shrubs and trees for hiding places.
I could practically hear Alicia telling me that that would be ridiculous, thatIwas being ridiculous. It would be better to be cool and collected when we inevitably found ourselves face-to-face. But that bitch had just entered back into a serious relationship with her ex-husband. And I might have come to the point of really liking Remi and I could see how they were a good fit, but it did invalidate her as a source of advice.
Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.
That was what I would have to do.
Now, where the hell was that motherfucker?
“She just got very weird, but that’s pretty normal really,” June said. Her voice was growing nearer and distracted me from my level eight crash out.
I slid my back up the wall to get a view of where I’d seen him before, only to find that he wasn’t there.
He wouldn’t walk back toward the front entrance, right?
Turning my head, I stared at a broad chest, and then the face of the man that had carelessly broken my heart with tiny fissures over andover. His eyebrows raised in surprised recognition. My vision went dark around the edges, and I pressed my clammy hands to the pillar behind me to keep from falling.
I gasped and jerked, slamming the back of my head against the pillar behind me. Sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth, Jamison cupped the base of my skull. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I said, taking a step to the side and out of his touch, but it lingered slightly warmer than the rest of my skin. Electric shocks zapping down my spine. I bumped into someone’s perfectly stacked luggage. It would have fallen to the parquet floor like a Jenga tower, if Jamison hadn’t reached one of his absurdly long arms out to grab it.
“Sorry,” he muttered to the owner.
