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I waited a moment for him to say more, but he didn’t. He was definitely in a grumpy mood today.

“And you didn’t want to join them?”

“I can’t swim.”

My eyebrows popped up in surprise, and I glanced toward the water again. “Uh… you know you’re on an island, right?”

That got me a twitch of his lips. Not quite one of the smiles that I enjoyed seeing yesterday, but I would take it as a small win.

“Audrey and Christine planned this vacation. I’m just footing the bill.”

I stepped closer to him without consciously choosing to do it. There was something about him today that made me instinctively want to be near him, despite the rejection last night. Like he needed comfort or contact from me.

But I didn’t touch him. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I was still unsure about what happened—or didn’t happen—between us last night.

“You’re not just here to pay for everything,” I said. “You’re here to spend time with your daughter. And I’m sure there are plenty of things you can do together that don’t involve being in the water.”

I couldn’t think of many off the top of my head, but I was just trying to make him feel better.

“If it were up to me, we’d vacation somewhere in the mountains. The view is amazing in those places. But Audrey wanted a tropical island experience, and she got Christine on board. The one thing that I insisted on was a private bungalow of my own.”

I thought about the little dwellings on the other end of this stretch of beach owned by the resort. There were a half dozen of them right on the sand, with thatched bamboo roofs and decks that faced the water. When I saw them, I thought that the people staying there were lucky.

I let out a low whistle. “Talk about a view. I bet that’s amazing. You must really enjoy your solitude.”

I could understand that.

“Yeah, well… I didn’t enjoy it last night while I was in bed alone, obsessing over the lingering taste of your kiss on my tongue.”

My heart rate picked up as I gasped. “What?”

“You heard me, Heather.” His smirk was a sexy promise that made heat flush my face. “I lost sleep last night, thinking about you.”

I whipped off my sunglasses, as if that would help me see this situation clearly. “Then, why the hell did you just stand there when I got on the elevator? Why didn’t you…”

For some reason, it felt embarrassing to say out loud that I wanted him to come up to my room with me, even after what he just said.

“Because I’m a fucking idiot,” he muttered, almost as if he was talking to himself. “I just… I talked myself out of it.”

That wasn’t an answer at all.

“Why, Greyson?”

Instead of answering right away, he hung his head, his eyes focused on the sand for a long moment as if it held the answers to my questions. When he finally spoke, there was something cautious in his voice.

“You know that I’m forty-two?”

I blinked, processing that. Not because his age surprised or bothered me but because I wasn’t expecting him to mention it in this moment.

“And?”

“I’m thirteen years older than you, baby.”

The excitement and lust burning inside of me turned to ash as disappointment once again settled over me. A little age difference really bothered him that much? It seemed ridiculous to me. I was nearly thirty years old. More than old enough to decide who to sleep with, even if he was a bit older than me.

I had a feeling there was more to this, that something else was holding him back from me, and he didn’t want to admit it. Well, that was fine.

Just like I told myself last night, I wasn’t going to beg him for a good time.