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“Wanna use this?” I held my hat out to him. “You can hold it in front of your… you know… in front of you.” I squeezed my eyes shut once again and blew out a long breath, relieved to have finished that last sentence with our dignity intact.
“Beth to the rescue,” he said.
My stomach did a backflip when his fingertips brushed mine as he took the hat. He held it in front of his waterlogged britches and nodded toward the door. “You ready to go?”
I took the last bite of my donut. “Yeah, we need to get you out in the sunshine and breeze to dry those shorts.”
We hadn’t taken two steps toward the door when a text rang through on my phone. I pulled it out of my purse and gulped when I saw who the sender was.
Chuck Peters.
My boss.
The evil wannabe overlord of the Hawaiian travel industry.
I didn’t know if I should read it or tuck the phone back into my purse. Call me a softie, but discussing plans for the demise of Kai’s family business with him walking in-step beside me felt icky, to say the least.
“You can get that,” Kai said.
I jumped like a schoolgirl caught cheating on a spelling test and pressed the screen to my chest. “What?”
“Your text. It won’t bother me if you read it.”
“Oh, thanks.” I smiled on the outside, but I was sweating on the inside. I unlocked my screen, being sure to angle it away from Kai. Who knew what that text would say?
Chuck Peters: “I’m going to need that report sooner rather than later. Big investors are lining up, and I need something to feed them. I’m sending Rachel to help you complete it expeditiously.”
I huffed. Rachel? As in, the same woman who wouldn’t even look at me on the day of my big interview? She didn’t strike me as someone who would relish the idea of being my administrative assistant.
“Something wrong?” Kai asked.
Wrong? Oh, no. Nothing was wrong. I was only in a major crisis of conscience and watching the sand in my hourglass run out.
I slipped my phone into my purse. “Just work stuff.”
We stepped out into the bright sunshine. “Work? No, no, no. Forget about work. You’re on vacation.”
Vacation. Ha! I wish.
It felt like a crushing steel band was clamped around my head, and the pressure was increasing by the minute.
The idea of trying to scheme a way to put Kai out of work was horrible enough on its own. To think that Mr. Peters wanted me to conspire with someone else to make it happen felt extra-gross.
I was still trying to find a way to salvage this whole mess. But I had a feeling Rachel wouldn’t be quite so receptive to my leadership.
“Hey,” Kai nudged me with his elbow. “Breathe. You’re in the islands. Work will be there later. Let yourself enjoy the now.”
I didn’t deserve Kai. I swallowed the knot forming in my throat and blinked back a tear. He was still holding my hat in front of him to hide the watery mess I’d made of his pants. How was he still being so stinking nice to me?
“Hand me your phone,” he said.
The clanking machinery in my mind came to a screeching halt. All I could think about was the string of text messages from my boss that Kai could never see. Sure, my phone was locked, but it still felt far too dangerous to hand over my treasure trove of secrets.
We reached the crosswalk and stood at the back of a mob of people waiting to cross the street and head for the beach.
Kai put his hand on the small of my back and stood so close my knees threatened to buckle. “Come on. You can trust me. Hand it over.”
It was like he was the magician, and I was the stooge from the audience he’d just hypnotized. I was completely under his power.
