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I inhaled long and deep, preparing to take the plunge. This was my chance to sell not only the marketing plan, but to sell Kai on the fact that I genuinely cared about his family—about him. We stopped walking and faced each other. "You inspired it," I said.
"Me? What did I do?"
"You tailored the past week to fit my needs. You showed me that I'm capable of so much more than I ever thought. It might sound cliché, but I'm a better person because of the experiences you gave me. There isn't another tour guide I know of that promises transformational encounters with nature."
I paused and dared to look into his eyes. "You're special, Kai." I swallowed hard to keep my emotions at bay. I couldn't afford to have my voice crack right now. "You see things about people—about me. You knew what I needed, and then you give it to me. You changed my life."
I wanted to reach out and touch him so badly I could almost taste it. But I didn't dare. Walking the tightrope between being personal and professional was exhausting! I swallowed my desires and stood tall. "You have something unique to offer the world, and my marketing plan is thirty-five pages of how you can shout about it to the world."
Kai stood silent for a few long seconds, his eyes searching mine. "When did you have time to write up such a huge report? That thing was a beast.”
“I did it last night.”
His brows shot up. “The whole thing?”
“Yeah, I was up all night.”
Kai looked at me—really looked at me—for the first time that day. My insides warmed and I bit my bottom lip, trying my hardest not to spoil whatever was about to happen.
He reached out and ran the pad of his thumb across my upper cheek. “That would explain these.”
“Explain what?” I squeaked out the words as a shiver ran down my spine at his lingering touch.
“The dark circles under your eyes.” He chuckled.
I rolled my eyes and laughed.
“What?” he asked.
“I thought you were going to say something more… I don’t know…”
“Romantic?” he suggested. My stomach tingled with excitement that he at least liked me enough to tease me again. “We’ll get to that later. Why did you stay up all night?”
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in Hawaii, and I wanted to make sure I had this ready for you before I leave.”
“You’re leaving? Why?”
“Hawaii isn’t exactly the cheapest place in the world to be unemployed and homeless.”
“Unemployed?”
“Yeah.” I chuckled despite the predicament I was in. “I sort of told Chuck off over the phone.”
“And he sort of fired you?”
“Something like that.” I shrugged.
“Pretty brave, nani.”
“You’ve called me that ever since the first day we met. What does it mean?”
“I knew you were curious. It’s the Hawaiian word for beautiful.” His gaze left trails of fire on my skin as he said the words.
I didn’t dare speak. Already, incoherent, babbling giggles were trying to pop out of my mouth. I had to restrain them if I had any hope of trying to appear sophisticated.
I suddenly remembered how un-put together I was. After pulling that all-nighter, I’d thrown my hair into a ponytail, slipped on a pair of flip-flops, and put on a pair of shorts I should have thrown in the trash before coming to Hawaii.
The seam in the seat of those shorts was pulled tighter than the face of a sixty-five-year-old Hollywood starlet after a visit with a plastic surgeon.
