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I shook my head. “William is clean-cut. He gets up at the crack of dawn and runs five miles a day—wearing shorts and a shirt with a reflective stripe for safety.”
“You going to be okay?” he asked.
I swallowed and nodded.
“Why don’t you sit at the bar, and I’ll take a seat at one of the tables, give you some privacy.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
Beck smiled. “You got this.”
The short path that led to the bar felt more like a gangplank. When we reached the bar area, Beck winked at me and kept walking toward an empty table. I took the closest seat to him, which happened to be the farthest from the bartender.
I thought I’d get a minute to pull myself together, but my butt cheeks were barely on the stool when the man behind the bar walked over. The sunglasses that had been on top of his head now covered his eyes. He flashed a welcoming smile.
“Hey, beautiful. What can I get you?”
Oh God. I felt queasy, like I might throw up. But apparently, whatever was going on internally didn’t show on the outside. Or at least the bartender didn’t seem to notice. Because he waited, as if I was supposed to respond rather than puke all over his bar.
“Umm… I’ll take a piña colada.”
“You got it.”
My eyes followed as he walked to the other end of the bar and tossed some things into a blender. I searched his profile for any resemblance.
Maybe we have the same chin?Though it was hard to tell with all that scruff on his face.
His cheekbones were high, but so were my mom’s, and no one but her was ever going to get credit for any of my good features. When he pressed the button and the blender whirred to life, I nearly jumped out of my seat. I needed to get a hold of myself.
Too soon, the man—my father—walked back to my end of the bar. He set the drink in front of me, and I hoped he would just go back to whatever he’d been doing before I sat down. But no such luck. He lifted a knee onto something behind the bar and leaned.
“Haven’t seen you around before. You just check in today?”
My hands were shaking. “Oh... I’m not staying here. I just came to have a drink.”
He covered his heart with his hand. “Not staying here? That hurts. There’s no better place to stay than the Sunset.” He pushed the sunglasses back on top of his head and revealed a set of familiar bright green eyes that popped from his tanned skin. “What does your hotel have that the Sunset doesn’t?”
Looking into his eyes was like looking in the mirror. Our eyes were identical in color. If you asked ten people who met me what color my eyes were, you’d get five different answers. They weren’t blue. They weren’t green. They were somewhere in between. On a cloudy day, some might even call them gray. When I was younger, I’d never been certain what box to check when a form asked for eye color—though I’d settled on green as a teenager and made it official with my license and passport. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’d heard someone say they’d never seen eyes my color. And honestly, I hadn’t either. Until now.
But I was the only one who’d noticed. Because while I was stupefied and unable to do anything but stare, the man with my eyes seemed to be waiting for something.
Shit. What did he ask?
Something about the sunset?
“I’m sorry, what did you ask?”
“I asked what your hotel has that this one doesn’t? But let me tell you what this one has that yours doesn’t instead.”
“Okay…”
He pointed two thumbs at himself. “Alex Stewart.”
Confirmation of this man’s identity hit me hard. “Alex…Stewart?” For some reason, it came out like a question.
“It has a nice ring to it on your tongue. And you are?”
My heart pounded, and a sheen of sweat formed on my forehead. Did he know what my mother had named me? Should I make up a fake name?
