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I laugh and shake my head. “It’s okay. Let’s escape while we can. Want to plan on meeting up for an early dinner in a couple of hours?”
“I’d love that. Just text me when and where.”
The resort badge I’m wearing on a lanyard around my neck gets me in and out of the resort’s entrances and allows me to pay for anything I need, so I left my purse in our room. I’m free to just walk, and I end up on the beach, which is busy midafternoon with couples and families.
I find a lounge chair under an umbrella and sit down, watching the waves. It was my dream to come to this beach, though I thought it would be under different circumstances.
Dreams can change, though. I still don’t know if I’ll ever mourn the loss of Owen. I’m feeling surprisingly over it, though I’m still angry that he didn’t respect me enough to just break up with me before fucking someone else. It would have been so easy. Stella, it turns out I’m not ready for marriage. I want to be with another woman.
Boom. Done. I wouldn’t have fought him. But he tried to play me. That’s what really burns.
I’m supposed to take time, though. To be alone. To find myself. To be with my mom and then grieve for the great loss that’s to come.
All of that means I can’t trust my attraction to Ben. No matter how much I want, for once in my life, to just do what feels good without worrying about tomorrow, I can’t. Not with Ben, who means the world to me.
But I also can’t deny the truth. Something between us shifted in that massage suite. I couldn’t go back to the way things were before if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.
Chapter Ten
Ben
* * *
“Aloha kakahiaka,” the barista at the resort coffee shop says as she hands me my coffee the next morning.
“Aloha,” I say, deciding against butchering the pronunciation on the second part of her greeting.
She smiles like that happens a lot, and I turn and head for the exit, taking a sip of my freshly brewed joe and getting my cell phone from my pocket.
This isn’t a call I want to make with anyone nearby, so I’m going to walk on the beach. Actually, it isn’t a call I want to make at all, but I’ve had it with my brother’s endless texts. Stella was still sleeping peacefully when I woke up early this morning, so I slipped out of our room quietly. I don’t want her to know Owen’s been text bombing me; she’s got enough on her mind already with her mom.
“What the hell,” Owen grumbles in answer, obviously asleep. “What’s wrong?”
“You tell me, asshole. I told you to quit texting me but I got more than twenty fucking texts from you yesterday.”
He groans. “You know I want to talk, so you call me back at three a.m.? When you know I’ll be asleep?”
“I don’t give a fuck what time it is there. Stop acting like a psycho, Owen. You’re supposed to be laying low in your apartment, remember? Not rapid-fire calling and texting me.”
“I think Stella blocked me.”
“Wise deduction, Sherlock.”
He exhales heavily. “Stop being such a douchebag, man. All you have to do is let me talk to her. That’s all I want. She’s my fiancée.”
He’s got some balls, still calling her that. I’m speed walking through the sand, kicking up grains with every step, but I can’t slow down. I’m so damn aggravated with my twin that it’s all I can do no to break into a run to burn off the weight in my chest.
“Ex.” I say it loudly. “She doesn’t want anything to do with you. Leave her the fuck alone.”
He scoffs. “You’re not her keeper. She’s my girl, Ben. You fucked me over with that charade at my wedding and now you’re on my honeymoon? This has gone on long enough.”
His girl. The sound of the words eats at me. They were together for ten years. Stella has always been my dream girl, but he’s the only one of us who ever actually had her.
“It’s what Stella wants. It’s for her mom, you asshole. There’s only one decent thing left”
“Put her on the phone! I don’t want to talk to you. I never got a chance to explain anything to her.”
I move the phone away from my ear, wishing I could throw it into the ocean. But this is my brother, and I’ll have to deal with him eventually if I don’t settle this now. There’s a mom and daughter walking on the beach twenty yards behind me, so I keep my voice down.
“You think she wants to hear you justify fucking your assistant?”
He sighs heavily. “This is between me and Stella. No one else.”
