Sunswept, page 11
part #4 of Discovered by Love Series
“I guessed that as well. Though,” she said with a wry smile, “for a while I wasn’t sure if you actually existed.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
Meredith shrugged. “Because Zane has a habit of seeing things in the rosiest possible light. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s an admirable character trait. It just doesn’t always prove out.”
Bailey wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. She supposed she could see that about him—after all, this whole date exchange had been his mad idea—but Meredith spoke with the weight of experience. She’d known him for four years. Bailey had hardly known him for four days.
“So what do you do?” Meredith asked.
“I’m a real estate agent. I’m getting my broker’s license.” Bailey didn’t know why she added that last part. She didn’t care what Zane’s ex thought about her.
Scratch that. She didn’t want to care what Zane’s ex thought about her.
But Meredith just nodded. “So maybe you would understand him, that whole entrepreneurial thing. I have to admit, the uncertainty of the start-up life was not for me. And the hours. They used to make me crazy.” She threw Bailey a wry glance. “And that’s coming from a lawyer.”
“What kind of law do you practice?”
“Intellectual property.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“It can be. Sometimes it can be dead dull. But it’s predictable, and that’s what I like about it.”
Bailey sensed that Meredith was trying to say something without saying it directly. Was she trying to warn her off Zane? Or was she trying to ascertain if Bailey was a good match for him? She’d thought she’d understood the status of his relationship with his ex, but now she wasn’t so sure.
She knew that she should let it lie, that she should smile and say vague things until Meredith went away. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. “Zane seems to think you and Tony disapprove of his early retirement plans.”
“Does he now?” She shifted in her chair in a rustle of chiffon, that calculating look surfacing again. “I wouldn’t say I disapprove. More like…disbelieve.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“He has these…fallow periods. Where he’s overwhelmed with his life and he just wants to get away from it. I call that Zen Zane. But eventually, he can’t resist the pull of the work. He likes inventing. He likes tinkering.” She looked at Bailey significantly. “He likes a challenge. If you’ve only known him since his Key West fishing boat phase, just be prepared. Eventually he’ll find a project that strikes his fancy, and he’ll be back to spending eighteen hours a day at the computer.”
Bailey would be tempted to think that Meredith was just trying to scare her off, but she’d seen how she looked at her new husband. Whatever her motivation, it wasn’t jealousy. And Bailey’s instincts told her that the woman was being honest. Trying to be helpful even.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bailey said. “I can be a bit of a workaholic myself, so—”
Her sentence was cut off by the shrill ring of Zane’s phone as the screen lit up in front of them.
Meredith looked at her knowingly. “So it begins. I knew when I saw him taking a business meeting before the wedding that he had something in the works.”
“Business meeting?”
Meredith frowned. “He didn’t tell you? He was here earlier today. Meeting with some guy. We happened to be passing by as they left. I don’t know what they were talking about, but it was some sort of business deal.”
The phone continued to ring, making it difficult to focus on what Meredith was telling her. Zane. Was here. Doing some sort of business deal. Why hadn’t he told her? Was that what he was trying to get at when they’d talked on the beach? She’d assumed he’d been worried about what she thought about him staying retired. Had he been talking about going back to work instead?
“No,” she said faintly, “He didn’t mention it.”
Meredith shrugged. “Well, he tends to be close-lipped until the ink is dry. Doesn’t like to jinx things or something.” She pushed herself to her feet. “It’s good to meet you, Bailey. I’m glad he’s found someone nice.”
Bailey watched Meredith go, confused, uncertain of what had just happened. Only a few seconds later, Zane appeared with two glasses, one of which he set in front of her. “What was that all about?”
“I’m not sure, exactly.” Bailey nodded toward his phone. “You just missed a call.”
But as Zane reached for it, her eyes landed on the blue band across the screen that indicated a missed call. She felt the blood slowly leave her face as she read the contact name. “Zane? Why is Andrew Harris calling you?”
And from the suddenly guilty look in Zane’s eye, Bailey thought that maybe Meredith had been trying to warn her after all.
Zane struggled for an explanation that would make that shocked, slightly hurt expression disappear from Bailey’s face.
“Why is Andrew Harris calling your cell phone?” she repeated. Then understanding flashed across her face. “He’s the one you met here this afternoon, wasn’t he?”
How on earth did she know about that? He cleared his throat, knowing he was only killing time so he could think. “Who told you?”
“Meredith, of course. She saw you, though you obviously didn’t see her. Why were you having a business meeting with my boss?”
There was no way forward but with the truth. And honestly, the truth wasn’t that bad. It was all the other things he couldn’t tell her that were eating at him. “He’s interested in hiring me.”
“For what?”
“I really can’t say anything about it, other than what you’d guess…it’s obviously software, data analytics, that sort of thing. He asked me not to say anything to anyone else, and I take client confidentiality seriously.”
“Okay. Then why didn’t you mention that you were meeting him?”
“Come on, Bailey. You can’t tell me you’d actually have been fine with it.” He knew he’d made a mistake the minute the words left his lips, the tone placating. He hadn’t meant to sound condescending, but from the sudden furious shift in her expression, he saw that was how it had landed.
“I don’t know,” she said in a stiff voice. “I hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest. Because you didn’t give me the opportunity.”
He rubbed his temples. “I’m sorry, Bailey. I thought… I was waiting to see if you and I were going to…you know, make a go of it when we got back home. I figured if you didn’t want to see me again, I didn’t really have any obligation…”
“Obligation?” Bailey’s eyebrows climbed toward her hairline.
He cringed inwardly. “Okay, so obligation is the wrong word. I just meant…”
Bailey stared as if she’d never seen him before. “What I can’t figure out is what’s so bad that you thought you had to hide it from me. Do you really think I’m so unreasonable that I wouldn’t understand you might consider doing some work for an interested party, regardless of whether he’s my boss or ex or whatever part of that scenario is bothering you? Have I ever given you reason to think I was that person?”
“No,” he said quietly. “Of course you haven’t. It’s just that…”
She stared at him, waiting. He opened his mouth to tell her what Andrew had said, that he was leaving Constantine Richards, opening his own brokerage, bucking to be her next big competitor. But he found he couldn’t. It felt wrong not to tell her, but it felt equally wrong to turn around and spill what he’d been expressly asked not to share. While he was fumbling for what to say, she sighed and rose from her chair, keys in hand.
“I think I’m going to go home now. Do you want a ride?”
It was like a switch had flipped off. Whereas her expression had been sparkling with excitement just minutes ago, now she looked tired, defeated. Not angry—he probably could have handled angry. But disappointed. That was more than he could bear to see, especially when he knew that it was him and his bumbling that had put it there.
“No, I think I might hang out a bit longer. I’ll take a taxi back.”
She nodded and paused, her mouth opening like she was going to say something. But apparently, she had no more idea what to say than he did, because she closed her mouth firmly, gave him a terse nod, and walked away.
And instinctively, depressingly, he knew that this would probably be the last time he ever saw her.
* * *
Bailey retrieved her car from the valet, her elation from only minutes ago vanishing. Maybe walking out of the wedding was a little dramatic, but she needed to think, away from his handsome face, his pleading, hurt look.
It wasn’t that Zane had done anything wrong. It wasn’t like they were in a relationship where he was obligated to share every moment of his day, his future intentions to do business with a man she couldn’t stand. Even if they had been, she considered herself a reasonable woman. She had an idea of what he charged for his services; was she really going to demand he turn down a paying job just because she didn’t like the guy?
It was the fact that four days into their acquaintance, Zane thought he had to manage her. That she was going to react badly, that he had to hide things from her. An omission because it didn’t occur to him that it might matter to her? That, she could live with. A drawn-out thought process over her likely-unreasonable reactions and his…obligations…to her? That was something else entirely. It seemed to indicate a different kind of relationship than she’d ever wanted for herself—one that involved drama and managed expectations, tiptoeing on eggshells. He didn’t know her at all if he thought that was what she wanted.
And that was the problem. They didn’t actually know each other at all. This arrangement had created a weird, compressed courtship, thrust together into the same house, pretending an intimacy they didn’t possess for the sake of their friends and business associates. They’d shared a steamy kiss, seduced by the magic of still waters and a midnight swim, then another in the wake of a wedding and a stunning Florida sunset. She’d never considered herself to be overly romantic, but she’d let herself get swept away all the same.
But when she was truly honest with herself, she had to admit that Zane was the last person she would have given a second look in West Palm Beach. His nomadic lifestyle, by his own admission, made meaningful connections difficult. The same things that drew her to him—his spontaneity, his slightly offbeat way of looking at the world—were the traits that would make a real relationship impossible. The person she’d been in these four days in the Florida Keys was an idealized, vacation version of herself—a woman who went out on boats with strangers, drank too much and danced with abandon, bought fabulous, expensive dresses that made her look and feel like an island Cinderella. The real Bailey spent her days in a grind of house showings, marketing, and studying for her next exam, repeated each day with minimal variation. She couldn’t just shut down on random weekends—prime house showing times—because her boyfriend wanted to motor to the Caribbean.
Maybe that’s not the real him either, her subconscious whispered as she drove down the Overseas Highway back to their rental. Meredith did try to warn me that he was a workaholic. But what Meredith considered workaholism was Bailey’s life. She’d had a problem with the fact that Zane swiveled between the driven entrepreneur and the free-spirited surfer with the ease of flipping a light switch.
All this time, she had been thinking that Meredith had left Zane because she was the wrong woman for him, but Bailey was far more like his ex than either of them wanted to believe. Zane was the wrong man for both of them.
By the time she got back to the house, Bailey had made up her mind. It was better that they face the facts and end this here and now. They’d had several fun days together, and that would have to be enough. It would be easy to explain to everyone later that they’d broken up. Easier than explaining the reality—that it had been a convenient arrangement for a few days that had accidentally gotten entangled with real feelings. Or the beginnings of real feelings at least. The fact that she’d actually thought their intense, sudden attraction was a product of anything but circumstance showed how swept up in the charade she’d let herself become.
Bailey let herself into the house, walked to the bedroom, and changed out of the dress into shorts and a T-shirt. In the bathroom, she removed her makeup, leaving her skin scrubbed pink and raw. This was the actual Bailey, the one who had defied her parents’ expectations that she find a husband while still in college, settle down, and have some kids. The Bailey who had decided to make her own way in the world, build a business from scratch away from her sweet but overbearing family’s influence in Georgia. The one who knew she was going to have to work harder than any man to get ahead, to prove that she wasn’t some southern peach beauty queen whose sole talent was making sweet tea.
That woman told herself she’d been mad to think that she had the time or the inclination for a relationship with a stranger, no matter how handsome or charming or affecting.
It took a surprisingly short time to pack up her clothes and toiletries into her single roller case, even considering it took her three tries to fold the dress before she gave up and put it back on a hanger. It could ride home draped over her backseat. A reminder of how easily she had almost gotten derailed from everything she’d worked for.
She was in bed but still awake hours later when she heard the front door open and close, the soft, stumbling sounds from the front room saying that Zane was trying to be quiet but failing. Probably a little drunk. Another reason it was better that they ended this now. Her massive margarita had been an aberration and not the norm…maybe it wasn’t the same for him.
But she also knew she was just trying to justify a conclusion that didn’t sit nearly as comfortably as she wished it would. She lay awake for a long time after the noises beyond her door ceased, and when she woke up shortly after dawn, feeling raw and exhausted, Zane and all his things were gone.
It was almost shocking how quickly Bailey’s life went back to normal. She left the rental house as the sun was still rising over Islamorada, driving back up the Overseas Highway through the chain of keys until she hit the mainland, with the crush of mad traffic that characterized Miami. A little over an hour later, she was pulling into her Florida-style cottage in West Palm Beach, feeling as if she had just returned from the surface of the moon, not an island sixty miles away.
Less than two hours later, freshly showered and wearing a pair of jeans and a cute chiffon blouse, she was answering calls and work emails at the desk in her home office as if she had never left. Only the beautiful white cotton gauze dress on the back of her bedroom door proved that the last four days had been anything but a fever dream.
The week went pretty much as she could have predicted, after four days away—a crush of urgent tasks regarding two house closings, including a buyer who was making unreasonable demands for repairs (Bailey explained patiently that a seller wasn’t required to change the carpet just because the color clashed with the buyer’s sofa) and a different seller that refused to make any repairs at all, despite demanding that Bailey get top dollar for his property. There was a new listing to photograph, stage, and put up on MLS, and a closing to attend—her favorite moment was always when the keys were handed over; it was practically the only time in the real estate process when both parties were happy, however temporarily. She took the bright new agent in the office out to lunch and gave him tips about how to build his business from the ground up. It wasn’t merely from the goodness of her heart; she’d already decided she wanted to poach him for her own brokerage. If she could help him achieve some early success, there would be no doubt he would go with her.
If she kept herself busier than usual, no one could blame her; after all, everything she’d worked for was on the line. She’d immediately renewed her license and enrolled in the broker’s program, which started at the beginning of next month. There was little time to waste.
But on the rare off-hours, when she took a glass of wine or a mineral water out to the Florida room and watched the boats pass on the small canal that backed her house, she knew she wasn’t being completely honest with herself.
She missed Zane.
It was insane. She’d known him a mere four days, but he’d brought so much color to that short time that his absence had her feeling as if she was living life through a dim filter. The quiet she’d craved when she bought this small house, fit for a busy single woman, now felt oppressive. Lonely. It only took seeing a happy couple walking through Rosemary Square, his hand in her back pocket, her arm around his waist, to strike a pang of longing into her heart. She had pulled out her phone more than once to dial Zane’s number, but something kept her from pressing Call.
Self-preservation, she told herself, but deep down she knew the real reason. Fear.
Fear that she’d walked away from something that might have been real and good. Fear that even if she contacted him, he’d sneer at her because of the way she’d left him unceremoniously the night of the wedding—even though she was pretty sure that his good-natured face was incapable of twisting into a sneer. Fear that should she commit herself to this, he’d turn around and leave her as cruelly and inexplicably as Andrew had. Because the tiny spike of insecurity that he’d driven into her heart would become a chasm if she let Zane in.
It was a different kind of fear that had her picking up the phone a few days later though: news of an unusual late-coming tropical storm heading straight for southern Florida and the Caribbean. She had the vague premonition that he hadn’t gone straight home to Miami, but had taken his boat out to one of the islands instead. Apparently, she’d learned enough about him to guess that his solution for a slightly bruised heart would be sand, sun, and saltwater.
But the phone simply rang twice and went straight to voicemail. She bit her lip as the tone sounded, then hung up before she could leave a message. What was she going to say anyway? Just checking to make sure you’re not dead or stupid enough to boat through a tropical storm. Okay, see ya never.
