When she didn’t say anything, Owen decided now was as good of time as any to lay his cards on the table. “I care about you,” he said. “I don’t know why that scares you so much, but I know it does. You won’t let me in. I’m been standing at the door for months, Gina. Knocking. Begging. Trying. You have to let me in. You have—” His voice quit, and that had never happened to him before. Even when he was angry with Zach, he’d managed to have the hard conversations. Even with difficult guests, he kept his cool.
But Gina had unraveled every part of him, and still she wouldn’t take down the invisible wall between them.
Fisher entered his office, took one look at Owen, and held up his hand. “I’ll come back,” he mouthed and backed into the hall, the door closing again.
Owen didn’t know what else to say, and Gina was certainly staying silent.
She finally said, “I have to stay here for a while. I don’t know when I’ll be back to work on the closets.”
“I don’t care about the closets.”
“I’ll call you later.”
Owen couldn’t believe the words in his mind, that he let them come out of his mouth. “You know what, Gina? I’ll make things easier for you. You don’t need to call me. Seems like you have plenty of other friends to rely on. I want more than that. More than the billionaire’s boyfriend. More than call you later. I want you to trust me, confide in me, rely on me, no matter how busy you think I am.” He couldn’t breathe, and the thoughts in his head spun like a tornado.
“And you’re not ready to do that. Okay, fine. Call me when you are.” He wanted to hang up, but he wasn’t a petulant fifteen-year-old.
But his heart was taking a beating, and not in the normal way. She crushed him when she said, “Okay,” and hung up.
He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it. The call had definitely been disconnected.
Anger and disappointment roared through Owen. He wanted to call Lexie and yell at her for agreeing to go to Texas without him. Wanted to throw his phone in one of the industrial washing machines so when Gina did call him again, he wouldn’t have to put his heart on the line again. Wanted to leave Getaway Bay for a while, until he could figure out how to live here without her.
Instead, he stood, buttoned his suit jacket, and opened his door. Fisher loitered down the hall, his head bent over his phone. “I’m ready, Fisher,” he said, his voice an alien version of normal, but Owen felt like that from head to toe, so he couldn’t expect his voice to be right.
Fisher turned, concern in his face. “Gina’s in Texas?”
“I’m not talking about Gina,” Owen growled. “If you have business to discuss, please come in.”
“So you’re not going to Dallas?”
Owen turned and went back into his office, almost slamming the door behind him. But loud noises scared the fish, so he didn’t. Plus, he didn’t want to act like an emotional idiot in front of his boss, even if Fisher was also his best friend.
“Did you two break up?” Fisher came in and closed the door, obviously not giving up on talking about Gina.
“Yes,” Owen clipped out. “And Zach has a girlfriend of eight months he didn’t tell me about, and I found them in his room—alone—yesterday, and he’s going to the University of Hawaii.” Owen glared. “Can we talk about Sweet Breeze?”
Fisher unbuttoned his jacket and sat down. “I just came to see how you were doing. It’s been a while since we’ve talked.” He gazed evenly at Owen, concern in his eyes but completely composed. “Obviously. Want to start with Zach?”
Owen didn’t want to start at all. But he didn’t have a therapist like his son or Gina, and he felt like he might explode if he didn’t unload. So he started with the college application to UCLA he hadn’t known about and went through the last couple of months from there.
An hour later, Owen felt like he’d just wrung out his soul. “So you’re in love with her,” Fisher said.
From everything Owen had said, that was what he’d gotten? Owen didn’t know what to say. “I need to get back to work.” He turned toward his computer, but he had no idea what task he’d been doing before Gina had called.
In fact, he couldn’t remember what his life had been like before the beautiful brunette had waltzed into it.
He knew it hadn’t been as vibrant. As fun. As exhilarating. In fact, Owen had just been putting in time. He hadn’t been living.
And he wanted to live.
“Let me and Stacey take the boys for a few days.”
“Why?” Owen asked. “So I can drown in my misery alone? I can handle the boys. They’re not the problem.”
“No, I suppose not.” Fisher tilted his head as if he knew Owen was just staring at the computer screen—which was still dark. “You’ve always done great with them, Owen.”
“I suppose. Nothing harder or easier than other parents.” He just had to do everything alone.
Alone.
He was so tired of being alone. Even surrounded by people, even with Fisher sitting five feet across from him, Owen felt all alone.
His phone rang again, and he had no choice but to see who was calling. “It’s Lexie.”
“Maybe she wants you to go with her.”
“I’m not going.” He swiped the call to voicemail too. “And I’m not talking to her.”
“Why not?”
“She’s more your friend. And Gina’s.” Owen didn’t mean to sound bitter. He wasn’t, not really. Fisher had his little club, and Owen’s bank account wasn’t big enough for it.
“Is this about the Nine-0 Club?” Fisher had some of the same intuition others had credited to Owen.
“Of course not. I know you have your thing. I’m just saying, I can’t even remember the last time I talked to Lexie. I’m surprised she even has my number.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“Don’t you want to go to Gina?”
“Yes,” Owen said in a quick explosion of breath. “Yes, Fisher, okay? Yes, I’m in love with her, and yes, I’d get on a plane and fly there right now. If—if she wanted me to. And she doesn’t.” His chest heaved as the truth of his words cleaved through his whole body. “She doesn’t want me.”
A day passed, and the pain in Owen’s heart didn’t lessen. A week went by without word from anyone—not Gina, not Lexie, not Fisher. Owen was actually glad for the first time in his life that there were more visitors in Getaway Bay than residents.
He didn’t care how much they drank, either. Or if the Wi-Fi went down. In fact, he was considering handing out two-for-one coupons at the bar and cutting the Internet lines himself. That way, he’d have something to keep his mind off the woman who’d sailed into Hawaii, stolen his heart, and then disappeared.
Zach kept to the rules, and Maizee started hanging out at the house more often. Owen liked her, but he could see why Zach wasn’t serious about her. They took their AP tests and settled in for the last month of school.
Zach agreed to a few graduation pictures, and they sent out announcements with his commencement and where he’d be attending college in the fall.
“What about Mom?” Zach asked as Owen put the last stamp on an envelope.
Owen glanced at his son. “You want to send her one?” He abandoned the task of searching for another sheet of stamps. “Zach, she won’t come. I’m not even sure where she is.”
His son’s face stayed passive, a complete mask. “I know. She should still know I’m graduating.” He looked at Owen, a perfect storm of emotions in his eyes. “Don’t you think?”
“Sure,” Owen said. “I’ll find out where she is and send her an announcement.” Things moved on after that, but Owen really didn’t want to text Linda and get her address. Maybe he could just send her a picture of the announcement and be done with it.
Cooper finished the basketball season with great stats, and he started coming over to the hotel to work out after school, just to stay in shape until tryouts next year.
Owen worked,
sent the text to his ex-wife, slept, and managed to eat when his body told him to. His phone only chimed or rang when there was a problem, and he really missed his fun, flirtatious text sessions with Gina.
One time, he wandered up to the eighth floor, to the last apartment-suite she’d been working on. Though the plumber, electrician, and painters had all been in the room, the closet still held a hint of Gina’s fruity, feminine scent. He stood in the space she loved so much, and allowed himself to love her for just a moment.
Then the agony of not having her took over, and Owen spun away from the island she’d gushed about and left the room.
With only two weeks until graduation and a huge change in Owen’s life, Stacey called him.
“Hey,” she said.
“I’m not talking about Gina,” Owen said, peering at a piece of paper in front of him and trying to make the numbers line up with a spreadsheet on his monitor. He really needed reading glasses, and the thought that he was almost fifty hit him square in the gut.
“It’s not about Gina,” Stacey said. “I’m wondering if you want to take me to a movie while Fisher does his…meeting thing. Whatever.”
Owen abandoned his work, the bitterness and jealousy in Stacey’s voice intriguing him. “You’re not invited to his little club?”
“I only have seven zeroes in my bank account. And I happen to know you do too, and I figured we had enough money to blow it on overpriced popcorn and a box of stale candy.”
Owen couldn’t help the laugh that burst from his mouth. He hadn’t laughed in so long, the sound felt strange coming from him. Even the fish seemed a bit startled.
“I’m in,” he said. “When is this special meeting?”
“Tomorrow at one-thirty. I know that’s close to check-in, but—”
“I don’t care. I’m in.” And the boys would still be at school, and Owen just wanted to get away from himself and his life for a while.
“Perfect, I’ll meet you in the lobby at one.”
The next day, Owen left his office a few minutes before he needed to meet Stacey. As he rounded the corner to enter the lobby, he ran straight into a very solid body.
Jason.
Owen had managed to avoid Jason over the past several weeks by pretending to be engrossed in a text conversation when he walked by, or giving the check-in counter a wide berth as he came out of the hall, or simply waiting to leave his office until he knew the security guard would have rotated to his next post.
But he couldn’t avoid him now.
“Hey, Owen,” he said easily, as if his wife hadn’t chartered her private jet to go save Owen’s girlfriend.
“Hey, Jason.” Owen tried to move away, but a large group of tourists pressed in on him, keeping him sandwiched next to Jason.
“Lexie came home,” he said, his eyes flitting around, never quite settling on Owen.
“Really?” Owen didn’t want to leave now. He had some strange pull to know about Gina even though he’d done everything he could to ignore her.
Honestly, it hadn’t been hard. She hadn’t texted or called, and avoiding a single security guard was solidly inside Owen’s skill set.
“Yeah, got home last night,” he said. “She hasn’t said much, but I can keep my ears open.” He didn’t say, “if you want,” but it was implied, especially when he finally did meet Owen’s eyes with an edge of anxiety in his.
“I’m fine, Jason. Thank you. I’m glad your wife is home safely.” He made to button his jacket, realizing too late that he’d left it in his office. Without that gesture to fall back on, Owen didn’t know what to do with his hands.
“Yeah, thanks.” Jason looked a bit perplexed, but the crowd shifted, and Owen took his opportunity to slip away. Stacey waited over by a pillar, and Owen approached her.
“You ready?”
She wore what was clearly a swimming suit cover up, flip flops, and her hair in a floppy bun on top of her head. She looked like she’d just come in from the beach for a drink, not like she’d be going to a movie with him.
“Yeah, ready.” She flashed him a smile, but he could already tell she was distracted.
“We don’t have to go.”
Her eyes met his, and he saw in an instant that she didn’t want to go. “I want to, Owen,” she said. “I really do, but the girls are out on the beach….”
“And Lexie’s home.” Owen nodded toward the doorway across the lobby, past the restaurant, that would take Stacey back to the beach. Back to her friends. Back to the gossip.
“Go on.”
“Really?”
“I’ll be fine.” He didn’t need a babysitter, though he had been looking forward to the movie with Stacey. At least for a couple of hours, maybe he wouldn’t feel like someone had cut him out of his own life and pasted him into an alternate version of it.
Stacey flung her arms around him and said, “Thank you, Owen,” before hurrying off in the direction of the beach.
Owen watched her go, wishing the lump in his throat wasn’t quite so big. Wishing he didn’t feel like such a loser. Wishing he had friends to rush off to as well.
Chapter Nineteen
Gina opened the fridge to find a big bag of the omelet muffins Lexie had made for her. She mourned the loss of having a friend so close, but Lexie had stayed for just over a month. She had a life back on the island, and she couldn’t stay forever.
Gina, however, felt like she’d been sentenced to a life of loneliness, and it was completely unsatisfying.
After all, her closeting systems couldn’t share the excitement of landing a big client. Her tool belt didn’t want to take her to dinner to talk to her. Her empty house didn’t get fuller just because Gina bought more furniture.
And while she hadn’t thought she wanted someone to talk to, to ask her questions, to share her life with, now that she’d had even a brief taste of it with Owen, she found everything else in her life lacking.
She keyed in the code at the mansion where she’d been working for the past week and called, “Hello? It’s Gina from Classy Closets.”
No one answered, and Gina went in and closed the door behind her. She hadn’t expected anyone to be home, as she’d been working in the house alone for days.
And if there was any building on earth that felt emptier than her house, it was this one. The people obviously had plenty of money. The best of everything. But there wasn’t a single photo on the walls. No evidence of love or friendship in their lives. It was almost like she was organizing and designing for a robot.
But apparently robots could afford to pay for expensive closeting systems, so Gina got to work.
Work.
It seemed to be the only thing she had in her life that was constant. She’d spoken to Doctor White on the phone weekly while Lexie had been here, but if she wasn’t going to return to Getaway Bay, Gina knew she should probably go back to her therapist here.
The problem was, Gina hadn’t decided fully to stay in Dallas.
Toni had finally turned up in Washington D.C., where an old college roommate lived. She’d had a drinking problem and her friend had convinced her to come home with her and start a treatment program.
“The only way I could get her to come was to leave right then,” Iris had explained. “I thought she’d at least call.”
Well, she hadn’t. But she also hadn’t taken anything, destroyed client files, or done anything else even remotely close to what Ian had done.
And still, Gina couldn’t get herself to pick up the phone and talk to Owen. Every time she thought about him, embarrassment and humiliation tore through her.
It had taken a few weeks until she’d realized what she’d done to him by not asking him to come be at her side in her hour of greatest need.
She knew that was all he’d wanted, and she’d denied him.
Apologizing now felt weak. Nowhere good enough for such a great guy as Owen. Lexie had tried to get her to come back with her, claiming Owen would understand.
But Gina d
idn’t think so. He had made it easy for her to forget about him, move on with her life, but what he didn’t get was that she’d never forget him and never move past him.
“So what are you going to do?” she asked the screwdriver she held as she lifted it to tighten a piece of hardware holding a shelf.
She couldn’t even answer her own question. With Toni gone, Gina didn’t have anyone to run the company, so she’d determined to stay until she hired someone new.
But she hadn’t even posted the job anywhere. She was doing it, because then she knew it would get done right.
But her heart wasn’t in this closet, or this house. Still, she hammered and hung, worked and worried, until it was time to go home.
Lexie texted just as Gina picked up a sandwich for dinner, saying she’d made it back to the island and asking how Gina’s first day alone was.
Great, Gina sent, because it hadn’t been bad. She’d have to make new standards for things, as great in Texas wasn’t anywhere near what great had been in Hawaii.
She ate the sandwich though it tasted a couple of days old, and she checked her schedule for the following day. The only difference between tonight and the last few weeks was that Lexie hadn’t ordered dinner, hadn’t filled the nighttime hours with chatter and conversation, and hadn’t been available for Gina to confess her worries to.
The silence was somewhat comforting, but Gina knew now that she preferred the company of another person over being stuck inside her own mind.
Have you seen Owen? she asked Lexie.
No, I just got home. Nine-0 tomorrow afternoon, though. I’ll see if I can’t run into him.
Gina’s chest collapsed at the mention of the Nine-0 Club. While she’d never really felt like she fit in, she had enjoyed going to the events, meeting new people, and having a place to belong.
“Having a place to belong,” she said aloud. That was what she’d wanted her entire life. A family to belong to. A home where she belonged.