Page 280 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

“Also, how about some vacation time?” I ask. “You know how people tend to work better, harder and faster when they’ve had a chance to recharge their batteries.”

“Of course, Mr. Scipio,” Troy answers. The cherry on top of the sundae that is this moment is when he asks, “Is there anything else I can do to make this right?”

I smile.

“Yeah,” I answer. “I think we both know you owe Grace an apology, so why don’t you do the right thing and show us all how sorry you are.”

I don’t say anything, but Grace’s eyes seem a bit more dilated than they were five or six seconds ago. As I hand the phone over to her, she’s stifling a smile.

“This is Grace,” she says. The smile just grows until she’s handing the phone back to me, saying, “Okay,thatwas impressive. Thank you.”

“People like try to dominate everyone until someone calls them on it. After that, they’re all apologies and timidity,” I tell her.

“Well,” she says, “it worked. You know, after all of that, I think I might be up for a little dinner.”

“Great,” I respond. “I’ll send Amin a quick text and let him know we’re on our way over there.”

I ignore the multiple threats of physical violence Amin’s texted me since I notified him dinner was postponed and let Amin know we’re on our way. Troy was easy to deal with, but Amin is the sort of person you don’t jerk around: he has passion.

We get to the beach and find the two chairs set about twenty feet from the water’s edge, and we sit.

“I will say this: you live quite a life, Zach Scipio,” Grace says as we gaze out over the distance.

Champagne comes, then dinner proper, but after the bit of excitement over her job, I’m starting to fade. We eat and we chat, but mostly, we just sit together and try to keep our eyes open long enough to finish the sunset.

By the time we leave the beach, Grace and I are dragging our feet. We’re both asleep within minutes of getting back in the car.

Once we pull up to the airfield a few hours away, the stopping car brings us both around again. Only, now that we’re both out of the car and walking to the plane, Grace’s not speaking to me.

For a while, I chalk it up to the jetlag, but when I open my mouth to say something to her, she jumps in first. “I’m not going to sit here and lie to you,” she says. “All this is more than slightly overwhelming, and I’ve had stars in my eyes.”

“But?” I ask.

“But you’re still acting like I’m someone that can be bought by all this,” she says. “All of this, the date, talking to Troy, I do appreciate it, but if you wanted to impress me, you’d …”

“Yes?” I ask.

She sighs. “I don’t know. You’d do something to protect the rainforest around the village or donate money to the people who live there year round, so maybe ours isn’t the last generation that gets to see what you flew us both halfway around the world to show me.”

“You know, that’s something I could—” I start.

“I’m exhausted,” she says, and with that, she’s gazing out the window again, and I’m not sure I’m any farther with her than when we left Mulholland.

CHAPTER5

ADJUSTING

GRACE

It’s been a day or two since we got back from Kola Kitanabu, and I’m still a bit off-schedule. We weren’t there long enough for my internal clock to adjust, but trying to sleep on the way back proved to be problematic.

After I told Zach all the things I thought he should be doing, but wasn’t, I tried for a long time to ignore his presence. The same approach worked when I brought all those books in the car with me. He may think I’m a bit weird, but at least he won’t know how insanely nervous he makes me.

I don’t believe he’s too good at picking up on that sort of thing.

WhatIpicked up on, though, was the phone call Zach made when we were a few hours from home. Okay, he made a lot of phone calls on the way home; the way there, but he only left his seat for one of them. He was trying to hide something he wasn’t trying to hide before.

At first, I just assumed it was because there was a chance he might start yelling at whoever was on the other end of the phone, but that’s not what I heard when he went back into the rear section of the plane. I didn’t hear anything.

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