Page 42 of Sunset Tides
“So,” she finally said, “you’ll forgive me if I don’t follow your idea of a good career track. Life is too short to stay at bad jobs.”
“I agree. I like my job.”
Of course he did. “That’s good.”
He hesitated before speaking again. “Also, I didn’t – you don’t have to explain yourself to me. That story is...I mean it’s incredible.”
She straightened in her seat. It was nice having an actual conversation with him. It didn’t seem like he was out to get her, or trying to trick her. It didn’t seem like he was capable of tricking her. He couldn’t even get an oyster into his mouth.
“I don’t know where I’m going next,” she said. “I’d like to find something as fulfilling as this hotel has been for Claire, but so far, I’ve come up empty. At least I’m doing good deeds on my travels.”
“Claire likes it here, then?”
“Oh yeah.” Lucy sat back, taking a sip of wine. “It’s given her a new purpose in life.”
Rob started coughing, his face turning pink again.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded, still in a coughing fit. He managed to whisper, “Swallowed wrong.”
“Ah.” She looked around. He seemed to be dying in front of her eyes, but no one else was paying any attention. She pushed a glass of water toward him. “Here. Take a drink.”
He nodded, doing as she’d instructed. The coughing slowed, though he was still struggling, doubled over in his seat.
She waited. After an eternity, he flashed a smile and said, “Excuse me,” before rushing away from the table.
Chapter Nineteen
His dad always told him he didn’t have the “killer instinct.” Rob had spent the last ten years of his life trying to prove him wrong.
He’d found profit where no one else could. He worked hundred hour weeks, crushing his colleagues and taking promotion after promotion. He didn’t negotiate or apologize – he got results.
Yet here, sharing dinner with a verifiable orphan at the very hotel he was about to destroy, he started to feel his nerve failing him.
Rob stumbled through the restaurant, spilling on to a patio that opened up to the sea.
There weren’t many people outside, and the stars hung bright and clear above him.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
It wasn’t his fault the island was of interest to OSS and developers. If Rob didn’t get them what they wanted, someone else would.
It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his problem.
And yet…
Claire’s story felt like a bucket of water over his head. She wasn’t some lowly employee at the hotel, like he’d tried to convince himself earlier. She wasn’t a hot-shot hotel mogul. She was nothing short of a saint, adopting a trio of girls and working a low-paying job for years.
Lucy said this hotel had given her a purpose in life.
Purpose!Rob had never played a role in taking someone’s purpose away.
Property, sure. Money, of course. But not purpose.
The coughing had stopped, but his throat was still on fire and nausea had settled into his stomach. He told himself it was the oyster, its slimy, cold blob of a body snailing its way down. He wanted to believe that, but all he could hear was his dad’s voice.
“You’re weak. I saw it when you were a kid, and I see it now. You don’t have to be weak, but you choose to be again and again.”
