Page 15 of The Seascape Between Us (The Men of Saltwater Cove #4)
Chapter Ten
Grey
I watched Daniel cross the parking lot, his shoulders hunched, hands jammed in his jeans pockets, and a general air of defeat wrapped around him like a heavy coat. Guilt gave my insides a hard twist. Shit. This really hadn’t gone the way I’d planned.
“What the hell, Grey,” Finn said, still standing next to me and watching Daniel disappear inside the hotel. “Next time, just kick him in the balls and be done with it.”
“He’s fine,” I ground out.
Finn snorted. “If you say so. You clearly know him better than I do.”
I scowled. “I do know him better.”
In my gut, I knew Finn was right, that I’d just acted like a giant asshole, but goddamn it, Daniel’s face when he saw the roofers…
I’d thought he’d be happy to see the roof get fixed.
He’d told me himself it was a problem, which Finn had corroborated and gone on to explain just how serious a problem it was.
The thing was, I knew I’d been acting like a dick all week. Daniel, continuing to lie about Ryan, still got under my skin and gnawed at me with sharp, rat-like teeth. But I was trying to put it behind me, be the better person and give Daniel the benefit of the doubt.
After all, he didn’t know that I knew about Ryan and him.
Maybe Daniel was worried about hurting me with something that happened nearly two decades ago.
Or maybe that Brody guy didn’t know about them, and Daniel was trying to protect him.
Whatever the reason, I had convinced myself that, after all this time, it didn’t matter. I needed to put it behind me.
Admittedly, no more hand-jobs in the rooms, but surely, we could settle into a comfortable working relationship. The roof had been an olive branch of sorts, and I won’t lie—I'd wanted to impress him, too. Instead, he’d looked at me like I’d kicked his favorite dog.
It’s not that I wanted him to fall to his knees and profess his undying gratitude—not that I hated the idea. Daniel had always been gorgeous on his knees. I pushed the image from my head quickly before it could take root—but a thank you would have been nice.
“So,” Finn said, dragging me from my thoughts. “Are you going to tell me what went on with you guys before? How do you know him?”
I turned my attention to the men on the roof, pretending to be enthralled watching them scrape off strips and toss them into the dumpster positioned next to the hotel. “What makes you think anything happened between us?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Finn shoot me an incredulous look. “How could I not think that? After all, everything you’re doing here is so perfectly normal. You decide to invest in a hotel that your father was a partner in despite unresolved issues with said father—”
I shot Finn a warning glare. “Hey.”
But he ignored me and carried on. “Waiting a full year before you even set foot in that hotel, and you know nothing about running a hotel—”
“I have done a significant amount of research to ensure—”
“And you seem to take a strange pleasure in making Daniel, who appears to be a good guy, jump through hoops.”
“You don’t know Daniel as well as you think you do. He’s as flawed as the rest of us.” I sounded like a sulky kid, even to me.
“Which is why I’m sure you guys have some long, bitter history.”
I glared at Finn, neither confirming nor denying anything he’d said.
“Look, Grey, you’re my closest friend, and I love you.
I never would have survived my divorce without you, so I’m telling you this as a friend and because I owe you.
Whatever the hell is going on with you and Daniel, work it out and move on, man.
If you can’t treat him like an actual business partner, you’re wasting your time with this hotel.
You should get out now before you invest more in this business.
You’ll never be able to make this hotel successful if you can’t work with him. ”
I sighed and scrubbed both hands down my face. He was right, and I knew it. “Fine, I’ll talk to him.”
“Good, but remember, don’t just talk at him. You have to listen too.”
My scowl deepened. “I know.”
“I’m going to check the site in Portland and make sure everything is good. I’ll send you an email to update you.”
I waved my hand as if swatting away his words. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll talk to you when you’re back.”
As Finn started toward his truck, I returned to the hotel. Inside, I caught sight of an owl-eyed Carter watching me as I approached him.
“Have you seen Daniel?” I asked as I drew closer.
He nodded and pointed to the door leading out to the rooms. “I… I think he’s working in the first-floor rooms.”
Of course he was. He’d been working alongside the construction crew I’d brought in for most of the past week.
I used this crew on a lot of the buildings I renovated, but Finn needed the guys on another project.
With the roofers starting work, I figured I could pull them off the hotel to work on the building Finn was overseeing.
It would cut back on some of the chaos, at least for a few days.
I suppose I should have expected Daniel to push on, crew or no crew.
“Thanks,” I said to Carter, then strode through the door that took me out to the ground-floor rooms. Like the second floor, a narrow walkway stretched the length of the hotel but opened onto the patio overlooking the beach.
The sun was creeping higher into the cloudless blue sky, glaring down, leaving my skin slick with sweat beneath my suit, and it wasn’t even noon yet.
I needed to return to air conditioning or change into something lighter.
Even the cool, damp breeze off the ocean offered little relief for what was promising to be another sweltering day.
I followed the sounds of cracking wood and muttered curses to room 108.
The door was open wide, along with windows to let the breeze in off the water.
The room wasn’t unbearable yet, but once the sun fully hit, it would be stifling.
I needed to get this done fast, and not just because I didn’t like the steady dribble of sweat trickling down my spine.
Every time I spoke to Daniel, my heart rate kicked up and my mouth turned dry. I hated it. I hated that, after everything, he could still affect me.
Through the open bathroom door, the banging and Daniel’s muttered curses and grunts turned louder.
I closed the short distance to the opening.
Daniel stood next to an ancient vanity with a crowbar wedged between it and the wall behind it, throwing all his weight against prying the old wood away with a loud crack.
“Hey.” I had to raise my voice to be heard over the noise.
Daniel stilled, his shoulders tensing, and he met my gaze in the dust-encrusted mirror still mounted on the wall in front of him. Unfortunately, his protective goggles made it impossible to read his expression clearly.
“Can I talk to you?” I asked.
He hesitated a long moment before finally saying, “Sure, why don’t I come to find you when I’m done here?”
None of the tension gripping his body eased. He stood rooted where he was, still gripping the crowbar, though no longer pushing against it as if someone had frozen him in place.
“But you won’t come find me, so why don’t we talk now? It won’t take long.”
Daniel sighed and dragged his goggles off his head, turning to face me and leaving the vanity sagging drunkenly to one side. “What is it?”
Everything about Daniel screamed exhausted resignation—the slump in his posture, his flat tone, even the way he’d just agreed to talk without arguing first. Unease tickled the base of my spine.
“Did replacing the roof piss you off?” I asked.
“Of course not.” Daniel shook his head and then pushed the sweat-dampened hair back out of his face. “It needed to get done, and it probably wouldn’t have if left to me.”
My insides twisted sharply. Why was I always such an asshole? “I realize what I said was shitty—”
“Yeah, it was, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”
Had Daniel just agreed with me? I’d been acting like a complete dick. “It’s not true.”
“I’ve been running this place on my own for nearly twenty years, and in just two weeks, you’ve done more than I ever have. You’re better at this than I am, and now I don’t know where I fit. I feel superfluous.”
Shit, I’d really screwed this up. There was no point in pretending otherwise.
I’d wanted to stick it to Daniel for choosing Ryan over me seventeen years ago and lying about it now, but I hadn’t wanted to break him.
Not really. I needed to back off and stop pushing.
I needed to let go of the past and mean it if we were going to have any chance of making this hotel a success.
“You took this place over when you were still a teenager, and you were taking care of your stepmother and her health issues. Not many people could have done what you did and kept this place going for almost twenty years. Needing help doesn’t mean you failed.
” He opened his mouth as if he meant to argue with me, so I pushed on.
“You do everything. You take care of your staff, the guests love you, and you bring groceries to seniors every week, for God’s sake.
Daniel, you are the heart of this hotel. I’m just a wallet.”
Daniel swallowed hard, ducking his head. “You’re more than a wallet.”
“Maybe, but not more than you. Let’s start over, put the past behind us.”
Daniel’s mouth opened to reply, but at that very moment, he leaned back against the vanity. Maybe he’d forgotten that he’d loosened it from the wall.
“Wait!” I took a step towards him and reached out, but it was too late.
An ear-splitting crack cut through the stagnant air, and Daniel was there one moment, then crashing to the floor the next as the vanity collapsed under his weight.
He landed hard, tipping backward, his head hitting the tiled wall with a solid thwack.