Page 2 of The Seascape Between Us (The Men of Saltwater Cove #4)

I’d been running this place on my own since I was about nineteen, and over nearly sixteen or seventeen years, I just couldn’t seem to dig my way to making a profit.

I’d be a liar if I claimed that I hadn’t toyed with the idea of selling it, but I knew I never would.

This hotel was the only home I’d ever really known.

“There’s a man who wants to see you?”

I’d barely stepped off the ladder to find Carter, my desk clerk, hurrying towards me, his eyes wide and panicked.

I sighed inwardly. What fresh hell?

After apologizing to the couple whose belongings had been soiled thanks to the leaking roof and who generously pointed out some other issues they had with our rooms and the hotel in general—mostly that it was old and worn and they would have gone somewhere else were it not for the views—I’d climbed up onto the roof and started patching the holes.

Surprisingly, roofing had turned out to be a nice break from the day-to-day. The sun was warm, and the wind off the water was fresh. I should have known better. Lately, there was always something , and definitely no escaping for long.

“What man? What does he want?” I asked, folding down the extension ladder leaning against the side of the hotel.

Unlike June, who’d worked at the hotel longer than I had and always knew what to do in almost any situation, Carter had only been working for me for about three weeks now, and his hotel experience before I’d hired him was minimal.

He promised that he was a quick learner and good with people, but anything outside the normal day-to-day tended to throw him off.

“He didn’t tell me his name.” Carter twisted his hands together like a kid called to the principal’s office. “He said he was here to talk to you about the future of the hotel, then pushed past me into your office.”

Cold washed over me, and my stomach dropped to my shoes like an icy brick. No. It couldn’t be Grey. Not now. Not after all this time. If he were going to turn up again, surely, he would have last year when his father first passed away, and he’d inherited Oliver Mackenzie’s interest in the hotel.

Maybe it was Finn. He worked for Grey, managing his properties in Oceanwind Square, so Grey didn’t have to deal with his inheritance.

As far as I knew, Grey hadn’t stepped foot in The Square—the LGBTQIA community his father had been instrumental in creating—or even the town of Saltwater Cove.

Though I doubted Finn would have walked into the hotel and started throwing his weight around.

Finn's boyfriend, Alistair, had worked in the restaurant for nearly five years. Hell, we’d spent Christmas together with Alistair’s former roommates who were renting the late Oliver Mackenzie’s house since their own burned down last year.

Not that Finn and I talked much. There’d been a big enough crowd there that day, and we didn’t need to make awkward conversation.

I knew Finn was Grey’s good friend, and I had no idea how much Finn knew about the history Grey and I shared.

“He didn’t say anything else about what he wanted?” I asked.

“When I tried to stop him from going into your office, he said it was fine because he was the owner.”

Holy shit. It was Grey. I could feel the blood draining from my face in a slow, trickling whoosh. Why would he come here? Why now? We’d managed to avoid each other for seventeen years.

The image of his face the last time I’d seen him popped into my head, that cold sneer he’d worn while he’d looked me up and down like something nasty he’d stepped in and couldn’t quite scrape off the bottom of his shoe.

Carter frowned, as if trying to make sense of what the man waiting in my office had said. “That can’t be right, though. You’re the owner.”

“Can you put all this away for me?” I asked, nodding to the ladder, tools and buckets of roof sealer.

Normally, I wouldn’t have asked my desk clerk to clean up after me, but I didn’t like the idea of Greyson Mackenzie unsupervised in my office.

Hell, I didn’t like the idea of that man anywhere near my hotel.

Shit, why was he here now? What did he want? It didn’t matter; I told myself. However things had ended between us, I wasn’t some eighteen-year-old kid anymore, unwittingly being used to entertain Grey while he was visiting his father for the summer.

I’d grown up, ran my own business, and I wouldn’t be taking shit from Grey Mackenzie no matter what past we’d shared or how rich he was now.

Grey might have inherited his father’s half of my hotel, but fuck him if he thought he was going to waltz in here and start calling the shots, telling me how to run my business.

I left Carter to lug all my roofing gear back to the tool shed and made my way inside the hotel. Passing a mirror in the lobby, I toyed with the idea of running up to my room to shower and change from my work clothes, but I decided to deal with Grey as soon as possible and get him out of my hotel.

I strode across the lobby into my office, which was tucked in the back corner behind the front desk, but stopped dead in my tracks just past the threshold.

The indignant anger I’d worked up storming from the backside of the hotel to my office seeped out of me, leaving me strangely deflated like an old balloon.

Seventeen years. Seventeen years had passed since I’d last seen Grey, and yet there he was, scowling down at the piles of paperwork littering my desk.

He was so close I could reach out and touch him.

I wouldn’t, of course, no matter how badly my fingers itched to smooth the vertical groove between his eyebrows.

Those days were long gone. Maybe that’s why seeing him here and now, with no warning, was so strangely surreal.

God, he looked good. He’d been twenty the last time I saw him, and the years had definitely been good to him.

He’d be thirty-seven now. His dark brown hair, messy and in need of a cut, showed traces of silver, and faint lines creased the skin at the corners of his eyes.

Somehow, the combination made him look even hotter than I remembered.

He was dressed in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than I made in a month.

The top couple of buttons of his white-collared shirt were undone.

I should have showered and changed first before coming here.

Instead, I was standing here in my old gray t-shirt and faded paint-stained jeans I wore whenever I worked around the hotel.

After hours of repairing the cracks on the roof under the glare of the spring sun, sweat left my skin sticky and damp. I probably stunk.

For years, I’d imagined seeing Grey again—what I’d say, how I’d act. In none of those scenarios had I ever imagined looking the way I did now. Hell, all I needed was to be back in high school, naked and late for an exam, for this to be my worst nightmare come to life.

“Are you going to say something?” Grey looked up, pinning me with those dark brown eyes. “Or were you just going to stand there and gape?”

My face stung. The sharpness of his tone caught me off guard. Sure, we hadn’t parted on the best terms, but it had been seventeen years. Surely, we could move past things that happened when we were just kids.

“Let’s start with why are you here?” I asked, trying to keep my tone as neutral as possible.

Grey chuckled without humor. “Why do you think? I gave you a year to get this place making some money.” He waved a hand around the office. “But it’s still leaking cash like a sinking ship, which is a rather apt comparison. I’m getting off before it goes down.”

My heart kicked up in my chest, unease crawling up my back. “What do you mean?”

“Sit.” He gestured to the chairs in front of my desk before dropping into my chair behind my desk.

I bristled, but fear icing the blood in my veins and knotting my insides kept me silent, and I lowered myself to the edge of the chair he’d indicated.

“So, like I said, it’s been almost a year since dear ol’ Dad kicked it and dropped his questionable business dealings on me.

The students renting his house will be out by the end of the month, so I can finally get that on the market.

The only property that I’m still neck deep in is this hotel. It’s time to sell.”

“No,” I told him flatly. “I’m not selling.”

“You know the clause in the old man’s estate plan? The one you signed when he was putting together his will and succession plan?”

I knew of the contract he was referencing. I had signed it, but back then, I hadn’t been worried about Oliver’s health, and I sure as hell hadn’t expected him to leave his interest in the hotel to Grey. As far as I knew, they’d had a falling out and hadn’t spoken in years.

“So unless you want to buy me out…” he said.

Grey’s words hung between us. We both knew there was no way in hell I could afford to do that.

He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Right, so I’ll need all your current numbers turned over to my accountants for them to review.”

“Don’t do this, Grey. Whatever you think of me—”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you think this is personal ? Almost twenty years ago, we fucked around for a couple of months. I’ve had food in my fridge longer than we were together. This is business, Daniel. That’s it. Maybe if you understood that more, you wouldn’t be in the situation you’re in now.”

My breath lodged in my shriveling lungs. If he’d hauled off and punched me, it wouldn’t have hurt as much as his words right now. Seventeen years and the guy could still pluck my every fear and insecurity like no time had passed at all.

“You’re not selling all the properties your father owned. You’re holding onto Bailey and Lana’s place.”

“You’re talking about the cafe and bakery place, right? Great coffee, by the way.”

I nodded.

“Yeah, they make a profit. You don’t. Also, I’m just their landlord.

For some inexplicable reason, dear old dad bought into your crumbling empire and partnered with you.

I have no idea what he was thinking, and I don’t care.

I don’t want to be your partner. I don’t want to own a shitty hotel on the brink of bankruptcy.

I’m going to sell. Honestly, you should thank me.

I’m doing you a favor by getting you out of this. ”

Anger surged inside me, and I leaned closer. “People work here, Grey. They depend on this place to make a living.”

“They’ll find other jobs. Probably better than working here. Besides, maybe whoever buys it will keep your staff or offer them packages. It just won’t be our problem anymore.”

This hotel wasn’t a problem —okay, sometimes it was—but it was my home and it was all I had. “This hotel is a part of the community. It brings in customers for the businesses in The Square, especially in the busy summer tourist season.”

He smirked and stood. “I’m sure the community will survive, and if it doesn’t,” he shrugged, “it’s not my problem.”