Page 9 of The Seascape Between Us (The Men of Saltwater Cove #4)
Chapter Six
Grey
T hree days cooped up in Daniel’s depressing, windowless office, and I could feel myself getting antsy. Restlessness buzzed under my skin, and I couldn’t stop bouncing my knee under the desk.
How in the hell had Daniel worked in here for the past seventeen years?
The small, square room—honestly, my closets were bigger than this—was made smaller still by the stacks of file boxes pushed up against the dull walls.
Daniel’s filing system, apparently. God, no wonder he walked around with that pinched, slightly constipated look on his face.
Between the lack of natural light, cheap furniture that had probably been new when the hotel first opened, and that ugly pale yellow wall color, I could feel my mood plummeting the longer I stayed there.
Had someone intentionally painted the walls that yellow ivory color, or had the walls started out white and yellowed over time?
Whatever the answer, the result was terrible.
I probably would have told Daniel that, except I’d barely seen him since I’d told him my plans for the hotel. After asking him to bring me a coffee three days ago, he left his office and hadn’t been back—with my coffee or at all.
I’d, of course, seen him around the hotel, talking with staff and on the phone with guests.
I was ninety percent sure Daniel had made those calls to reschedule the guests booked for the next six weeks instead of Carter, who I’d asked to handle it.
And Daniel must have seen me going through the hotel with Finn since he’d sent me an email the next morning asking to see Finn’s report.
An email . I snorted and shook my head. I’d been half tempted to tell him no and force him to review Finn’s findings with me instead.
In the end, I’d just sent it to him. After all, I didn’t want to interact with him any more than he did me.
I should be grateful for the short, terse exchanges when we did happen to see each other face-to-face or that he was so adept at keeping his over six feet of solid muscle frame out of sight. Instead, I found myself… irritable.
He had to stop trying to avoid me. With everything the hotel needed, we had to communicate.
I pushed the chair back from the desk, casters squeaking over the ugly, gray industrial carpet.
If Daniel was going to be a stubborn ass, then I would have to be the one to explain why this couldn’t go on.
And I was absolutely doing this for the good of the Seascape and not because I didn’t like being ignored.
I opened the office door, ready to march through the hotel until I tracked down Daniel and then give him a piece of my mind.
However, it turned out that tracking him down wouldn’t be as challenging as I’d expected.
I emerged from the office just in time to catch Daniel leaving the lobby through the main entrance.
Carter didn’t speak to me as I made my way around the front desk.
Not that I was surprised. I think I intimidated the kid, but since my first interaction with him was to essentially bulldoze past him into Daniel’s office, I probably should have expected it.
In truth, he was too young and ineffectual for his role.
Once I stopped Daniel from avoiding me, we should probably have a discussion about the kid and finding someone better suited to manning the front desk.
I don’t know what Daniel was thinking when he hired him.
Unless… maybe… was Daniel into him? I froze, my hand resting on the door, but instead of pushing outside, I turned back to the front desk and Carter, watching me with an owlish expression.
No way. The kid, who couldn’t be more than twenty-two, wasn’t Daniel’s type.
He was good-looking enough, with a thick thatch of black hair and deep brown eyes.
He was tall but slender and way too young, too uncertain of himself to appeal to Daniel.
Though, to be fair, it had been nearly twenty years.
How should I know what or who appealed to Daniel these days?
Of course, the more I considered whether Daniel might be attracted to his desk clerk, the more absurd the idea became.
After all, he wasn’t the type to date someone who worked for him.
It would have gone against his very careful ideals of right and wrong.
Granted, I would have thought cheating on your boyfriend with a man you claimed was just a friend would have fallen under the same ideals, but what did I know?
Of course, it did sort of beg the question. What happened to Ryan? I mean, obviously, they weren’t together anymore, since in the days I’d been staying here, I hadn’t seen or heard anything about him.
Back when Daniel and I had been together, Ryan had always been around.
Daniel had been quick to explain they’d grown up together and been best friends since elementary school.
Now I knew there’d been more to their friendship .
They must have ended badly, though, if Ryan was no longer a part of Daniel’s life on any level.
I sighed and shoved the door open. Daniel Quinn’s sex life was no longer any concern of mine, and since we were stuck sharing a hotel, the less I thought about his sex life, the better—on so many levels.
I followed the concrete walkway to the parking lot at the rear of the hotel, where Daniel was hoisting his toolbox into the back of his truck.
“Hey!” I hurried across the lot until I was next to him. “I want to talk to you.”
His shoulders sagged noticeably, and my irritation amped up another notch. “Can we do this later? It’s really not a good time.”
“Why do you have somewhere you need to be?”
“Um… yeah, actually. Today’s the day I pick up groceries for some of the seniors in the community and people with mobility issues.”
“Of course you do.” Saint fucking Daniel Quinn . Somehow, I managed not to roll my eyes—barely.
He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and rocked back on his heels. “We can talk when I get back.”
Unlikely . When he got back from this do-good trip, he would no doubt go right back to avoiding me, and I would have to track him down all over again.
“Tell you what,” I pulled open the passenger door, “you drive, I’ll talk.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “That sounds great . Look, Grey, you don’t want to come. You’ll be bored in the first ten minutes.”
“I’m sure you can keep me entertained.” After climbing into the passenger seat and reaching out to grab the handle to pull to door closed, Daniel gripped the door frame and stopped me.
“I’m serious, Grey.” His pinched, annoyed expression had given way to irritated frustration. “People are waiting for me. I don’t have time for whatever the hell you want now.”
Was he actually implying that I was only talking to him now as some strange form of entertainment? Though I had sought him out because I was tired of him ignoring me—which is a bad thing when you’re running a business together.
I swallowed down my maybe misplaced indignation. “Better get in, then.” I flashed a sharp, sarcastic smile. “Don’t want to keep the old dears waiting.”
He rolled his eyes again, grip tightening on the door frame while he pulled it back, probably building momentum for a good slam, but he hesitated before letting go. “Are you in okay?”
Of course, Daniel would check all my limbs were neatly tucked inside the truck before slamming the door. No matter how pissed he was, he didn’t want to inadvertently hurt me. I nodded, my voice inexplicably shrinking.
He closed the door but didn’t slam it. Whatever anger I’d triggered, he carefully tucked back under control.
He climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine before pulling out of the parking lot and onto the street, all without so much as glancing my way.
I was fairly certain he was still trying to ignore me, even here in the tight confines of his truck’s cab.
Good luck with that . “Also, accusing me of being bored doing this, I don’t think I like what you’re implying.”
“What am I implying?” He didn’t look away from the road or glance my way.
“That I’m uncharitable.”
“At no point did I call you uncharitable. I just thought delivering groceries might make for a dull Thursday afternoon.”
Maybe, but I wasn’t a child. I didn’t need an endless barrage of excitement to keep me entertained.
“I do charitable things, you know.” Daniel finally looked my way, his brows lifting doubtfully—which was fair.
“Well, I give to charities—my company does, anyway. But I choose them… based on my PA’s recommendations. ”
His mouth twitched as if he might be struggling to hold back a smile. “I take it back. I’m sure you will find this entire venture a thrill, then.”
Silence settled between us for a moment, not entirely uncomfortable but far from relaxing. Finally, I said, “Look, I know this situation isn’t ideal—”
“I wasn’t lying when I told you I didn’t have time for this right now,” Daniel said, pulling up in front of a grocery store. “I’m on a bit of time crunch here. If you want to have a serious conversation about the hotel, then you should probably wait until I’m done.”
He didn’t give me a chance to respond. He hopped out of the truck and hurried inside. After several minutes, he emerged from the store weighted down with a half-dozen shopping bags clutched in each hand. After he carefully secured the bags in the truck bed, he climbed in behind the wheel.
“I could have helped you,” I said as he pulled back onto the road. “You didn’t have to carry all that out on your own.”
“It’s fine.” He shrugged. “I’m used to doing it on my own.”
I frowned, trying to decipher if Daniel was being passive aggressive or just stating facts.
I was pretty sure it was the latter. He made one more stop at a hardware store, where he bought a blind, then he was back behind the wheel and steering us up the steep hill, following the narrow road that wound through the residential section of The Square.