Page 1 of The Trouble with Flings

Chapter One

Fitz

Go to Costa Rica, they said. It’ll be an adventure.

What my family meant was, Get the hell off the island, Fitz.

My family and I have very different ideas about what constitutes an adventure. Hours on a plane breathing recycled air and a Xanax chaser are not my idea of fun. Did I mention I hate leaving Silver Island almost as much as I hate flying? Yeah, there’s that.

I run Silver House, my family’s five-star resort, and I happen to enjoy our slice of paradise. Although I have to admit, my discomfort might be a reasonable price to pay for professional development. There’s something about being among a room full of people who’ve turned real estate and vision into legacy, where small talk is about refinement and real talk is about what it takes to push something extraordinary even farther, that gets my blood pumping. The first day of the International Resort Owners Conference has done exactly that.

Today’s sessions just ended, and I’ve got ninety minutes before the dinner cruise leaves. Enough time to return calls and clear my inbox. I cut through the main lobby toward the terrace, my mind already three agenda items ahead of my first phone call, when the feisty voice that has been haunting me since last summer drifts into my ears. I stop walking to listen to the controlled frustration, that unmistakable New York accent, and the cutting confidence that probably stops most people cold but immediately drew me in.

My pulse spikes before I’m fully turned around.

Seeing her standing at the front desk arguing about a reservation has all my senses locking in the way they do right before I close a deal—completely and without mercy. A moss-green linen dress hugs her curves. My fingers grip my phone tighter, remembering exactly what they felt like tangled in her rich brown hair. The rigid set of her shoulders tells me she’s seconds from losing it.

I know exactly what she looks like when all of that composure falls away.

She was a revelation that sweet summer night. Our chemistry was instant and explosive, but I never even got her last name. She was just funny, guarded, gorgeous Jennifer, who laughed at my worst jokes and rolled her eyes at my best ones. She was all heat and confidence, until I’d taken over. Then she’d been something else entirely.

Something so exquisite, nothing else will ever compare.

We shared one incredible night before she left Silver Island, and we texted for a while after that. Not the deep type of texts that build something real, but the flirty kind that keep you up at night and leave you taking things into your own hands to ease the tension. But for all our texting, every time I suggested we meet up, she had a reason she couldn’t. Not this weekend, Busy week, and Let me see how things go, which was inevitably followed up with, Sorry, the days got away from me. A handful of excuses wrapped in a uniquely addicting mix of sweetness and snark that’s its own kind of maddening.

I live by certain rules, and one of them is that I don’t chase women. I stopped texting, but that didn’t stop her from appearing in my darkest fantasies.

Mark me a fool, because I can’t resist heading over.

“The reservation is for five nights under Michael Hoag. H-O-A-G,” Jennifer says to the front desk attendant, Valerie, the self-possessed blonde who checked me in yesterday. “He booked it as a gift. I am the recipient of said gift, and I informed Mr. Hoag that I would be using this gift. I don’t see why the name on my ID creates a problem when the whole point of a gift is that it’s for someone else.”

I’ve got to admire her persistence. “Is there a problem here?” I ask.

“Yes, there’s a problem—” Jennifer whips her head around, irritation shining in her gorgeous hazel eyes. That irritation quickly turns to shock. “Fitz…?” She blinks several times, the impossibly long lashes that had roped me in at first sight sweeping the curve of her cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

The space between us crackles with the same electricity I tried to convince myself I’d imagined, but it’s as real as the marble beneath our feet. I watch as her brain catches up to the flush rising on her cheeks. I have a feeling that surprising this brazen woman is a rare occurrence, and damn. It makes her even more irresistible.

“I’m attending a conference,” I say calmly. “It sounds like you’re having a little trouble checking in.”

She squares her shoulders and tilts her head, a reset I noticed that night we were together, when she tucks something away and reassembles herself around it. “The reservation is under my ex’s name, and they won’t release the room unless he’s present.”

Ex? Well, that explains a lot.

“Never mind. I’ll just pay for the room,” she says exasperatedly, and begins digging around in her tote bag, mumbling to herself. “He gets back together with his ex, and I get jilted on a trip. If that doesn’t figure…”

What kind of asshole does that two weeks before Christmas? “Valerie, please book a suite with an ocean view for Ms.…” I arch a brow at Jennifer.

“Stone,” Jennifer says as she fishes around in her bag.

My mind skips sideways, wondering if she’s related to Jace and Jared Stone. Jace is my uncle Maddox’s business partner at Silver-Stone Cycles, and his brother, Jared, owns several restaurants with business magnate Seth Braden. They just went into business with my younger brother Wells, and they’re opening a restaurant together in the spring.

Now it’s my turn to tuck something away to pick apart later.

Jennifer looks up from her bag, holding a card in her hand, and says to Valerie, “I don’t need a suite or an ocean view. A regular room is fine.”

“How often do you come to Costa Rica?” I ask.

“This is my first time,” she says. “Why?”