Page 2 of The Cruise Back to You

“You guess?” Jules stares at me with a raised brow. “Robin, he looked like he belonged on the cover of a romance novel. The kind with the shirtless guy and the sunset.”

“Then you flirt with him.”

Jules snorts. “He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at you.” He pauses, and I can feel the question coming before he even asks it. “Does your complete lack of interest have anything to do with a certain ex you’re still in love with?”

And there it is.

“I broke up with him,” I say, keeping my voice flat. “I can’t possibly still be in love with him.”

“Both things can be true at the same time.”

I take a long sip of my drink, letting the rum burn its way down my throat. Jules means well. He always means well. But he doesn’t understand. He wasn’t there for the late nights when I waited for Colter to come home from yet another networking event, only for him to complain about how boring they were and then go to another one a week later. He wasn’t there when I finally realized that five years meant nothing if we weren’t moving forward.

“Jules,” I say, setting my drink down on the little table between our loungers. “If you really want me to relax this week, I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t bring up Colter. In any way, shape, or form.” I hold up a finger before he can interrupt. “And don’t guilt-trip me into flirting with anyone. If this is a vacation, then I want to vacate. From everything.”

Jules studies me for a long moment, something unreadable flickering in his brown eyes. Then he sighs and holds up his hands in surrender.

“Fine. No Colter talk. No matchmaking. Just sun, the big ocean outside, and umbrella drinks.”

“Thank you.”

I take another sip of my drink and lean back on the lounger, closing my eyes against the bright afternoon sun. The ship hums beneath me, a gentle vibration that’s almost soothing. Maybe Jules is right. Maybe a week away from Pine Ridge—away from the shop, away from the view of Colter’s office across the street, away from everything—is exactly what I need.

I just have to make it through seven days without thinking about him.

How hard can that be?

Two

Colter

“You’re way too cheerful.”

Marc looks up from his suitcase, eyebrows raised in exaggerated innocence. “What do you mean?”

“This.” I gesture vaguely at the cabin, at the suitcase he’s unpacking with alarming enthusiasm, at the whole situation. “You don’t do vacations. You haven’t taken a vacation in … Actually, have you ever taken a vacation?”

“That’s not true,” Marc says, pulling out a stack of T-shirts and shoving them into a drawer. “I took a whole year off after college. Before I decided to start being an adult.”

“Right.” I hang up one of my shirts in the tiny closet. “You got everything right except the adult part.”

“Very funny, Mister When-Was-The-Last-Time-I-Took-A-Day-Off.” Marc throws a balled-up sock at my head. I catch it without looking. “Seriously, Colter. When was the last time you did something that wasn’t work?”

I shrug. “I’m building a business. Besides, what else do I have? I’m not the sort of person who can sit at home doing nothing, and there are only so many hours I can spend at the gym.”

Marc gives me a look. A pointed, loaded look I recognize immediately, and I hate that I recognize it because it means I know exactly what he’s thinking.

I could have Robin.

But I don’t. Because Robin broke up with me, and there’s no point in dwelling on what I wish I could have or the past I can’t undo. I’ve spent the last few months trying to convince myself of that, staring across the road at his shop, watching him through the window as he helps customers and arranges displays and lives his life without me in it.

“Don’t,” I say quietly.

Marc holds up his hands. “I didn’t say anything.”