I’ve now spent the better part of the last hour with my eyes closed so I don’t have to make conversation, but Butch and his buddies are drinking and their voices just keep getting louder with every cocktail.

This is so not the holiday I imagined.

And I’m contemplating how to escape Butch and the claustrophobic atmosphere here at the pool when Marcelle, the French-Swiss woman who has climbed in and out of the pool in her diamonds with her fabulous figure, shouts, “Thanks, Kai, for the surf lesson. That was fabulous.”

Marcelle went surfing?

I open an eye, peer in Marcelle’s direction (Butch is always looking in her direction), and see her patting herself dry next to her lounge chair as she says good-bye to someone who is far more interesting than anyone else here at the pool.

He’s young, and virtually naked, except for a plain white towel wrapped around his very narrow, muscular waist.

The rest of him is bare. And tan. Darkly tan. His hair is dark, wet, combed sleekly back from his face. And he has a really nice face, too.

I watch as he walks around the pool toward my lounge chair, and I sit up higher to get a better look as he nears me.

He must feel me staring because he turns his head and glances in my direction, and my eyes lock with his.

Wow.

Handsome isn’t even the half of it.

I swallow hard. I should look away. I must look away. I can’t.

He’s almost past now, he’s going to be leaving the pool, returning to wherever he came from, and I sit all the way up, wrap an arm around my knees. “You teach surfing,” I say just as he passes in front of my chair.

He—this surfer, Kai—pauses and turns to look back at me. The corner of his mouth curves, rises. “Yeah.”

I feel everything go fizzy inside me, and I look up into his eyes. They’re blue, very, very blue. And his face with its square jaw and strong cheekbones is very, very tan. I think he’s one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen.

“Interested in surfing?” he asks, taking a step back toward me even as he unwraps his white towel, revealing red board shorts, washboard abs, and a tattoo between his navel and shorts that makes me want to lean closer to get a better look. Is that a dog inked on his flat belly? Or something else?

I realize I’m staring dangerously close to his crotch and look up abruptly, straight into his eyes, and he’s rewrapping his towel tighter around his waist. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”