As she walked behind Nate, he shot out an arm as if he were signaling to turn left on a bicycle, and physically stopped her. He cocked his head to the side, and flashed his trademark grin. “You don’t say hello anymore?”

She smiled, the kind that didn’t reach her eyes. “I didn’t see you. How are you?” she asked him as diplomatically as possible

“Great. This is my property manager, Nicole,” he said, and the woman extended her hand. Casey shook, but didn’t let go of the possibility that Nate’s property manager had her sights set on him.

“Nice to meet you. I have to go. I’m needed out there,” she said, gesturing to the veranda and the empty table reserved for Jack’s party, then picked up her pace.

In seconds, she heard the click of his shoes. His hand was on her arm. She turned around and looked down at his fingers wrapped around her wrist. She shook them off.

“What’s wrong?”

She gave him a pointed stare, as if he were crazy for even asking the question. “Nothing,” she said with a nonchalant shrug. “Why would anything be wrong?”

“You gave me the cold shoulder back there. And now. That’s not like you.”

“That’s because I have a rehearsal dinner to be at,” she said in a crisp, businesslike voice.

“So do I. But you’re early, and no one is here yet.”

She raised her chin. “I wanted to be early. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

He furrowed his brow. “Casey, I thought you wanted to be friends.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Was I not trying hard enough? Would you like me to work even harder? Maybe sit down with you and Nicole and have a drink together? Because that’s what we’d do as friends, right?” Her voice heated up angrily with each question she flung at him.

“Casey, this isn’t you.”

Something dangerous welled up inside her. Something that felt horribly like no-holds-barred anger, like ragged jealousy, like all the pain she didn’t want to show him. But she was tired, and she was jet-lagged, and on top of that she was really fucking sad. She let it all loose. “Maybe it’s not me. But maybe you don’t know me. Maybe you should go spend time with Nicole. She sure looks like she wants to be much more than friends with you. You can get what you want from her,” she said, the cruel remark coming out of her mouth before she could stop it.

Nate nodded several times, absorbing her below-the-belt comment. His hand came down on her arm again, and he tugged her into a quiet hallway of the restaurant, leading to the restrooms.

“Do you want to go there? She’s one of my goddamn employees, and you better know me well enough to know I would never cross that line. But if it bothers you so much that I’m talking to my property manager about how to keep growing the hotel’s revenue, then let’s discuss how much it bothered me that you were after Mr. Lingerie,” he said, biting out the words.