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I glanced over at Belle who was taking this opportunity to explore the villa. She went outside on the deck and stuck her toe in the pool.

“Mr. Montague?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for holding. I’m not sure how this happened, but the two-bedrooms have been booked up for the past month. Whoever handled your reservation should have notified you. I’ll deal with the staff member personally.”

“So, there are no two-bedrooms available?”

“Unfortunately, no. But the couch in the living room pulls out into a bed. I can have someone bring extra blankets and pillows, if you’d like.”

“It’s fine.”

“Understood. And again, my apologies. We’ll make sure everything is handled to your standards for the rest of your stay.”

I hung up and looked at Belle through the glass. She had rolled up her pants and was sitting at the pool’s edge with her feet in the water, face tilted up at the sun.

I slid the door open. “So⁠—”

“Let me guess,” she said, turning toward me. “There’s no two bedrooms available.”

“Nope.”

She pulled her glasses up on her head. “You realize how cliché this is, right?”

“I can sleep on the pullout in the living room if that makes you more comfortable.”

“Sleeping on a pullout at your own resort?” She snorted. “It’s a king-sized bed—stay on your side and I’ll stay on mine.”

I leaned against the door frame and eyed her. Given how hard it’d been these past few weeks to keep our hands to ourselves—how much I knew we both wanted to take it further—I probably should sleep on the pullout.

“You’re right. We’re adults.”

“Adults. Exactly.”

I left briefly to meet with Yomi, who was staying in his own villa, to go over the details for the meeting with Jean-Pierre tomorrow. When I came back, Belle had changed into a bathing suit with a sheer cover up. She was sitting on the couch, going through the room menu options.

“Want anything?” she asked.

I dropped onto the couch next to her. “What you thinking?”

“The coconut shrimp looks good. Ohh and they have a seafood tower,” she said, tilting the menu toward me.

“Get whatever you want.”

She ordered enough food for four people. Coconut shrimp, seafood tower, fried plantains, rice and peas, and a slice of pie so she could have something sweet to eat.

We ate on the deck with the sliding doors open, the sound of the waves filling the room. The sun had already set, and the sky was that deep black you get when there’s no light pollution to compete with the stars.

“Views like this make me consider moving out of the city,” she mused, leaning back in her chair with a glass of wine.

“You’d get bored out here in a week.”

“Probably.” She smiled. “But it’d be a nice week.”

Something about Nassau had her different. Back home, every conversation came with a snarky ass reply, like she wanted to hurt my feelings a little bit so I wouldn’t like her. Out here, she wasn’t putting on a performance.

Belle was keeping something from me. I’d known that since I went through her apartment. But sitting out here with her like this, I couldn’t make myself care about it the way I should have. “Your first real job,” I said as I refilled our glasses. “What was it?”