Chapter Fourteen

The expansive resort that stretched before them caught Chloe off guard. It had been a long time since she’d been here—she couldn’t ever justify the expense when she traveled by herself. Travis had offered to come with her the last time they’d had a break. And the time before that. And every other time over the past few years. But when she hadn’t been busy with business, she’d needed the time to herself. To just…be.

And frankly, warding off Travis’s advances didn’t lend itself to the kind of relaxation Chloe was after.

But when Kara had invited Chloe along on their family vacation, she hadn’t been able to say no. Being with Kara and Rick and the twins—they were family. At least, for now. Her own parents were thousands of miles away, and Chloe was lucky if she saw them once every couple of years.

Chloe glanced at Davis, who was similarly staring at the resort, awe in his expression. His cheeks were a bit pink, and she wondered if hers were as well. Chloe hadn’t meant to slam into him on the ride over, but part of her was kind of glad that she had.

“My parents can afford a place like this?” Davis asked.

“Like I said, the dollar goes a long way here. One night can cost twenty-five hundred baht, which is a lot if you’re Thai, but that’s only eighty U.S. dollars.” She nodded ahead of them and raised an eyebrow as if to say, Shall we?

Davis followed Chloe inside to the check-in counter. His gaze wasn’t focused on what she was doing, but instead taking in the high ceilings and glossy floor. Two restaurants sat on opposite ends of the lobby, both looking more American than Thai. Chloe had stayed here once before and knew they wanted to cater both to those who enjoyed Thai food and those who did not. She also knew enough to stay away from the Thai massages they offered. She’d thought her back might snap the last time she’d received one.

“Sawadii ka,” the woman at the desk said as they approached, and she placed her hands together in the traditional wai gesture, her head bowing slightly.

“Sawadii ka.” Chloe returned the wai and smiled. Gosh, she loved Thailand. She didn’t think she would ever be able to leave, not when she’d be giving up so much. Her teenage self would have killed her for thinking such thoughts, but a lot can happen in fifteen years.

“We have three rooms reserved,” Chloe told the woman. Her nametag read Sarina. “One is under Chloe Rodgers, the other two are reserved under either Kara or Rick Jones.”

The woman’s fingers typed quickly over her keyboard. “Yes, I see you are both staying for a week,” she said in English. “We’re happy to have you.” She nodded toward Davis, who was still taking in his surroundings. Coming from a small-town hardware store, it must be shocking that anything could simultaneously be this big and this empty. “I’ll just need to see Mr. Rick Jones’s ID, please.”

Chloe gave a little laugh. “Oh, no, that’s not Rick. That’s his son, Davis.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Davis, they need to see your ID.”

“No,” Sarina said. “I need to see the ID for Mr. Rick Jones. His name is on the reservation.”

“But…Rick isn’t with us. He’s coming in a few days. Maybe you can call and talk to him, verify his information and all that?”

Sarina still wore a pleasant smile, but it seemed a little strained now—like she didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but she was going to have to be. “I’m sorry, but I have to have Mr. Rick Jones present. I need to see his ID. I also have a Mrs. Kara Jones. Are you Mrs. Kara Jones?”

Chloe rubbed her eyebrow. If she said she was Kara to help get Davis into his room, she couldn’t also be Chloe Rodgers to get into her own. She released a long sigh.

“No, I’m not.”

Sarina nodded once, her fingers again flying over the keys. “You are Mrs. Chloe Rodgers, no?”

Chloe nodded once, and her breath caught as Davis approached from behind. He was pulling out his wallet.

“She needs to see my ID?” Davis seemed to sense Chloe’s hesitation, pausing as he removed his driver’s license. “Everything okay here?”

Chloe began to nod, but it morphed into a shake of her head. “Not exactly.” She turned back to Sarina. “What type of bed is in my room?”

The Thai woman glanced at her screen. “One king bed.”

“Do you have anything that has two queens?”

Sarina’s fingers once again raced over the keyboard as Davis eyed Chloe.

“Why would you need two beds?” he asked, his gaze piercing.

Chloe didn’t want to be the one to tell Davis the awkward circumstances, but it would be better coming from her than Sarina. “There’s an issue that’s come up, and I’m trying to take care of it, but we might need to do some rearranging of rooms.” Her words came out slowly as she tried to think of the best way to tell Davis they’d be sharing a room. “And so, until your family gets here in a few days—”

“Sorry, ma’am, we have no queen beds left,” Sarina interrupted. “Only king. Very busy this time of year, with Songkran and everything.”

Davis tilted his head to one side, like he was trying to piece everything together. It didn’t seem to be working, and he only appeared more confused. Great, they hadn’t even made it to the bad news and she’d already broken him.

“We’ll come back to this Songkran thing everyone keeps talking about,” he finally said, straightening. His lips tilted up. “What is the issue with your bed? Do you need to use our other room until my family gets here? I’m sure they won’t mind.”

Chloe dropped her gaze. She obviously wasn’t very good at this, and she couldn’t handle looking at Davis while telling him the truth. Not when he was smiling at her like that, wanting to help in any way he could.

“The issue is that…they won’t let you check into your room. They need your mom or dad here with their picture ID, because they’re the ones who made the reservation. I thought they might have a bigger room—something with multiple beds—but we apparently chose the worst time to travel, if you’re wanting to switch out a bus ticket or hotel room, that is. It’s a great time for everything else.” Her words tumbled out fast, and when she’d finished, she leaned against the counter, her gaze remaining glued to the floor.

“They won’t let me check in,” Davis said slowly, as if he needed to make sure he had all the facts straight. “And so you and I need to share a room. And a bed. Until my parents get here.”

Chloe nodded, afraid to raise her head and see his reaction. This was not how she had imagined this vacation going.

Which made it all the more shocking when Davis burst into laughter. Like, full-on laughing.

She couldn’t help but look to be sure it was real and not some hallucination.

“Sorry,” Davis said, wiping moisture from his eyes. “It’s just that if I didn’t know any better, I’d think my parents had orchestrated this. And frankly, I don’t know better. I mean, it’s all too perfect, isn’t it? Their bus tickets were for a different day than ours, and now we have to share a room. I mean, it’s ludicrous that they thought this would actually work. Cute, but ludicrous.”

Chloe stared. “You’re saying you think your parents planned for all this to happen…for their son, who they hadn’t seen in two years, to be stranded with a random woman he’d just met, and you think the craziest part of it all is that they thought you’d actually fall for me?” She spun back toward Sarina, who had been busy tidying up a stack of papers for the past few minutes, pretending she wasn’t listening in, but had obviously been soaking up every word. “Do you have my key ready?” Chloe asked.

Sarina started and scrambled to gather up everything she needed. “Yes, yes, of course. Here are two keys; you just slide them into the door with the arrow side facing up. I’ve also written down the Wi-Fi password for your convenience.” She handed Chloe a small packet that held the keys along with a piece of paper. “I’ve included a coupon to use in one of our restaurants.” Her gaze flitted to Davis and then back to Chloe. “Is there anything else I can assist you with today?”

“No, this is great. Thank you.” And then Chloe spun away from Davis, grabbing her suitcase as she went.

“Oh, come on. I didn’t mean it like that,” Davis called from behind her. She could hear his rapid footsteps as he hurried to catch up. And to think that she’d thought she could be attracted to someone like Davis. It hadn’t been a long thought—more like a brief flickering—but it had been more than enough to know that Chloe wasn’t meant to be alone with men. Not if her dating sensors were so completely damaged. Even Travis seemed like a good option at the moment.

She released a laugh that was void of any humor. “You didn’t mean it like what?”

Chloe didn’t know why she was getting so worked up about this. It was better than the alternative—Davis thinking his parents had set him up and then diving in headfirst. That could only end badly. She should be grateful he found the idea so repulsive.

But it was difficult to share a hotel room with someone you knew laughed at the idea of actually being attracted to you. And right now, all Chloe wanted was to be alone.

Chloe quickened her pace and slid one of the keys out of its packet, jamming it into the slot in the door before she’d even come to a full stop. But, of course, she did it the wrong way and had to turn the key around and try again. By that time, Davis had caught up to her, panting, his duffel bag dropping to the floor beside him.

“I don’t understand why you’re upset with me,” he said between breaths. “You should be annoyed at my parents for trying to set us up. On my family vacation. When I was supposed to be spending time with them. I flew all the way out here for them, not you, no offense. Maybe they didn’t think a few days would make a difference, but it does to me.”

Okay, so Chloe had pegged Davis wrong. He wasn’t a beat-around-the-bush kind of guy. He was a blunt, straight-to-the-point kind of guy. And as much as she wanted to be offended, she could see his point. Whether or not his parents had done it on purpose wasn’t the issue. It was that he thought they had chosen trying to set him up with a woman over spending time with him.

Chloe rested her forehead on the door. “All right,” she finally said, straightening. “We make the best of this.”

After a brief hesitation, Davis followed her into the room. Chloe tossed her suitcase on the closest side of the bed, then threw a glance in his direction. Unlike her, Davis was gently placing his duffel bag on the floor on the opposite side of the bed. She felt a tinge of guilt, as he’d be closer to the window, which meant the light in the morning would wake him up first.

Davis glanced up and met her gaze. “You really thought I had laughed because I couldn’t imagine being attracted to you?” And that was all he said about it. Chloe watched him as he walked to the closet, seemingly searching for something but not finding it. “I’m going to go down and see if they can bring up some extra blankets and pillows.”

Chloe looked at the pile of pillows on the bed. “You don’t think we have enough?”

“Figured I could use them to make the floor a little softer.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing she had to do better than this. If nothing else, for Kara and Rick and the boys. She opened her eyes. “It’s a king-size bed; there’s plenty of space for both of us.”

Davis was already at the door, one hand on the handle. He glanced back, and Chloe forced herself to meet his gaze. She swore she saw pain there.

“The thought of my parents setting us up was ridiculous,” he said slowly, “because you are so out of my league that I couldn’t help but laugh. A beautiful, successful, smart woman like you isn’t interested in broken men like me.”

And then he left.

Chloe wasn’t sure if he was still determined to find more pillows or blankets, but she wished he’d come back. Because even though she didn’t think of herself as repulsive, she also wasn’t the woman that Davis had just described.

She hurried after him, but when she stepped into the hallway, he’d already disappeared. After thirty minutes of debate and a complaining stomach, she decided she’d go down and get something to eat. Maybe she’d see him on the way and he’d consider joining her.

Chloe had never felt the need to prove to someone that she wasn’t as capable as she presented herself, but she felt an overpowering desire to do just that with Davis. Prove that she wasn’t on any plane loftier than the one Davis occupied.

And prove to him that them being set up by his parents wasn’t as ridiculous as he’d made it out to be.