Cape Cod Kisses by Bella Andre, Melissa Foster Page B

merger, but because he’d also just learned that a competitor was honing in on Joseph Alger, one of their key executives. They needed to strategize so they didn’t lose him. Agitated and annoyed, Quinn sprinted back to his suite in the resort and plugged in the damn charger, continuing the conversation while tethered to the plug.
    By the time Quinn ended the call, they’d hammered out several issues that had been looming around the merger, but there were still more on the horizon.
    Unbidden, the thought came at him: There are always more on the horizon .
    Quinn nearly choked as he finally checked his watch and realized that he’d just spent more than four hours on the phone. How the hell could he have been on the call for that long, when it had seemed like ten minutes?
    Damn it. He’d asked Shelley to wait, thinking he’d be on the call for only a few minutes—not for four hours. How could he have done that to her?
    He cursed as he looked out through the balcony doors. It was pitch-dark, and he hadn’t noticed that, either. Studying his reflection in the glass, Quinn didn’t like what he saw—a man who had been so consumed with work that he’d been too afraid of losing the focus his business partners demanded by seeing Shelley’s smile and hearing her voice to even pause his conversation for five seconds.
    He shifted his gaze to his grandfather’s wing of the resort. The lights in Chandler’s office were still burning bright. Of course they are . Because the truth that Quinn could no longer deny was that the more he focused on building his business to the exclusion of all else, the more he became like his grandfather. It had been no fluke that Quinn had seen his grandfather’s pinched, stressed eyes on his own face when he’d looked into the mirror last night.
    It wasn’t easy to admit, but Quinn couldn’t ignore this wake-up call. Not when he could too easily see himself in another ten years, alone and so damn focused on his work that no one wanted to be near him.
    But the tightening in his chest and the twisting of his stomach over how he’d treated Shelley cut deeper than the thought of becoming unlikable and losing his business deal combined ever could.
    That guilt was a first, and it hit him like a ton of bricks.
    He needed to apologize. Immediately.
    Quinn ran out of his suite. He took the stairs two at a time, grabbing a handful of flowers out of a vase in the hallway and bolting out the back door of the resort. The crisp air stung his cheeks as he raced across the patio, down the stone steps to the beach, and sprinted toward her cottage.
    As he ran, he couldn’t stop thinking about how Shelley reveled in so many things he took for granted. She was not only the sexiest woman alive, she was also so full of happiness, so free-spirited. And she had lit up parts of him, desires in him, that he thought had disappeared forever.
    For the first time in his life, he’d been seriously considering more than a fling. He didn’t want to lose Shelley’s light, that wonderful brightness that had been missing from his life. But at the same time, he couldn’t deny the truth that the carefree, relaxed man he’d been on the beach with her this afternoon wasn’t at all who he really was.
    He stopped running and paced as he tried to untangle his web of emotions.
    Shelley sure as hell didn’t deserve a guy who got stuck on business calls and was juggling so many demands that he ignored her. Should he set her free to find a man who wasn’t destined to become like Chandler?
    That thought stopped him cold. Because now that he’d met Shelley, he simply couldn’t imagine not holding her again, not seeing her bright smile or hearing her sweet laughter. He refused to think about waking up tomorrow morning knowing today was all they’d have.
    Over the past ten years, Quinn had worked doubly—triply—hard to prove himself. He hadn’t wanted anyone to think he’d gotten to where he was with his business just because