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to crawl into his lap like a scaredy-cat. Oddly enough, things didn’t seem so bad with him soothing her, and after a minute, she relaxed. Just feeling his large body pressed against hers was comforting and made the storm seem a little farther away.
    Her stomach growled, loudly.
    A low rumble started in his chest, and she realized he was laughing. “Eat your candy bar.”
    She unwrapped it with trembling fingers. “Just so you know, in the future, I prefer M&M’s. The peanut kind, not the plain.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind. Philosophy and peanut M&M’s.”
    “That’s right,” she said, taking a big bite out of her candy bar and moaning with pleasure as the taste hit her tongue. “This is really good. Thank you.”
    She heard the wrapper rustling as he unwrapped his. They snacked on candy, huddled in the stairwell, and waited for the storm to end.
    “So how is it that you know Marcus Aurelius by heart, Brontë?”
    She shrugged. “My mother loved books, but she especially loved the classics—Brontë, Austen, and Gaskell. The romantic ones.” She paused, thinking of her mother. “I graduated from UMKC with a BA in philosophy. Majored in that, minored in history. I like ancient philosophers. I feel like they taught a lot of wisdom that can be applied to modern life.”
    “Interesting. So you’re . . . a teacher?”
    Brontë grinned. “Hardly. I’m a waitress at a sock hop diner.”
    “A . . . waitress.” He said the words as if tasting them. “That’s a bit of a career change.”
    “Not really. I started waitressing to pay the bills during school and then kept waitressing while I hunted for jobs after graduating, and, well, two years later, I’m still waitressing.” She grimaced. That sounded so . . . lame.
    “So you’re twenty-four?”
    “I am. How old are you?”
    “I just turned twenty-nine.”
    She elbowed him playfully. “Wow, that’s ancient.”
    He snorted.
    “Seriously, though, you’re doing really good for yourself,” she told him. “Manager of a big place like this at twenty-nine? Your parents must be proud.”
    He was silent for so long that she worried she’d offended him. Then he said, very softly, “Thank you.”
    She took another bite of her candy bar and wondered at his response.

Chapter Three
    What a lucky streak he’d been on the past two years. First Danica’s betrayal, then his father’s death, now this. The icing on the biggest fucking cake of his life. His father would’ve said he’d brought it upon himself.
    But then again, his father had always been a huge bastard. He’d disapproved of everything that Logan had ever touched. Not a stretch to think that he’d have disapproved of Logan’s latest acquisition.
    It had seemed like a simple task. Now that he’d purchased the resort, he wanted to walk through the property and get a feel for it. He had the architect’s suggestions for improvements, but he liked to check things out on his own. He never made a firm investment without overseeing the operation himself.
    His first walk through the resort prior to purchasing it? That had shown him everything he’d expected. The place had promise; the island was beautiful and central. The hotel itself was old and showing wear, and the rooms were only half full when nearby resorts were packed to the gills. But it was mismanagement more than anything else that was causing this resort to fail, and that was where he could put together a team to step in and excel. In five years, he could have this property turned into a real moneymaker. The hurricane was doing him a favor, in a sense, because it was going to tear down a lot of the building, and it needed tearing down regardless.
    He looked down at the woman curled against his side, her face barely visible in the dim light. She was sleeping, and his arm was wrapped around her protectively. She was an odd one. He had barely noticed her when she’d stepped on the elevator. Beach resorts were full of sexy women, and