The resort conference center buzzed with clinking glasses, networking small talk, and the faint beat of lounge music. Company retreats were supposed to be team-building exercises, not steamy emotional landmines.

But nothing about us had ever been simple.

I stood by the poolside bar, fingers wrapped around a sweating glass of lemonade, trying to focus on the view of palm trees and not the fact that Ethan Black—the man who’d ruined me, wrecked me, and remade me in a single week—was ...