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The Cost of Staying in Bayahibe
Paperback
Series: Aqua Esmeralda
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Dec 24 2025
Pages: 156
Weight: 0.35
Height: 0.33 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
Elena Rivas arrives at Aqua Esmeralda to design the expansion: the new wing, the south corridor, the survey work to hand over. In her bag there's also an email from the firm she works for, with a deadline and one line: if we don't hear from you, we'll proceed without you.
Tomás Vega keeps the resort standing on his own. He knows every route, every shift, every door that opens on the wrong side. Nobody has ever asked him what it costs, and he has never said.
They work the south corridor together. He shows her where people actually stop; she draws. It takes three weeks, one night walkthrough with a laser measure, and a photograph taken without her permission before Elena understands what the real problem is.
The problem isn't that she isn't good. It's that being good is enough here, and nobody asks her for anything else.
It isn't enough that the corridor works. I want it known that I made it.
Then comes an offer to join the project for good. And it's withdrawn the moment Elena attaches a condition to it.
This is a novel about two people who do good work and are seen badly: a woman asking to be named, a man who can't ask for anything. About what it costs to stay somewhere that treats you kindly and never lets you go.
The Cost of Staying in Bayahibe is the third book in the Aqua Esmeralda series. It reads perfectly well on its own.
In this book:
- Setting: a resort in Bayahibe, Dominican Republic
- Dual POV, Elena and Tomás
- Slow burn, coworkers, forced professional proximity
- Grown-up leads: she's an architect, he runs operations
- Standalone, with a happy ending
- Heat level: 3 of 5 - open door, explicit scenes
- Content notes: unwanted attention from a colleague, a photograph shared without consent
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