He knew he sounded like a broken record. But he also knew that regardless of how much her uncles liked him as an employee and her friend, accepting him as her boyfriend would be another thing entirely. It would be an uphill battle all of its own, and one he was only prepared to fight if he had a way to support her that wasn’t dependent on the resort.
“I was really a consideration?” she asked. It hadn’t been what he expected her to say, so it caught him a little off guard.
“Yes, of course. You have been for a very long time, sweetness. I have wanted you since the moment you showed up at the dock that day in Florida.”
Drea could feel her cheeks blush with his admission. She had no idea that he’d felt those same sparks she had that day. For years now she’d convinced herself that she was imagining it.
Letting his words sink in, she looked out over the deep blue waters that surrounded them. The sun sparkled off the top of the waves as the boat slowly rolled along them. The feel of the boat rocking underneath them was calming, as if lulling them into the deep conversation. A smile crept up her face, even though she was suddenly feeling shy about it. She looked away so Kyle couldn’t see her reaction.
“No response?” he asked. “Shy Drea is not one I’m used to.”
She turned back so he could see her face and the smile stretched across it. “Sorry, I just feel a little awkward sometimes when you say things like that.”
“Like what? That I want you?”
“And other things. I love hearing them, but I don’t know how to react to how it makes me feel.”
“And just how does it make you feel?” he asked slowly, drawing out the words.
“All mushy inside,” she said, as if she were embarrassed by it.
“Kinda like how you feel when you read those smutty books of yours?” he teased.
“Don’t you mock my books!” She picked hers up and pretended to hit him with it. “But to answer your question, sorta? The books give me the warm fuzzies and make me all swoony—”
“Swoony? Is that a word?” he asked, cutting her off.
“It is now. So, they make me all swoony, and when you get all perfect-boyfriend-y, it’s like that, but, like, times a hundred. My insides kinda melt, and I don’t know what to say.”
“So I make you melty?”
“Now who’s making up words?” she mocked.
He laughed a deep, whole-body laugh that made her tingle inside. It didn’t seem to matter what he did, she was a goner. It had started that day in Florida for her as well, and she wanted to tell him that, but she was more than a little afraid she’d come off sounding a little crazy.
“Enough about my melty insides. Next question.”
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked her.
The question was simple, and she loved how he had worded it the same way you would ask someone who was five. She didn’t know why she thought it was cute when he said it, since had it been her uncles it would have only pissed her off. Maybe it was because she knew that Kyle respected her as a woman who could make her own choices. It was a question she’d been asked a lot as a child. Week after week, guests would come to the resort and see the precious little girl running about, following her uncles around or helping out some of the staff. Some would ask her just the way Kyle just had. Some would change the wording around to ask if she wanted to take over the Indigo Royal, but the focus had been the same. The questions stopped somewhere around high school, about the time she started to blend in and look as if she were just another staff member, rather than a real life Eloise.
“You really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”
“What I really, really want to do is put a spa into the Indigo Royal.”
“We have a spa.”
“No, we offer massages and mani/pedis and call it a spa,” she corrected him.
“Okay, so, stupid man question—is that not the same?”
She sighed. It was pretty much the exact reaction she was expecting. Not only from him, but from pretty much anyone. The term “spa” had come to have a wide variety of definitions and to many, it often boiled down to a few key treatments being offered some place. But just a few pampering-type options wasn’t what Drea had in her head.
“No, not really. I’m talking all out. Different types of massages, nail salon, hair salon, makeup application, body treatments, baths, whirlpools, saunas, steam rooms. Maybe bring in a reflexologist and offer different specialty items. I don’t want it to be just something guests do while on vacation. I want the spa to be the reason they’re on vacation.”
“Is that a thing?”
