Page 72 of Caught Up In You (Indigo Royal Resort)
“Here,” Kyle said.
She pulled away enough to find him handing her a napkin. She took it from him and wiped her eyes and nose. Dalton’s shirt was a mess, with a great big wet spot in the middle from her tears and snot, as well as black streaks from her eye makeup.
“Oh shit, look at your shirt,” she said, trying to wipe it with the napkin.
“Don’t worry about it. It’ll come out when you do my laundry,” he smirked at her. She could tell he was trying to cheer her up, but even the Dalton charm wasn’t going to work right now. For as pretty and charming as he was, he wasn’t Cullen Cruz.
“Tell us what happened, Lee,” Kyle said. He was now sitting on the arm of the cushy chair Drea was sunk into, with his arm around her.
Leona sat back down in her chair as Dalton moved in between her and Drea, squatting down so he wasn’t towering over her. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and exhaled slowly before starting at the beginning.
“I went to La Isla Bonita to show him the tree gummies. I let myself in, because, well, I can. So I walk in and shout out to him, and instead of finding him in there, I find some blonde Amazon woman sitting in the living room.”
“Where was he?” Kyle asked.
“In the shower. Amazonia told me he’d just gotten back from a run. That’s when she demanded I order them food and was pissy that I wouldn’t. She then proceeded to let me know I was just a free piece of ass and that she was here to bring him back to his real life, and I should just go back to being a cleaning lady.”
“Whoa!” Dalton exclaimed at the same time Kyle said “What?”
“She apparently bribed her way into his room. He said he’d never seen her before. But her showing up led to us finally having to face what we knew was coming. He's leaving. Taking a coaching gig and moving on with his life, while I stay here, working as a cleaning lady.”
“You’re not just a cleaning lady, Lee,” Kyle said.
“But I am,” she sighed. “And really, I’m okay with that. I’m not saying that I thought we’d run away together. Although, I won’t lie, there was a small part of me that might have allowed that daydream to slip in. But I at least thought we had a couple more days. And I thought that maybe there would be a Pretty Woman offer in there.”
“A what?” Dalton asked, shifting his weight a bit.
“In Pretty Woman, Richard Gere offers Julia Roberts an apartment and the opportunity to see each other when he’s in town. I somehow thought I’d at least get that. But nope. We’re just going to go our separate ways.”
“Was that your idea or his?” Drea asked.
“Mine, but he didn’t fight me. Didn’t tell me he loved me or wanted to find a way to make it work. He ‘didn’t know what to say,’ so to me, that says he agreed with Amazonia’s assessment more than he wanted to admit.”
“I’m still confused about who this chick is,” Maeve finally said, sipping on her wine. “And just what she thought she was going to accomplish by breaking into his room.”
“She’s with the team from Atlanta, I guess? Or the company that owns the team. The Southern Lands Group or something? Her name was—”
“Felicity,” Dalton said, standing up suddenly, his voice tense.
Leona turned to look up at him. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
“Hello, little brother.”
Cullen paced back and forth on the back deck of La Isla Bonita, holding his phone to his ear and listening to it ring over and over again, finally clicking over to voicemail. This was his third call to Oliver, who seemed to be ignoring Cullen the same way he’d been ignored all morning. But Cullen wasn't giving up. He tapped Oliver’s number again, and thankfully the man answered after the third ring.
“Look who has decided he is finally available to speak,” Oliver answered. “I have spent the last hour on the phone with the legal team discussing the contracts you called them about this morning. What the bloody hell is this, Cullen?”
“Something I’ve been thinking about for a while. But that’s not why I called. Why the fuck didn’t you let me know she was coming?”
“Who?”
“Felicity, something,” he said, realizing he never got her last name.
“Sutherland? Felicity Sutherland is there?”
“Is that her last name? Tall? Blonde? Stalker tendencies?”
“Cheeky little bitch…” Oliver muttered. “I had no idea she was headed your way, Cullen. Honest. But it doesn't surprise me. Not sure that girl has ever been told the word no.”
