Page 80 of Caught Up In You (Indigo Royal Resort)
“What?” she squawked, pushing up off the rock she’d been sitting on. “How am I being selfish?”
“Because you won’t even give him a chance. You shut him down before he even had the opportunity to fight for you!” He walked out of the water and up the beach until he was right in front of her. He had a full foot of height on her, so he had to look down to meet her gaze. “Talk to him, listen to his side of things. It might not be what you think.”
“Where is funny, comic relief Dalton?” she asked, sidestepping around him and taking a few steps down the beach. “That's what Drea got when she got dumped. Why can’t I have him?”
“Because Drea is sweet and adorable. She was also actually dumped. You, on the other hand, are spicy and full of fire, and while I wasn't actually there for the conversation, I’m starting to get the impression you actually did the dumping,” he said, spinning around to look at her. He sighed. “I’m not saying he isn’t stupid for getting on a plane with my sister. Just that you are equally stupid for not giving the man a chance to at least tell you how he felt before putting the castle walls back up and pushing him from the tower window.”
Leona crossed her arms and glared at him. He had a point. She hated that, but her hating it didn’t make it less true. She had put her walls back up almost immediately after her interaction with Felicity. Granted, the bitch had said some pretty horrible things, but that wasn’t Cullen saying them. The more she thought about it, the more she questioned whether he even knew the things Felicity had said. But none of that changed the things he didn’t say that afternoon on Big House Beach.
“What do you suggest I do? Just call him up and ambush him with ‘I love you’?”
“I would suggest an ‘I’m sorry’ in there as well, but however you want to word it, sugar,” he smirked. “I can walk you through it.”
“Even if I wanted to, I left my phone in my office,” she said, happy for the excuse.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled his out, unlocked it with his fingerprint, and handed it to her. “Use mine.”
“I don’t have his number memorized!” she snarked.
“It’s in there,” he replied, jutting his chin in the direction of his phone.
“Why do you have Cullen Cruz’s number?” she asked skeptically. “Are you in cahoots with your sister?”
“I am nothing of the sort,” he said emphatically. “Prior to her showing up here the other day, I have not spoken a word to Felicity in years.”
“Oh,” she said, not hiding her amazement. Years? How did someone go years without speaking to their family?
“As for his number, Drea aided me in obtaining it. Do I need to dial it for you?”
“No, I got it,” she said, clicking the phone icon on the screen and lifting the device to her ear.
Her heart skipped a beat as it started to ring. What on earth was she going to say to him? Maybe she should have worked out a script with Dalton. By the third ring, the butterflies had fully formed in her stomach and were now causing her mind to race. Deep breath, Lee, she thought to herself. You got this.
The ringing flipped over to voicemail, and Leona heard his cool, steady British accent tell her to “leave a message and I’ll call you back.” The sound of the message was like a punch to the gut and made her freeze in place. Should she leave a message? For as unprepared as she was for him to answer, she hadn’t even thought about what to do if he didn’t answer. The little automated beep snapped her out of her stupor and she quickly ended the call.
“Voicemail,” she said, her voice sounding defeated.
“We can try again later,” he said, taking his phone from her and sticking it back in his pocket. He grabbed her hand and pulled her into him for a hug. Dipping down, he lightly kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry your heart is breaking, Lee. I know it’s a horrible place to be.”
She leaned back in his embrace and looked up at him. There were dark clouds in his eyes she’d never seen before, and it made her curious. Dalton had always played everything so close to the vest. Even when he was in a sharing mood, the tidbits he dropped were always just vague enough to leave more questions than answers.
“How about we head back to your suite and get a head start on that bottle of tequila before Kyle and Drea are done with family dinner?” Dalton suggested after another moment of silence. “Maybe I’ll even entertain you with a story from my youth.”
“We might need a second bottle of tequila then,” she remarked as she broke away from him and headed back toward the resort.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Leona walked through the open-air lobby as quickly as her legs would move without drawing any attention to herself. She’d been up on the seventh floor of the Barracuda Tower responding to a call from Carmella regarding some left behind “personal effects” of the guests who had checked out early that morning. Though she would never admit it to anyone other than Drea, Leona secretly loved these kinds of calls. At this point, she almost felt like nothing would surprise her, she’d found so many weird items left behind over the years. Her favorite was easily what she and Drea had termed “the duck pond.” Shortly after their high school graduation, Leona had walked into a suite to find the bathtub filled with water and seven ducklings swimming around. Too stunned to do much else, she’d called Drea, who came running to see for herself. It had taken a call to the Department of Wildlife and three of their animal handlers to get that mess sorted out. Not to mention close to a gallon of bleach to properly disinfect the tub afterwards. That incident had sat at the number one spot on their top ten list ever since, and Leona could not imagine a situation that would top that one.
Walking into room 758, she’d found Carmella standing in front of the bureau that sat opposite the two queen beds in the room.
“Alright, let’s see it,” she’d said, bracing herself for whatever might be in there.
Carmella pulled open the drawer and they both peered in to find four pairs of socks.
“Just socks?”
“Yup. But policy states…” Carmella said.
