After a morning full of playing around in the water and sunning themselves on the boat, the group gathered together again to eat lunch. Maeve hadn’t moved much from where she had parked herself early on, and Dalton had stayed on board to keep her company. It was unclear to Cullen if that was out of interest in her, or because either he or Kyle had to be on the boat at all times.
Drea pulled out a cooler full of sandwiches that Miller must have made for the group and they chowed down quickly and quietly. The bright sun was warm, but it didn’t cause any of them to leave the top deck of the boat as they ate. Once they had finished up, Drea started to ask Maeve questions, looking to try and bring her out of her shell more. In an attempt to deflect being the center of attention as much as she could, Maeve turned the questions to Cullen.
“So, Cullen, what do you do?”
“I play football, or well, soccer as you Americans would call it,” he answered, smiling. She really had no idea who he was. The rest of the group exchanged some looks among themselves, everyone apparently thinking someone else had been the one to tell this poor girl about the VIP on their trip.
“Sorry, Maeve, I should have told you. Cullen is a VIP guest of the resort,” Drea started. “He’s ummmm, how do I explain this?” She turned to Kyle for help.
“Cullen here is kind of like the Tom Brady of soccer,” Kyle jumped in to help his girlfriend.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Cullen said, trying to be modest. “But I have had some success. You know, enough to buy my mum a house.”
“Wow. Your mom must have really appreciated that,” Maeve said, her eyes twinkling a little as she took him in. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Leona glare at her, and it made him laugh a little inside to see this reaction out of her. He liked it, a lot.
“She fought me on it, actually. But I couldn’t let her stay where she was or keep working herself to the bone once I was able to support us both.”
“What did she do for a living?” Maeve asked, finally starting to sound like she was getting comfortable with the group.
Cullen looked over at Leona, who to his surprise seemed to be anxiously awaiting his answer. The look on her face told him that she had no idea that he’d done all this, or what kind of world he’d grown up in. Well, time to change that.
He looked her straight in the eye as he answered the question.
“She was a housekeeper.”
Chapter Sixteen
It was as if he had said the words for only her to hear. It might have been Maeve’s question he was answering, but he looked right at Leona when he said it, like he was looking way down deep in her. Blinking slowly, it took her a moment to fully process the words. Cullen Cruz’s mother had been a housekeeper.
“Come again?” Leona managed to sputter out.
“He said his mom was a housekeeper,” Maeve offered. Leona had to stop herself from shooting the girl a dirty look. She knew she was just trying to help, offering up the answer thinking that Leona somehow hadn’t heard or understood him. It was just that the words had hit her like a bag of rocks to the gut.
“I need more punch, anyone else?” Leona said, creating a way to escape the conversation. She needed a moment to wrap her head around this new information. When everyone agreed with her on the punch, she turned to head back to the bar.
“Let me help,” Cullen said, starting to get up.
“No, no. You relax, you’re a guest. Drea will help.”
Grabbing Drea’s hand, she dragged her best friend back to the bar. The pitcher that was sitting on the counter had a little bit of punch left in it, and Leona picked it up and drank straight from the pitcher, downing the last of the concoction.
“Might be more effective if you just drank straight from the rum bottle, Lee,” Drea said, giving her a curious look.
Leona turned to look at her best friend, unsure of what emotion Drea would see on her face. In fact, she was unsure of what emotion she was feeling at all. How had she not known that about his mother? Thinking back to everything she’d ever read about him, nothing had ever mentioned his mother’s profession. Although, why would it? It’s not like it really contributed to his ability to kick a ball.
“All this time, Dre, I’ve had it in my head that he’s looked down on me because I was just a housekeeper. Because I’m the help,” she said, still processing it all.
“And now?” Drea prompted her, moving around her at the bar to start mixing more punch.
“And now…well…” Leona paused. She didn’t know. His love for his mother was something that everyone knew about Cullen Cruz. The man had her name tattooed on his arm, for crying out loud. Based on his love and admiration for her, it was an easy realization that he would never think of himself above someone who would be in her same profession. It was a realization that knocked her for a loop.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, simply shaking her head.
“Like maybe the fun, flirty Cullen you met when we were seventeen was the real Cullen Cruz? And this whole asshole thing he’s pulled ever since is just an act?” Drea offered.
“Maybe.”
“I’ve told you, I’ve always thought he was a jerk because he liked getting you riled up. It’s a weird little game, but hey, whatever works,” she said, adding the rum to the fruit juices in the pitcher. “You got under his skin, and he didn’t know what to do, so he acted like a jackass and the two of you have just fueled off that for ten years.”
“Make that strong, would you?” Leona asked, nodding at the pitcher. Drea nodded in return, holding the rum bottle in place for a little longer than normal. “What now?”
“Now, we go back out there with the punch and enjoy the rest of the day.”
Drea grabbed the pitcher and the two worked their way back to the front of the boat, Leona’s mind swimming from everything she was trying to take in. If it wasn’t bad enough that her head was firing off a million thoughts, her heart was trying to get in on the action too. The sweet, funny, charming man she had met as a teen was absolutely someone she could fall for. Someone who, if she let him, could run away with her heart. It had been easy all these years to let herself forget how wonderful those few days had been, since he was so horrible after. All those memories were starting to flood back, and she didn’t want to push them away this time.
As she sat back down on the trampoline, she let her mind wander back to that evening when he pulled her into the tub. Equal parts embarrassed and enraptured, she’d approached him in the tub cautiously, knowing full well he was gloriously naked under all those bubbles. Fueled by all the flirting from the days prior, she couldn’t stop herself. When he asked her to help locate his washcloth, she knew she should just hand him a new one, but she had wanted to feel what he was hiding under there like she had wanted her next breath. The moment her little hand found what was most certainly not his washcloth, she was immediately enamored with it and couldn’t have stopped herself even if she tried.
"You with us, Lee?” Dalton asked, giving her a look that asked if she was okay.
“Yup! The waves are just lulling me into a post-meal trance,” she said, smiling back, noticing that Maeve had wandered off to find a sunny spot at the back of the boat to be alone with the book she had brought. Kyle and Drea were heading back toward the bar and she was sure they would find a spot to have some couple time here shortly.
“Well, as long as you’re good, I’m going to go drive the boat,” Dalton commented, leaving her alone with Cullen.
“He seems like a decent gent,” Cullen commented once Dalton was out of earshot, trying to feel out what the relationship was between them.
“He is. He’s been a good friend for a lot of years. Weirdly mysterious about some things, but he’s a great listener,” she said, smiling. “So, what was it like growing up in London? I’ve never been.”
“It’s like any other major city. Lots of fun things to see and do. Good restaurants. I will say, the London I see these days is very different than the one I gr
ew up in. We rarely ate out, much less at all those posh hotels and cafes I get dragged to now.”
“I get it. Eating out means a family dinner at the resort for us,” she laughed.
“My father came to London when he was nineteen from Portugal. My mum had immigrant parents, but she was British, and was from a working-class home. Like I said, she was a housekeeper, helping maintain private residences around the city. He was a handyman. Not exactly two high-paying gigs, but they made ends meet. But then after we lost my father, my mum took on extra shifts, additional homes, did some seamstress work—whatever she could to keep food on the table. We went without quite a bit actually.”
“Without food?” Leona asked, so shocked by what he just shared.
“We always managed to have food, because many of the cooks in the houses she cleaned would sneak her something, but we went without heat more than a couple of times,” he shared.
A sharp intake of breath was all she could manage. She had to fight the urge to take his hand in hers. She liked his sharing—it made her feel like they were on the same level—and she didn’t want to disturb the balance that it had created.
“How old were you when your Dad passed?”
“Nine,” he said. “He was the victim of a mugging and was beaten to death.”
The tears that started to prick the back of Leona's eyes were making it hard to see. Giving in to her urge, she grabbed his hand. She laced her fingers into his and squeezed.
“Oh, Cullen, that’s horrible! And your poor mother having to tell you,” Leona sniffled, still fighting back the tears.
“She didn’t have to tell me,” he said solemnly. “I witnessed it.”
The words just hung in the air, waiting on a reaction from Leona. Cullen wasn’t sure which one of them was more shocked in this moment. Her, for what she just learned, or him, for the fact that he had shared it at all. The tears that he could see forming in her eyes a moment ago were now starting to leak out slowly, one at a time. He reached out and swiped one away with his thumb, taking his time as he glided his finger across her cheek. Her face was warm from the sun and felt good against his hand. For a quick moment, he considered leaning in and kissing away the tears, but he wasn’t sure how the gesture would be received.
“Cullen, I…I had no idea,” she whispered, trying not to cry more.
“I know, Menina. Very few people do. It’s not something that I have let the world in on,” he confided.
The subject of his father came up next to never now, but when he first started to gain some attention on the pitch and the media wanted to profile him, the question of his parents was always one of the first ones they asked. Keeping it simple and generic was surprisingly easy—only talking about his mum, never mentioning his father at all. Though it had originally been painful to leave him out of it, since Cullen knew that the man would have been incredibly proud of him, he knew it was for the best and would stop them from traveling down an even more painful path. The tactic had worked, too, since fairly soon the reporters just started referring to only his mother, often by name, whenever they asked questions. Soon enough after that, they took to focusing on a different aspect of his personal life altogether.
"Can I ask how it happened?” she whispered.
“I was out playing with some neighborhood kids. We used to like to kick around this old cricket ball that someone had found. It was the closest thing to a football we had. I saw him round the corner onto our block, carrying his toolbox like always. I was excited to see him. I was a nine-year-old kid—my Dad was my hero,” he said, pausing. He swallowed hard before continuing. “I started to jog towards him, leaving my mates behind, and I saw these men come out from an alleyway. They started harassing him, pushing him around. When one tried to grab his toolbox and my father wouldn’t let go, one of the others hit him on the back of the head with a piece of wood from the street. When he fell to the ground, they all just started beating him and kicking him, calling him names, slurs. They were just as poor as we were, but weren’t immigrants, so I guess they thought themselves better than him.”
Pausing again, this time to collect himself, he noticed her tears had started up again, beginning to fall quicker. He hadn’t intended to make this such a sad moment, but he was finding that confiding in her about this felt safe. Like she understood just what all this sharing meant to him.
“I ran closer to it, I guess thinking I could take them. Thankfully, all it did was make them run away. I yelled for my mates, and they came running, and at some point someone called 999. But by the time the authorities got there, the guys were long gone, with the toolbox. He bled out on the sidewalk.”
Leona was full-on crying now, and he wiped away a long trail of tears from her face.
“Oh, Menina, don’t cry. I didn’t tell you this to upset you.” He reached out and pulled her closer. Allowing her to decide how close, he slipped his arm loosely around her waist as he did so. In return, she snuggled close, looping her arms around his neck, placing her head on his shoulder. She felt so damn good in his arms, he wondered what he had to do to keep her there. He tightened his arm just slightly, stroking her back, trying to comfort her.
“This is why helping your brother is important to me. I see myself in him.”
Sitting up, she leaned back, her arms still around his neck, smiling at him. His stomach did a little flip taking in that big beautiful smile. It wasn’t her customer service smile that she’d been forcing herself to give him for forever, either. This was a true, genuine smile. The kind that he always saw on her face from across the resort when she was talking with others. The one she had let slip the other night in the car. And here she was, giving it to him now.
“You are not the man I thought you were, Cullen Cruz,” she said just above a whisper.
“Is that a good thing?” he asked.
“I think so.” She leaned back in, but instead of resting her head back on his shoulder, she pressed her lips to his. She kissed him soft and slow, the same way he had started out last night. He had no idea what he had done to deserve this, but he wasn’t going to fight it. When his tongue found hers, she let out an itty-bitty moan, one that he hoped only he could hear. Knowing full well that any of the others could come and find them like this at any moment, he tried to pull away, but she kept her lips firmly on his. Well then, if she wasn’t worried about being seen, then he wouldn’t either.
Moments later, when they finally came up for air, he noticed that her smile was even bigger than before. Forget the feeling of scoring the winning goal on the pitch—knowing that he put that smile on her face might just be the best feeling in the world.
“You, Leona Filipe, might not be the girl I thought you were,” he said, kissing her lightly.
“Good.”
The rest of the afternoon was filled with swimming, laughter, and rum punch. At one point Kyle had suggested a game of truth or dare, which Drea shot down. However, it got everyone in the mindset to start sharing stories. Even Dalton, who according to the girls was notoriously tight-lipped, got in on story time, sharing a few select tales of drunk adventures with his fraternity brothers. Both Drea and Leona tried to ask follow-up questions, but he expertly dodged each and every question they lobbed at him.
By the time they got back to the resort, all of them were exhausted. Maeve excused herself before they had even finished docking the boat, heading back to what Cullen assumed was her room in the staff dorms.
“She’s so shy,” Drea said as they watched Maeve walk down the jetty. “I don’t know what else to do to bring her out of her shell.”
“Just give it time. She’ll warm up to everyone, I’m sure,” Kyle told her, kissing her lightly on the top of her head.
Even though they hadn’t discussed it, Cullen was hoping that Leona would be coming back to La Isla Bonita with him after this, rather than heading to her own dorm. He wanted more time with her, time alone, away from others who could insert themselves at any moment. Leona’s friends had done
a great job at leaving them be unless they sought out the group, which he guessed was the work of Drea. But nonetheless, he still wanted the privacy that a locked door provided.
The sun wasn’t quite setting, but the soft afternoon light had started to take over the sky as the five that were remaining disembarked from the boat and headed toward the resort. Still relaxed and yet charged up from their afternoon together, Cullen had slung his arm around Leona and was a little bit giddy inside when she leaned in closer rather than push him away.
Standing at the end of the jetty, right before the path that led back to the main building, was a tall, dark-haired guy, standing with his arms across his chest. Cullen wasn’t entirely sure who this was—he wasn’t even sure he’d seen him before—but whomever he was, he did not look happy. His eyes narrowed in on Cullen’s arm that was holding on to Leona, scanning between the two of them. Leona had been laughing with Drea for most of their walk down the pier, and he had no idea if she’d seen this man or not. He would guess by her lack of reaction that she hadn’t.
“Hey, Lee,” Dalton said. She turned to look at him and, in the process, caught sight of the grumpy individual waiting for their arrival.
“Carlos!” she said, her tone suddenly changed from the carefree one that she’d had just a moment ago. Without any kind of hesitation, or even a glance in his direction, she pulled away from Cullen and walked toward this new guy. “What’s up?”
“Vaughn was asking if you all were back yet. He wanted to go over with you how the changeover went today,” he said, still not uncrossing his arms. “I didn’t realize you were even out on the boat.”
“Yeah, Vaughn asked us to accompany Mr. Cruz on an excursion,” she answered him. “I’ll go find him now.”
“I’ll walk you up there.”
“Sounds good.” She turned toward the rest of the group and gave a quick wave. “See you guys later.”
Caught Up In You (Indigo Royal Resort Book 2) Page 14