He was golden, royal, and never wrong. But for the next ten days, he planned to be whatever tickled his fancy.
Namely—my tormentor.
Now, Cruz and I were heading to the room together, since I didn’t know where it was, and trying very hard not to kill one another.
“Was that really necessary?” I hissed, plodding my way to the elevator.
Bad idea.
My feet still hadn’t recovered from my earlier floor-is-lava experience. I didn’t envy the poor maintenance person who had to scrape half of my dead skin from the deck tonight.
“Not at all, but it was really fun.”
“I wish the people of Fairhope could’ve seen you in action. Talking about adultery and incest.”
“Don’t forget the gonorrhea,” Cruz uttered casually.
“Seriously, how come people don’t see past your bull-peep?” I asked, just as the elevator slid open.
We both stepped in, along with the three people behind us whom we hadn’t noticed until right that moment, but they sure noticed us and stared at us with open curiosity.
Cruz didn’t seem to mind at all that he was the center of the wrong type of attention, the flint in his eyes telling me he’d never felt so comfortable.
“Well, for one thing, people are not all that insightful. Easy to blow smoke up their asses. For another, I save this part of my personality ’specially for you, Mrs. Weiner.”
“I should record you,” I muttered.
“I should sue you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I belched. “For what exactly?”
“Punching my throat, screwing up my one and only vacation this year. You name it.”
“You punched his throat?” A teenage girl with purple hair and a septum ring beside us turned to me, raising her fist for a bump. “Dude. Neat.”
I leaned toward her, angling my hand next to my mouth, as if telling a secret.
“He went down like a Jenga tower. It was beautiful.”
Everyone laughed.
The elevator slid open, and Cruz stepped outside. I followed him down a narrow hallway with navy carpet and gold imprints on it. The doors were made of heavy deep-mahogany wood, and the lingering scent of citrus and cleaning products wafted through the air.
Cruz slid the electronic card through the slot on the door and pushed it open. I noticed that, despite his intense dislike of me, he held the door open for me to get in first.
Forever the gentleman.
“Shotgun on the shower.” I traipsed in, throwing myself onto the one queen-size bed the room had to offer and inhaling the scent of the sheets, still fresh from a wash.
Cruz tossed the electronic card onto a nearby desk and leaned against the sliver of wall the cabin had to offer. It was about half the size of an average Holiday Inn hotel room, but impeccably furnished and extremely clean.
Still, I had no idea how I was going to survive ten days inside this place with Cruz Costello.
“Go ahead,” he said. “You seem to need it more than me.”
“Are you saying I smell?”
“I’m saying I relish every minute spent away from you.”