Bad Cruz(40)

I plastered my forehead to the door. “What makes you think it was a mistake?”

I was pathetic, even—and especially—in my own eyes.

Why was I bothering?

I had so many other women to choose from back at home.

“I don’t do one-night stands,” she called out from the other side of the door. “Might sound surprising, even old-fashioned to some, but that’s the way I roll.”

“Doesn’t have to be a one-night stand,” I heard myself say. “Unless the gonorrhea thing is true.”

“Just as long as no one finds out about it, right?”

I groaned.

She had me there. Not that I was ashamed, but…

“Your parents won’t approve, either,” I pointed out.

“No,” she agreed. “Which brings me to my previous statement—no hanky-panky. I don’t want to be your dirty little secret.”

“You’re an infuriating woman.” I pressed my fist against the door.

“And you should be used to hearing a ‘no’ every now and then,” she deadpanned.

I heard her brushing her teeth and removing her makeup using that battery-operated thing that gave your face a deep clean.

“And another thing,” she added, knowing full well I was still outside, waiting for her to grace me with her presence. “There better be a pillow barrier between us when I get out.”

“Like hell, sweetheart.” I withdrew from the door, glaring at it like it had personally wronged me. “You want a barrier, make it yourself.”

With that, I went on to rip the swan-shaped towel waiting on our bed next to tomorrow’s itinerary and tossed them along with the red rose petals into the trash.

Mrs. Weiner didn’t deserve anything nice tonight.





The next morning, I cracked one eye open to find Cruz’s triangular, infuriatingly athletic back as he…wait, what the heck was he doing, exactly?

“Cruz?” I hiccupped, gathering my limbs into a sitting position.

My back was hurting from the mountain of pillows I’d arranged between us which dug into my spine, and from the lack of a pillow to put my head on so that I could make said mountain happen.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

He glanced over his shoulder, throwing me an under-the-mustache charming smirk as he stuffed my clothes into trash bags. The worst thing about him was that he made me believe he could be good to me. That was just downright horrible of him.

“What’re you doing?”

“Exactly what it looks like.”

“Articulate it to me. It’s six in the morning.”

“Quarter to nine. And I’m throwing away your clothes.”

“Why?” I demanded, straightening my back alertly. I didn’t have money to replace those clothes, no matter how horrid they were. Didn’t he know people who didn’t have his money valued every little thing they owned?

He didn’t stop what he was doing, carrying on with the same smooth motion as he emptied out my side of the closet.

“Well, because we had a bet, and in that bet, you promised you’d let me get you a whole new wardrobe, and since you’ll be wanting to take those clothes with you back home, you won’t have any room for these ones. Shame, really. But that’s life for you.”

I knew what he was doing, and I didn’t appreciate it. He wanted to help me look good and proper so the people of Fairhope would accept me.

Well, despite my bitterness, I didn’t want to be accepted.

I liked to stick out like a sore thumb, a weed in an otherwise picturesque rose garden, and remind them that this town wasn’t all that.

“Leave my clothes be.”

“A bet’s a bet.”

“I’ll honor the bet, but I still want my clothes.”

“Why?”

“Because you can’t change me. I am who I am, and if you don’t like it, you’re welcome to join Fairhope’s general population and ignore me.”

Or engage in sexual warfare where you low-key sexually harass me.

That seemed to be the trend, too.

“Thing is, it’s not, in fact, who you are.” He swiveled toward me, giving me a stern look. His eyes could melt panties in the same way Uri Geller could bend teaspoons. “You’re the closest thing to Virgin Mary I’ve ever kissed, yet you prance around lookin’ like a man-eater. Your self-destruction button is big and shiny and red, and I want to break it. You lost yesterday, and I don’t like sore losers. Now get your ass up. We need to get an early start. It’s breakfast and duty-free shopping.”

If it weren’t for the fact that it was me he was bossing around, I could appreciate Cruz’s domineering streak. I momentarily toyed with the idea of refusing him and getting into another argument, but the truth was, I was fresh out of fight after the day I’d had yesterday.

The Rob thing really worried me, and the kiss with Cruz didn’t help matters at all. Like bangs in fifth grade, it never should’ve happened, and I wouldn’t let it happen again.

I knew he’d been drunk beforehand—I could taste the whiskey on his lips—and figured it was a human error on both our parts. But dang, he made some convincing points about why we should hook up.

“All right. Let me call Bear and make sure he’s okay, and then we’ll go.”