“Oh God,” I groaned.
“Sure surprised me that he actually asked me for advice about a chick. Dude’s been beating them off just fine until you came along. He never needed any of my opinions before.”
“What did you tell him?” The only thing that was preventing me from hurling was morbid curiosity about the train wreck I’d made of the past couple hours.
“I told him he’d probably have to tell you sooner or later and asked him if he trusted you?”
“And he said?”
“He said he trusted you more than he’s ever trusted any woman.”
“Oh no.” Could I have behaved any worse?
“Rene, what happened?”
“Just tell me the rest.”
“Not much left to tell. I’ve never actually seen him so . . . human. He told me he felt like there were things you needed to know. That there were truths about him you needed to understand. I told him to take a shot.”
I leaned over the transom and considered jumping into the dirty water and just swimming away. My temples throbbed with the horrible realization that I had done exactly what Dylan had feared I would do. I couldn’t massage them hard enough to make the thought go away.
“So are you going to tell me what happened or do I get to stand here and wonder?”
“Oh Stephen, I failed him miserably. I couldn’t handle it. He was right to worry. I’m afraid I did exactly what he was afraid I would do.”
“You mean to tell me that you . . .”
“More or less rejected him? Yes.”
“Wow. That’s harsh. You don’t strike me as the type to just ditch someone you so obviously care about. I mean, I saw how you nursed him and how you worried. I was sure you were pretty serious about Dylan.”
“I am! But I’m just not sure I’m ready to take on the kind of issues he’s got. Okay? Call me immature.”
“I’d call you cold.” Stephen’s face was a study in disappointment.
“I deserve that.”
“You 're right as rain about that, sister. I’m sorry but here’s a guy who opens up to you—which is what women are always asking for—and you bail on him? Do you have any idea what that’s got to do to him?”
“You aren’t making it any easier. I didn’t say I’m bailing on him. All I said was that I needed some time to think. Then he went off on me.”
“I can’t say I blame him, Rene. The man agonizes over telling you a story he hasn’t even told me—his best friend. The great Dylan Cruz was actually afraid to share his deepest and darkest because he didn’t want to freak you out. And what do you do? You freak out.”
“I did not freak out. I just asked for some time to digest it all.”
“Have you ever told someone you love him and he doesn’t say it back?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s terrible. Not saying it back is just the same as saying ‘well, I don’t love you’. You just did that to Dylan, only it was him giving you his trust and you needing time to think.”
“Stephen, please . . .”
“No. We’re talking about the best friend I have in the world. He opened up a wound and you poured salt into it. What the hell can be so terrible—tell me!—that you’d walk away? How can someone’s past be so important? Did he rape his babysitter? Did he off his sister? Does he have an incurable inherited disease that you can catch?”
“He was abused.”
“Big deal. See this pretty smile of mine? Nice dentistry, huh? My dad knocked four of my front teeth out when I was sixteen over a lost fish. I’ve never had a girlfriend reject me because of it.”
“It’s more than that. A lot more.”
“Whatever. I’m going in and see if I can pour a bottle of Grey down the poor guy’s throat.” He looked at me with utter contempt. “I really believed Dylan had found someone different. I liked you. A lot.”
“Stephen, you don’t understand.”
“You’re absolutely right. I don’t understand. But I sure understand now why Dylan was worried about telling you his sad story. And I feel like a real dog for encouraging him to go for it.”
“None of this is your fault.”
“You’re right. But unlike you, I have at least some loyalty to the man and I’m going to do what I can to help him.” Stephen left me standing in the cockpit just as a damp stinky wind blew over the deck. I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I did when I left Dylan’s room, but I was wrong. I couldn’t blame the captain for ripping into me like that. I deserved it in spades.
I dropped into one of the chairs on deck and started to cry big, sorry-for-myself tears. I felt utterly alone and incredibly stupid. The big girl pants that Hannah always wanted me to pull up were nowhere in sight. I had acted with the maturity of a ten year old and hurt someone I truly cared about in the bargain.
It was impossible to rationalize my way out of the utter shallowness of my reaction. Yes, Nathan had been a royal jerk who always claimed his crappy attitude toward women was his mother’s fault. But Dylan wasn’t Nathan. Not even close.
I dragged myself out of the deck chair and walked through the palatial salon toward the hall that would lead me to Dylan’s room. I checked myself when I remembered that Stephen would be in there consoling him. So I just made a sad left turn and crawled into my little cave at the back of the galley.
Escaping into sleep, I dreamed of Dylan. Dylan naked in the night light of the kitchen lights. Dylan laughing in the sun with beautiful women. Dylan strong and feral, hunting the big fish. Dylan owning my body with his.
I woke up in the middle of the night, saturated with images of him. There’d been so little time since we arrived in London for me to digest all that had happened. In the silent aftermath of my dreams I remembered how it had felt to watch over him as he fought for his life against the deadly infection. Every molecule in my body had willed him to live. Plenty of moments had me praying that I could suck the fever from him with the force of my . . . love for him.
So, I said it to myself. I loved him. Maybe that was the scariest part of all. My mother always told me that you don’t love a person just ‘because of’. She said that you also love a person ‘in spite of’. That never seemed very romantic to me. But it made sense. I loved Dylan for his complexity, for his pure animal heat, for his powerful masculinity, for his humanity and humor. I loved him in spite of the damaged parts, the broken family and his cynical past.
When I battled myself back to a calmer sleep, it was with a plan. In the morning, I’d tell him how I felt and hope that he would forgive my hesitation and abandonment. He had to.
Chapter 4—Dylan
It was nice of Stephen to come to my stateroom but there wasn’t much he could say that would ease the pain. Even the bottle he brought with him did little to numb me. I didn’t feel like talking much and I didn’t even feel like drinking much. He clearly wanted me to tell him the whole convoluted tale that sent Rene packing, but I was in no mood. Telling it once in a day was one time too many.
He finally left me alone with my thoughts. Those thoughts mainly centered on escape. It wasn’t the most productive way to handle my situation, but running away kept cropping up as the most appealing option. After all, I couldn’t untell the story.
She’d given me a clear enough answer. I was too complicated, too messy for her to handle. So be it.
I threw some stuff in a bag and clunked out of my room and off the boat. I nearly fell off the gangplank. A few drinks and a pair of crutches do not make a steady man. The guard in the cockpit moved toward me as if to help me but the look I gave him sent him shrinking back into the shadows.
This time I checked into a swank hotel right off of Hyde Park. I didn’t need to be near El Loco. I worried a little about leaving Lady D. alone again, but Rene and Stephen could take good care of her. Whatever else I might have thought about Rene at that moment, she was a fine monkey-mama. It still surprised me how much Lady Delaney took to her. At first I had taken it as a ‘sign�
�� that Rene was somehow uniquely right for me. It made me feel stupid to recall the weight I’d attached to a capuchin’s opinion.
The room was pure luxury and the staff got me comfortably settled in despite the late hour and my rather scruffy appearance. I’m sure I wasn’t the first eccentrically underdressed dude who ever crossed their threshold.
Once I got settled in, I spent the next couple of hours surfing fishing forums. I read about angler adventures until my eyes were too tired to go on. I put my tablet beside me on the bed and fell asleep in the wee small hours fully clothed.
When morning came, I realized that I hadn’t packed anything I really needed. The hotel sent up a razor and a toothbrush but without clean dressings for my leg I couldn’t take a proper shower. Board shorts and t-shirts weren’t exactly the right attire for London, either, so I ordered a huge breakfast from room service rather than embarrass myself in the fancy hotel restaurant.
Eating reminded me of Rene. She was a better cook than this fancy hotel had because she cooked for me. Maybe it was my imagination but every meal she put in front of me told me she cared. I pushed the thought from my mind.
By mid-morning I gave Stephen a call to let him know where I was and ask him to bring me a few things from the boat. At least with a pair of khaki’s and a regular shirt I could go shopping. The meeting with my father was going to require the right costume.
“Hey man, how’s it going?”
“Boss, where the hell are you?”
“Hyde Park Mandarin. Nice place.”
“We were worried when you weren’t in your room this morning.”
“We?”
“Rene’s frantic. She went in to wake you up with breakfast this morning. Freaked out when you weren’t there.”
“What do you mean—freaked out?”
“She was crying, okay? She apologized to me, to you and your monkey for being, as she put it, a coward and a traitor to just about everything but the Queen of England. She kept begging me to tell her where you went and when I couldn’t she flew out of here. I guess she went looking for you, but I wouldn’t guess she’ll find you. London’s a big place.”
I tried hard not to be happy with the thought that Rene was wandering around London frantically trying to find me. But it did make me happy. At that moment I wanted her to suffer a little. She deserved it for being—her words—a coward.
“I need you to bring me all the medical crap. The bandages, the antibiotics and the stuff I’m supposed to put on the wound when I change the bandages. Also grab me a pair of khakis, a decent shirt and some shoes. I need to go shopping.”
“Aren’t you coming back to the boat?”
“Not for a couple days. I need to see my father and I can use the time to clear my head. Rene can wait. She doesn’t need to know where I am.”
“Can I at least tell her that I know you’re safe?”
“I’ll kill you if you do. Let her worry and wonder.”
“That seems a bit cruel. You didn’t see her reaction when she found you had gone. She’s genuinely sorry.”
“She’ll still be sorry when I get back. Or not. Maybe she has some thinking to do, too.” The wound was fresh and I was in an unforgiving mood.
“Look, I was mad at her for bailing on you too. But she explained to me . . .”
“I don’t care what she explained. I told you: Rene can wait. This meeting with Jackson is too important for me to go into with a clouded head.”
“I’ll bring the stuff.” From his tone, I could tell that Stephen wasn’t happy about my refusal to patch things up. But he hadn’t been there when I laid my naked soul out for her and he didn’t know the full story. Unless she’d told him. “What exactly did Rene explain, Captain?”
“Not enough to suit me, mystery man. Only that your past was too complicated for her to handle all at once. That she got confused and there were ‘words’ between you. She’s almost as good as you in terms of playing it close to the vest.”
Good. I would have found it hard to forgive her if she’d spilled my story to Stephen. It was mine, and only mine, to share.
“Get over here as quickly as you can. Room 342.” I told my friend.
“I’m on it,” he answered.
Once again I had reason to be thankful for my old pal. He didn’t have the whole picture and he didn’t quite agree with me, but he was willing to help me. Sometimes I wondered if I had as much loyalty inside me. If our roles were reversed, could I be as patient?
When Stephen brought the things up, I didn’t express my gratitude very well. In fact, I sort of grabbed the stuff and hustled him out of the room. I was through talking about Rene. She had to go into a box for the time being.
By the time I cleaned myself up, dressed the wound and put my clothes on, I was exhausted again. But I dragged myself out of the hotel and hailed a taxi to take me to Saville Row. I wouldn’t have time to get a tailor made suit, but I was sure I could find something of suitable quality to satisfy my father. I intended to buy the finest suit, shoes and accessories I could find.
There was a good deal of perverse satisfaction in tallying up several thousand pounds on the credit card my father provided for my use in keeping El Loco well appointed. “Let the old man pay for it” had been my bitter mantra for too long. It made me my father’s serf, which is exactly what I figured he wanted me to be.
His office was not located in the flagship hotel. Jackson found it more efficient to operate his empire from the cloisters of one of London’s most prestigious addresses. He once told me that actually being in one of the hotels was a distraction because he would always find some detail that needed to be fixed.
That’s the way he operated as a father, too. When he was around us, we distracted him because we so desperately needed to be fixed. So he stayed away from the asylum that he called ‘home’ for as many days in the year as possible.
The receptionist sat in an almost comical caricature of what a tycoon’s office should look like. Dear old dad went for the dark wood paneled vibe with maroon leather sofas and lots of books. They weren’t fake books, either. There was a vast and respectable library of finely bound volumes meant to convey class and culture. Funny, in all the years I’d been his son, I’d never seen him read anything more involved than a newspaper. He hid very well behind the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times.
She was expecting me, but I was clearly not what she expected.
“Mr. Cruz?” she asked when I approached her massively ridiculous desk. “You father is expecting you but he asked that you wait a few minutes while he finishes his conference call.”
Predictable. Even though he had ample warning to clear his schedule, my father couldn’t resist making me wait. It was all part of the game.
The secretary was a brittle bottle redhead. I was surprised that my father would hire a woman with such an unnatural shade of burgundy hair. Maybe it was because she matched the upholstery. She looked me over at embarrassing length.
“You do favor your father,” she cooed at me. “I daresay you Cruz men are a handsome bunch.” Her accent was as fake as the hair. Lurking under all the London was the unmistakable twang of England’s lower classes. Her ‘father’ came out ‘fava’.
I was expected to respond to the compliment. “Thanks.” I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her and tell her she was cute.
“What happened to you?” she asked, casting her eyes at my crutches. Way, way too much make-up was all I could think. I was tempted to tell her it was a congenital deformity just to shut her up.
“I had a little accident.” Please don’t grill me on it.
She got up and sashayed over to a panel below one of the bookshelves and pressed a button. A bar slid out. “Something to drink?” Sumpfin to drink?
“No thanks. It’s a little early.”
She laughed like I’d made a huge joke. “I meant coffee or tea or something.” Sumpfin.
“Thanks, I’m good.” I was trying to avoid the bedroom ey
es she was throwing at me.
“Oh, I’ll bet you are that, eh, luv?”
Good god. I willed my father to relieve me of this predatory tart. When I didn’t respond to her remark she took the hint and returned to her desk, all swishy hips and shiny polyester.
“Maybe you’d like to grab a bite after your meeting? Mr. Cruz would let me ‘ave an early lunch.” Brassy and bold. I wondered if she put the make on the old man. I had a little inside chuckle thinking of how appalled he would be to have this piece of work come on to him.
“Uh, really, I can’t. Business.” Let. This. End.
“You staying in London long?”
“Not long.” I looked around for a magazine to open. Anything to bring this painful flirtation to a close.
“Where ya’ staying?”
“The Mayfair,” I lied. I wouldn’t put it past this girl to come and find me.
“I’ve always wanted to see the inside of one of those fancy rooms,” she sighed dramatically and pointedly. I waited for her to flutter her false eyelashes at me. It would have added just the perfect touch to her performance.
Mercifully, I heard the discreet little buzzer that signaled I was to be let into the inner sanctum.
“Mr. Cruz will see you now Mr. Cruz.” She giggled at herself. I suppose she thought that was clever. As I walked past toward her desk she shot up out of her chair to open the door for me. Predictably, she managed to brush suggestively against me as I passed
I waited for the door to close before I spoke.
Chapter 5—Rene
Dear Hannah,
It’s a little after ten a.m. London time and I know you’d kill me if I woke you up now. So, I’ll have to settle for writing. I have to ‘talk’ somehow to someone. I’m so glad we got a chance to talk for real yesterday.
You really did make me feel better. You’re the perpetual voice of reason and don’t ever forget how much I love and appreciate you! Honestly, I wonder how I would have gotten through the last couple days without you. Captain Stephen says he has forgiven me for my awful behavior toward Dylan, but there’s still a distance. For one thing, I know that he knows something about where Dylan is but he absolutely refuses to tell me anything. He won’t even confirm that Dylan’s okay.
Tempest Tossed: A Love Unexpected Novel Page 20
