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Cry
The room looked the same. Why she thought or believed the room she shared with Cruz was going to be
different somehow after only a couple of nights away was confusing to her. Yet, in her mind, as she looked
around the room and saw all her belongings exactly where she left them, interspersed with Cruz’s things, she
felt the urge to cry. Nothing was changed.
“What’s wrong?” Cruz immediately noted the way she was rapidly blinking.
“I thought it would be altered.”
“Altered how?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe my things would be gone or put away or yours would be packed up.”
He smiled as he took her hand and led her to the bathroom. “Now why would I pack stuff up? I wasn’t leaving here without you, Presley.” He turned the shower on. “Do you want help or do you want some time alone?”
“Would you be upset if I said I wanted some time alone?”
“You’ve been surrounded by men for the last twenty–four hours, all of whom you didn’t know. I completely understand why you want to be alone. Take your shower. I’ll dig through your clothes and find some pjs for you. Take your time. If you need me, all you need to do is call my name and I’ll be right outside the door.”
“You will?”
“Honey, as much as I know you need a few minutes alone, I’m struggling to let you out of my sight.” He smiled at her. “You know how some girls sleep in their boyfriend’s shirts? If I weren’t so big, I’d have slept in your
t–shirts.”
She giggled at his words and then when he left the room she began getting undressed to step into the hot water which was quickly steaming up the bathroom. It didn’t take long though for the emotions of the day to catch up with her and for the tears she needed to shed to clog her throat and blur her vision. She spent as much time sobbing her heart out knowing she was safe and didn’t have to go to Sicily to have the babies of a crazy man as she did when she finally scrubbed her body. While Liborio had not touched her, she somehow still felt tainted. A thought occurred to her, and she called out for Cruz.
“What is it?”
She realized he wasn’t kidding when he said he was standing right outside the door as it swung in before she finished even saying his name. She noted immediately how he was changed into cotton pajama bottoms and was bare chested. She drank in the sight of him, immediately forgetting what she called him in for.
“Presley,” he snapped his fingers, “honey, what’s wrong?”
“We can’t stay in this room. He kept recording devices, audio maybe even video.” The words rushed from her mouth in a panic.
“Shh,” he held up his fingers to his lips maintaining distance between them as he held onto the door handle. ” Belkin has a hell of a tech team, and they came in and swept the entire room. They have all the bugs. There was no video, only audio.”
“It’s all gone?”
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< Cry
+ Points 2.
“All of it. The room is silent. Actually, before Belkin even got here, Algernon started with some of his security guys to clear the rooms and then Belkin’s team found only one extra bug which was on the patio. Algernon admitted he wasn’t as worried as we were because he didn’t think Liborio would go so far as to kidnap you, especially after the way he reacted to Mina. He felt quite badly about it.”
“Liborio told me it was a ruse. He said he threw me off with his faked reaction to Mina.”
“Mina didn’t like him at all so I’m glad for her sake he wasn’t serious.”
“You and Mina talked about it?” she questioned curiously, a hint of jealousy in her tone.
He chuckled at it, “Mina is Algernon’s right hand. She was always around helping to coordinate things. I wasn’t sharing secrets with her, Ladybird. She literally was typing into her laptop voicing her intense hatred for the man. She even said once she wished her coffee were hot and fresh because she’d wanted to add to
the scars on his face with it.”
She smiled, “sorry.”
“For what? Being jealous? Sweetheart, I nearly beat a painter to death for calling you his muse.” He nodded at her, “now, at the risk of sounding like a perv, your body is looking very good standing there in the running water. I’m going to back out and let you finish.” He winked at her boldly.
Giggling she shut the taps off and reached for the towel. “Funny.”
“Who is laughing? I’m serious,” he pointed to his crotch. “He hasn’t got the memo you’re exhausted and needs
to sleep.”
She threw her head back and laughed as he disappeared out of the room with a smile on his face.
Exiting the bathroom, she found her pjs on the bed noting Cruz was on the patio, his back to her, his hands on the rail as he looked out over the water. She watched him as she got dressed and wondered what he was doing and then she saw his shoulders shaking.
Where she’d cried in the privacy of her shower, he was doing it outside. Torn between letting him have his privacy and longing to comfort him, she quietly slid the patio door open and walked behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle and holding him from behind.
“I’m so f*****g sorry,” he whispered, his voice nasally and choked. “I didn’t protect you.”
She rested her cheek against his back as he let out a shuddering breath. “It’s not your fault, Cruz.”
“All the money in the world and I couldn’t keep you safe. The fact you are here with me is a f*****g miracle and I know it. I’m so grateful to Belkin and Algernon to do what I was too stupid to get done.”
“I’m safe and I’m with you and I’m not going anywhere.”
“I love you so much, Presley. I love you and I could finally see us with a future, building something incredible and then it was almost ripped away because I was too complacent. I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself.” “Hey,” she whispered as she slowly turned him around, slightly alarmed at how red his face was. She touched his cheeks to wipe his tears, “I love you too. I’m not going anywhere. You’ll keep me safe moving forward. Now, all I’ve wanted for the last few days is your arms around me. I know you didn’t sleep because I heard you tell Sloane you were working out instead. Let’s get sleep.” She looked at his runny nose, “though you may want to do something with that first.”
He sniffed and laughed, “haven’t cried hard enough to get a snot bubble since my mom died.”
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< Cry
+8 Points>
“Boys are gross.” She rolled her eyes and made her way to the bed and crawled onto it. She watched through the open bathroom door blowing his nose, splashing cold water on his face and then taking deep calming breaths. She realized he was still on the cusp of more tears. She’d never known him to be so emotional but
then they’d been through hell the last little bit. If anything was telling her the depths of his love for her it was
this.
Halima was wrong. She didn’t have second thoughts about Cruz and her relationship. She did feel bad for causing such chaos for everyone, especially Cruz, because she didn’t trust him to protect her. She also did feel the weight of everyone’s judgement on how quickly they were moving. Yet, she knew without a doubt being with Cruz was what was best for her. This was a man who said he’d wait while she carried another man’s baby. If this didn’t speak to love then nothing did but the guilt at asking him to such a thing was
strong.
“Hey,” he interrupted her musings as he crawled onto the bed after turning out the bathroom lights, “I just got my s**t together. Don’t start crying again or we’ll both be soaking our pillows.”
She giggled as he pulled her to lay with her head on his chest. The thudding of his heart under her ear felt familiar and comforting and she exhaled a loud yawn. Her eyes were heavy, and she was almost asleep in seconds, Cruz’s hands making massaging motions down her spine as she snuggled into him. Then her eyes were wide again as he spoke.
“I want us to go to counselling.”
Her head lifted up and she looked at him in surprise. “What?”
“Counselling. Couples therapy. I’m going to go individually but I’d like us to do it together too.”
“Where is this coming from?”
“Our relationship has a basis of hurt and pain, Presley. As much as I love you and as much as I hold so many wonderful memories in my heart, you hold a lot of painful ones. It speaks volumes to me all the things I considered pranks the rest of the world would call abuse. I abused you.” His voice broke as he said it aloud. “I don’t want you to sweep it under the rug. I want to get to the root of why I thought it was okay to hurt you the way I did when we were younger so I can fix it. I love playing tricks and gags and I’m realizing now, I’m a giant f*****g bully.”
“Cruz.” She immediately started to argue with him, but he put his forehead to hers, pulling her up his frame. “Stop,” he whispered softly. “Don’t. You’re going to defend my actions when they are indefensible. This is part of why I want us to start therapy together. I want you to forgive me. I really do. I don’t want you to make excuses for what I did. I need us to both understand what I did was wrong, that I’ll never do those things to you again and most importantly, you don’t need to excuse it. I know you’ve been in therapy for a long time, but I haven’t ever gone. I want to be the best version of me I can be, so you never regret being with me. I want you to come to therapy with me so you can hold me accountable for the things I’ve done, and you can heal.” Tears dripped down her cheeks as she stared at him in disbelief. “Okay. I’ll go with you, on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“I want to go home.”
“What?”
“This entire vacation has been such an emotional rollercoaster, and I desperately want off. I don’t care if we
Cry
change all of my bookings so Sloane and Algernon can take it over, I think they would like it, but I really want to go home.”
“You want to go back to Vancouver?”
“I want to go back to Vancouver.” She nodded decisively. “Lets go back, start our lives over, go to counselling, plan a wedding, date,” she giggled as she saw his eyes watering. “I really want to go on dates with you and be with you without all of this insanity. Can we try being a normal couple without the craziness?”
“I will arrange our flights home tomorrow.” He kissed her forehead.
“Thank you.” She yawned again and snuggled into his chest.
She was going back to Canada.
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