Cruise reaches up and turns off the jets.
“The bubbles hide what I want to see.”
My body is languid and pliant in the hot water. Cruise pulls me onto his lap. The bubbles have completely died away, and I can see our bodies, distorted beneath the water, but beautiful as we come together.
Every time we have sex, I worry that it’s the last time. That something will tear us apart. It’s a terrible feeling, but it makes each experience frantic, keeps me clawing at his back, thinking I’ll never get enough of him.
He slides inside me, and I throw my head back. “Don’t move,” he commands, and he takes control, moving me, slowly and then faster.
Gasping for breath, the room suddenly hotter and more humid than is comfortable, he swivels me to another position, and I lean forward, my elbows pillowed on the fluffy white towel he placed at the edge of the tub, and he pounds into me.
Afterwards, half the water is out of the hot tub.
His face is red from the heat, or possibly the exertion. “Ready for a run on the beach?”
“Always.” I never turn down his offers to run together, because I know how much it helps, nearly as much as the glorious sex we just shared, to get out his negative feelings.
As I’m putting on my clothes, my phone beeps, and I ignore it, but when we return from the run, I see that I have a message. Richard Bancroft is on his way home. Our interlude is over. Tomorrow we will learn what he thinks about me taking the initiative to begin renovating the hotel.
Chapter 14
I spend the entire morning mooning around the lobby, polishing and re-polishing the marble. Mr. Bancroft’s car pulls up just after lunch, and I find myself unable to breathe, I’m so nervous. Cruise was painting the trim in the second floor hallway, but he makes himself scarce, when his father arrives.
Richard stops at the edge of the lobby, his eyes going wide.
“What’s all this?” he asks. He stops to admire the seashell columns, pauses by the fountain.
“Mr. Bancroft?”
Sheila is by his side, questioning, and when he turns I see that there are tears in his eyes.
“It’s just like my wife envisioned,” he whispers. “Were you responsible for this transformation, Sheila?”
“Not me. It was Maya, the new manager. She’s been working night and day to make improvements.”
He turns to me.
“Amazing job, young lady. We will discuss this after I’ve had a few moments to settle in. Have dinner with me this evening in the dining room?”
I agree to this plan. The only thing that mars the moment is that Cruise has disappeared. As his father surveys the lobby, we all hear the revving of a motorcycle from the delivery dock. Richard Bancroft frowns, but doesn’t say anything about his disgraced son.
That evening, we sit in front of the big window overlooking the bay. Richard is sipping a bourbon and water. I’m sipping an actual water with a slice of lemon.
“So you’ve transformed my hotel in just a week?” His voice is wondering.
“I only transformed the lobby, and it was an easy fix, just some effort from the staff, not investment needed. The other areas will need more capital.”
“Which is something we struggle to find. The families who used to be proud to vacation at Seascape Villas go further and further afield. First it was the virgin islands, then Mexico, now they go to Costa Rica.”
“We need to draw them back here,” I say. “Recreate that sense of community. I know your hotel used to have it.”
“When my wife was alive,” he says. “She made this place into a resort that families spent weeks in. People dressed for dinner and returned every year. When she passed, it all faded.”
“Maybe, sometime we can discuss what she did to create that atmosphere,” I suggest gently.
“When she died I never thought it would return.” He looks at me wonderingly. “But maybe you…maybe you car do it. God knows, neither of my sons care enough about the property.”
I could argue this point with him, but he’s not ready to hear anything good about Cruise, or anything negative about Adrian. I feel like a traitor, basking in Richard Bancroft’s approval when Cruise wants his father’s approbation so badly, but for right now, it’s the best thing to further our plans.
“I’m sorry that I was gone for so long, and right when you arrived. I expected to return to chaos. Instead I had this lovely surprise.”
Perhaps the bourbon is making him sentimental.
“I went to visit my late wife’s family, to try to convince them to invest in the hotel. We are losing money, but, as you obviously realized, we won’t pull the crowds back in without renovations and upgrades.”
“A lazy river water attraction,” I suggest.
“An entire outdoor pool area with a bar at the side,” he agrees.