Chapter Seven
Jackie
The distinct smell of the sunscreen wafted into Jackie’s nose.
She massaged it into her arms, making sure she covered her shoulders.
Her fingers stumbled over a raised patch of hot skin, right under her collarbone.
She winced, lathering more sunscreen over the sunburned area.
After spending the past month in Cancún, she should’ve gotten used to religiously re-applying the coconut emulsion.
But old habits die hard, and having lived her twenties like there was no tomorrow, becoming a respectable thirty-two-year-old was much harder than it seemed.
Jackie sighed, pulling her wavy black hair into a ponytail.
The satin hair tie had barely managed to gather the thick, shoulder-length strands.
Some days she missed how long her hair used to be.
It took up too much time and attention when she was traveling the world.
She had chopped it off with rusty scissors while sitting cross-legged on the floor in a hostel in Belgium, when she was trying to run away from her last name and everything that came with it. It’d been short ever since.
Liar. You chopped it off because you didn’t want to look like her.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
“Come in!” Jackie walked out of her bathroom.
A young woman wearing the hotel staff’s teal uniform hesitated at the threshold.
“What is it, Rea?”
Rea chewed on her bottom lip. “I’m so sorry, Miss van Moetlier, I know it’s your day off, but we have a situation downstairs.”
Jackie raised her brows, crossing her arms over her chest. “What kind of situation?”
“The airport shuttle arrived with new guests,” Rea started. “There’s one guest who has been proving … difficult.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s booked in the honeymoon suite. Luis tried to check him in and, politely, asked about the Mrs. but that set him off.”
Jackie’s expression hardened. “Did he hurt anyone?”
Rea shook her head. “Nothing like that. He laughed into Luis’s face and plopped himself onto the couch in the lobby. Said he isn’t sleeping in the honeymoon suite.”
At that, Jackie snorted. Their honeymoon suite was the most spacious, with the best view from the balcony over the gardens and out onto the Caribbean Sea.
No one would turn down a honeymoon suite.
For all she cared that weird man could sleep in the cleaning cupboard instead.
Although that would probably inconvenience her staff, so maybe not the best idea.
She massaged her left temple, trying to think.
This wasn’t the most ridiculous thing that had happened in her five years of working at different van Moetlier hotels around the world.
When she turned twenty-seven, her parents had sat her down and told her they had been “concerned” about the fact she had been living day to day, with no care or thought about consequences.
They presented her with two options: either get a job or work for them.
Jackie chose the latter, and her parents, who were never good with setting firm boundaries when it came to their only child, agreed she could hop between different hotels, depending on the needs of their business.
Surprisingly, Jackie discovered she enjoyed the work. It didn’t take long before she realized her parents were right, and as much as she grumbled about it at the beginning, she appreciated that they always looked out for her. Even after things had become strained in her early twenties.
That was how she had ended up being Mexican Jewel’s manager. Well, a temporary one.
“We’re fully booked, right?” she asked Rea.
“Booked up until after the New Year.”
Jackie grimaced. There was no alternative room they could put the disgruntled guest in. “I’ll come down and talk to him myself. Thank you for letting me know about it, Rea.”
Rea nodded. “Of course.”
Jackie’s smart white trainers slid on the freshly washed marble floor as she got out of the elevator. She caught herself, straightening her posture. “Gabriel, could you please put out the ‘wet floor’ sign?”
“Of course, sorry Miss van Moetlier.” Gabriel jogged to a cleaning trolley and pulled out a yellow plastic sign.
“It’s fine. I just don’t want any accidents with three weeks to go until Christmas.”
Gabriel gave her a mock salute and she bit back a smile.
She tried to get the staff to use her first name instead of that “Miss van Moetlier” nonsense.
Everyone hummed in acknowledgement whenever she brought it up but went back to their old ways at their next interaction.
“It’s a sign of respect. Don’t take it as anything else,” Estrella—Rea’s mother—had told her when she had brought it up once, while visiting their equestrian facility just off the hotel grounds.
Luis was standing behind the reception desk, and his brown eyes flooded with alarm when he clocked Jackie’s presence.
She weaved through chatting guests and other staff members, smiling at anyone who caught her eye. “Rea filled me in. Where’s that difficult guest?”
Luis let out a relieved breath. “Thank you for coming. I don’t really know what to do with him. He refused to check in. I asked if he wanted to get back to the airport. He didn’t.”
“Where is he now?”
Luis gestured toward the emerald couch in the corner of the lobby. It faced the floor-to-ceiling double door, leading out to the terrace restaurant.
“I think he fell asleep. He smelled like he bathed in alcohol.”
Jackie groaned.
Great. A drunk. How delightful.
She squared her shoulders. It was fine. She could manage this. And if things got out of hand and he got aggressive, the hotel security could deal with him.
“He’s more pathetic than dangerous,” Luis added as if he could read her mind. “I brought him a bottle of water after he slumped there. He told me his fiancée left him at the altar.”
Her chest squeezed with sympathy. That was rather sad. No wonder he didn’t want to stay in the honeymoon suite. If it was her, she probably wouldn’t have even come.
“Thanks, Luis.” She gave him a nod and set off in the direction of the couch.
Even before Jackie saw him, she could hear his snoring.
A worn straw cowboy hat covered his face.
His legs were crossed at the ankles, and a small smile tugged on her lips when she noticed his old cowboy boots and belt adorned with a large buckle showing two horses.
The gray T-shirt stretched across his broad chest, showing off nicely shaped shoulders.
Jackie’s heart tripped over itself, something familiar stirring deep in her core. It had been a while since she had been in a real cowboy’s company. She had grown up on a ranch outside Austin, so this stranger pressed the homesick note on the keyboard of her heart.
Home was the place she had avoided for years now, if she could help it. The memories, the whispered promises of forever with the boy who had been her everything, and the reminders of the life she wanted but couldn’t have … They were too much.
She crouched next to the man and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, sir?”
He didn’t even stir.
Jackie put her hand on his forearm and shook it. “Sir?”
He jolted upright, his hat falling to the floor.
Every cell in Jackie’s body froze the instant she met his gaze. She fell into his green eyes—through the years, through all the heartache and all the tears. It was like someone had cast a spell, stopping time.
Apparently, fate had a wicked sense of humor. How else could she explain that the wifeless disgruntled honeymooner at her parents’ hotel was the same boy she’d never managed to get out of her head, heart and mind?
She swallowed a thick lump in her dry throat. “Mitch?”
He looked as shocked as she was. “Jacqueline van Moetlier. Well, hello.”
The corners of her eyes pricked with hot tears. This was too much. Seeing him like this, out of the blue, after everything that had happened …
Realizing her hand was still resting on his skin, she jumped up, flexing her fingers like they’d been burned. Then, without another word, she turned and ran.