Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 263 - 1

Chapter 263: Chapter 1

Surrounded by a private garden filled with the scent of blooming jasmine and frangipani, Rayne stood on the terrace of the villa that Maximum Everett had reserved for them at the Island Club and gazed at a scene that looked very much like a slice of paradise.

Beneath a dazzling blue sky with puffy white clouds, graceful sailboats and gleaming yachts glided through the sparkling waters of Ocean Breeze Haven.

Nearby, sunbathers relaxed on a crescent-shaped beach with sand as white as granulated sugar while attentive hotel employees hovered in the background in case someone raised a little flag, indicating they wanted a chilled towel or a drink or something to eat.

A couple who was trying to paddle a kayak near the shore gave up and waded out of the water, laughing and dragging the kayak behind them.

Rayne smiled with pure enjoyment before a fresh wave of isolation swept over her and drowned it out. The island of Maranta was breathtakingly beautiful, and the hotel was a fairy-tale Moorish palace, with domes and turrets and fabulous gardens, but she was completely alone.

Instead of distracting her from her grief over her father’s death, being alone in this alien tropical paradise was compounding the unreality and isolation she’d felt since his funeral four months ago.

She heard her phone ring from the room, and she rushed in from the terrace, hoping it would be Max, who had promised he’d be here today to spend the rest of their stay with her. But her excitement was momentarily drowned away when she saw it wasn’t him.

"Rayne, it’s Mia. Hold on a second—" Her best friend’s cheerful voice was a balm to Rayne’s spirits, as was the familiar sound of her children’s voices in the background.

She’d given birth to a bouncing, beautiful girl, who was a carbon copy of her father with large brown eyes that almost took up all the space on her small face. However, whenever they spoke on the phone these days, it was almost impossible to have a conversation with Mia that wasn’t accompanied by a chorus of a crying baby or laughter.

"Sorry about the noise," Mia said a little breathlessly. "The twins are fighting over who gets to hold Melissa, and Neil is too smitten by his only daughter to let them hold her or even touch a hair on her head. It’s chaotic having to deal with three males at once. So, how’s Maranta?"

"It’s a beautiful island, very pristine."

"How are you feeling? Have you had any more headaches since the funeral?" Mia asked, hitting her husband’s hand, which came from behind and wrapped around her waist while holding their daughter in one arm. But despite her hit, he pulled her down to his lap as he sat on the sofa and leaned his chin on her shoulder to listen to her conversation with Rayne, who he’d come to like as a friend as well.

"Not since the one I had five days ago on the plane from Mirage Mesa. It was so bad that when we landed on the island, Max made his driver take us to a doctor. The driver took us to his own doctor, a nice old man whose office was in his house and he spoke only Spanish. The driver spoke some English, so he had to act as a translator."

"Thank God you weren’t having gynecological problems!"

Smiling at Mia’s joking remark, Rayne said, "Evidently, the driver got the point across, because the doctor decided I was having migraines—that was the only word the doctor said that I completely understood. Anyway, he gave me a prescription for migraine pills that I’m supposed to take every day for the next two weeks. I’ve been taking them, but I think the headaches were probably from stress and they’d have gone away on their own when I got settled in down here."

"Keep taking them anyway," Mia ordered sternly; and when Rayne promised she would, Mia changed to a lighter topic. "What about the Island Club—what’s it like?"

Carefully keeping her tone upbeat for Mia’s sake, Rayne described the hotel. "There are forty private villas scattered along the beach, each with its own garden and terrace and a panoramic view of the water. Everything is white: the hotel, the villas, even the floors in the rooms. The bathroom is the size of my living room, and the tub is like a shallow sunken swimming pool. The main hotel where you check in is quite small, but the boutiques inside it are fabulous and the food here is superb."

"Have you seen any movie stars?"

"A bellboy told me Vincent Robert, the famous movie star, stayed here last week and Naomi Dave was here a month ago. The president’s family are staying in one of the villas that has bodyguards who follows their teenage sons around, but I haven’t met the president personally, and I don’t think I would with so much bodyguards around them.

The staff are very, very discreet and extremely service oriented. In fact, there’s a young waiter here I’d love to have working in the Wallace Corporation..." Rayne babbled on, trying to sound cheerful instead of forlorn.

Mia wasn’t fooled. "Do not think about the corporation or what your ass of a brother did. Put Max on the phone. I’m going to give him strict orders to make you laugh and make love to you so you can’t think about anything else until you come home."

Rayne hesitated and then reluctantly said, "Max isn’t here."

"Is he out playing golf again?" Mia asked, knowing how her friend’s boyfriend was obsessed with golf.

"He isn’t playing golf, he’s in Mirage Mesa."

"What?" Mia said angrily.

"His father was supposed to sign an important deal that would help their company," Rayne explained, "but something went wrong. Max had to turn around and go straight back to Mirage Mesa to persuade the other company to sign the deal."

"When is he planning to get back to Maranta?" Mia asked bitterly, hating the fact that Rayne still refused to accept the truth that Max was a complete walking red flag and that he didn’t deserve someone like her.

They had been dating for more than five years now, but the bastard still hadn’t proposed to her nor treated her like the queen she was. He was supposed to be there for her in such a moment when she was still grieving for the death of her father.

"Tomorrow, possibly. Maybe. I really don’t know," Rayne said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Max is an arrogant, thoughtless jerk, and I don’t care what his excuse is for not being there. He barely made it to your father’s wake before it was over because he had to attend some rich old man’s birthday party. He knew you didn’t want to go on this trip so soon after your father’s funeral, but he made you feel so guilty that you went with him anyway. And now you’re stuck there alone. That’s so selfish of him!" Mia exclaimed in anger, abruptly standing up from her husband’s lap, who reached out to grab her back to pull her down on his lap so he could listen to whatever was being said and be close to his wife like always.

"Actually, there’s a rather handsome male here that I’ve been seeing a lot of. Eric and I have been having our meals together."

Mia was instantly intrigued, happy to know that her friend was finally seeing another guy instead of staying loyal to a jerk. "What’s he like?"

With the phone still cradled on her shoulder, Rayne walked onto the terrace and described the dog, which she’d named Eric, as he wolfed down each piece of bacon she offered him, then waited patiently for the next one. "He’s extremely tall with light brown hair and very intelligent brown eyes. He’s surprisingly gentle, too, for such a big guy. I call him Eric."

Mia heard the trace of wry amusement in Rayne’s voice. "What’s wrong with him, Rayne?" she said warily.

"He’s much too thin, he needs a bath, and he’s never seen a hairbrush."

"My God! What sort of a man is that?!"

"A man with four legs."

"Now that’s a problem you can’t fix," Mia laughed, leaning back into her husband’s arm. "Are we talking about a dog or a cat here?"

"A very big dog," Rayne confirmed, grinning as she gave the dog the last of the bacon and wiped her fingers on the napkin. "He reminds me of the dog Neil got for your boys last year. With short tan hair and a black muzzle. I think you said his breed was originally used to chase tigers and tire them out."

"Not tigers, lions," Mia said. "He is a Rhodesian Ridgeback."

"Well, Eric doesn’t have a ridge on his back and he’s definitely a stray. He has two scruffy girlfriends, much smaller than he is, and they always join us for meals, but Eric has started dropping by without them, just to say hello. He’s a bit of a flirt."

"While we’re on the subject of flirting, will you do me one little favor while you’re stuck there all by yourself, because Max is ’too busy’ to get down there?"

"What sort of favor?" Rayne asked, instantly wary of Mia’s change in tone.

"Are there any attractive unmarried human males staying at the hotel?"

"I don’t think so."

"Okay, then have you seen a decent-looking doorman? A cute bellboy?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because it would make me deliriously happy if I thought you’d had a fling with one of them while Max was paying the damned hotel bill," Mia said spitefully.

Rayne smothered a laugh. "Okay."

The anger in Mia’s voice turned to surprise as she didn’t mean those words. "Wait. You’ll do it?"

"No," Rayne said with a wayward smile, "but I’ll let you think I did, if that will make you ’deliriously happy.’ "

Bantering with Mia had lifted Rayne’s spirits a little, and when she hung up, she tried to decide how best to keep herself occupied. She could go for a swim and then have a late lunch in the Stonebar, a cozy little restaurant with a covered patio and Moorish arches. It had a splendid view of the bay, and if she didn’t feel like staring at the water, she could read the book she’d bought at the airport called Coping with Grief.

If she didn’t want to do that, she could start making a list of the tasks she needed to take care of as soon as she got back to Mirage Mesa. She had things she needed to handle at the Wallace Corporation, which was on the path to going bankrupt because of what Jason had done, and now that she was solely responsible for it, she also had dozens of things to take care of relating to her father’s death and his estate.

Normally, the simple act of writing things down in orderly lists made Rayne feel much better and more able to cope. In fact, she made lists all the time when she was under pressure—lists of tasks to handle, in order of importance, and lists of pros and cons when she had a difficult decision to make. Mia teased her about being a compulsive list maker, but it worked for Rayne.

Now that she had a plan for the afternoon, Rayne felt better and more energized. Before another bout of sadness and helplessness could wear her down, she changed into a blue bathing suit and wrapped a matching sarong-style cover-up around her waist; then she put her book and a tablet from the desk drawer into a black canvas tote bag she was using as a combination purse and beach bag, and she left for the beach. First an invigorating swim and then a delicious lunch, she decided, unaware that she was about to meet someone who would change the course of her life and plan.