Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 264 - 2

Chapter 264: Chapter 2

A young waiter materialized the instant Rayne’s sandal touched the patio outside the Stonebar, but when he started to lead her to the only vacant table, she hesitated.

For one thing, she needed to get away from the tropical sunlight before it scorched her fair skin right through her sunscreen. For another, the three teenage boys, who she’d been told were the president’s sons on a vacation, were eating at the next table. They’d already tried their youthful, persistent best to flirt with her yesterday right in front of their bodyguards, and now they were eyeing her with renewed hope.

"I think I’d rather eat inside," she told the waiter while glaring slightly at the boys.

The waiter was truly distressed at her words. "But you would have to eat at the bar, unless you want to wait for a table to become available."

Rayne paused beneath a Moorish arch and looked inside. No one was sitting at the small bar, and the high stools looked comfortable with nice backs to lean against. Eating at the bar would suit her fine. She chose a stool facing the patio so she could look out at the water; then she pulled her book, her note tablet, and a pen out of her tote bag.

Satisfied that she had everything she needed, she looped the canvas straps of the black bag over the back of her stool and ordered a salad and a glass of tomato juice for lunch.

Towels had been delivered to her on the beach when she walked out of the water, and now a balmy breeze blew through the little restaurant’s open arches, softly drying her damp hair. It was nice to be away from the glaring sunlight, and the conversations at the tables inside were quiet enough not to intrude on her concentration.

Rayne gazed out at the water, thinking about what list to start on first, tapping the end of the pen on the tablet.

She decided to start with her relationship with Max. The waiter brought her glass of tomato juice just as she drew a vertical line down the notebook page to make two columns. Above the left column she wrote, "Reasons to Continue the relationship"; above the right column she wrote, "Reasons to End it."

She’d been drifting in her relationship with Max, letting it flounder, because she was unsure whether she truly wanted it to go forward. Mia blamed Max for many things, especially the fact that he hadn’t put an engagement ring on Rayne’s finger after almost six years of relationship, but that was mostly Rayne’s doing.

Whenever she sensed he was thinking about marriage, she did or said something guaranteed to make him hold off and rethink the issue. Her father had loved Max, and he would have loved the idea of Rayne marrying into the Everett family. He’d wanted Rayne to have a beautiful life, with no worries about money even without the Wallace, ever...

"What’s that?" she asked the waiter when he put a second glass of tomato juice next to the one she’d barely touched.

"Compliments of the young gentlemen on the patio," he replied with a smile, gesturing towards the president’s sons. "They asked that you be given a glass of whatever you’re drinking and that the charge for it be put on their parents’ bill." Rayne bit back a smile of her own and looked outside toward their table.

Three handsome teenage faces grinned hopefully at her. The family at the table beside them obviously knew what the boys had done, because they were watching Rayne with open curiousity and envy—so was a couple seated near Rayne who’d heard the waiter’s announcement when he gave her the glass of tomato juice. Who wouldn’t want to get the attention of the president’s sons? Only a fool would deny such opportunity, but the last thing Rayne wanted at this moment, was to be an open entertainment to three spoiled brats.

The boys looked as if they ranged in ages from thirteen to seventeen, and Rayne debated a moment about the best way to handle the situation without crushing their egos or offending their parents. "Tell them I said thank you. And—tell them I’m working," she added. That was a little lame, Rayne thought, but it would surely keep them from trying to join her at the bar.

By the time the waiter brought her salad, Rayne had written several items on both sides of her list, but she realized she was too emotional right now to make objective judgments about Max and their feelings for each other.

She gave up on that list and turned the page to start a new one. At the top she wrote, "Things to do to keep the family Corporation." She glanced up as her waiter put another glass of tomato juice in front of her.

"Compliments of the young gentlemen." This time he rolled his eyes and grinned.

When Rayne looked around, several couples at tables inside were watching her, and when she glanced outside at the boys, everyone around them was watching her as well—except for a man seated with his back to her, alone at the table she’d declined earlier. Embarrassed for the boys, not herself, Rayne looked straight at them and shook her head slowly, but she smiled to take the sting out of her warning to stop.

She looked down at the title of her new list, and her hand trembled. The Wallace Restaurant Chains Corporation would forever be linked in her mind to her father.

Their chains of restaurants around the world had once been among the top in the industry, competing side by side with McDonald’s. Her father had ensured that nothing went wrong, but a year ago, when he started to fall ill, Jason had taken charge of the chains of restaurants and everything. He went ahead and sold almost all of the restaurants to their rival, leaving only one branch in Mirage Mesa.

The Wallace Restaurant Chains Corporation had been founded by their great-grandfather, then passed down to their grandfather, and then their father. But because of Jason, it had been snatched away from them.

Their father had been the spirit and life force behind the chains of restaurants they owned, and now it was up to Rayne to try to buy back the ones Jason had sold by operating the only one remaining in the capital city and carrying on without him. That would be a great challenge—a very big one.

Struggling to keep her emotions under control, Rayne went to work on her list. According to the maître d’, the restaurant was booked solid with reservations for the next eleven days, and the waiting list was longer than the usual number of cancellations. Rayne needed to learn every detail about the restaurant’s operating budget, and she needed to set up safeguards to make sure she stayed within it and not mess up like her brother had done...

She needed to have weekly meetings with the staff for a while, until they were confident she could actually take her father’s place—and until she was sure of it. She also needed to see if the new menus her father had chosen before his illness were in order. He’d liked those padded maroon leather menus with the word Wallace deeply embossed in gold.

He liked maroon leather chairs with shiny brass nail heads, she remembered achingly...

And waiters in freshly pressed dinner suits...

Rayne stopped writing and pressed her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose to hold back the tears stinging her eyes at the thought of the things her father liked. A chorus of laughter rang out from the patio and rippled through the interior of the restaurant. Rayne blinked and lifted her head.

"Compliments of the young gentlemen," the waiter announced, again.

"Take it back to them and tell them I don’t want it," Rayne ordered, her voice ragged with emotion.

She flicked an apologetic glance at her audience within the restaurant; then she bent her head and turned to a new page in her notebook. She began a list of her father’s estates she needed to sell to earn more money to support the restaurant and buy the other branch in Zen.

On the patio outside, the boys let out a groan of dismay when the waiter walked out of the restaurant carrying an untouched glass of tomato juice on a tray. They had never been rejected by any woman regardless of the age, but this one was playing a bit hard to get, and the more she played, the more they wouldn’t give up until she accepted their compliment to her beauty.

At the table beside them, a man was seated with a bit of annoyance on his handsome face as the boys persistently continued to send the drinks for the woman inside the bar. He turned his head to hide his annoyance and encountered laughing looks from several people on his left. By now, everyone seated on the patio was privy to the boys’ repeated amorous attempts to make an impression on the lady.

His eyes were as dark as an endless pit, and they narrowed on the woman in the bar. Although he had a view of her sitting at the bar, she was in deep shadow, so he had no idea what she looked like or who she was. According to the boys, who’d repeatedly expressed their opinion to everyone within hearing, she was "Soooo hot" and "Such a fox."

The waiter put the glass of tomato juice on their table and sternly but kindly informed them, "The lady does not want another glass of tomato juice."

Trying to ignore the outburst of laughter and the youthful exclamations of disappointment that followed the waiter’s announcement, the man picked up the estimates his contractor had given him, but the youngest boy evidently decided to seek advice from an older, more experienced male.

Leaning towards him, the boy held up his palms in a gesture of helplessness and demanded, "Aren’t you that famous man, Liam Thompson? Well nevermind. I heard you’re an expert with women. So, what would you do if you were in our shoes to court that lady?"

Mildly annoyed at yet another distraction, Liam eyed the glass of unappetizing tomato juice and said, "I’d add a stalk of celery and a shot of vodka, if it was for me." Now leave me the fuck alone, he thought and looked back at his documents.

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