Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 267 - 5

Chapter 267: Chapter 5

"Good evening, miss," the doorman said when Rayne walked past the lobby of the hotel’s main building a few minutes before eight. Festive torches lit up the entrance and lined both sides of the long driveway. Couples were arriving and departing in a steady stream, some dressed for dinner at the hotel, others wearing shorts and heading for more casual island nightspots. "May I get you a ride?"

"No, thank you." Rayne looked down the line of waiting, glimmering expensive vehicles. Most were black limos ready and waiting for any guests who’d be going out, she noticed idly; then she remembered reading an article written by Mia when they were in school that wealthy men with bad intentions preferred to ride Audi A8s and BMWs.

Yeah, it sounded silly, but if Liam was driving any of those, she would not get into his car, she decided. She never really liked him before and she knew he disliked her as much as she did him. If he could harm his girlfriend, Linda who was she that he wouldn’t harm?

She should have just paid him for the shirt rather than agreed to take him on this dreadful dinner, she thought. Rather than going into the lobby and waiting there for Liam, she wandered slowly down a sidewalk bordered with giant bushes on her left and the hotel’s main driveway on her right.

As she approached the end of the bushes, she spotted a white Rolls-Royce Dawn with its convertible top down. However, a sudden eruption of angry male voices from the other side of the bushes filled her with unease and prompted her to hasten in that direction.

Two bellboys hurried past her, seemingly responding to the commotion. Rayne overheard one of them mentioning a dog, prompting her to break into a sprint just as Liam abruptly halted the white Rolls-Royce Dawn by the curb next to her. She noticed the surprise on his face as she dashed past his vehicle, but she had no time to stop and offer an explanation.

Reaching the edge of the bushes, Rayne stopped next to the bellmen, her fear quickly turning into reluctant amusement. Two angry gardeners were chasing Eric in circles, waving their rakes, but he easily dodged them. Behind her, Liam remarked dryly, "For a moment there, I thought you were running towards my car because you were so eager to see me again."

Rayne glanced over her shoulder and gave him a distracted, smug look. "Were you flattered or scared?"

"You ran past me before I had time to react." A moment later, he added jokingly as he watched the gardeners chase the dog, "If you want to place a bet on whether the dog or the gardeners win, I’ll give you ten-to-one odds on the gardeners."

"At twenty to one, that’s still a losing bet," Rayne replied with a plucky smile. He grinned at her remark, and suddenly Rayne’s earlier fears that he’d asked her out because he had some bad motives seemed silly. She waited a few more moments to make sure Eric wasn’t in any real danger of being caught, then she turned and walked with Liam toward his car.

"I wish they wouldn’t chase him," she said. "One of the maids told me that many of the local islands have problems with packs of dogs roaming around, but this dog isn’t dangerous. He’s just hungry. He isn’t doing anyone any harm."

"If I understood what the bellmen were talking about just now, that dog is doing the gardens a whole lot of harm because he’s so big," Liam said as he opened the car door for her. "And he also scares the hotel guests. Last week, he ran up to a little girl and she got hysterical."

"He’s lonely," Rayne said sadly, thinking of the way he’d leaned against her and blissfully closed his eyes when she petted him. As she slid onto the passenger seat, she said, "What language was the doorman speaking? A lot of the hotel staff speak Spanish, but that wasn’t Spanish."

"It was Italian, and I may have gotten most of it wrong—" he said, but the screech of a car brakes behind them made them both turn sharply, just in time to see the dog bounding across the drive between cars, followed closely by a golf cart with the two gardeners in it.

The golf cart stopped safely at the curb and an arriving car stopped in time, but a departing limo was accelerating on the other side of the road, and Rayne screamed a warning to the dog. Eric swerved at the sound of her voice and tried to run to her instead. The limo hit him.

Rayne was out of the car before Liam could stop her, running, before the limo driver got out of his vehicle. Liam caught up with her and grasped her arm. "Let me take a look first," he insisted.

"I want to see," Rayne cried frantically, trying to wrench free of his grasp. "Let go of my arm!"

Stunned that she wanted to subject herself to what could be a gory scene, Liam let her go and quickened his pace to keep up with her.

When Rayne rushed around the front of the Limo, her fear turned into anguish. Eric’s still body was lying on its side, his head against the curb, his eyes closed. Kneeling next to him, she felt frantically for a pulse at his throat. She found it and relief flooded through her.

"He’s alive," she said quickly, "but we need help." Lifting her head, she looked toward the bellmen and gardeners who’d gathered into a group next to the Limo driver and Liam. "Call a veterinarian right away," she told the hotel’s employees.

One bellman looked blankly at the gardeners and then the other bellman. "A veterinarian?" he repeated as Rayne began tentatively examining the bleeding cut on Eric’s head.

"An animal doctor," Liam clarified impatiently in English, then again in Italian. The gardeners were aghast at the suggestion; the bellmen were obstinate. "No, miss, no doctor," one of them said. "We’ll take care of the dog, you go now and enjoy your evening with this gentleman." He said something in Italian to his companions and the group of men moved forward.

Their shadow fell across Rayne just as she realized how they were likely to ’take care of’ a large, destructive, unconscious animal that was an annoying nuisance to adult hotel guests and a terrifying threat in the minds of some of their children.

"What do you intend to do?" she asked stubbornly, refusing to move away.

"We’re going to drag him off the road now so the cars can get through, and then we’ll take him away."

"No!" Rayne said with an adamant shake of her head. "He shouldn’t be moved. The cars can go around him. He may have spinal injuries or broken bones." They didn’t care one bit about any of that, she realized, so she appealed urgently to the man she’d promised to take to dinner. "Please help him!"

Liam gazed at her beautiful face and realized she expected him to agree that it was imperative to save the life of a homeless dog. And, suddenly, he did agree—although it was her eyes and not the dog that caused him to come to that conclusion. Inwardly amused by the effect those beseeching green eyes were having on him, Liam said solemnly, "I’ll see what I can do." And turned on his heels towards the hotel entrance.

The doorman smiled politely with a slight bow as Liam approached. "Good evening, Mr. Thompson."

Liam assumed the doorman would have witnessed the scene in the driveway, so he ignored the greeting, refrained from giving explanations, and tackled the problem: "The dog is badly injured. Where’s the nearest animal doctor?"

"There’s one here on Maranta, but he will be closed by now." As proof that it was quite late, he glanced meaningfully at the setting sun.

Having already anticipated that that would be his answer, Liam strode past him into the lobby and headed for the front desk, where two couples were waiting to check in and another man was asking for directions. When he was halfway across the lobby, the manager emerged from a side door, saw Liam, and rushed forward to greet him. "Mr. Thompson!" he exclaimed delightedly at the sight of Liam.

Liam reached into his pocket. "I didn’t realize you’d booked reservations with us," the manager said, holding out his hand for a handshake. "You should have informed me about you arrival, Mr. Thompson, we could have gotten the staff to give you a special welcoming. Right now I’m on my way to catch a flight, but I think that has to wait, I’m afraid."

Liam clasped the manager’s outstretched hand and slipped a $2,000 bill into his palm. "I’m glad you’re still here tonight, Edward, because there’s been an automobile accident in the hotel driveway that requires your special attention."

"Oh, no! Is anyone hurt?"

"Yes."

"One of our guests?"

"No, one of your stray dogs," Liam said, already striding toward the telephone on the front desk with Edward rushing along beside him. "I need an ambulance and a physician here immediately."

"You...you want me to send for an ambulance and a physician because a stray dog has been injured out there?" He asked in disbelief. Why would he go through the trouble of sending for an ambulance when it was an unimportant stray dog who got hurt?

In reply, Liam picked up the telephone and held the receiver toward the flustered manager. "I want them to come as fast as they possibly can. I’m extremely fond of this particular dog, and if anything happens to him..." He trailed off, leaving the man to fill in the blanks.

The manager quickly took the receiver, pressed one button on the telephone, and hesitated. "What if they refuse to treat the stray dog? I mean, it’s just a stray dog; he should be left alone and—"

"Then I guess you won’t have a job here by tomorrow," Liam said drily as he withdrew his phone from his pocket, showing the manager how serious he was about making him lose his job if the ambulance didn’t come immediately. Liam was one of Maranta’s top investors; he had a large share in the Island Club and could make anyone lose their job if he wanted to.

The manager’s eyes widened for a moment, then he quickly dialed the rest of the ambulance’s phone number. Liam stayed until that call and the one to the physician were both successfully completed; then he placed another 1,000 on the desk for the manager and walked away nonchalantly.