Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 273 - 11

Chapter 273: Chapter 11

"Go on," Liam urged her to continue as he reached for his wineglass. "What made you hate being the center of attention when many elite women like it?"

He was an attentive listener, Rayne realized. Still harboring the belief that he might become a little more forthcoming about his own life if she chatted freely about hers, she did exactly that.

"Because when I was about fourteen years old, something embarrassing happened to make me hate being the center of attention." She said after taking a bite of her salad, "That incident made me hate being the daughter of an influential family with the paparazzi following every single movement you make."

Liam was immediately curious what that incident was. "What happened?" He asked, taking a sip of his wine.

The story was embarrassing then when it happened, but it was humorous now, however it involved Rayne’s father, and she shifted her gaze to the garden, trying to decide if she could tell it without feeling sad. "Let just say it was something silly."

Liam was finding it difficult to pay any attention to his meal. Her open honesty earlier and now her charming, hesitant look as she thought back on the incident that made her dislike attention intrigued him. He was determined to find out more.

Since courtesy demanded that he at least give her a chance to eat some of her meal, he stifled his curiosity, temporarily postponing his question. The chef at the Island Club was world-renowned, and the meal Liam had ordered for both of them was served with a wonderful dressing.

But the redhead sitting across from him was more to his liking, and he barely tasted what he ate. He waited until she’d eaten some of her food; then he reached for his wine and said half seriously, "I have no intention of letting you ignore my question about that incident that changed the course of your career."

After the silence between them, the sound of his deep voice startled Rayne, and she quickly looked up. Trying to hide her reaction, she gave him a look she hoped was playfully haughty. "I won’t tell you that story unless you tell me one where you look ridiculous and embarrassed in front of everyone."

Instead of agreeing or backing down, he leaned back in his chair, played with his wineglass, and stared at her thoughtfully.

Rayne tried to hold his gaze but ended up laughing and giving in. "Okay, I give up—why are you staring at me like that?"

"I’m deciding whether to bribe or coerce you into telling me the story."

"Go for bribery," Rayne said boldly, thinking he’d offer something silly to get her to tell her embarrassing story.

"In that case, I’ll bring a collar and leash tomorrow—" She rolled her eyes in mock horror. "Either you’re a very sick man, or you have no idea how to accessorize. Stick with neckties and—"

"—And I’ll help you get Eric to a vet," he finished, ignoring her joke.

Understanding immediately dawned and Rayne’s laughter faded. He wasn’t talking about a leash to tie her but to help her with Eric. She looked at him, filled with gratitude and the strangest feeling that they were destined to become the best of friends—that it was somehow preordained. He returned her gaze, his black eyes smiling warmly into hers... no, not warmly, Rayne realized. Intimately! Hastily, she tried to divert him with humor. "That’s a clever bribe. What were you going to say to coerce me?"

He quirked a thoughtful brow, a smile tugging at his lips. "You owe me?" he suggested.

Rayne felt like covering her face and ears to block out the sight and sound of him. Even relaxing in his chair, he exuded potent sexual vitality. When he laughed, he looked sexy. When he smiled, he looked dangerously inviting. And when he was silent and thoughtful, as he’d been just a moment before, he looked intriguing...and wonderful.

He was so physically attractive, so witty and urbane, and so infuriatingly likable that she kept wanting to trust him and befriend him, even though he was probably the last man in the world who could be trusted or befriended in a hotel room, especially by someone like her.

He was like a powerful, two-hundred-pound magnet, and she felt like a little paper clip, struggling against his pull but being tugged inexorably, inch by inch, across the table to him.

It was actually easier on her nervous system to distract and amuse him than it was to spend three silent seconds trying to resist him, she realized, and so she gave in and decided to tell the story. He knew the instant she made the decision.

"What did it?" he inquired with amused satisfaction. "The bribery or the coercion?"

"I’m completely unaffected to bribery," Rayne replied smugly and was about to add that she was also impervious to coercion, but before she could do that, he said, "Good. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning at eleven. Now, let’s have the story of that incident."

With a sigh, Rayne began the tale. "Well, I was only a teenager then, but this might sound silly to an adult," she said.

"Back then, my parents were so protective of me and wouldn’t allow me to go out to sleepovers like my other friends did. And as you may have known, I used to have freckles all over my face with pimples and braces. Many people gave me the nickname ’ugly duckling.’ Due to constant bullying at school, my parents thought it was a good idea to have me homeschooled. I had no friends after I started homeschooling, but because of my family’s connections and social circles, I managed to make a few spoiled friends who came from the same family circles as mine.

"I used to think they liked me for who I was and that they really wanted me to be their friend, seeing as they’d never bullied me or called me that ugly nickname given to me at school. So I trusted them so much that a day came when they invited me to a birthday party meant only for teenagers with their handsome escorts, who they believed they were in love with. You know how it is in the wealthy circle, how parents let their children have whatever they wanted, but my father wasn’t like that. He declined my request to attend the birthday party.

"Though back then I thought he was being mean and unreasonable for stopping me from mingling with my friends, he was trying to protect me as he knew most of them were only being friends with me because their parents wanted to get close to the Wallaces." Rayne reached for her wineglass to conceal her sharp, emotional reaction to the mention of her father.

"I’m not giving you much chance to eat," Liam apologized.

Rayne ate a scallop and some rice to give herself time to compose herself, but Liam barely touched his food. For a tall, muscular man who should have been starving by now, he wasn’t eating much, she realized.

"Any time you’re ready to go on," he prompted after a couple of minutes.

His grin was so uplifting that Rayne smiled back at him and continued her story without the choking grief she’d felt moments before.

"So I sneaked out of the house when I was sure my father was out to attend some important meeting. Back then, I wasn’t allowed to buy makeup kits like my friends, nor was I allowed to use anti-aging creams like they did at such an early age. So I sneaked into my mom’s room and grabbed whatever I’d need to make myself up that evening. I watched a video online on how to do makeup so I could hide my freckles and pimples.

"It was a disaster. The makeup came out terrible, but because it was my first time attempting such a thing, I was proud of myself. I wore the most designer dress I had in my closet just because I wanted to fit into my circle of spoiled rich friends. I used a lot of perfume to smell good because I heard the most handsome boy in my friend’s school would be there and I might be lucky to have a dance with him." Rayne stopped again, but this time it was because she was trying not to giggle at the memory.

"I was so stupid to have harbored such thoughts when I knew I was the last person on earth a handsome little prince charming would notice at a birthday party filled with beautiful little girls with smooth skin."

Liam was inclined to tell her that she was never ugly, that he had never thought she was ugly even with so many pimples on her face, but then he thought that wouldn’t make any difference to her now when he himself had said she was back then.

"Was that all that changed the course of your career?" he asked.

She laughed and shook her head. "Unfortunately, no. That’s just the beginning."

Eager to know what happened, Liam tried to guess. "You attended the party, and all the attention was on you because you did a terrible job with your makeup, was that it?" His smile faded as he realized how cruel a room full of spoiled children might have been to a child in those circumstances. But Rayne shook her head no and said, "I wish it ended like that."

"What happened?" he asked.

"Actually, at the age of fourteen and almost fifteen with so many pimples, I was late on my puberty. I didn’t have my period early, but I never thought I’d be getting it that same evening, so I wore a bright-colored dress. The girl celebrating the birthday lived on the same street as us, so I walked all the way there as I couldn’t tell my driver to take me out without my parents’ permission. I was sweating so badly before I got there that by the time I arrived, my makeup had turned into a total mess.

"There were countless paparazzi around the house, and immediately they spotted me, they began to take pictures. I thought I looked so good that they were taking my pictures, so I walked into the house with so much confidence, not knowing that by the time I’d walked from my house to the place, my dress had already gotten a red stain on the backside. Nobody stepped forward to tell me and instead took pictures and giggled whenever I passed by.

"My friends who had invited me pretended not to know me because their parents, who had obviously forced them to befriend me so they could have a chance with the Wallaces, were not at the party. My confidence began to slowly slip away when I overheard people calling me names and pointing fingers at me. I was the center of attention at the party, so much so that no one paid any attention to the celebrant. You should have seen how mortified I was when one of the children’s nannies walked up to me to point out the stain on my dress."

Lifting his wineglass to his lips to hide the unsettling feeling in his chest at the thought of her being embarrassed in such a way that even an adult would be mortified, Liam said, "And that made you decide on another career?"

"Pretty much. The next day, my pictures and videos were all over the entertainment news with people making fun of me and my family. Since then, I swore not to be like them. I didn’t want anything to do with a life where paparazzi would be on my tail or be around spoiled rich friends, so I changed my career and decided to go to Ivy Grove and avoided mingling with any of the rich kids. But before Journalism, my first choice was to be a nun in some holy house just to stay away from the attention."

At the word ’nun,’ Liam choked on his wine. "Thank God you changed your mind. I can’t picture you in a nun’s uniform," he said aloud, without actually meaning to express the thought.

She chuckled. "Why?"

"..." He studied her in disbelief.

Tipping her head to the side, Rayne studied his expression as well. "You look dismayed about that."

"Of course I’m dismayed."

"Why would you be dismayed if I were a nun?"

The answer should have been obvious. Since it wasn’t, Liam decided it needed to be. He let his gaze drift purposefully to her inviting full lips, her breasts, then back up to her eyes. "Why do you suppose, Rayne?"

His meaning was inescapable, and Rayne felt a sensual jolt that was centralized in the pit of her stomach, then streaked like hot lightning down her legs to the tips of her toes. Her body’s reaction was so strong and so unexpected that she choked back a nervous laugh and stood up. Trying to look composed and amused, she said sternly, "Are you always so blunt?"

"I want to be sure we’re on the same page."

"I’m not sure we’re even in the same library," Rayne said, nervously raking her hair back off her forehead.

His gaze shifted from her face to her hand and then drifted admiringly over her hair in a way that was so flattering and so seductive that her hand stilled and she felt a blush heat her cheeks. He noticed that, too, and smiled. "I think we are."

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