Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 296 - 34

Chapter 296: Chapter 34

"Payback for what?" she said calmly.

"Did Liam tell you anything about what he did to your brother?"

"I’m not interested in what happened between him and Jason."

"Then get interested in it, Rayne," he ordered sharply. "You never gave Jason the chance to explain everything to you when your family business fell apart. You never knew the reason he lost all the money he used to sell your chain of restaurants. Let me tell you the truth, Liam Thompson was behind everything."

"Liam has nothing to do with the Wallace chains of restaurants. He wasn’t even in the country when it happened," she jumped to his defense, not buying any of his words.

"Well, sorry to burst your tiny little bubble, he has everything to do with your family’s downfall. He was the one who set Jason up with a man who scammed him out of his wealth. If you remember clearly, they were never friends since their days in the military. Everything that happened was set up by Liam Thompson. He is a cunning son of a bitch who even went behind my back to ruin my contract with that company I told you my father was pursuing!"

Inwardly, Rayne was shocked but anxious to get this over with. "Explain to me what all this has to do with the fact that he loves me?"

Max closed his eyes and took a deep breath at the fact that she wasn’t getting his point. When he opened them, he said, "You aren’t listening, are you? I’ve known you for a long time, and you’re not easy to dazzle, Rayne. Or maybe I just didn’t try the right methods. You never seemed to give a damn about social status, or money, or anything else like that I had to offer. So my question is this: How in the hell did he accomplish in two days what I couldn’t accomplish in five years?"

"Max, please don’t do this," Rayne said, her eyes filling with sudden tears because she’d never imagined it was going to be this hard to breakup with a man who’d loved her for six years.

"Tell me. I need to know. Words have been spreading among the elites that Thompson will be leaving the country for good to start afresh somewhere else. Did he tell you about that?"

Rayne managed to keep her expression indifferent. It didn’t matter that Liam hadn’t mentioned his relocating. They’d been too busy making love and getting to know each other. "No," she said calmly.

"Did he tell you about the fight he had with Jason and the oath he made about destroying the Wallace family?"

"Max, please stop this. I have to go," Rayne said, trying to sound offhand. She didn’t want to have any reason to question Liam’s intentions about her.

Max wasn’t fooled by her replies. Her complexion was too fair and her eyes too expressive to hide shock or dismay. "Not until you’ve heard what I have to say, Rayne. Liam Thompson used you to get back at your brother and me!"

"Liam would never do such a thing!" she exclaimed, firm in her opinion of Liam and the trust she’d come to have in him. He would never use her. She knew it because she could feel it.

"I hope you’re right, honey, because the same man we’re talking about has been living in Zen with Ashley Thompson."

"Who?" Rayne asked in frustration.

"Alvin Thompson’s wife. The beautiful Ashley was, and still is, Alvin Thompson’s wife. Your Liam is shacked up with his half-brother’s wife, and he moved in just as soon as her husband disappeared with the pretense of being there for her children."

"He told me about his stepbrother and the children," Rayne said quickly, glad for once that she knew something. "He likes the children like they were his, and if Ashley Thompson’s home is typical of most elite houses, then it’s the size of a hotel."

Lifting his hand, Max smoothed her hair back off her forehead, then he dropped his arm.

"Don’t let that son of a bitch hurt you too badly. And when he does," Max added tenderly, "you remember that it was me, not you, he wanted to hurt. Maybe that will make it easier."

He picked up his drink and glanced at her luggage. "I should carry those for you, but I can’t make myself help you go to him. I’m sorry, Rayne." It was a grudging apology, not a parting taunt.

Shaking inside, Rayne watched him walk out onto the terrace and into the garden.

Questions and doubts were raging through her as she walked into the bathroom to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything behind.

Instead of doing that, she stood in front of the sink, trying to rid herself of Max’s slant on everything Liam did, and to think things through for herself.

In her mind, she heard Liam whispering, I felt all the same things you did last night, and you know I did, and her spirits lifted. That was real. That was the real Liam, not Max’s version of him.

Liam would never use her to get back at Jason. Jason had gambled their family wealth away and was looking for an easy way out by blaming it on someone else, and since Max was a stranger to Jason’s real character, he would believe everything her brother told him about Liam. That was the only explanation she had for all of this.

As far as everything else Max had brought up about Ashley Thompson and Liam’s oath to destroy the Wallace, Rayne could think of valid reasons and explanations for all of it, including gossip.

There was just one thing she couldn’t justify, no matter how hard she tried: If Max was right about Liam living, even temporarily, in Zen, there was only one possible reason for Liam’s having concealed that fact from her—he had no intention of seeing her after they left the island.

She needed an answer to that right now, not later when they were face-to-face and he could disarm her or distract her.

A simple, straightforward answer. After all, Liam had sent her here expecting her to break up with Max ’in the shortest possible time,’ and then to ’hurry back to him.’ She had every right to expect a straightforward answer to her question when they would soon start a new relationship.

Closing the bathroom door, she dug in her purse for her phone, and since she didn’t have his number, she took out the booklet from the hotel they checked into.

Her fingers trembled as she typed the numbers on her phone, and her pulse edged up with each ring.

By the time the hotel operator answered the phone, Rayne was leaning back against the vanity for support, and her voice actually wavered with nervousness when she asked to be connected to Mr. Thompson in the Presidential Suite.

"I’m sorry, ma’am," the operator said a moment later, "Mr. Thompson has checked out."

"Checked out? Did—did he leave a message for me, for Rayne Wallace, I mean?"

"One moment please." Rayne’s knees began to knock while she waited. "No, ma’am. No message," the operator stated with certainty.

Rayne twisted around and made a grab for the vanity, trying to hold her quaking body upright while Liam’s mocking voice whispered in her ringing ears.

’I do intend to seduce you.’

’It can’t go any further than that. It would get much too intricate for me and my life.’

’Especially not the kind that would follow if you think for a moment there would be anything else between us other than this.’

The sound of her own sobbing drowned out his voice, and Rayne searched blindly for a towel, holding it tightly to her face, trying to muffle her cries before Max heard them.

Desperate to get herself under control and to get out of there before Max walked in from the garden, she threw the towel down and splashed cold water onto her face; then she opened the door a crack and saw that the living room was empty.

With tears pouring from her eyes and blurring her vision, she grabbed her suitcase and bag, made an awkward dash for the door, and struggled with the knob.

Her shoulders shaking with silent sobs, she nudged the door open with her knee and was halfway outside when Max walked in from the terrace. "Rayne, wait, let me help you with—"

"Don’t come any closer," she called, keeping her face averted, but she couldn’t stop her shoulders from jerking.

"What’s wrong with—?" His hands locked on her arms, turning her around. He took one look at her tormented face and pulled her against his chest. "What’s wrong, my love?"

"Please d-don’t be n-nice to me; I was l-leaving you for him, and he’s gone."

"Don’t worry," he said drily. "I don’t feel like being very nice to you right now. Why don’t I take you home first?"

Rayne nodded, too choked up to speak. "I have to pick up my dog."