Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 298 - 36

Chapter 298: Chapter 36

The interior of Liam’s plane looked like a fancy, modern living room. It had soft leather seats, a high-tech entertainment system, and calming lights. There was a long grey leather sofa between two glass coffee tables with shinny table lamps.

Across from the sofa were two big grey leather recliners. Beyond that, there was a desk and a row of seats, leading to a small but stylish bedroom and bathroom.

Normally, when Liam boarded for a flight of several hours, he went either to his desk or to the bedroom, depending on the time of day.

Tonight, he went straight to the curved bar near the front of the cabin and poured himself a glass of strong whiskey.

From the sofa, he watched the twinkling lights of the island vanish; then he stretched his legs out in front of him and lifted the glass of whiskey to his lips, eager for the fiery liquid to start dulling the ache in his chest.

He had turned off the cabin’s lights and switched on a table lamp. Slowly, he began reviewing the last few days, searching for some clue that should have alerted him to the fact that he was overestimating the depth of Rayne’s feelings for him.

An hour later, all he’d come up with were haunting memories of an irresistible redhead with a heartwarming smile who’d kissed him and set him on fire—memories that all led him to the same unanswerable question.

How could she have left with her boyfriend without at least meeting him at the shore to tell him goodbye?

How could she have done that when she’d been so frank and brave about her feelings for him?

Swallowing over the unfamiliar constriction in his throat, he drew a long breath and leaned his head back, willing himself into a state of pleasant numbness where he could think about her without this gnawing sense of bewildered loss.

Instead, he remembered the quiet joy of sitting up in bed, drowsy and contented, watching the sunrise together, and the unexplainable pleasure of seeing her hand resting next to his on the table in the casino restaurant.

Her hand had looked so small and delicate beside his, and when he clasped his larger one over hers, he could still remember the warmth that had spread through him and the pleasure of holding her hand.

He had been willing to go against his principles and give a genuine relationship a try; he was so ready to give true love a second chance, but...

She’d made her decision to stay with her boyfriend, and thanks to his stupid description of their so-called ’roles’ that morning, he was stuck with that decision and bound by the very role he’d described and intended for her boyfriend to play.

’Once he realizes you want to be with someone else, he should accept it gracefully, wish you well and then get the hell out of your life.’

’So, what would you do if I change my mind about breaking up with my boyfriend?’ she’d asked.

’In that case, the rules are very clear and simple: You would need to call me to say you have changed your mind, and then I would switch roles with him.’

On his way to the airport tonight, he’d phoned the hotel they’d checked into together to see if she’d left a message for him there, but she hadn’t. She’d left without the courtesy of an explanation.

Briefly, Liam considered the possibility that her disappearance was an immature attempt to prove she could make him jealous enough to come after her. If so, she wasn’t the woman he thought she was.

He knew how to find her—she wasn’t lost to him. If he wanted to get her personal number right now, he could call Mia and ask for it. He could get to her and hear what she had to say.

Several times he considered the possibility that something dire had happened that made her leave without a word.

Each time, he eliminated that thought, along with the temptation to use it as an excuse to find her. She had had the time and the presence of mind to pick up a stray dog at the vet. She had intentionally left him to wait at the shoreline of Pineville because she didn’t give a damn about him in the first place.

Perhaps this was some sort of revenge she was having on him for the fact that he had once called her ugly. She had purposely made him believe they had something going on between them and then left him hanging.

His phone on the table beside him began ringing, and he ignored it.

If everything she said and did with him was pretense, then she must be laughing her ass off for making him fall so hard for her that he would actually feel hurt by her actions.

His phone began ringing again, and Liam ignored it, but very few people had his personal number, and all of them were important to him for one reason or another.

Since the whiskey he had been drinking had only made him sink deeper into a state of confused longing for Rayne, he finally reached for the phone to give himself a distraction.

"Whoever you are," he said aloud when he answered, "you’re persistent as hell."

"It’s James," his friend said after a startled pause. "What’s up with that arrogance? Did you get reminded by another one of your women of how heartless you are for playing with their feelings and emotions?" James joked, knowing Liam only got irrational when he had woman or company problems.

"I don’t want to talk about women or anything that has to do with the opposite gender," he gritted through clenched jaw. "And I hope you haven’t just decided to call me after several months we haven’t spoken to talk about that?"

James immediately knew something was off with Liam, but he decided to cut straight to the chase of why he’d called instead of teasing him about a topic he obviously didn’t want to talk about.

"Neil called me an hour ago to say the authorities were swarming all over your apartment in New York. He said to ask you what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into and why the hell are the authorities bothering his family in the middle of the night for questioning?"

Liam straightened slowly to an upright position. "Why would the authorities be questioning Neil and searching my apartment?" he asked, as anger began to replace some of the desolation he was feeling.

"Perhaps it has something to do with Alvin’s death?"

Liam shook his head in denial. "My nephew called and told me the land caretaker had confessed to the murder."

"Well, perhaps that’s what the authorities want you to believe so they could lure you back to Zen in no time. I’d suggest you get your lawyers prepared," James said.

After Liam hung up the call with James and phoned his lawyers to meet him in Zen, he glanced at his watch and realized it was still set for Maranta time.

With his thumb and forefinger, he pulled out the stem to set the time back three hours, and reality struck him with painful force.

Less than sixteen hours ago, he’d been lying in bed watching the sunrise over the mountain hills with Rayne snuggled up beside him, telling him a funny story about her childhood and asking him random questions.

Before he’d finally fallen asleep, he’d silently decided he would take her out on a real date and go for a starlight cruise.

Instead of that, she was in Zen with a man she preferred over Liam, and he was trying to avoid getting involved in the murder of a step-brother he had despised with every fiber of his being.

Forcing Rayne out of his mind, Liam got up and headed to the bedroom to shower and change clothes before he landed and dealt with his family problem at the FBI office to get this over with.

He could never get arrested because they could never hold him for a crime he didn’t commit like they did Neil before. He had many connections and time to clear his name from this mess. Whatever the authorities were up to, they would end up losing their own jobs.

He had many powerful men backing him up—Neil, James, and a lot more in the business world. Before the authorities would dare do anything, they’d think twice.

From now on, he needed to concentrate solely on dealing with the authorities and helping Ashley and her two children through the ordeal to come. Giving Alvin a proper burial would be required of Liam.

After that, he would attend the upcoming banquet for the mall he’d invested so much to build and then carry on with his plans to relocate. Rayne Wallace was gone. It was over before it even began.

Finished.

She and their brief affair had to be put away now and forever.

Mentally, Liam forced her out of his consciousness and shoved her into a dark cubbyhole from which she couldn’t escape or come back to haunt him.

Compartmentalizing was one of his greatest talents; it was a survival technique he’d developed as a boy when his father would beat him up for playing with girls’ toys instead of toy guns, and it had served him extremely well then.

In the bedroom, he pulled off his shirt. Then he went into the bathroom, opened a cabinet, and took out his bathing supplies. He started to turn on the shower but stopped when he looked towards the vanity mirror.

His traitorous mind conjured up an image of Rayne from this morning.

She was looking at him in the mirror, hiding a smile, trying not to look as if she was taking pleasure from the casual intimacy of watching her lover shave.

Beneath the lather on his face, he’d been hiding a smile of his own because he was experiencing a similar pleasure from having her watch him.

Liam’s hands clenched over the soap bar he was holding, his grip was so tight that the soap split into two and fell to the floor.

"I will never forgive you for this, Rayne..." he muttered brokenly.