Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 299 - 37

Chapter 299: Chapter 37

Her eyes flew open, and she stared blankly at the familiar ceilings of her room. Unable to sleep even after hours of trying to force herself into a deep slumber that would numb her mind of the hurt in her heart, she sat up on the bed and kicked off the blanket.

Right beside her bed, Eric was settled on the makeshift temporary bed she had made for him before Mia and her family would return from their trip and take the dog with them.

Rayne bent down to rub his head and then straightened up. Walking out of her room with the dog following right on her heels, she went straight to the kitchen and absentmindedly poured herself water.

With her fingers slightly trembling, she slid onto the dining chair and looked down at the glass of water where her fingers were wrapped around it and a beautiful diamond ring rested on her ring finger with a blank expression.

She had not allowed herself to think of Liam or his betrayal even for a second since the time Max had brought her home and ordered dinner for her.

She had numbed her feelings and did everything automatically without thinking. She had walked Max to the elevator of her complex apartment building as usual and even allowed him to kiss her goodnight without feeling any emotions.

She was too wounded and numb to do anything, not until now, where she couldn’t fall asleep and was tossing and turning, did she allow herself to look back on her time with Liam Thompson and hate herself for every single second of it.

And as she sat there at the dining table, staring blankly at the glass of water with Eric rubbing his head on her lap as if he could feel her emotions, a memory flashed back to her mind.

She saw her seventeen-year-old self, a girl with dark, thinning red hair, large glasses almost the size of her face, and many unsightly pimples, drooling over the photo on the screen of her phone on the balcony of her room.

It was a photo of her crush, a man she had liked at first sight—Liam Thompson. He had recently modeled for a fashion house in new military attire that fit him perfectly, and his pictures were all over the billboards of the city, with many young girls going crazy for his looks.

She marveled at how handsome and unreal he looked in the picture. Though she’d never seen him in person, she’d fallen in love with him so badly her heart would go crazy at the sight of just his pictures.

Sitting on the balcony of her room, she looked dreamily at his smiling handsome face on her screen, then glanced up at the starry night sky filled with countless shimmering stars. Among the many stars, one appeared the brightest, and she stared at it, closing her eyes and clasping her hands tightly.

"To the moon in the sky, the stars are my witness, my wishes be granted, or these tears I’ll cry," she said before beginning her wish on the north star. She’d read somewhere that as long as you believe, the north star will grant you your wish.

"Little north star, please hear me out for once and grant me just this one wish. I will never ask for anything else apart from this, just this once. Make Liam Thompson notice me. Let him reply to my letters. I’d give anything for him to like me," she pleaded desperately, her hands tightly clasped together.

"I know the pimples on my face are unsightly, but let Liam Thompson like me regardless."

She opened her eyes after making her wish and glanced down at her phone, still wanting to continue staring at Liam’s photo, but the screen had gone blank.

The light on the balcony made her see her reflection on her blank phone screen. Slowly and painfully, the broad smile on her face began to fall. Her huge glasses and braces, combined with her pimples, made her look... she didn’t want to say the word, but deep down, she knew she wasn’t beautiful.

No boy had ever approached her or seemed interested in her because of her looks, and if she could just stop herself from picking at her pimples, they might stop appearing every morning. And with looks like hers, only a blind man would want to date her.

But then love is blind, she thought with a smile. If Liam was made for her, he wouldn’t see her flaws; he would like her wholeheartedly.

Filled with teenage excitement, she went back to her room and sealed her next love confession letter along with her picture to Liam, who she had heard hadn’t returned to camp yet. As usual, Rayne sprayed her perfume and used her lipstick lips to kiss the pink envelope, leaving a lip mark on it as a token of her love and devotion to him.

The next day, she posted it to the Thompson’s postbox in Mirage Mesa, knowing he hadn’t left yet.

However, she had never expected to get his reply within twenty-four hours.

She was sitting in her room, reading an online romance novel that had made her more delusional about love and romance and her feelings for Liam, when their housekeeper came in with a boring brown envelope that had her name on it.

Rayne was so excited when she saw it was a reply from Liam. The stars had granted her long-dying wish of hearing from him. In her haste to open the envelope, she accidentally broke her nail but didn’t even care.

She hugged the housekeeper, who looked taken aback by the sudden excitement in the little Miss, who was jumping up and down saying, "The stars have granted my wish!"

Then she sat down on her bed, grinning as she began to read his letter. However, the letter was not long. It was just two lines, and those two lines shattered her heart. Her grin slowly disappeared, and her green eyes welled up with tears. The letter read:

"Stop sending me stupid letters with strong perfume. You’re not my type. I don’t roll with little girls with terrible ugly skin."

As she read the lines, disbelief and hurt washed over her. The excitement drained from her face, replaced by a profound sadness. She felt her chest tighten, and the tears she had held back began to flow freely. Hugging herself, she realized how foolish she had been to believe that a star could change her fate, or that a handsome man like Liam Thompson would like her.

And she’d been stupid yet again a few years later and fell into another delusion that Liam was her soulmate and that they were meant for each other. All the while he was deceiving her and making his own plans to shatter her.

Liam Thompson had purposely traveled all the way to the island because Max had mentioned her being there, just so he could get his sweet revenge on her for something that was between him and her brother. He had gone to that restaurant knowing she was there and purposely walked into her path until she bumped into him with the Michelada.

He had then manipulated her into taking him for dinner and seduced her into believing they had something special between them.

And because she was so eager to be loved and desperate to go to bed with him, she had foolishly believed everything he said. He had been living in Zen with his stepbrother’s wife, and he never even mentioned that he was in the same city as she because he had no intentions of taking ’their relationship’ to any level.

Unable to keep analyzing Liam’s antics in luring her into his traps, she hugged herself and automatically stood up from the chair and walked into the living room, where she threw herself onto the sofa.

Before she had left for the Island with Max, she had left her blanket on the sofa, as she’d slept there crying about her father. The blanket was still there now. She pulled it over her body, but she was still shivering inside from the aftermath of everything that had happened.

She felt like crying until she could no longer feel the ache in her chest, but she didn’t want to shed tears for Liam. He had hurt her in the worst way possible, and she didn’t want to give him the courtesy of shattering her completely.

She decided to call Mia and tell her she was back, engaged to Max, and maybe ease into the story about her short affair with Liam after that.

Talking to someone about it might help her feel more at ease and in control before she would have to go back to her everyday life on Monday and run the restaurant as planned. Then, perhaps, even try to put Liam away like he had never been a part of her life.

Curling up on the sofa, she picked up her phone and called Mia. Though it was late here, it should be morning in New York. Her friend picked up the call on the first ring as if she was expecting a call from her.

"I was just about to call you, Rayne," Mia’s voice came from the other side of the phone. "Are you alright?" she asked worriedly.

"Why?"

"Nothing. My mind just keeps wandering to you, and then I thought to give you a call, but I hesitated because of the time difference. It’s midnight there, why are you still awake?"

At the sound of Mia’s scolding voice, Rayne could no longer hold back her built-up emotions and burst into tears. Her shoulders shook uncontrollably with her sobs. She bit down on her lips to hold back her sobs, but it was impossible.

"Rayne, what’s wrong? Why are you crying? Did Max do something to hurt you?" Mia asked, sounding anxious and worried at the broken sound of her friend’s sobs.

"I’m engaged..." she cried out, choking on her sobs and alerting the dog, who came to lay down beside the sofa and placed his head on the sofa next to her face.

"What? When and how?"

"I fell in love with a guy and got engaged."

"To Max, or the guy?"

"I got engaged to Max."

"Then everything is perfect, right?"

"Right."

"Then why are you crying?" Mia asked.

"Because I also took your advice and went to bed with someone."

Mia fell silent for a complete four seconds as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. "How did that go?"

Rayne leaned her head back on the sofa and closed her eyes, trying to force her lips into a smile. "Not very well," she whispered.

"Who is the guy? Tell me the details and how it happened."

For a complete hour, Rayne told Mia everything in detail from how she’d bumped into Liam to how he’d used her and everything else she’d discovered about him.

"I’m going to call that Liam right now and hear what the hell he was thinking. How dare he—"

"Don’t call him," Rayne said quickly. "I don’t want to have anything to do with him again. I will never forgive him for the hurt he caused me," she whispered brokenly and told Mia about Max expecting her to handle seeing Liam at the banquet in two days.

"I don’t know how I’m going to face him after what he did to me."

Mia wasn’t pleased at all with Max’s suggestion to make her friend do such a thing. Though Rayne was her best friend, Liam was also her friend as well as her husband’s best friend. She didn’t want any of them getting hurt, nor did she like the fact that Liam had gone out of his way to break Rayne because of Jason and Max.

"I don’t think it’s wise to follow Max’s advice on making him believe he had been used instead, and I wouldn’t advise you to hide away from him forever either," Mia said after a moment of silence.

If Rayne hadn’t stopped her, she would have called Liam right then and there to hear what he had to say, but it wasn’t her place to interfere unnecessarily and make things worse for her friend. However, if what Rayne said was true—that Liam had used her—she would be forced to hate him for being heartless.

"Then what should I do?"

"Just show up being yourself and don’t let him see how much he broke you. You’re engaged now, that’s all that matters."

"Are you going to be there?" Rayne asked.

"Of course. Neil’s company also invested in the mall, so we will surely be there. Lauren will be there as well, you guys get along pretty well without me. Don’t worry, we’ll be there for you."