Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 312 - 50

Chapter 312: Chapter 50

"It’s going to be tight," Dante, Liam’s driver and childhood friend, replied. "Traffic is heavy, and if there’s a long line at airport security, we’re in trouble."

"Then make sure we’re there in time to get through security," Liam said sharply—but not completely unreasonably.

Behind the steering wheel, Dante possessed the superb reflexes and daring courage of a test pilot, and—when necessary—the aggressive stealth of an assassin. At this moment, he was already speeding as if he were being chased by the hounds of hell.

Satisfied that Dante would do whatever needed to be done to get him to the airport before it was too late, Liam resumed his conversation on the phone with his secretary. "Have you prepared everything I asked you to?"

"Yes. Do you want me to have a car and driver waiting for you when you land in Zen as well?"

"No. Neil is sending his chauffeur to get us. You’ll need to call him and give him our flight information," he told her.

"I’ll take care of it. What about hotel accommodations—do you want to stay at your usual hotel?"

"No. Ask James to recommend a hotel that’s close to Rayne Wallace’s restaurant, and get me reservations at whatever hotel he suggests. I’ll call you later to find out where it is," he added, then he ended the call and frowned at his watch, waiting impatiently for his attorneys to call him.

Liam was still frowning when Dante’s amused inquiry made him lift his head.

"Who is Rayne Wallace?" he demanded ill-manneredly, "and why are you busting your ass to get to her restaurant? What is she—a goddess? Or just one hell of a cook?"

Normally, anyone who tried to pry too deeply into Liam’s personal life ended up with a severe case of frostbite—not information.

But Dante was one of the few who could pry any information from him. One year older than Liam and half a foot shorter, Dante was one of the first people in the Thompson’s mansion who were nice to him when he was brought from China at seven.

Back then, Dante was the son of the Thompson family’s chauffeur who also happened to be Chinese. When Liam arrived, not knowing how to speak any language other than Mandarin, Dante and his two stepsisters helped him cope and adjust to everything around him.

Liam had trusted Dante the day he was bullied by a bunch of older kids who had come to attend a banquet at the Thompson’s mansion but ended up spotting him in the corner and finding amusement in bullying him, calling him, "Hey, little Jackie Chan, show us some kung fu moves, will you?" while hitting him on the back of his head and nudging him forward to fight them.

However, ten-year-old Dante had walked in like a hero and fought them to protect him. After he’d fought all the older boys, he turned to the scared Liam and patted his shoulder, "Don’t worry, little Chan, I will be your Jackie from now on."

Since then, Dante had been Liam’s hero and his self-appointed protector, the ’big brother’ who let Liam tag along with him everywhere while threatening the older boys with dire physical retribution should they dare give Liam any trouble.

Unfortunately for Dante, who loved to fight, most of the elite kids in their high-class circle knew when to back off.

That pretty much eliminated the need for Dante to fight on Liam’s behalf, as did the fact that by the time Liam was eight and a half, he was nearly as tall as Dante and becoming almost as cocky.

As a result, on Liam’s ninth birthday, Dante announced his decision to ’promote’ Liam from the rank of ’little Chan’ to the high rank of ’best friend.’ It was a promotion of which Liam was extraordinarily proud, and he applied himself diligently to learning every martial arts move that Dante taught him—most of which Dante was either inventing or learning himself.

When Liam left for the military, his focus switched to military matters and his studies, but Dante pursued his own goal with single-minded dedication, eventually fighting his way around the globe, winning championship after championship, moving up the ranks until he was universally regarded as a world-class martial arts contender.

He chased women and squandered his winnings with the same success and determination until he took a particularly bad beating during a fight that he nearly lost his life and decided it was time for him to do something else.

He had very little money saved and no job skills that weren’t physical, so he contacted Liam and suggested that Liam hire him as a driver-bodyguard.

At Dante’s request, Liam sent him to a special training course for drivers of high-profile people, where they learned advanced evasive maneuvers to avoid attacks or kidnappings on the road.

Dante completed the course as one of the top drivers ever trained. Liam had earned Dante’s lifelong loyalty; Liam knew Dante would do anything for him, even step in front of a truck.

For those reasons, Liam met Dante’s gaze in the rearview mirror and forced himself to state aloud that which he could barely accept himself. "Rayne Wallace’s little boy was kidnapped this morning."

"Oh, Lord," Dante said, sounding sickened and outraged. He had inherited his father’s love for children, and although he had none of his own, he carried photographs of all his nieces and nephews and frequently sent them gifts. "How old is he?"

Liam paused, calculating the total number of months that had passed since he’d seen Rayne Wallace in Maranta, subtracting from that a full nine-month pregnancy. "One year eight months old."

"I’ve never heard you mention the mother’s name before, so I guess she’s an old friend of yours—from before I started working for you?"

"She’s no friend of mine." He said coolly.

The scathing distaste in Liam’s voice registered on Dante, and he glanced in surprise in the rearview mirror again. "Then, I guess the boy’s father is a friend of yours?"

"I’m the boy’s father," Liam said, his tone terse with submerged emotions he was struggling to suppress so that he could focus on what needed to be done.

"What!" In his shock, Dante hit the brake; then he slammed down on the accelerator to recover lost speed and glared accusingly over his shoulder at Liam. "You’ve got a son you’ve never bothered to tell me about?!"

"I didn’t know he existed until half an hour ago, when Neil called to tell me he’d been kidnapped."

"Do you mean Wayner has known all along that you have a son, but he didn’t tell you until this morning?" Dante said, his outrage expressed by his contemptuous use of Neil Wayner’s last name alone.

"No one knew anything about the boy until this morning, when his mother called Neil and gave him the facts," Liam said, staring fixedly out the side window, his patience at the breaking point as the moments ticked by without a phone call from either of the attorneys.

"Right now, all I know is that he’s being held for a 1 billion dollars ransom—" In a well-meaning but transparent effort to soothe Liam, Dante said, "Maybe she’s lying about you being the father because she needs someone rich to give her the money, so she can get her boy back."

"She’s not lying about it."

"How can you be so sure?"

"When the detective were investigating Alvin’s death, I gave them a sample of my DNA. This morning, the detective assured Neil that he can provide DNA proof that I’m the father."

As he spoke, he stared at the silent phone, his jaw clenched with impatience, and abruptly decided he’d waited long enough for his attorneys to return his call. He aggressively tapped on the phone just as the screen lit up with an incoming call, and his attorney’s name, Ellison appeared.

"Liam, what’s happening?" Ellison asked, sounding simultaneously concerned, rushed, and highly competent.

"I was in the middle of a court case when my secretary told me you urgently needed me. I’m on break, but I need to get back in—"

"You’re going to need a postponement, not just a break," Liam cut in sharply, and then explained the emergency.

Ellison listened in stunned silence as Liam relayed the limited information he had about his unknown son and the kidnapping. "Is that all you know?" Ellison asked.

"Yes, and that’s all I’m going to know until I hear back from you," Liam reminded him.

"However, keeping me updated isn’t your main priority. This is—" Liam said, outlining the financial arrangements he’d made with his Paris banker, Mr. Emons. "Emons is coordinating everything with the Zen banks," he concluded. "I need you to stay in touch with him while I’m on the plane."

"He’ll tell you which banks are providing the cash and where to meet the couriers carrying the money. Find out where Wallace’s restaurant is and pick a nearby location for the exchange. The area will likely be filled with cops, so safety shouldn’t be an issue. However, try not to attract attention during the exchange or when you arrive at the restaurant."

"Don’t worry about that." Ellison exhaled nervously but remained determined, despite questioning Liam’s methods. "Why not let the couriers deliver the money to the restaurant? Or better yet, why not have the banks send it in an armored truck?"

Liam explained tersely, "Two years ago, in Italy, kidnappers saw their ransom arrive in an armored truck and decided there was no need to keep the victim alive. They killed him."

After a brief silence, Ellison asked, "Do you want anyone at the restaurant to know you’re coming?"

"No, I want you to gather information, not give it out. I don’t want rehearsed answers and explanations from the cops or anyone else."

Liam hung up, but the conversation with Ellison, especially the part about the kidnappers in Italy, made the situation painfully real.

Dante, having overheard the entire conversation, began asking Liam questions in an effort to distract him from dwelling on the deadly outcome of that Italian kidnapping.

"When I meet my new nephew, what should I call him?"

"What?"

"What’s your son’s name?" He grinned.

Liam’s thoughts were in such upheaval that he couldn’t remember if Neil had mentioned his son’s name during their phone call that morning, and even when he tried to recall the conversation, he could remember only the beginning of it with any clarity because Neil hadn’t yet dropped his ’bomb.’

"Rayne has a little boy who was kidnapped this morning in her apartment building... his nanny was left unconscious ...police have issued a Crimson alert... kidnappers are demanding a 1 billion dollars ransom, or else they’re going to kill him.

They’re going to call with instructions at nine o’clock tonight. Rayne called me a few minutes ago, Parker was with her...I talked to him. And then, the bomb dropped: He’s your son, Liam..."

Neil had said more after that, but Liam’s brain and his emotions had been going into overload, and although he’d listened, he couldn’t remember now what he’d heard.

"I don’t know his name," Liam replied to Dante’s question. "I don’t think Neil told me what it is."

"What about his mother—how did you meet her?" Dante persisted. "Where was it? Obviously, you two hit it off. What’s she like?"

"We barely knew each other," Liam said in a cold, sharp tone that warned Dante not to question him further on that subject.

"She’s just someone I met when I was down in the islands. We had a meaningless fling for a day or two, and then I flew back to Zen and forgot about the whole encounter."

That last sentence wasn’t entirely true, Liam knew.

The embarrassing truth was that he’d missed her terribly, from the time she’d left him standing on the the shoreline until the night he ran into her at the banquet and discovered what a shallow, manipulative fraud she was.

Before that banquet night, he endured all the humbling doubts and the regrets, the painful longing and bewilderment, of a man who has lost something he desperately wanted and had arrogantly believed was already his.

Intellectually, he accepted that when Rayne chose to leave the island with her boyfriend, instead of meeting Liam at the shoreline, she had simply been making what she believed was the right choice for her. He understood that, and yet his besotted brain couldn’t understand why she hadn’t realized that he was the right choice.

He knew the only sensible way to deal with the situation was to put it behind him, and that the only way to put it behind him was to stop thinking about her. Forgetting her was the only solution, and yet he persistently subjected himself to the sweet torture of remembering their time together.

He, who was extremely adept at compartmentalizing troublesome emotions and barricading truly painful ones, could not—no, would not—put Rayne Wallace out of his conscious awareness, where he knew she needed to be.

Rayne had chosen to be with her boyfriend instead of Liam.

He’d lost her to another man, and it hurt like hell. He laid awake at night, trying to figure out why he’d lost her, thinking of ways he might have prevented it. He did that, even after he realized he was acting like a heartbroken, jilted lover—a cliché he’d never imagined could apply to him.

All that came to an abrupt end the night he discovered that she was Max’s Everett fiancée and he watched her saunter up to him with that coy smile on her face.

She was a total fake, and he had fallen for her.

In two short days, Rayne Wallace had managed to discover a weakness in him that he’d never suspected existed—an eager, naive, sentimental gullibility that filled him with self-disgust whenever he thought of his time with her.

Shame and self-disgust were the only emotions he still felt in connection with her, and so he chose to avoid any thought of her or mention of her name.

Once he realized what she really was, she became easy to get over and completely forgettable—but what he couldn’t forget or get over was the fact that he had been a malleable dupe in her hands.