Choosing Him: A New Adult International Romance Serial (Angelique's Greek Book 1) (3 page)

The next morning, she got up early to prepare for battle. While still back in Dubai, she’d arranged some property viewings with a realtor, but Theo and Lorenza were at the forefront of her mind.
 

She showered with her favorite vanilla and lotus flower shower gel so its sweet aroma would linger on her chocolate skin throughout the day, then she put on a hot pink chiffon dress that frilled over her breasts and reached down to mid-calf. She had never been one to wear skimpy clothes, but she did take great pride in her appearance. She arranged her braids in a side twist at the front and a low flowering bun in back. She adorned it with a flower and applied the tiniest bit of makeup to accentuate her dark eyes.

Gathering up her file of design ideas and paper for making notes, she looked at herself in the mirror. She took a deep breath.
I can do this.
She slipped her feet into gold pumps to match her jewelry and took off for breakfast.

A sign bearing the words
Sunset Snorkeling
caught her eyes. It had a silhouette picture of a man and woman in snorkeling gear walking hand in hand into the sunset.
 

Tonight at 5.30 pm. Sign up at Reception.

She scanned the glass breakfast hall for Theo’s tall stature, his sugar brown hair and creamy white skin, but she couldn’t make him out anywhere. She caught sight of Lorenza pretty quickly though, her black and red lace bikini ensemble was catching attention at the breakfast bar. Angelique sighed deeply and waited to see where Lorenza went once she’d served herself—she might lead her right back to Theo.

“Oh,” Lorenza said when Angelique had caught up with her. “You’re finally up.”

“What do you mean, finally?” said Angelique. “It’s only seven-thirty.”

“We’ve been up since five,” Lorenza said airily. “Taking yoga and swimming in the sea.”

She stalked off to a table and Angelique finally saw Theo. His back was to a pillar. Lorenza almost slammed her breakfast plate on the table and a couple of grapes rolled off it onto the tablecloth and then the floor.

“Angelique!” Theo said, turning around. His hair was damp and he wore a white shirt that gaped to show most of his strong chest.

Angelique steeled herself, then smiled widely. “Good morning,” she said. “I hear you’ve been up for a while already.” She sat down next to him.

“That’s right,” he said. “Early to bed, early to rise. I’m not one of these party ‘til the sun comes up kind of people.”

“Me neither,” said Angelique.

“You want some pineapple juice?” he asked. “It’s really good, isn’t it, Lorenza?”

“Yes.”

“Sure,” said Angelique, holding out a glass on the table for him to pour into.
 

She looked into his hazel eyes as he picked up the jug, noticing how soft they were. They balanced out his strong features perfectly, giving him the impression of a man who would treat her like a princess, but could shoot to her defense if she was ever threatened. Quite unexpectedly, he gazed back into her eyes, as if captivated by them, neither of them noticing the trickling sound of pineapple juice hitting the table.

“You’re spilling it!” Lorenza shouted, so loud that people turned around.

Angelique and Theo snapped back into the moment.

“Look,” Lorenza said. “You’ve poured it onto my plate.”

“Oh, hell,” said Theo. “Sorry, Lor. I’ll just go and get something to mop it up with. Maybe you should go get some more food. Sorry.”

Just as he got up a waiter arrived at the table with a smile. “We’ll take care of this, sir. Would you like to move tables, ma’am?”

Angelique looked at Theo with a grin. “I think we’d better.”

Lorenza stalked back to the breakfast bar. When Angelique and Theo had settled into the new table, Angelique decided she should seize her chance.

“I … I was wondering if you wanted to go snorkeling with me tonight,” she said. “I saw a notice out in the lobby and it looked like fun.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Not really my thing,” he said.
 

Angelique felt her heart sink.

“Besides, I have a deadline to meet for my book,” he continued. “A self-imposed deadline, but a deadline nonetheless. I bet Lorenza would like to, though.”

“Oh, okay,” Angelique said, looking down in her lap.
 

Her brain whirred as she tried to figure it all out. Why did he turn her down—and so quickly? Hadn’t they just had a moment, gazing deep into each other’s eyes?

“Maybe we’ll be too tired when we get back from looking at properties with the realtor,” she finally managed to say.
 

He nodded and poured her a fresh glass of pineapple juice when the waiter brought over another jug and glasses.
 

“Now you can try it,” he said with a smile. “Heaven in a glass.”

She sipped. It was sweet and tangy, but it soured in her stomach.
 

“Are you going to get some breakfast?” he asked.

“I’m not really all that hungry,” she said.

She sat in silence as Lorenza finally returned and finished her breakfast. Theo asked a waiter for a pen and spent the rest of the meal scribbling ideas down on a paper napkin. She felt totally out of her depth. She missed the familiar faces of her Bahamian village, the friendly ride over to Little Ekali on Peterson’s speedboat, and the quiet of Atreus’ vacation villa.
 

The room seemed suddenly to swell with the sounds of laughter and cutlery clinking against plates until it was so claustrophobic that she had to get out.

“I’ll wait for you guys out front,” she said. “The realtor Kalani should be here in twenty minutes or so.”

“Yes,” Lorenza said.

Theo didn’t even look up from his napkin. “Okay.”

Angelique sat on a bench outside the hotel among the palm trees and ornamental flower garden and cupped her face in her hands, her elbows on her knees. She had been so excited about this trip, but so far it was a disaster.
 

Having always been the type to look for the rainbow emerging from behind the clouds, to give thanks, and fill her heart with gratitude for the gift of life itself, these lingering blues were uncomfortable, unfamiliar territory.
 

Her mother had always taught her to hold her head high and to believe in herself. Her father still pulled her onto his lap and told her she was his little girl, his little princess, even though she was far too big for it. They felt impossibly far away and she guessed her self-esteem was there with them, because she certainly couldn’t find it anywhere.
 

She wanted to run back up the stairs and dive into her pillow and sob. Coming to Hawaii was a mistake. Leaving the Bahamas at all was a mistake.

She spiraled lower and lower until she convinced herself that she should forget the whole thing and go home. She’d ring Kalani and cancel the property viewings, book the next plane home. Though she couldn’t work for Atreus in the Bahamas anymore, maybe she’d get a job in a hotel and pay him back for all the Hawaii expenses in increments.
 

She looked gloomily up at the glass hotel façade. By its luxury finish, she guessed she’d be paying him for the next few years.

She dialed Kalani on her cell, ready to tell him to turn around.

“Aloha!” he said into her ear. “I know I’m a couple of minutes late, but I’m just around the corner. See you in a sec.”

“It’s—” she began, but he had already hung up.

She sighed and hit the call button again but it rang out.
 

After a few minutes a battered old open-top Jeep pulled up, a man with the widest smile she had ever seen sat in the front seat with his arm draped over the steering wheel.

“Hey!” he said, taking his shades off. He squeezed his bulk out of the rickety white door and bounded up to her. “You must be Angelique?”

“Hi.” She tried to mimic his enthusiasm but her voice fell a little flat.
 

“So glad to meet you,” he beamed, taking her right hand in both of his and shaking it.
 

He was not attractive to Angelique in the least, but he had such warm eyes, like he loved her like a sister. She smiled back shyly.

“You are
so
beautiful when you smile,” he said. “Not that you’re not beautiful when you don’t. You look like an exotic flower standing there in your dress.”

“Thanks,” Angelique said. His words warmed her heart.

“So you ready to go?” he asked.

She looked over toward the door to the lobby and saw Theo and Lorenza emerge, squinting in the bright morning sun. Lorenza wore a yellow empire line dress that reflected the light back into Angelique’s eyes with an intense glare.
 

“They’re coming, too,” she said.

“Uh, oh,” Kalani said. “I don’t have the space.”

Angelique glanced at the Jeep. There was only one seat in the front, the other had been removed, and a small bench stretched over the back that could only fit two.
 

Her heartbeat raced as she imagined herself with Theo, packed tight together on the back bench, zooming through the romantic scenery of Lanai.

“I sure am sorry,” said Kalani. “I assumed it was just you.”

Theo’s eyes danced ever so quickly over Angelique in her pink dress, but she was paying such close attention that she saw every flicker of his glance.

 
“Would you like to come with us, Theo?” Angelique asked quickly.

“Sure,” he said with a good natured chuckle. “That’s why we’re here, aren’t we?”

Kalani scratched the back of his neck. “I only have two extra seats, boss. Crossed wires, I’m afraid.”

“No problem,” Theo said. He smiled and shook Kalani’s hand. “I’m Theodros Katrakis, and this is my assistant Lorenza.”

“Good to meet you all,” said Kalani.
 

“I think you two should go,” Theo said, gesturing at Angelique and Lorenza. “I might as well stay back and get headway on this deadline.”

Angelique and Lorenza were two very unhappy women as they squeezed up next to each other in Kalani’s Jeep and waved goodbye to Theo as they took off out of the hotel’s driveway.

“We’re heading to a half finished hotel first,” Kalani told them. “The investors pulled out before completion, but there’s plenty of work already done, which makes it a lot easier on the next buyer.”

They sped through the Hawaiian countryside, past wooden houses raised up on stilts and through unpaved roads shadowed by towering jungle canopy.
 

They stopped by the roadside to drink from a fresh green coconut slashed open with a cutlass. Angelique had drunk a coconut every day of her life and had no problem sipping up the refreshing water and scooping out the soft jelly, but Lorenza spilled water all down her dress and declined the jelly.
 

She looked way out of her comfort zone.

The rest of the way to the property, Lorenza buried her head in her smartphone and didn’t even look up to take in the beauty of the island. Angelique saw Kalani glancing up at Lorenza in the rearview mirror once in a while.

“That’s Lana'ihale,” he said, pointing across the landscape to the peak of a hill covered in rainforest. “The highest point of Lanai.”

Lorenza looked up briefly, then back to her phone screen, which she stayed glued to until they arrived at the property.

“Well, here we are,” said Kalani, bringing the Jeep to a stop and tugging the handbrake up.

“There’s no signal here,” Lorenza said, an irritated edge to her voice.

Kalani shrugged. “It fluctuates.”

She left her phone on the seat and clambered out of the Jeep without a hint of a smile. Angelique got out last, setting her folder on the floor. They set off at an ambling pace.

“If we just go behind this load of overgrown bush here,” said Kalani, “we should be able to see the hotel right away.”

He pushed through vines, surprisingly skillfully, and peeked through.
 

“Yep,” he said. “Come through after me, ladies.”

He held the vines open and Lorenza stepped through first. Angelique came through after and gasped at what she saw. There, right in the middle of the overgrown jungle, were the beginnings of a huge glass atrium. It curved beautifully, stretching up perhaps twenty feet high, and the steps that led up to it were curved and layered in various colors of pearlescent tiles like a shimmering rainbow.

“Wow,” she said. “Now that’s something.”

“Isn’t it?” Kalani said, turning back to her with a grin. “The best thing about this property, though, is that it is bounded with the beach on the other side.”

“Really?” Angelique asked. Maybe her dream of cottages right on the beach was manifesting before her very eyes.

“You bet,” Kalani said.

Lorenza had wandered up the stairs and into where the hotel lobby would be and Angelique watched. The once fine floor was scratched and stained. Heavy cracks ran through it in places, leaving dark gaping spaces. Plants grew up through some of them. Angelique’s imagination ran wild as she looked around, picturing how perfect it could be when Atreus’ team had brought it into beauty, when Peterson and his crew-mates had coaxed a flourishing tropical garden from the rich earth.