CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ELLADIDN’TBOTHERtrying to sleep. There were no available flights off the island until the following afternoon, so she had time to kill and nowhere private to do so. She spent the first part of the night on a beach chaise again, but the resort’s security patrol asked her to return to her room for her safety given that the height of the carnival was nearing. She couldn’t argue with that, so she went to the hotel lobby, powered up her computer and opened her accounting file. No need to put off the truth of her financial situation. With a new spreadsheet, she began compiling a list of bills, a second sheet with a list of physical assets she could liquidate and a third sheet with a list of liquid assets. The last was the shortest list. She was broke, and it was only going to get worse before it got better.
Her eyes were heavy and she found herself bobbleheading as the hour hand slipped past two in the morning. No doubt she’d lost the job, and that meant she had nothing better to do. She was about to give in and lay her head on the table when someone slid a cup of coffee toward her.
“Brain juice,” she whispered. Slurred? Whatever. She needed the caffeine like a newborn babe needed its mother’s milk. Her hands shook as she lifted the cup to her mouth. Had she ever been this tired? She took a big sip.
“It’s hot, Ella.”
She spat the contents out. Yes, it was hot. But the warning was delivered with a British accent.
AmaleBritish accent.
Adrenaline crashed through her, and she started to shake even as her bleary vision cleared. Liam sat across from her, wiping coffee from his face. All the things she wanted to say rushed to the tip of her tongue and fought for their right to be the first words chosen, the first threat delivered, the first curse uttered. But instead of saying anything intelligible, she sputtered and tripped over her thoughts, managing single syllables.
“Not the greeting I expected, though not as bad as it could have been.” Liam’s words were muffled as he dragged his arm across his face and blinked a few times to clear the last of the coffee from his eyes.
“That you expected anything from me after all you’ve done tells me what a fool you really are.” Ella gathered her personal flotsam, closed her computer and began shoving things into her bag.
“Ella, please.” He settled a hand over hers.
Shock raced through that point of contact and up her arm. Heat followed, so intense it was nearly unbearable. She jerked away from him and knocked over the coffee cup and the saucer it sat in. Porcelain splintered on the tile floor and bled black as the still-hot brew seeped out of the mess in every direction. Shoving her chair back, she stepped around the mess and hoisted her messenger bag over her shoulder.
No matter what he’d done, seeing Liam hurt on a deep, personal level. But there were a couple of things she had to say or she’d never forgive herself. Steeling herself, she lifted her chin and met his dark gaze head-on. “It breaks my heart on a variety of levels that you lied to me, Liam, that you used me and proved yourself to be someone other than the man I thought I’d come to know.”
“Ella,” Liam interrupted.
But she was having none of it. “I’m. Not. Done.” Her jaw was so tight she didn’t know how she’d get the next words out, but they were burning a hole in her self-worth, and pride demanded she fling them out so she alone didn’t have to bear the burden of their being. “You destroyed my career, Liam. You have made it impossible for me to go back to Los Angeles and get any type of respectable work in event planning. You screwed me—physically, mentally, emotionally and, above all, professionally. My only solace is that karma’s a bitch, and her memory’s infallible.”
With that, she hoisted her bag higher and strode across the lobby, out the main doors and across the grass. She shook, an emotional tempest whipping her thoughts into a frenzy, the vortex dropping into her chest and battering her heart. She should’ve let him have it—reallylet him have it. She could’ve ripped him to shreds, could have left a tattered mess in her wake.
“Pretty to think so,” she said to herself, kicking at a small coconut that had fallen on the path to the beach.
All night she’d been skirting the truth, coming close and then racing away. But when she’d stormed off, her heart aching with every beat and her eyes stinging with caustic tears, she’d realized that avoidance might work for others, but she wasn’t programmed that way.
The truth? She wanted to hurt Liam, deliver a little tit for tat, but she couldn’t. Because she’d fallen for him.
Sincerely.
Thoroughly.
Completely.
She stepped off the end of the path and onto the beach, feet sinking ankle deep into the soft white sand. The moon cast a silvery beam across the water. Waves rolled in and crashed against the shore.
Ella sighed. At least she had this last memory, the beauty of this place emblazoned on her mind.
“Ella.”
Ella whipped around, fists clenched.
Keeping out of arm’s reach, he pushed his hair off his forehead before shoving his hands in his pockets. “I want... I need to make this up to you.”
“How? You think you can, what, demand others respect me after this? Maybe hire me despite the sheer fuckery this event turned into?” Her harsh laugh scraped her throat raw.
And wasn’t it telling he wanted to fix the business side of things while the personal side was far more devastating? How could he not know?
“I have connections, Ella. I can make people hire you.”