FOURTEEN
“YOU WERE RUDE,” Alessia whispered to her.
They’d made it to their table for dinner. The problem was the two other people at it with them. She wouldn’t cause a scene, but she really was ready for the conversation to change.
“It’s not as simple as that.”
“It is.” Alessia just wouldn’t take the hint. “That guy came to our room for you. Do you have any idea how many people would love to get five minutes of Zane Dyce’s time? How many people would die if he knew their name?”
“Wealth and popularity don’t account for everything,” she said. “Though he is being kind enough to facilitate our early departure.”
“An early…? Why would he do that? Did he ask us to leave? Why would he—”
“Because I asked him. It’s not safe here, Alessia. You shouldn’t be around men like Roman Lowe.”
“Since when were you so judgmental? I don’t want to leave.”
“Leave?” Lark piped up from Alessia’s other side. “Who’s leaving?”
“We are,” she said. “And anyone is welcome to join us.”
“We’re not leaving.” Her sister was adamant. “I’m not leaving anyway; you can go wherever you want.” Servers came over with the food providing a reprieve. Brief though it was. “I’m staying.”
Why didn’t her sister understand she was protecting her? “I came here to look out for you and look what happened. We’re in a confined space with a man willing to exploit the environment. If I tell Mom—”
“Mom wanted me to come. She wants me to live my life.”
“I want you to live your life too, but with options. Here you have no choice but to take crap like what happened last night. We have no escape option here, nowhere to go if things take a nosedive.”
Again.
Alessia picked up her wine. “You can escape if you want, I don’t want.”
“It’s a disease,” Alana interjected. Had she been listening the whole time? “Addiction is a disease. It’s not his fault.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
“His addiction is none of my business, disease or otherwise. My sister’s safety is my primary concern.”
“Running away from him will send a message,” Alana said. “You’ll be telling him he’s broken.”
It could be argued he was, wasn’t everyone broken in one way or another?
Lark leaned toward the center of the table. “Zane Dyce came to Alessia’s room to apologize!”
Shit, how long had the woman been biting her tongue on that one?
“Oh my God,” Alana said. “Do you think he’ll visit everyone?”
The sneaky look Alessia and Lark exchanged almost deserved an eye roll.
“No,” she said uninterested in being the subject of gossip. “He and I have been working together while you’ve been on excursions with Roman.”
“Last night Roman said you were perfect for each other,” Lark said. “That you captivated Zane, is that true? Are you together?”
“No.”
“So just sex then?”
“No! Not just sex, not just anything.” How had this all turned around on her? “We had a friendship and now it’s through.”
“Because of what happened last night?”
God, these women were relentless.
“So you think he’s broken too? That he’s responsible for his cousin’s actions?”
“Not the actions, but enabling him, yes,” she said. What the Lowe and Dyce families decided to do for each other was their business. “There’s no denying last night wouldn’t have happened in another environment. Dyce gave Roman all the tools he needed to—”
“To what?”
“What the hell is with the inquisition? Aren’t we going to eat?”
In silence, if she had her way. No one had even looked at their plates. Deciding to take the lead, the quicker she scarfed the food, the sooner she could get away from the table. Maybe Alessia would be more reasonable alone without her posse.
The last thing she wanted to do was deprive her sister of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But what exactly did looking after her mean if she let Alessia spend time with a potential abuser?
“I’ve never known anyone who slept with a billionaire before.”
It was like she wasn’t even there. Or she was there, screaming into the void, and no one could hear her. Drama was fuel for these women, and they knew exactly how to use it to its full potential.
“You don’t think about it do you? Weren’t you terrified?” Alana asked. “He’s probably had sex with the hottest women on the planet.”
Alessia’s shoulders went back. “My sister is hot.”
“Yeah, but, not like supermodel hot. Look at Sway, she’s just… on another plane.”
“You think she slept with Zane?” Lark asked on a gasp. “Maybe that’s why Roman was so upset last night! He found out his cousin had sex with the love of his life.”
Wow, it was just… wow. Did people really live their lives this way?
“If Sway and Zane got together, she wouldn’t marry Deacon.”
“No. You think she’s heartbroken? That Zane broke her heart?”
“And she’s using Deacon to make him jealous? They’ve been together like ten minutes, they’re not really going to get married, are they?”
“Maybe,” Lark picked up Alana’s thread. “Maybe she wants them to object.”
“At the wedding?”
Excitement grew to a frenzy. “Yeah! Like a big church full of people and—”
“Okay,” she said, putting down her fork. “Can you hear—”
“Oh my God, they might fight!” Alana should write movies… teen movies. “Roman rushes in to declare his love and there’s Zane already there with her! Stealing her from Deacon!”
“This woman is popular,” she muttered, understanding they were in their own little world.
“Do you think she’s coming here? Will they ask her to come here?”
“Maybe she is already here. We haven’t seen Roman, have we? Maybe she came when she heard about last night.”
“Oh for God’s sake.” And that was the moment the three others chose to focus on her. “If any reasonable woman heard her ex-boyfriend got trashed and terrified a group of innocent women, the last thing she’d do was get on a plane.”
“You don’t understand,” Alessia said. “She loves him.”
“If she loves him, why is she engaged to this Deacon guy?”
“They went out like a million years ago.”
“Then she should marry him and live happily ever after. She and Roman can go about their lives separately and never see each other ever again.” Alana snorted while Lark blinked in surprise, both set their incredulous stares on her sister. “What?”
“Deacon is Logan’s lead guitarist.”
And she could only shake her head and shrug. “Okay, and—”
“Logan,” Alessia said like she was an idiot. “Logan Lowe! Roman’s brother.”
“Oh.” Okay, then maybe… “Are they close? Do they hang out? I don’t see your co-workers… ever.”
“It’s hardly the same thing,” Alessia said.
“Yeah, they hang out. They’re in the same places all the time. Roman lives in LA. Everyone in LA hangs out in Crimson—”
“Oh my God, do you think they’ll fight?” Alana was big on men getting physical. “They’ll be there, drinking—”
“If it’s a big club, they don’t have to see each other.”
All three women groaned.
“Thea,” Alessia whined. “Don’t you know anything?”
“Apparently not.”
“Crimson LA has a VIP area for—”
“Very important people?” she asked, sort of joking, only no one laughed.
“Who is Zairn Lomond closest to?” Alana asked, pondering. “Who would he bar?”
“You think he would bar someone?”
“If he doesn’t want a fight in his club, he’ll have to exile someone.”
“But if he bars Deacon, he’d have to bar Logan, right?”
“Yes, oh, and, hey, remember that time Roxie got it on with Logan? Like a year ago, in London. Do you remember that? The pictures were all over the internet!”
“Oh, yeah!”
“So Zairn’s probably desperate for an excuse to bar Logan.”
“For putting his hands on Roxie, yes!”
“And he wouldn’t bar Roman, that would like half his numbers.”
The women swooned. “He is incredibly popular.”
Though she had no goddamn idea why.
“Is it popularity or people looking to cash in?” she asked. “Hangers-on have always been a feature in celebrity life.”
Alana snorted again. “Like you’d know.”
“Don’t bully my sister.”
Alessia’s affront was appreciated but unnecessary.
She laid a hand on her forearm. “The last thing we want is fighting in here. She’s right, I don’t know much about celebrity life.”
“If Thea knows Zane…” Lark said, drawing out the suspense. “Maybe she could ask him.”
“Ask him what?” she questioned only to then shake her head. “I don’t think I’ll see him again before we leave.”
She’d asked him to send someone to tell them when to be ready. Hopefully, he read between her deliberate lines and wouldn’t show up himself.
Alessia finally took note of her food and began to eat. “I don’t know why you think I’ll be safer without you here.”
“Alessia—”
“We came here for thirty days and I want to see it through. Yes, last night was… intense…”
“Alessia—”
“But no one was hurt. And you can’t blame Zane either. He came as soon as he heard what was going down.” True. “He didn’t abandon anyone or wrestle people to the ground. No one was hurt. He showed up, defused the situation, and got everyone back to their rooms safe.”
Not personally, but okay.
“Yeah,” Lark said. “If you think about it, he was kind of a hero.”
“A hero?”
“Yeah, swooping in to save the day. When you showed and he was worried about you, he didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“He wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“You think he doesn’t care about people?” Alana asked. “That he’s like some cynical, afraid to be sued heartless money-monger who thinks he’s superior to—”
“He’s not superior to anyone,” she said and sighed. “Are you sure you want to stay? Completely sure?”
“One hundred percent,” Alessia said and linked their hands. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Was it?
Alessia and her friends may not be the most concise, but justice weighed their side. Zane hadn’t caused the upset and he had tried to limit it. Like she’d said, when she got scared, she got mad. If her sister wasn’t leaving the island, she wouldn’t either. Now all she had to do was find Zane.