Choosing Him: A New Adult International Romance Serial (Angelique's Greek Book 1) (4 page)

“Just a second,” she said. “Be right back.”

She dashed back through the vines to go get her blank sheets from Kalani’s Jeep. She was desperate to draw, to create, to imagine, and get it all down on paper.

As she reached into the back footwell, a beeping on the seat startled her. It was Lorenza’s phone. Though she knew she was wrong, she reached forward and snatched it up.

1 new message from Iulia.
 

Her heart hammering, Angelique pressed
open
.

All it said was,
Go on girl, you can do it.

Do what? Angelique scrolled back up the conversation.

Guess what he’s worth
, Lorenza had written.

200 million?
Iulia had replied.

Haha, try that same times ten.

2 billion?!?!

If you don’t believe me look it up. Theodros Katrakis.

Just did
, Iulia had written.
That’s crazy.

He’ll probably be thinking of that stupid book while we’re having sex but who cares?
Lorenza had written.

You’ll be one of the richest women alive once he agrees to marry you. And you can still find some impoverished sex god on the side! Go work your magic.

I’m doing what I can.

That’s when Iulia had replied.
Go on girl, you can do it.

*****

Chapter 4

Angelique’s head was spinning as she made her way back through the vines and into the half constructed hotel. She wanted to march up to Lorenza and tell her in no uncertain terms exactly what she thought of her, but held her tongue.
 

She made up her mind to speak to Theo first, to let him know of Lorenza’s evil intentions before she twisted up some story to make it seem implausible and deleted all her texts.
 

Angelique had been careful to change Iulia’s last message to an unread status. She wanted to talk to Carla and Atreus, too, to see what they knew about Lorenza and to see if they knew who Iulia was.

The next few hours were torture. Kalani took them all the way across the large acreage so they could see the other side, where the beach was. Only moments ago the beach had seemed so full of possibility to Angelique, but now looked eerie and uninviting. Jungle creepers had moved into the abandoned concrete buildings, pressing up against the closed windows and snaking in and out of the open ones. In her rational mind, she knew that it would all look just fine when cleared, but she was suddenly feeling an overwhelming sense of dread.

Whenever she looked at Lorenza she wanted to shout at her that she knew what she was up to. She was desperate to holler at her to stay away from Theo, that he was a good and decent man, a man who deserved a woman that loved him. It almost killed her to keep her mouth shut and she began to sing loudly to ease the pressure.
 

Don’t worry about a thing, ‘cause every little thing is gonna be all right.

Luckily they were in the middle of the bush so no one could hear them. Lorenza raised her eyebrows but Kalani was perfectly happy to join in, singing even louder than Angelique. They sang the same few lines on loop until even Angelique was sick of it.

The beach was covered in plastic bottles and stank of stale seaweed. Usually Angelique could have conjured it into a seaside paradise with her imagination, but with all her energy diverted as it was, she couldn’t see it for anything but what it was, despite Kalani’s exclamations.

“Just give it a good old clean up and
wow
,” he said, “it’s looking just like those beaches by the resorts. Just needs a bit of care, that’s all.”

“Yes,” Angelique said.
 

Lorenza crossed her arms and stared at the beach. It was clear she had no imagination at all.

“You don’t like it?” Kalani asked. His face fell.

“I do,” said Angelique. “I just need some more time to work out what I really feel about it.”

“I understand,” said Kalani. “You can’t make these kind of decisions just like that. “Why don’t we go and see the other piece we have lined up?”

“I’ve got a headache,” said Angelique. “Do you think we could take a rain check?”

“Aww, man, I’m so sorry to hear that,” said Kalani. “I get migraines, they really suck, don’t they?”

“They sure do,” said Angelique.
 

She really was beginning to feel a tight band around her head from the pressure.

Kalani led the way back through the bush and drove them back to the hotel. Kalani cranked up some Hawaiian folk music on the car radio, steel guitar notes twanging out and up into the tropical breeze, and no one talked until he dropped them off at the hotel door.

“Thanks Kalani,” Angelique said. “I’ll call you about the other property and we’ll go up sometime.”

“Sure thing, beautiful flower,” Kalani replied. “Bye, Lorenza.”

Lorenza gave him a vague wave without turning her head as she went into the lobby.

“Did I offend her or something?” Kalani asked.

“No, no, don’t worry about that,” said Angelique. “She doesn’t like anyone.”

Kalani shared a conspiratorial grin, then sped off.

Lorenza was nowhere to be seen by the time Angelique got into the lobby. Angelique ran straight to the elevator, pounding on the button. She wanted,
needed
, to get to Theo’s room as soon as she could, before Lorenza could get her claws into him.
 

The elevator seemed to take forever to come, and when it did it was packed with a disoriented family with too much luggage, trying to find out where their room was.
 

She dashed over to the stairs instead, vaulting up them two at a time until she reached their floor. She ran down the hallway and knocked on Theo’s door.

“Theo,” she said. “It’s me, Angelique.” There was no answer.
 

“Theo?” she called out louder. Nothing.

She scrambled for her cell phone in her bag, but when she rang his cell it went straight to voicemail. Hurrying back downstairs to reception, she wondered where on earth he could be.
 

Wasn’t he supposed to be staying in all day and working on his book?

“Hi there,” she said to the receptionist.

“Good afternoon,” the receptionist replied. “How can I help you?”

“Do you know where Theodros Katrakis is? From room 705?”

“I certainly do,” the receptionist said with a fond, lipsticked smile. “He paid for an afternoon coast cruise which left about an hour ago. Said he needed some inspiration to get some writing done.”

“When does the cruise return?”
 

The receptionist glanced at the clock. “They’ll return to the beach in an hour or so.”

“Thank you,” Angelique said, then hurried back to her room. She knew the next hour would be torture.

She needed to have a shower to wash away the dirt of the jungle that had gathered on her feet and lower calves, but was reluctant to run the water too hard as she might miss the sound of Theo’s footsteps in the hallway, his keycard in the door. She turned the water on to little more than a trickle, and couldn’t resist dashing out and wrapping herself in a towel to open the main door and take a peek down the hallway to check he hadn’t arrived.

Her whole body buzzed with anger when she thought of Lorenza and what she planned to do to him. For the life of her Angelique couldn’t understand how people could treat others with such contempt and disdain, like their lives didn’t even matter. It made her blood boil and it took all her strength not to march over to Lorenza’s room and give her a piece of her mind.
 

Angelique decided to soak in the bath while waiting to hear Theo’s steps in the hall. She slowly undressed as the tub filled. She rubbed the tension out of her naked shoulders and submerged her dark skin into an enormous bubble bath.
 

As she soaked, she couldn’t help but think of Theo—wishing he could soak with her. She imagined his light skin rubbing against her chocolate body. His pink lips kissing every part of her.
 

She shook the thoughts from her head; she needed to talk to him first. She needed to tell him about Lorenza.
 

Once she was out of the bath, clean and in a fresh summer dress, she had no idea what to do. She didn’t want to eat, but her stomach growled so she called up for an avocado salad, breadfruit chips, and a piña colada.

“Make it strong,” she told the receptionist.

She dared not turn on the TV volume, so switched it on mute and watched actors talk silently. She amused herself for a couple of moments by trying to lip read, figuring that was what life was like for a deaf person, but soon gave up.
 

She couldn’t rest until Theo knew what was going on.

When the food came she found she was surprisingly hungry. After demolishing the meal, she considered ringing Carla, but figured out on a phone app that it was 2 am in Dubai. All she could do was sit in silence and imagine how she was going to tell Theo and, much more excitingly, what would happen afterward.

Maybe he’d look deeply into her eyes, then pull her close and push his soft, full lips up against hers—his tongue exploring her mouth Electricity bolted through her body at the mere thought of it.
 

Perhaps he’d tell her how grateful he was that she’d told him, that he would ever be indebted to her for his lucky escape. Or maybe he would even sprawl out on the bed and laugh.
 

He’d say, “I was never interested in her, anyways. You’re the one I want, Angelique. Now come here, into my arms.”

Her imagination ran a bit wild after that, until her clit and dark nipples began to pulse. She wanted him and she wanted him to want her.
 

She stood up, shaking the images out of her mind and checked her watch. It was more than an hour later.

“Oh my gosh!” she said. How could she have missed it?

She dashed out of her room and was about to knock when she found that the doorway was propped open with a shoe, though it looked like an accident. Music was blaring inside.

“Theo?” she said. “Are you there?”

She guessed her voice was drowned out by the music and decided that since she had such an urgent message to relay that she had better go in.

She opened the door to see Theo lying down on the bed, just as he had been in her imagination. But Lorenza was sitting on top of him, her dark legs straddling him in bright red lingerie that clashed horribly with her ebony skin. His pale hands held her curvy backside as she swayed slowly on top of him.
 

At the sound of Angelique’s step into the room, Lorenza whipped around, her eyes filled with fire.

“Get out!” she shouted.

The End

*****

How could Theo be so blind?
 
How could he choose that gold-digger Lorenza over Angelique?
 
And how did things even get to this point?
 

Find out for yourself in
Getting Him
, Book 2 in “The Greek Tycoon’s” first spinoff series, “Angelique’s Greek”, Available On Amazon RIGHT NOW:

Angelique’s Greek, Book 2:
Getting Him

Continue on for a note from Kay Brody…

One More Thing…

If you would
RETURN TO AMAZON
to give this book a positive review, I would
really
appreciate it!
 
Thank you so much!
 

And continue on for that note…

A Note From Kay Brody

I’ve been experiencing a lot of
 
“firsts” lately:
 
my first book on Pre-Order, my first official listing with a big time promoter, my first paperback version of one of my books. The list goes on and on!
 
It’s been AMAZING!
 
And now here is another one:
my first spinoff series!
 

If you are on my mailing list (if you’re
not
, see below!), you know that this has been coming for some time.
 
You also know that my second spinoff, also from “The Greek Tycoon” series, is also being released at, essentially, the same time as this one.
 
So I am doubly nervous & excited!
 
It’s an unusual tactic, I know, but it’s one that I thought fit well for this set of characters and their “world”

I hope you agree!
 
I would love for you to email me with your thoughts and
would be
tremendously
appreciative if you would be willing to return to Amazon to
REVIEW THIS BOOK
.
 
As I’ve mentioned countless times before, reviews are
so critically important
for indie authors like me and they make such a difference!
 
Believe me, I’ve written more reviews than I care to think about so I know they can be a pain in the butt!
 
But, because many promoters now base the books they accept strictly on how many 4 or 5 star ratings they have, a “star-rating” (with just a sentence or two thrown in to show it is not a fake), can be the difference between success and failure!