His Paradise Wife (9 page)

After calling her supplier for the scarves,
she decided to spend the day alone. She headed down to the beach
enjoying the warmth of the bright sun as the sparkling sand warmed
the bottom of her feet and nestled between her toes. She walked
towards the shoreline where the white foam had crested ashore.
Seagulls squawked and circled in the air above the water, hunting
small fish and seaweed. The sky above was a perfect light blue,
decorated with thin, white clouds.

In the distance, a tour boat breezed by and
she wondered how she could get on one of those. That would be the
perfect thing to do to keep her busy and away from Dante.

After finding out where to sign up from a
lifeguard, she headed down to the dock where the next tour was due
to take off in thirty minutes. She sat, waited and checked her
watch. It was a little after eleven. By now, Dante must’ve realized
she wasn’t going to be joining him. Maybe he’d finally got the
hint. He wasn’t going to get everything he wanted after all.

Chapter 17

Dante sat alone at the resort restaurant,
eating lunch. After Emily hadn’t shown up for breakfast or the
marriage workshop, he ran back to the room to make sure she was
okay, only to find that she wasn’t there. He tried to call her
phone a few times, but hadn’t received an answer.

“
What’s up, bro?” His
brother Desmond asked. He’d seen Dante sitting alone and decided to
join him.

“
What’s up, Des...thought
you’d be back in Asheville by now.”

“
Well, you know, I met a
spicy young thang out here and I decided to stick around for a few
days.”

Dante grinned and shook his head. “What
about Dimitrius?”

“
He left
yesterday.”

“
Oh. Okay.”

“
What about you? You good?”
Desmond inquired.

“
Yeah. I’m cool.”

“
So what’s up with the long
face? You’ve been married for less than a week and you already look
miserable. See, that’s why y’all crazy folk can have the marriage
thing. It ain’t for everybody and it definitely ain’t for
me.”

Dante grinned. His brother was a notorious
player, but he was sure that there would be some woman to come
along and make him change his opinion on marriage.

“
Where is wifey anyway?”
Desmond inquired.

“
I’m not sure at the
moment,” Dante said, truthfully.

“
I saw her heading for the
docks earlier.”

“
Heading for the
docks?”

“
Yeah. So I would be correct
to assume that there’s literally trouble in paradise.”

Dante wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Emily
thinks I’m a liar. She can’t seem to get over the fact that I
created a profile just to have the ability to interact with her.
And you know what...now that I think about it, she’s right. I
should not have done that.”

“
I don’t know why you did it
anyway. You act like since you’re old, you don’t have any
game.”

Dante grinned. “Forty is not old. I’m
distinguished, and I can get any woman I want. I tried a different
method with Emily because...well, she’s...different.”

“
Different...that’s the same
thing you told me about Anita.”

Dante nodded.

“
Honestly, bro, I thought
you said that you would never get remarried after Anita
died.”

“
I didn’t want to but when I
laid eyes on Emily, I knew she had a story and I was right. She
doesn’t know it yet, but she needs me, just like I need her. I’m
not like you...I can’t just pick up some chick at a club and bring
her back to my crib. That doesn’t do it for me. I need something
stable with a woman I can grow with and spend the rest of my life
with. I want children, a family. I want that stability.”

“
I want those things, too,
just now right now.”

“
That’s where we differ. I
want that now.”

“
Well, you got a lot of work
to do.”

Dante nodded. “When are you heading
back?”

“
Late this afternoon. I need
to get my bag and I’m off to the airport right after.” Desmond
peeped at his watch. “As a matter of fact, I need to get going.” He
stood up and pat his brother on the shoulder. “Good luck. See when
you get back.”

“
All right, Des. Take it
easy.”

After lunch, Dante stood at the receptionist
desk to get an overall feel from his employees on how they thought
the event had turned out and if they had received any complaints.
There were none.

Afterwards, he returned to the suite,
checking to see if Emily was back. She wasn’t. He walked in the
bedroom, looking around, his eyes instantly fixed on the wedding
ring he’d given her. He had the ring designed specifically for her
hand. It was special to him. Now it was lying abandoned on the
nightstand. Emily wasn’t taking him seriously and it irked him to
no end.

After taking a short nap on the couch, he
woke up to find that she still wasn’t there. Or what if she came by
while he was resting, then quickly left again? He stood up, stepped
out onto the balcony, pacing the space, trying to determine where
she might be so he could go looking for her now. That’s when he
heard the door to the suite close.

He walked back in the living room and saw
her making a beeline straight for the bedroom, but she wouldn’t
escape so easily this time. He’d had enough of being ignored. The
woman he fell in love with on the computer was here and he would
make her his before this trip was over, starting now.

“
Excuse me, Emily,” he said,
stepping in front of her and blocking her path to the
bedroom.

“
What?” she asked, feeling a
frown form in her forehead, the norm whenever she was face-to-face
with Dante.

“
Where were you today? I was
waiting for you at breakfast and to participate in the marriage
workshops but you never showed.”

Emily boldly looked up at the built,
broad-shouldered man towering in front of her and said, “I’m not
interested in that.”

“
Well, you need to be.
Emily, this is part of the process, okay?”

“
What process?” she asked,
exasperated.

“
What this resort is all
about. I formed this place for people who lost spouses in death.
The therapists here, as well as all the staff, are well-trained
individuals to help people like us to deal with loss.”

“
People like us...” she
hissed. He hadn’t lost anyone unless he was starting to believe his
own lies. “I don’t have time for this. Excuse me.”

When he hadn’t bothered to move out of her
path, Emily looked into his eyes, watching them darken. “Gosh, I
really don’t have time for this. Will you please move out of my
way?”

“
Why do you insist on being
angry, Emily? I’m trying to work with you and you—”

“
You’re trying to
work
with me?” she asked,
cutting him off. “Newsflash...I didn’t ask for, nor do I need your
help or anything else from you for that matter.”

“
Stop!” he yelled, grabbing
her forearms and backing her up to a wall. “Stop fighting me, okay.
Just stop!”

“
Let go of me,” Emily said,
trying her best to free herself from the grasp of his strong
hands.

“
Emily,” Dante said in his
efforts to calm her down. She was persistently trying to free
herself from him and he fought to control her wild movements.
“Emily!”

“
Let me go! What’s wrong
with you?” she shouted. “Let me go!”

He listened this time, and unlatched his
fingers from around her wrists.

“
You’re such a jerk...you
freakin’ animal!” She rubbed her wrists and said, “I have to find
thirty-thousand dollars so I can get out of here. I can’t take
another minute anywhere near you!” She headed back for the door,
then took the elevators down to the ground floor, still rubbing her
arms.

Venturing away from the resort, she stumbled
into a bar, sat down and covered her face with her hands, trying to
get herself together.

“
You look like you can use
several drinks,” the bartender told her.

Emily looked up and saw a woman there, an
African-American woman who appeared to have been in her late
twenties. She was thin, had her hair pulled back into a
ponytail.

Drawing in a breath, Emily said, “Yes. I can
use a drink. What’s popular around here?”

“
I make a mean Bahama
Mama.”

“
All right then. A mean
Bahama Mama it is.”

Emily rested her head against her arms. She
needed to come up with a plan to get away from Dante and off of
Pleasure Island. She sure wasn’t getting any pleasure by being
here, and she couldn’t endure another night with Dante even if her
life depended on it.

“
Here you go, madam,” the
bartender said.

“
Thank you.”

“
You’re welcome.”

Emily took a sip. “Mmm...this is good.”

“
Yeah, I put a little extra
rum in there for ya.”

“
Thanks.”

“
So where are you visiting
from?”

“
Asheville, North
Carolina.”

“
Oh...the
mountains.”

“
Yes.”

“
What brings you to Pleasure
Island? Vacationing?”

“
Something like that. I sort
of got married this weekend in the mass wedding at the GHC
Resort.”

“
Cool,” she said, her eyes
lighting up. “I saw that on the news.”

“
Yeah, well I was one of the
brides.”

“
And where’s
hubby?”

Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably back
at the hotel, thinking up more ways to irritate me.”

The bartender grinned.

Emily did too.

“
I heard the owner of that
place got hitched,” the bartender said. “Is that true?”

“
Um...what’s his name?”
Emily asked, playing along as if she wasn’t aware who the owner
was.

“
Dante Champion. He’s pretty
popular around these parks.”

Yeah, I
bet
, Emily thought.

“
His resort has helped a lot
of people, you know. I sent my mom there after my dad
died.”

“
Really?”

“
Yep. She just needed the
therapy aspect of it. She stayed for two weeks, thanks partially to
a grant she received from Mr. Champion’s GHC Foundation, and now,
she’s doing so much better.”

Emily took another sip of her drink. “That’s
good.”

“
Yeah. It’s amazing how he
used a tragedy in his own life to focus on helping
others.”

Hiding a frown, Emily said, “Tragedy in his
own life...”

“
Yes. Girl, when I heard the
story about what had happened to Mr. Champion, tears came to my
eyes because, he’s such an astute businessman. He carries himself
very well. Very professional. Then I found out his wife died of
cancer. She’d fought it for two years and he traveled the country,
seeking different opinions, looking for a doctor who could save
her, but there was nothing no one could do.”

“
Oh my gosh. That’s
terrible,” Emily said, feeling sick to her stomach. She’d had Dante
all wrong. He
had
known the pain of losing someone. He’d lost his wife. When he
chatted with her online, as Armand, he told her that his wife had
passed. He didn’t say how she died, because he didn’t like talking
about it, but he
did
tell her and he was being truthful.

Emily couldn’t believe she’d been so rude to
him. She’d jumped to conclusions about Dante, assuming that he made
up the story about his deceased wife in order to get close to her
online but he had not made it up. He even used his tragedy to help
others.

Emily turned up her drink to her mouth and
took huge gulps.

“
You want another?” the
bartender asked, smiling.

“
No. I have to go.” She took
out a twenty-dollar bill, placed it on the bar and said, “Thank
you,” then walked away.

Taking her phone from her purse, she called
Melanie, listening to several rings before she heard, “Hey, Mrs.
Champion!”

Emily shook her head. “Hey, Mel,” she
responded in a melancholy mood.

“
Is everything
okay?”

“
No, not really.”

“
What’s going
on?”

“
Well, I think I may have
put my foot in my mouth.”

“
Uh oh. What have you done,
Em?”

“
Okay, so Dante and I were
arguing earlier because I didn’t join him for breakfast this
morning or the marriage workshop. He told me that we could help
each other, but I snapped...told him he didn’t know what I was
going through after losing Melvin, but turns out, he knows exactly
what I’m going through. He was married before...lost his wife to
cancer.”

“
Oh my gosh. I didn’t know
that.”

“
Exactly. And this entire
time, I’m thinking he’s just an arrogant pig, looking for the next
woman to sleep with when, the reality is, he’s the complete
opposite. I truly believe that he feels we can help each other and
all this time I’ve been so mean to him.”