Fighting Destiny (6 page)

Nathan knew it was a hard thing to say but, Candasee needed a little shock therapy.

Candasee fought to digest Nathan’s candour as she pictured Darius spending time here with other lovers. The thought made her so angry and envious inside but she dared not let it show! This was ridiculous! It was two years and a lot could have happened since then.

“
That’s possible, but let me think about it some more,” said Candasee still disguising the fact that she didn’t want to even entertain images of what Nathan had just so callously suggested to her about Darius. “I am really tired now and all I want to do is sleep! We can talk about this again tomorrow.”

She’d shut him out! Why did he have to say something so over the top just now
? But you know what, he wasn’t sorry. This was what she needed, a tall, cold dose of reality. The faster she could let go of the past, the faster they could get on with deepening their relationship.

“Well this is your floor,” said Candasee.

“I don’t have to get off here you know. Let me come up and help you get settled.”

“No, that’s not necessary, I want to go alone. I’m going to take a shower and
then I’m going straight to bed. Let’s go jogging in the morning and then we can have breakfast together, okay?” she said pressing a kiss to his lips.

“You know that I love you right!” Nathan asked against her lips.

“I love you too Nate, get some rest okay,” Candasee smiled weakly. She felt bone tired and on the verge of a breakdown. Nathan meant well and in a way he was protecting his investment in her. Who wouldn’t if they discovered their new fiancée would be staying alone in her ex-husband’s hotel two floors away far from him and everyone else.

Nathan stepped off and blew her a kiss as the doors closed. Candasee could be stubborn sometimes but for now he decided not to push it. Tonight she won this round but tomorrow would be a different matter altogether.

As the elevator continued upward Candasee stifled a yawn as the first waves of sleepiness hung over her body. She’d had enough for one day. If she experienced one more surprise she was sure that she would scream.

As the elevator opened onto the seventh floor she
exited it and pulled her suitcase along the plush, carpeted hallway until she reached room 746. Sliding her passkey through the lock she heard it engage and she entered pulling in the suitcase behind her. The door swung closed with a click.

The room was simply b
reathtaking. Now that she remembered it, every floor in this hotel featured rooms with different cultural themes from around the world. The fifth floor where the others were staying had more of a Hawaiian feel to the decor and it was regarded as one of the ‘
economy floors’
for person’s booking rooms and packages on the lower budget end.

The seventh floor
had always been her favourite and she wondered how Eloise knew that. Its contemporary Oriental decor was stunning with the red accent wall and the white and black king-sized bed which dominated the centre of the bedroom. Perhaps she just got lucky! She doubted Eloise could have heard it from Darius because from the looks of things he wasn’t even at the hotel. If he didn’t come to meet her in the lobby it must mean that he just didn’t care if she was there or not. Why that even bothered her she didn’t want to analyze. It was just a coincidence right? She would just take a shower and go straight to bed. She was exhausted and they would have a long day tomorrow. She needed all of her strength just to make it through this ordeal.

Leavin
g her suitcase next to the hallway closet she was about to check out her bathroom, when her cell phone rang. She answered it and it was her father.

“Hi Dad, I managed to get in safely. The flight was awful and we were stuck in the airport for about five hours because of flooding so things haven’t been the best so far!”

“Okay, we were just wondering seeing that you didn’t call this evening!” her father replied.

“Dad, do remember that I am thirty-three and not seventeen!”

“You will always be my little girl, even when you are fifty, so stop fighting it!”

“Ugh!”

“So is the hotel nice?”

“Well, abo
ut that, we had to change hotels due to the weather damage. I’m actually here at the Derrien Island Grande. This is the new location!”

“What? You mean Darius’ hotel?” he father almost bellowed into the phone.

“Yes, unfortunately!”

“I don’t think I have to tell you to steer clear of him, do I?”

“Dad I don’t want to talk about this right now. I am really tired and I just want to go to bed and pretend that this is not my life right now!”

“I just want you to be careful sweetheart. That man has no scruples and I’ve warned you about him many times and only if you’d listened to me, you wouldn’t have had to endure the pain you did!”

Thomas Maxwell was an opinionated man and sometimes he just didn’t know when to quit, thought Candasee rolling her eyes. She’d heard this speech countless times before.

“Ok
ay Dad, I will be careful, I promise, now please let me get some rest!”

“Okay but let us know if you need us okay?

“I promise Dad, now goodnight!” she said before clicking off the phone call. Talking to her father sometimes felt as though she was running a marathon uphill. He never let her forget what a mistake it was to ignore his advice about marrying Darius. He said she would get hurt and she did.

Now for that bath,
Candasee thought, making her way to the bathroom once again. She was about to close the door when she heard a knock at the door of her room.

“Ug
h!  Who could that be now?” groaned Candasee to herself as she shuffled reluctantly towards the door. There was a definite weariness creeping into all her muscles and all she wanted was to sleep off all the stress and tiredness. Between the awful flight, the travel delays, the uncertainty about the intensive, Nathan’s demands, her father’s warnings and being so close to Darius at the hotel, she had exceeded her emotional quotient for the day and then some. Looking through the peephole, she instead saw a man holding a huge bouquet of red roses in a slender crystal vase dressed in the hotel’s front desk uniform.

She unlocked the door quickly and opened it eagerly. Who s
ent her these exquisite flowers? She was always sweet on red roses and could not wait to bury her face in their soft velvety fragrance. Nathan was so romantic, but wasn’t this a little over the top to have red roses sent to her room already?

“Delivery for
Candasee Maxwell!” said the man dressed in the uniform for the hotel.

“Thanks, that is me! Let me get a tip for you!”

“No tip is required miss!” the man replied quickly handing her the vase.

“Taking the flowers from him she
closed the door and detached the card. After placing the vase on the counter near the entertainment system, she opened the envelope and read it aloud.

“
Welcome Home
!” was all it said, but in that bold handwriting she would recognize anywhere. She knew who the flowers were from immediately.

So,
Darius was here and he knew that she was too! But what was the meaning of “W
elcome Home
”? Her home was where she belonged, back in Barbados not here on Derrien Island. The days for calling this place home were long behind her.

Despite her irritation at the words on the card the flowers beckoned to her invitingly and she buried her face in the scent of them
and sensed some of the tensions from the day begin to ease out of her body. Darius always knew how to calm her down after a fight. Roses always did the trick and before long she was back in his arms again and he was forgiven. She never could stay mad at him for long once he gave her roses. Of course he never gave her roses for the fights they had about her career change and maybe that’s why they divorced. He never apologized, and he was never sorry about any of it!

That th
ought caused her to stop in mid-sniff to consider exactly what she was doing. Was he still testing her weakness to him with these silly games? Did he enjoy knowing just how easily he could control her? Sending her flowers to get her all warmed up so that she would be open to any suggestion he would make, and not just that but welcoming her home too?

Immediately
, two years of pent up anger surfaced and boiled over in one minute. The last contact she had with him was signing for the wire transfer of one hundred and twenty million dollars to her personal bank account as her divorce settlement. He had succeeded in making her truly feel worthless and like a woman who had been tricked into giving her heart away. The money meant nothing to her and she knew to him it was only a drop in the bucket of his massive fortune. She’d wanted him, not his cold voice on the phone wanting to know if she’d received her money without difficulties! She wanted him to admit he was wrong and that it had all been a terrible lapse of judgement on his part and that he didn’t really want to hurt her like that! But there was only silence and a cold payout!

Dropping the card to the floor she felt hot tears spring to her eyes
and a stab of pain in her heart that nearly doubled her over. That pain changed to anger and before she knew it she grabbed one of the flowers, her room passkey, and she was striding purposefully toward the elevators. She knew where she was going the moment she left her room and it was confirmed when she pressed the number eleven.

There were only three suites on the top floor of this hotel; the presidential suite, the penthouse deluxe and Darius’ private office and living quarters. Seeing the door she was looking for at the end of the hall she walked
quickly and opened the outer door leading from the secretary’s office to his inner sanctuary. She barely nodded at the security guard who was seated in his cubicle before barging into Darius’ domain. The door was slightly ajar and she and knocked on it loudly. Behind her she could hear the opening and closing of the door to the security office and the sound of rapid footfalls behind her.

“Miss, stay where you are and don’t move, this floor is off limits to the guests!” warned the voice behind her.

Candasee was too much in her element and didn’t even bother to turn around to acknowledge the guard. She was waiting for the man seated behind the desk typing on his laptop to look up and see that he had company. Her breath was coming in almost breathless heaves now as she observed him. Even from here he exuded an aura of pure male energy that made him so lethally attractive to her and that thought caused her anger to blaze even brighter.

Darius tore his eyes away from the computer screen at the sharp sound of his security detail issuing orders for a female to stop. He looked up quickly to see one of his personal guards pointing a tazer in Candasee’s direction as she stood in his doorway looking as though she would rip him to shreds!

“Gerald, it’s okay! Y
ou can lower your arm, I’m not in any danger here,” said Darius standing slowly as the surprise of seeing Candasee first assaulted his abdomen like a million fluttering butterflies. Was he still supposed to get that feeling when he saw her? he mused, amazed at his strong reaction. She looked gorgeous in a tousled way with her hair loosely clipped behind her head with a few escaped tendrils framing her face. She was dressed in a lilac coloured top which exposed her toned arms and the length of her neck with a pair of form fitting blue jeans which emphasized the soft swell of her hips.

“Are you sure sir?” asked
Gerald taking his job seriously, assessing the level of threat.

“Yes Darius, are you sure
you aren’t in danger?” asked Candasee in a low voice before taking a menacing step forward into the room.

Darius moved out from behind his desk and walked right up to Candasee and stood about three feet away from her, just drinking in her presence. He could see she was
beyond livid but he could not get over that she was there and that she’d actually come up to see him. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, but he knew this wasn’t the time for that. She was holding one of his roses in her hand, which told him that she received his welcome gift.

“Candasee, I didn’t know you would be coming up here tonight or else I would have greeted you at the door,” he said unsure of what he could possibly have done wrong already. “But welcome home!” he added.

Gerald lowered his hand and moved away a discreet distance but Darius knew he was still on his guard for the slightest indication from his boss! He had only seen one
other woman come up here who wasn’t here on business or on the management team, and that was his mother, who was always welcome and always in a good mood. This angry woman was unfamiliar to him but Darius seemed to know her quite well, thought Gerald.

“That is the who
le problem I have with you Darius! You assume that you just know it all don’t you. Do you actually think I wanted to come here to this hotel at all and within a few minutes of reaching my room realize that you are already trying to manipulate me by separating me from my group, and sending me these roses? Just how stupid do you think I am?” she ground out between gritted teeth.

Darius stood in silence and a muscle in his jaw tensed as he watched Candasee lay into him.