The Billionaire's Island Romance (The Romero Brothers, Book 3.5) (12 page)

Arianna sat down in her office, a mixture
of sadness and shame filled her heart. At least the fire alarm turned out to be
a false alarm, but right now she felt as if her whole body was ablaze. Her
heart burned in her chest. She needed emotional CPR to resuscitate her spirit.

It was all over. Mixed feelings surged
through her body, leaving her bruised and confused. Hurt and dazed. She didn’t
want Christian to find out like that. Not a chance. What must he think of her?
And her family?
That they’re all a bunch
of psychotic weirdos.
Oh, great! She’d just ruined her chance with the
most perfect man she’d ever met—perfect for her. Her mind swirled with
doubts and chaos.

She hung her head in her hands and squeezed
her head as if trying to squeeze out the migraine. Earlier, her uncle was
standing outside the door to her parents’ suite when Christian had come in to
help her parents evacuate. Arianna didn’t even know when Uncle Ned had snuck up
behind her outside her parents’ room at the time. Had he followed them up from
the lobby? Her uncle would miss nothing of course. He’d obviously heard her
screaming after Christian not to go up to the room to help her parents get out.
So naturally, he couldn’t wait to follow them to nose around to see what was
going on.

Now Uncle Ned knew too. He suspected
something was up, but now he knew for sure and her whole life was about to be
ruined. Right now she was more shaken than she cared to admit.
 
Her entire family’s future was about to
be crushed in one fell swoop.

A knock sounded from the other side of
Arianna’s office door as she leaned against the windowpane, deep in thought.

“Who is it?” she uttered, almost under her
breath. She didn’t have the strength to deal with anything right now.

Christian entered her office. She looked up
and there he was standing in his white shirt and dark gray dress pants. She
remembered he said he had a business meeting to attend this morning on the
island with a client of his that happened to be vacationing in Jamaica.

“Hey,” he said quietly. He stood at the
door for a moment with his hands shoved in his pants pockets, looking so
handsome despite his unreadable expression.

“Hey.” She turned to focus outside the
window. She couldn’t bring herself to look into his eyes again. The hurt. The
embarrassment at what he’d seen. It was all too traumatic to relive.

He quietly stepped towards her, and without
saying another word, he reached over and pulled her to his chest, wrapping his
arms around her in a warm embrace. Arianna wanted to cry; tears moistened her
eyes as she sank deep into him hugging him back.

That was all she needed. Christian. His
unconditional love again. His understanding. Something she didn’t feel she had
a while ago. Now everything seemed as if it could be okay. Maybe.

After a while and a good cry, her eyes were
dabbed dry with a tissue Christian used to wipe away her tears.

“Hey,” he said, tilting her head up to his.
“You’re way too pretty to be crying like that. Okay?” He kissed her forehead
gently, a warm smile on his face. His unreadable expression turned to that of
concern.

“I’m sorry I walked out on you like that,
Arianna.”

“No. It’s okay. I don’t blame you.”

“No, it’s not okay. I was in shock but I…”
He drew in a deep breath. “I just don’t know what got into me. I just couldn’t
handle it. What’s going on, Arianna? The truth. I want to help you…and your
family. You mean too much to me. Why didn’t you tell me…your mother didn’t
exist?”

His mind flashed back to what he’d
witnessed in her parents’ room after the alarm sounded earlier. Mr. Duponte was
fussing over a large white pillow with a photo of Mrs. Duponte adhered to it.
The pillow had been wrapped with a woman’s pink knitted cardigan as if it were
a real person. Her father treated the pillow as his wife.
His
stomach clenched at the sad, heart wrenching
,
yet
tender memory
. Nothing would be able to wipe that image out of
Christian’s mind.

Arianna broke away from him gently, hugging
her arms around her chest and hunching her shoulders slightly.

She drew in a deep breath. “Remember the
time I told you about my parents’ trip?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, as you know, my mother was always
agoraphobic. Dad loved her so much. Anyway, they took the trip to Murumba and…”

“It’s okay. Take your time,” he said
gently.

“Don’t you have a meeting to go to? You
said you had a client who was on vacation and wanted to see you, right?”

“You’re my priority right now, Arianna. My
assistant is here and she can handle things for me. Go on.”

“Well, Mom never really wanted to go
rafting but Dad thought it would be a good way to…get her out of her shell.”

“And?”

Tears welled in Arianna’s eyes again. “She
panicked and stumbled before falling off the raft.”

“Oh, God! Arianna.”

“The waves turned harsh and strong at that
time.”

“But you never mentioned a funeral. So they
never found her body?”

She shook her head, fighting back tears.
“No. And according to the law in Murumba, a person cannot really be legally
declared dead until seven years has passed in absentia. Until then, unless they
find her remains, there’s nothing we can do. They have strict laws. Dad was a
wreck. That’s when he had his breakdown,” she said in a low tone.

“And that’s when you went to be with him?”

She nodded. “Yeah. It ruined him.
Emotionally. Psychologically. Guilt destroyed everything he was. The doctor who
saw to him said it was a severe form of PTSD, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
Experts have found a link between that disorder and delusional disorder as some
form of coping. But mental illness and depression run in the family so…”

“Oh, God, Arianna. What a horrible thing to
happen. You bore this entire burden on your shoulders—alone? Aw,
Arianna,” he said in a low, deep voice, shaking his head, holding her tighter.
She could feel his energy surge through her. “You shouldn’t have had to bear
that burden alone, girl. You really love your father. You kept up the pretense this
whole time so that he wouldn’t be embarrassed, hoping that he’d get better.”

“I had to. It’s all he has. It’s all we
have—as a family. Anyway, I called the therapist after you left. Dad has
agreed to go to Florida to a facility there to help him cope. I’ll be going
with him. Now that my uncle knows what’s going on, now that it’s out in the
open, my dad can freely get the treatment he needs consistently. He feels guilty,
torn up about what happened to Mom. He feels responsible. He loved her so
much,
he would have given his life for her. So when
she…vanished like that, he had to keep her alive in his mind. I’ve been doing
what I could from here with the guidance of the doctor he saw in Murumba,
trying to ease him to reality at times, but just letting him go at his pace. I
didn’t want to push him too hard. But I had to keep up the charade with him
right now.”

She drew in a deep breath and tried to
steady her nerves. Her breathing was labored. It hurt to even breathe, thinking
about everything.

“That’s why he pretended she was there,
taking care of her,” she carried on with her painful memory of the events that
followed from that fateful trip to Murumba. “Bringing her meal trays, eating
her meals…with her. You can’t possibly know what’s like to feel responsibility
for the death of a loved one. Someone you’ve spent your whole life with… He
just snapped. ”

“God, Arianna! No wonder your father…”

“Lost it?” Uncle Ned waltzed into her
office with a smug look on his face.

“What the hell are you doing here?”
Christian challenged him, his body rigid, his jaw set.

“I think I should be asking you the same
question, Romero. It’s officially my hotel now.”

“Uncle Ned?”

“Arianna.” Ned turned to his niece with a
sarcastic look on his face. “So nice of you to hide the truth from me all this
time. I knew something was up. You know full well the condition of my father’s
will.”

“What condition?” Christian growled. He
then turned to Arianna. “Arianna, what is this man talking about? I’m not gonna
just sit here and let him walk all over you.”

“It’s the will that granted my
father—and me the right to this hotel that Grandfather left.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, no. Let me explain.” Uncle Ned plopped
himself on the chair and grabbed a bowl of raisins popping one at a time into
his mouth. “You see, I was the intended heir to this…place, but dear old Dad thought
that my younger brother should have it since he believed I wasn’t responsible
enough. Now, let me see,” Ned continued, leaning back, enjoying this situation.

“Now, the will as I remember,” Ned
continued, “stated that my father should inherit the place instead since he is
of sound mind and judgment. And since, as Arianna might have mentioned to you
before, mental illness runs in the family with my mother suffering severe
depression before she took her own life and Dad having bouts of dementia on and
off, dear old Dad stipulated that Giles, Arianna’s father, should have this
hotel as long as he is of sound mind.” Ned popped another raisin in his mouth
chewing emphatically and making ‘mmm’ sounds.

“Now as we all know—and my lawyers
will know soon—dear old brother isn’t exactly playing with a full deck of
cards, if you know what I mean,” Ned said, making circular motions with his
finger at his temple.

Arianna’s heart squeezed. She felt as if
her head was about to explode. Her limbs felt weak.

“So that’s probably why Ari here didn’t
want you to know we’re a mixed bunch of fruits. But in any case, the will
states that if for some reason that Giles is not able to run this place by not
being of sound mind or is deceased, then I get the facility.”

“And if you can’t for whatever reason be in
control, then I’m named third in that will, Uncle Ned. You know it.”

Ned tilted his head back and laughed,
almost choking on a raisin. Christian looked as if he was fuming, his eyes
narrowed in contempt for the man.

“You and I both know, darling Arianna, that
is not going to happen. Now you have,” he glanced at his watch, “twenty-four
hours to hand over the papers. I have someone who could be interested in buying
this place. We may rip it down and turn it into, oh, I don’t know, a strip bar
or something. We can do this out of court or in court. Have it your way. But
this place is mine. Bear in mind it could take years or a lifetime to contest
the will.”

“Why would you do that to your own niece?
She and her father worked hard for this place. Man, are you crazy?”

“Ha. No. I’m the true owner, and in fact, I
don’t care for your presence here right now.
Romero or not.
There’s nothing you can do to me.”

Christian narrowed his eyes.
A wicked grin on his lips.
Arianna didn’t know what to think
of what was going to happen next. He was a hot-blooded Romero and you didn’t want
to mess with them or challenge them or mess with anyone close to them. That
much she already knew.

“What did you just say?”
Christian
said, his jaw clenched.

“I said, I would like you to leave now and
your family, too.”

“You can’t just take control like that, Uncle
Ned. It takes time. There are laws in place.”

“Yeah, like laws about deception. You knew
full well, your old man had lost his marbles long ago on that island in Europe
and you kept it from me. How’s that for laws in place?”

“Speaking of which,” Christian stroked the
stubble on his chin. He leaned back casually against the windowpane. “Didn’t
you own several businesses in the Cayman Islands and a few up in Canada over
the years?”

“Yeah, so what? Ooh, I’m shaking in my
boots. You’ve had your investigators check me out. Good for you. Now get out!”

“But you made how many millions before your
companies all went bust?”

“What are you getting at?”

“Didn’t you turn a huge profit of over $50
million dollars, putting the businesses in your ex-girlfriends’ names and
sending them emails that they were not to let on that you were the owner?”

Ned loosened his tie. Sweat glistened
obscenely on his face. “So freaking what?”

“Did you…um…” Christian casually picked up
a magazine resting on the table and pretended to be interested in it, flipping
through it. “…
remember
to report your earnings to the
IRS?”

Ned froze.

Ned’s eyes appeared as if they were about
to bulge out of his skull. “W-what?”

“The Internal Revenue Service,” Christian
emphasized, trying not to grin, apparently.

“You know, I hear they can be real
sticklers to U.S. citizens who forget to report revenue and evade taxes.”