Tempting Isabel (Paradise South #1) (30 page)

CHAPTER 40

T
here stood a
disheveled Stephanie Rine, ice bucket in one hand, Isabel’s shoes in the other, accompanied by the radiating stench of vodka and vomit.

Both the bucket and high heels dropped to the floor. Followed by the woman’s jaw.

“I was lost, looking for the…ice machine.” And with that, Stephanie Rine spun around, and the door thundered shut behind her.

*

Isabel was in a haze of a new silent kind of fury. Her blood raged through her. She could not look Zack in the eye. All she could do was grab her shoes and speed down the stairs barefoot with heaving, frantic breath. Down
twenty-five
flights to the first floor service corridor. And he followed her, despite her evil glares back at him.

She wanted to get the hell out of there, away from him.

“She won’t remember a thing,” Zack said, out of breath.

“She won’t remember catching us together in a
mouth-to
-mouth lock? Or she won’t remember you fucking her? Which?” Isabel yelled.

“Back to that, now? Check the fucking hotel cameras, damn it! I was in and out of there in one minute flat. And
you
know I take way longer than a fucking minute!” He exhaled, shaking his head. “You insult me.
Stephanie-fucking
-Rine? That bigoted bitch? I mean, God, I have not thought of anyone but you, Isabel. Constantly, you… It’s driving me insane!”

“You selfish bastard! If you thought of
me
, cared about
me
, you’d have just kept your distance like I asked. Her seeing us together like that…it’s an absolute early death to my career! I’m officially screwed—fucking finished! God, Zack, what the hell were you thinking? Never mind. I know. It was your cock…of course! Just, goddamn you!” She said it, but immediately felt a rush of heat to her face, knowing she was guilty of the same lustful lack of control and that it had stopped her from leaving him in the stairwell in the first place.

And she saw in his face the sharp pain she’d just inflicted.

He stared blankly at her. “Fuck! Isabel, I’m sorry. I just…want you. God, so bad. I want to be with you. I
am
sorry for jeopardizing your job—”

“Career, Zack. My
hard-earned
career. My livelihood.”

“Yes, but…” He paused, as if thinking out his next words carefully. “You know, I can more than take care of the both of us, Isabel. You don’t need a job—a career, sorry—if you’re with me.”

Yes, he did just say that.
She shook her head at him, then at the floor. She prayed the alcohol was talking. She couldn’t have fallen for such a chauvinistic prick. Impossible, right?

“You chauvinistic prick! You spout
your
feelings for me, but ignore mine at the same time. My career is fucking important to me! So what do you have in mind? You make me the trophy on your arm? Or I continue with my event planning ‘job’ somewhere else, if that’s even possible, and you resent me for it?”

“No. And not what I meant…at all! I was just…”

“Just what? Listen, my career is—
was—
everything to me. But how could you understand? Zack James, who flies around the world, calling on his minions to do all of his work for him. And oh, so depressed, so sad, being eaten up by boredom and emptiness from his luxurious, grandiose life! Cry me a fucking ocean! You don’t even see how fucking lucky you are! Opportunities come at you like a tidal wave, but for us regular folk, we have to fight and struggle for a chance, like the chance I
had
with Lucinda!”

“How the fuck can you know jack shit about my opportunities? Everything I have, I damn well earned with hard work, my blood, sweat, sacrifice. I was the one who acknowledged and seized each and every opportunity, took the risks, took the leaps. And now I fucking create opportunities for others. Goddammit!
I
could hire you if you want me to?” His eyes were blazing at her with raw and intentional condescension.

But she shot her death stare up to the ceiling. She had to. Or she’d lose her nerve, her backbone, her will. She held back the threatening tears. She would have rather died than let him see a single one. He didn’t damn deserve a molecule of a teardrop of hers.

So her eyes zoomed in on the chipped paint above her head, the end of a long web of cracks from old age. Then she swallowed hard trying to find her voice and said in a lifeless tone, “You and I, it’d never work, Zack. We’re just too different. Great sex and hot chemistry don’t compensate for, well,
everything
else that’s lacking. You’re going through this thing with your father, your new perspective on life. I just don’t have time to wait for you to figure it all out. And by the way, I don’t take charity. I’ll find a new
job
on my own. Anyway, I can’t do
this
with you.”

He scoffed. “Running away
is
easiest, I get it.”

“You have no clue about
my
reality. My obstacles and hardships.” Now she was ready to explode. If he would just give up already! End this relentless chase or attack or whatever the hell it was!

Zack eased his arms down to his sides, looked up at the ceiling with a sigh, and then back at her. “Isabel, please listen to me. My life issues, the crap with my father, it was you who got me to be honest with myself. I’ve been running away from life, doing just about anything not to turn into my father. But I actually ran right into becoming him. I ran from love, commitment…but I’m ready to stop running now. Whatever
it
is that has you scared, we can take it on together, just…stop running
from
me
.”

Isabel studied the ceiling cracks again, noticing then how far back the web began, following the network of rigid lines and fringes all the way to the white cement wall, then down to the hard gray floor.
Nothingness.

She set her
glazed-over
eyes back on Zack. “I’m not running from anything, Zack. Don’t assume we’re anything alike. We aren’t. My priority is just…beyond
you
! It’s that simple. Let me ask you, does this
newly enlightened
Zack get that he is not the center of the fucking universe? Can he even consider that I have my own life and I need to make my own way for myself? Without distraction…like tonight’s chaos…not at all necessary!” She kept pulling from her mental arsenal of excuses, which was so close to empty. Why the hell she didn’t just leave then, she didn’t know. Like the night on the beach, her traitorous feet just stayed stuck, immoveable.

Maybe it was her search for closure. But he just wouldn’t give it. Jesus, she could see what he had meant by him always seizing his opportunities. She definitely felt him trying to seize
her
. She had never had a man fight so hard for her, and she hated feeling the sensation. But worse, deep down, she relished it.

“I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore. You’re confusing things just to slap on another copout. But I told you, I
will
find out what you’re keeping from the surface,” he reminded her. “You wouldn’t have spent that time with me, those hours on the boardwalk,
on
the clock
. And none of that night was
one-sided
––you opened up to me, too, Isabel. And not because of my pressing. And now, I’m not even on your radar all of a sudden? It isn’t me who has the issues, Isabel.”

His words stabbed and stabbed some more. “Look!” she yelled, then pulled back quickly.
Breathe
. What did she have to hide anymore? She had already stated again and again that this…
thing
between them was over before it had even started. But he was relentless! He would just keep calling her out on anything she came up with. She just needed to end it, and if he didn’t believe the real reason, well then, his thinking her insane would do the job, no matter how he saw her afterward. And how fucking endlessly horrible that would feel. But he’d pushed her to it at this point.

*

“Zack, it happens to be the case, that…I am, in essence, a cursed soul, and…”

“Oh Jesus…really?” he jeered. “Cursed…?”

“Let. Me. Finish. Please. I have always had this undeniable pattern of tragedy following me, like, ever since I can remember. Anyone close to me has ended up…” She glanced up at his unbelieving eyes, but continued on just the same. “Zack, judge and speculate all you want, but the last three men who loved me died fucking horrible deaths. And my own mother took her life, also because of me. Now, look what’s happened with Roberto! I…I just couldn’t be responsible for another life. You’ve just got to let it go…let me go!”

“Wow, aren’t
you
the
self-absorbed
and
all-powerful
one now? You have the power to kill, huh? And didn’t you say you didn’t believe in luck and this bullshit? The first time we met?”

“I said that
luck
doesn’t believe in me. Because fate…fate has made sure luck stays far, far away.”

“I fucking cannot even believe what I’m hearing! No. You’re just fucking with me. Or you’re fucking crazy! Either way, just say you don’t want me. Say that, but don’t you dare mock me, Isabel!”

“Don’t you dare mock
me
! It’s all true!” But what was she yelling for? She had expected his skepticism. In fact, she was banking on it. “Look, let’s not waste our time anymore.” Then softening from exhaustion, “I just…I care…about your safety! We just can’t be together, Zack. We just can’t.”

“Okay. So, fuck! I thought you were strong, brilliant…but this superstitious bullshit?” He paced a few feet then spun around, “But if it’s the case that you’re ‘cursed,’ why get involved with me in the first place? Why let us get this far?”

Fuck.
Good point, and yes she was a horrendous, selfish witch.

But it was not something she’d admit to out loud right now. “I tried to not let it get here! You just wouldn’t fucking quit!”

“Then why not tell me your
crazy-ass
theory? That would have stopped me in my tracks way back!” he scoffed. He mumbled something else under his breath. It made her nauseous. She knew this would hurt, but Jesus, the new look in his eyes—his hateful, patronizing glower—it was cutting her chest open in slow motion while she watched.

*

It was obvious to him that she loved him and that it terrified the fuck out of her.

And cursed? That was the final straw. This
bat-crazy
reason was just too hard for him to swallow.

If, hypothetically, he were to ever
believe
in her insane theory, believe in such things at all, it would mean that he, that
they
, were all powerless to affect anything in any of their own lives. It would be the improvised comedy of the universe, with no rhyme or reason.
Hell
no!

Then his logic called up the constant
insulting
insinuations he had heard about himself his entire life and now again from Isabel. That
luck
had played a part in so much of what he had achieved in his existence.
No!
As if
luck
had anything to do with his victories, with his success at raising his brother, his financial stature, his survival. And then, in walks his deadbeat dad, implying that he was Daddy’s fucking lucky rabbit’s foot and was sorry to have “lost” him!

He’d hear none of that bullshit—no more!

And he couldn’t fight for, or with, Isabel any harder than he had.

He’d reached his limit.

“What the fuck am I still doing here? I mean, you…you insult
me
with accusations of sleeping with Stephanie, of being an arrogant, ungrounded asshole, and then you round things out with the excuse that you are a fucking walking curse? Jesus, what a waste of time and energy,” he spat then fumed. “You’re a damn fool, Isabel Ruiz—a goddamn fool.”

He couldn’t look at her to see her reaction. He just turned and walked off, completely drained, wrung out and hanging. The picture of his future with Isabel, the
one
who’d filled his void, spiraled down and flushed itself out of his reality.

And his stomach, chest, and head all pounded painfully in unison, like a hellish chorus of sad, lonely souls.

CHAPTER 41

F
ucking Sunday.
Zack
couldn’t even depend on the trivialities of the wedding for distraction anymore. With a complete lack of direction for the day, and without the perfect whimsical blueprint he had drafted in his mind with Isabel as the primary pillar, the stark aimlessness was too much for him.

He had been so sure about her.
Fuck!

Having had entirely too much alcohol last night, or more like, for the entire past month, then add the severe lack of sleep and far too much drama shoving and prodding him over the edge, he couldn’t have felt worse. When he went to the mirror, he saw that he couldn’t have looked worse either. He peered closer, scrutinizing his face and his hair, finding another gray speck in his thick
reddish-brown
waves.

And then he looked closer.

A strange feeling overcame him. He felt dizzy, woozy, as if he were drunk still, though he was for sure
not
.

He saw deep into the mirror, past his own image somehow, through himself, like an optical illusion. But it was an animated scene. A hallucination? Or a damn delusion?

What he saw was his entire life on fast forward, farther and farther beyond his reflection. He saw more flights to different places, different people, different women. He saw his brother and new wife getting older, with their growing children. His mother, shrinking through her life, then vanishing—gone. His own hands held out in front of his eyes, turning older, more frail. He was alone.

And he jumped away from the mirror when the movie of his
future-life
ended. All he could see now was his tired reflection staring back at him.

Holy fuck! Just holy fucking
hell…

*

He put clothes on. Got his room key, car key, wallet, phone. He left the room, the hotel, then the parking lot and headed to
La Sexta Noche
. It was 5:30 AM. He drove fast. The roads were empty on that Sunday morning in Vallarta, except for an early morning bicyclist and two horsemen taking up a lane of traffic, not an uncommon sight in Vallarta, weirdly.

He got to the club, took the disabled parking spot, and sprinted inside. No bouncer that early, or late, rather. Now inside, he asked the lone bartender, “Canadian DJ?”

The bartender pointed to the DJ’s booth. “Lucky, ’cause you almost missed him. And he’s hardly ever here this late…” she blathered, but Zack let her trail off as he headed across the dance floor, jimmying through straggling partiers.

The guy was packing up to leave when Zack arrived at the booth. “Hey man. I don’t know if you remember me?”

And no.
The guy obviously had no recollection of him whatsoever, per his
stoned-out
-
of-his
-head stare.

“I’m Zack, a…colleague of Isabel’s. Isabel Ruiz? Gorgeous, long dark wavy hair, Mexican goddess.” He waited a second for the guy’s bells to ring. No one could forget Isabel. “You replaced her mirror?”

A light came on in the guy’s eyes. “Yeah, yeah, Isabel. Shit yeah, man. And you’re the dude from the booth the other night, I mean ‘colleague,’” he said with air quotes and an
all-knowing
albeit completely
glazed-over
look. “I’m Chris.” He extended his hand to Zack who shook it firmly but quickly. He needed to get what he came for and go.

“So, listen man…her passport and phone fell out of her purse and I…” Zack trailed off, noticing the guy’s head cocked, eyes narrowed. He was high, but he wasn’t that far gone. “Look, dude, the truth…I’m in love with her. I need her address, and since you replaced the mirror at her condo… And she wouldn’t take my calls even if I tried. I’ve got to get to her. I’ve just got to.”

The guy nodded, deep in thought for a nanosecond, then without hesitation, DJ Chris jotted something down on a napkin. “Here’s the condo complex name, but I heard that complex just got a new security gate with a guard and all, so you can’t get in without her buzzing you in, dude. Sorry. But, she’s in like the fifth or sixth unit.”

Zack checked the scribble. It was at least legible: Paradise South.

Holy fucking
hell?

The complex that he’d practically grown up in! His condo, the one he’d just purchased, unit number nine—it was in Paradise South.

Go, man. Move!
Zack transferred a fast cash thank you to Chris as they shook hands.

“Good luck, dude! She’s fucking unbelievable,” the guy said almost wishfully.

“Fuck luck, but thanks, man. Really,” he said, then sprinted out to his car.

He was going to Isabel. His future was unbearable without her. Just absolutely unfathomable.

Once again he was speeding through sleepy Vallarta, literally flying over the random unmarked speed bumps littering the town roads. But he was on autopilot, unable to see much else but the movie of his life sans Isabel. It haunted him and lit him on fire at the same time. He drove faster, hitting scenic 202 now, the winding cliffside byway toward his condo. And hers.
How fucking crazy is
that!

Please let her take me back, forgive me, want me.
Because if not, he swore, the drive off the edge into the bay seemed more enticing than the mirror’s projection, the movie that showed him life without her.
Please, Isabel.