20
ALISTAIR
Seeing Eloise step through those villa doors, I thought I had seen a ghost. My brain exploded, unable to compute what it was seeing. I thought she was a mirage, something my subconscious dreamed up, but no, she is here, alive and looking as beautiful as ever, and I hate that I ache for her after everything that has happened between us.
How long has she been here?
Is this where she disappeared to?
Why didn’t she tell me?
I don’t understand why working here meant she had to ghost me. I would have understood. It might have torn at the edges of my heart to give her up, but this was her work, and I understood that from the start. She had goals, dreams, and aspirations that she wanted to achieve, and if this island could help her achieve them, then I would never have stood in her way.
I let my anger get the better of me when the other woman walked in, I saw Eloise’s face drop, and rage bubbled inside me. How dare she get jealous of me being with another woman? She’s the one who left me. She chose to disappear. She doesn’t get to dictate who I can and can’t sleep with. All I could think about in that moment was her leaving me alone in my apartment with a gorgeous meal prepared, a fire raging, and bouquets of roses all around me, looking like a fool as my heart disintegrated, knowing she wasn’t coming.
After everything I had been through with Miranda, I took a chance on someone, someone I thought was worth it. So, seeing Roxy standing before Eloise and me looking panicked over the competition, I wanted her to know what it felt like when she ripped my heart out and betrayed me the way she did. I’m not proud of kissing that girl in front of her like I did, especially when I saw the hurt flash across Eloise’s face.
Actually, I felt like an ass.
I’m not the kind of guy who goes all out for revenge. I won’t hurt people like that.What the hell was I thinking?
Then she goes and does the same thing, throwing it right back in my face when she kissed that girl.Yes, I totally deserved that.
Then when she called me Mr. King, that was it for me. My damn pride and ego took a hit as if I was just like all the other men who had come before me. I refuse to let her lump me in with all those other men. They never deserved her. They never took the time to see behind The Paradise Club façade like I did. I saw how special she was. I saw the woman hidden behind her job.
Eloise felt something with me, I know she did.
I don’t understand why she ran. Why she disappeared on me.Did she not trust me?I thought I did everything in my power to make her feel like she could trust me, that I was different, and that what I felt for her was real.
Maybe it wasn’t enough.
Now here I am, acting like a complete dick, and I don’t know how to stop.
“Are you going to take your clothes off?” I ask as I sit on the massage table and stare at her. I don’t know what game I’m playing, but I know it’s not going to end well for me.
Eloise stills at my request. “If you wish, Mr. King,” she answers breezily as if she has not a care in the world.
My temperature rises at her formal use of my name. This woman knows how much I hate her using it. She’s putting up impenetrable walls between us again, and I don’t understand why?
“I do wish,” I say stubbornly.
Eloise defiantly holds her chin up high and shimmies her white shorts down her tanned legs. She’s wearing a white cotton thong which leaves nothing to the imagination. Then she pulls off her staff polo shirt, and it falls on the floor with the shorts, leaving her in a white cotton bra—a simple everyday bra—not what you would wear to seduce someone, or maybe it’s that I don’t know her anymore.
Eloise’s hands move behind her back, her green eyes don’t stray from mine as she unhooks her bra and holds it out to the side of her. She arches a stubborn brow at me as if to say,‘Nothing you do or request bothers me.’
She’s so fucking infuriating.
Her breasts bounce as they are freed, and my lips salivate as I take them in—dusty pink nipples that have turned into hard peaks.Is she turned on?I remember how they felt in my hands all those months ago. Her fingers then hook into the sides of her underwear, and she pulls them down slowly, exposing her bare pussy to me.
I try to stifle a groan that’s threatening to escape my mouth—she doesn’t need to know after all these months, she still turns me on. On the other hand, my dick stands to attention proudly between my thighs—can’t hide that big fucker.
“Are you satisfied now, Mr. King?” she asks, taunting me.
Two can play this game, Elle.“Nowhere near satisfied, sweetheart,” I answer her back.
Eloise lets out a frustrated huff at my comment, and I try not to burst out laughing because she looks as if she’s moments away from blowing her cool.
“Then I guess you better lay down so I canstartsatisfying you. We pride ourselves on giving our guests the best experience at The Paradise Club,” she states.