He bought companies and tore them apart. He bought people for his own selfish purposes, and he had a sense of entitlement ten miles wide. Hard to blame him when he’d grown up in such a wealthy household with the expectation that everyone would do as he commanded.
She couldn’t fall in love with him again. It would be the epitome of foolishness. She’d seen what love could do. She’d been young at the time, but her parents’ divorce had been bitter. How could the relationship of two people, whose wedding photos had displayed their love and affection for each other at one time, deteriorate into the hate fest their divorce had become?
She had to guard her heart. If she fell in love with him again, she would regret it. No doubt about it. Because love was like an insidious disease that crept up on the unsuspecting. One that, even after its cure, left the victims with lifelong scars.
****
A few weeks later, Cyrus chartered a plane to Málaga, Spain in the Costa del Sol region—the southern part of the country. Located on the Mediterranean Sea, the city was a popular vacation spot for Europeans and where Cyrus and Daniella had spent their honeymoon—a honeymoon cut short because an unforeseen business emergency had cropped up back in Seattle. This time Cyrus promised their visit wouldn’t be shortened.
Despite his promise, after a jetlag-induced “nap” that lasted six hours, a phone call interrupted their lunch on the balcony of their rented villa overlooking the sandy beach. Cyrus took the call inside the bedroom and minutes later, he returned. He shot her an apologetic look, told her he was sorry, and ducked back inside.
He couldn’t realistically disappear as the head of a multi-billion dollar company. Too many people depended on him. Not only immediate family, but family members working at their restaurants and the breweries, and the tens of thousands of employees across the globe.
To put his mind at ease, she went into the bedroom where he was stalking back and forth and tapped him on the shoulder. “Take care of business,” she said softly. “I’ll still be here when you get done.”
Phone to his ear, he pulled her close and kissed her. He then took off out the door in the direction of the temporary office they’d set up, though she expected him to use it more often than she did. She heard him down the hall, his voice angry and annoyed. “What the hell is going on over there? I thought we had the Vegas deal locked up.”
Daniella went back out to the balcony and watched with envy all the people sunbathing and swimming in the warm blue waters. Cyrus couldn’t enjoy himself, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t.
She donned her white two-piece and joined the other vacationers. She spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach and met a friendly couple—Rex and Sylvia O’Ryan—originally from New York but now living in Norway. They kept her company and since she wasn’t sure if Cyrus would be busy at night, too, accepted their invitation to meet for dinner later.
When she returned to the villa, Cyrus apologized again, but she assured him she wasn’t upset.
“I hate I missed spending time with you,” he said. “I promise that won’t happen again.”
He was frowning, obviously struggling with the balancing act of taking care of business and being in the present, here, with her. She walked over to him and brushed her fingers over his furrowed brow. The lines immediately disappeared.
Gazing up at him, she said, “I’m fine. I’m a big girl and I know how to entertain myself.” She walked toward the bathroom to wash the sand and water from her sun kissed skin.
Before she could shut the door, Cyrus shouldered his way in. His gaze swept her body, sliding in appreciation over the slender lines. Being outside for hours had transformed her skin into a slightly darker caramel hue, showed off to perfection in the white bikini. “I like that bathing suit,” he murmured, his voice rich and dark. She glanced down at the rise in his pants and smiled.
“You do, huh?”