His Perfect Match

“Love you too, Mommy.” He pecked her cheek and then, having done his duty, immediately began squirming to get free.

Liz slipped on her heavy winter coat and boots and, taking the small suitcase from her bedroom, headed for the living room where Dee was peeking out the window.

She placed a soft kiss on Dee’s shoulder. “Take care of my baby, Dee.”

Dee looked her directly in the eyes as if to convey the sincerity of her next words. “You know I will.”

Two and a half days later an exhausted Liz climbed the carpeted stairs leading to the welcome center of the Hawaiki Inn resort. Even in her bedraggled state Liz couldn’t help but be impressed by the elegant bungalow-style hotel.

She’d arrived on the courtesy van along with six other guests and all the others had already gone in to register. But she’d just stood on the porch taking in her new surroundings.

Liz wasn’t sure exactly what she expected but it certainly was not this warm and welcoming chocolate-colored wood-shingled village. Everything about the place said “Come inside my walls and rest.” And after her long trip she was more than ready to comply. The problem was that somewhere inside those walls awaited the confrontation of a lifetime.

It had only been two days since she’d left the snowy streets of Columbus, but she could’ve traveled to another world. Where Columbus was experiencing one of the worst winters on record, New Zealand was just entering its summer season. Where Columbus was all freezing winds and dirty snow, New Zealand was a lush green landscape sprinkled with flowers and trees of every color.

The welcome center sat back from a cliff top. Standing on the long, circular porch gave Liz a breathtaking view of a harbor with the clearest blue water she’d ever seen in her life. It sparkled like a pool of tiny crystals in the bright sunlight.

Colorful flowers were scattered in pots and growing wild throughout the complex. So many of them she was certain she’d never even heard of before.

Unable to put off the inevitable any longer she entered the lobby and found it just as colorful as its surroundings. The large open room was decorated in tangerine and royal purple. Large, plush sofas were spread around beside small wood tables beneath walls decorated with abstract artwork. Candles, lanterns and tiki torches adorned the room. As she crossed to the counter the last couple from the van were getting their room key.

“Welcome to Tairua, can I have your name please?” The young Maori man at the counter gave her a wide smile.

Liz felt her spine relax and only then did she realize she had expected to see Darius standing behind the counter. “Thank you. It’s Lisa Smith.” She gave the alias she’d registered under, fearing Darius would cancel her reservation if she used her real name.

“Yes, Ms. Smith, I have you right here.”

He punched something into the computer. “You will have the Nogomain bungalow.”

“Nogomain?”

The young man smiled. “All of our bungalows are named after Polynesian gods and goddesses. Nogomain was an aborigine god that gave spirit children to mortal parents.”

“Really?” Liz thought that maybe fate was sending her a positive sign given how desperately her mortal child needed some spiritual intervention. With impressive speed the attendant explained to her all the hotel’s amenities and gave her a small brochure to fill in the blanks.

A short while later, small suitcase in hand, she was wandering down the redbrick path that wound its way through the collection of small bungalows looking for Nogomain.

A couple passed her looking so completely in love that for a moment her heart ached for what she’d never had. Further down the walkway she saw a group of teens talking and laughing as they took the path that led down to the harbor. And, as she spotted her bungalow and approached it, she noticed a group of people off to her left, toasting their glasses. She placed the key in the lock of the door, glanced at the group and felt her heart stop.

There in the middle of the small crowd stood Darius looking like a Maori god himself. The years had changed him, but she knew it was him without a doubt. His perfect smile seemed even whiter. His light complexion had darkened to a golden bronze. His short-cropped dark hair had lightened to a sandy brown. Funny, I’d always thought his hair was black.

That single thought reminded her of just how little she knew about this man she was once engaged to. She quietly moved from the walkway across the plush grass to shield herself behind a nearby tree.

Where did that body come from? The Darius she remembered was lean and bordering on skinny. This man was full of muscles—everywhere. From his impressive pecs, over the six-pack abs to the thick thighs. If he’d been fully dressed in one of the business suits he use to wear constantly she would’ve wondered if anything was padded, but wearing only swim trunks revealed that the only thing padding his bulges and biceps was pure flesh.

She frowned. She didn’t remember him looking this good. She searched her memory and decided that was because he didn’t used to look this good. Time had obviously been good to him. She fought down the slight resentment she felt, realizing that while she’d been struggling to put herself through school and at the same time take care of a sick child he’d been here living the life of a real-life beach boy. But justice wouldn’t allow the resentment to simmer. Immediately her conscience asked the question: and whose fault is that?

She stood hidden behind the tree listening as he informed the group of guests about the evening’s activities, including a full luau dinner. Apparently the Hawaiki Inn went to great lengths to keep their guests entertained.

It didn’t take Liz long to realize there were changes other than his physical appearance. Darius had always been self-confident but there was a sternness about him that she’d never seen before. Despite the wide smile he gave his guests there was a hardness to him. Soft brown eyes that she remembered as being full of compassion were no longer tender. Now they were shrewd, analytical, as he scanned the group around him and sized up each individual.

For the first time Liz began to doubt her plan. She’d come to ask her ex-fiancé for the favor of a lifetime, but it appeared she’d arrived too late. It appeared that man no longer existed.

A few minutes later as she stood over her open suitcase preparing to unpack she was forced to admit Aunt Dee was right. Before she confronted Darius she would have to make a trip to the hotel gift shop and hope they had something in the way of clothing. There was no way she could approach the stranger she’d just encountered looking as defeated as she felt.

The old Darius would’ve taken pity on her and offered his help immediately. But the man she saw today would take one look at her lived-in linens and well-worn wools, realize she’d fallen on hard times and then proceed to eat her alive, all the while laughing at her temerity.

No, she was going to have to rethink her whole approach. She would have to exchange truth and desperation for cunning and manipulation. She closed up her suitcase and shoved it in the bottom of her closet all the while saying a silent prayer for strength and wisdom. Getting this new Darius to bend to her will was going to be a lot harder than she’d assumed.

Chapter 3

“What you doing up here, boss? The guests are asking for you.”

Darius turned at the sound of his assistant, Alika, coming up the brick stairs that led from the beach to the hotel. Darius stood leaning against the white wrought-iron fence that ran the length of the cliff surrounding the hotel. The sun was just beginning to set over the harbor, casting the entire valley in a soft reddish haze, and the gentle breeze added just the right touch to offset the surprisingly high evening temperature.

“Just catching my breath. Everything okay down there?” He nodded toward the beach where his guests were enjoying the luau dinner provided in first-class style by the hotel. It was one of the main attractions of his hotel and always a big hit with the guests. A small group of Maoris did a haka dance as the wait staff moved between the clusters of people serving dishes from various South-Pacific cultures.

When he’d first arrived on the island ten years ago Darius had been struck by the similarities between the cultures of the indigenous New Zealand Maori people, Australian aborigines and the Hawaiians. Having the same origins, much of their traditions were shared. When he opened his hotel he chose that shared culture as his theme.

“Yes, everything is going well. But some of the guests were wondering if you planned to appear tonight.” Alika came and stood beside him. “I told them you would.”

Darius smiled to himself. Alika was an excellent assistant and one of his most appealing characteristics was his ability to push without being seen as pushy. It was a skill that came in very handy with hard-to-please guests and tradesmen. Alika hadn’t yet learned that his pushing-without-being-pushy technique didn’t really work with his boss.

“Then it’s going to be a little awkward when you go back and tell them I won’t be appearing tonight.”

“Why?”

“Well, because you’ve already told them I would be—”

“No, I mean why won’t you? You always come to the weekly luau, at least you used to.”

Darius continued to stare out over the bay, refusing to be baited into a discussion about his behavior over the past few days. He knew his entire staff had become aware of his dark mood, but until he figured out what it all meant himself, he had no intention of talking about it.

With one single, incomplete phone call his whole world had been turned on end. He hadn’t stopped thinking about Liz Donovan from the moment he’d hung up the phone. Why, after all these years, was she calling him? What could she possibly want? His eyes narrowed on the volcano in the distance but his mind was a million miles away.

For the past few days he’d been taking daily trips down memory lane reliving every painful moment in vivid detail. Instead of completing his payroll he’d spent hours remembering the night he’d proposed. At the time he’d seen only her sweet smile and the soft “yes” that rolled off her lips. In hindsight the hesitation in her eyes was revealed in stark contrast. He tried but failed to find the connection between her and Darren. What made them fall in love with one another? No matter how he searched his mind he could not find any evidence that caused that horrific conclusion to make sense. Nothing.

Every time he’d touched her she’d felt like his. Never once did he get any sense that he was sharing her with another man. Certainly not his own brother.

But Darren’s betrayal was really no surprise. In fact, he should’ve suspected something was up when his brother became helpful. Darren had never helped anyone but himself. And in the end he’d helped himself to his brother’s woman. Even his death seemed like providence. Killed in a Vegas club fight. Darius remembered his father once saying that Darren had been trying to die since the moment he was born.

Much to his embarrassment Darius’s first question to his mother upon receiving the call of his death was about Liz. His mother had answered with what she knew, which was very little. As far as Liz’s family was aware, she was fine. The unspoken message hung heavy between them.

He’d immediately understood that Liz’s family had not gone to any trouble to verify her circumstances. It was assumed that since she was not with Darren when he died that she was fine. They didn’t care one way or the other; she’d been cast out.

Considering how close she’d been to her parents that news should’ve brought him some satisfaction for his own suffering, but surprisingly it didn’t. He didn’t want to imagine her out there, alone, without even the support of her family. Despite everything he knew, some part of him would always wonder.

That was all so many years ago and Darius had thought he’d put it all behind him. Then, with one phone call she’d unearthed all that pain and anguish, and unfortunately his staff had bore the brunt of it. Over the past week he’d caught himself lashing out over the smallest infractions, and had even gone out of his way to avoid guests until today.

Somehow he had to find a way to repress the reopened wound, but how could he when every ounce of his being was dying to know why she’d called in the first place? Until he had that question answered he would have no peace. She would stay with him every minute of every day. He would hear her voice in his hotel lobby, as he had that afternoon when he’d locked himself in his office determined to focus on the payroll. He glanced down at his guests on the beach…and saw a woman standing on his beach dressed in a coral halter-back sundress looking up at him.

“Who’s that?”

Alika followed his nod. “Ms. Smith. She checked in today.”

“Ms. Smith? Did she check in alone?”

Alika lifted an eyebrow noting his boss’s interest in the pretty woman. “As a matter of fact, she did.” He smiled. “She’s very pretty, huh, boss?”

Pretty didn’t begin to describe the vision watching him from the beach. Her shoulder-length black hair hung in a loose ponytail over one shoulder. She stood watching him with her eyes shielded by her small hand. The pose was strikingly sexy with her arm lifted, accentuating her slender body and small waist. Wrap-around sandals snaked up her elegant brown calves, making her wide-legged stance damn near erotic. But the tilt of her head revealed a bone structure that was engrained on his memory.

So many nights after they’d made love he’d lain awake simply outlining her jawbone with his finger. He’d always been fascinated by how the shape of a woman’s small face could reveal both delicacy and strength. He’d thought Liz was that…delicacy and strength. In the end she turned out to be pure deceit.

He watched as the woman on the beach lowered her hand revealing her whole face and his mouth literally fell open. It had to be a trick of the lights. It had to be some tortured part of his psyche playing tricks on him. But as she smiled, he knew the truth for what it was. Only one woman in the universe had that smile.

She turned, exposing an expanse of flawless mocha skin, and started to walk toward the other end of the beach away from the luau and the hotel guests.

“Well, Alika, looks like you won’t have to recant after all.” He turned and headed down the brick steps leading to the beach, taking them two at a time, all the while keeping his eyes on the fast-moving coral-cloaked siren strolling away.

Liz concentrated on her breathing. Stay calm. Stay calm. But it was hard to stay calm when she was almost certain she was baiting a shark using herself as the chum.

With her head held high and her shoulders back she moved her hips seductively with every step, secretly wondering if maybe she was overdoing it a bit. She glanced back over her shoulder to where he’d gotten caught in the crowd of excited guests. It was working.

He was dressed in a loose-fitting, light-beige tunic that carried the hotel’s name and emblem, safari shorts and open-toed sandals, and it struck her again just how different this man was from the one she’d known years ago. There was no way the Darius she’d known would’ve ever worn shorts of any kind, let alone shoes that exposed his toes.

She looked back again to see him gently but persistently pushing his way through the throng of people, never taking his eyes off her. She watched as he licked his lips and his eyes narrowed on her in an almost menacing fashion. Okay, maybe it’s working too well.

She maneuvered her way around a grouping of inflatable balloon slides and bouncers where children played, oblivious to the darkening sky. She looked ahead at the empty beach that stretched before her. The sun was just disappearing beyond the horizon and the sky was quickly darkening. She stopped at the edge of the water, took off her sandals and waited for him to catch up.

Darius stopped a few feet away, still not convinced that what he was seeing was real. But it was her. Here, on his beach after all these years. How? Why? As he stepped closer, he realized she was more beautiful than he remembered, which seemed impossible considering he’d once thought of her as perfection in the flesh.

“What are you doing here?”

“I had to come. You wouldn’t take my calls.”

“Didn’t that tell you something?”

“Yes. That I would have to come here and talk to you face to face.”

“We have nothing to say to each other.”

She turned to face him and he felt his heart skip a beat. “Actually, we have a lot to say to each other.”

Looking into her warm brown eyes was like a homecoming. A sense of relief and satisfaction that he hadn’t felt in years flowed through his entire being. The unfairness of it was almost staggering. How could she still make him feel this way after all these years? After all she’d done?

Her betrayal had almost destroyed him, and yet all he wanted to do now was go to her and take her in his arms as though nothing had changed. But it had. Everything had changed.

He couldn’t do this. When he’d come down to the beach he’d thought he could have a reasonable conversation with her and find out what had brought her halfway around the world after all this time. He’d thought he could satisfy his curiosity and then send her packing.

Looking at the coral sundress clinging to her legs as the soft winds whipped around them he knew the evening was not going to play out like that. If he remained on this isolated portion of the beach, with her soft perfume wafting into his nose, looking at all that tempting bare skin, he would end up trying to satisfy more than his curiosity. And from the seductive way she was watching him he was almost sure his advances would be welcomed. What the hell is she up to?

“What do you want, Liz?”

“I need to ask a favor.”

“Of me? Surely you’re joking? Unless you’re looking for directions to hell I’m not the one.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” She moved to close the distance between them and Darius instantly stepped back. “You’re the only one.”

“What are you talking about?”

She turned back to the water. “Wow, this is even harder than I thought it would be.” She chuckled. “And I thought it would be impossible.”

“You should’ve followed your first thought. Because this is a colossal waste of your time and mine.”

Outwardly agitated she swung back to face him. “You don’t even know what I want!”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I understand I’m the last person you’d volunteer to help, but—”

“If you understood that, then why are you here?”

“Just listen. I understand you hate me, but what I’m asking is not for me. It’s for my son.”

In that moment Darius wondered if his heart could stand any more shocks this night. “What did you say?”

“What I have to ask—I ask not for myself but for my son, Marc.”

Darius felt as if his knees were going to buckle under the implication of that statement. Her son. Darren’s son. The child that should’ve been his. Following her was a mistake. He knew that now.

“He’s nine and—”

“Stop.”

“He has diabetes. He was diagnosed when he was five.”

“Stop!”

“The diabetes has eaten away at his kid—”

“I said shut up, damn you!” He turned and, taking long strides, headed back to the luau.

“He’s dying!”

Darius stopped in his tracks, feeling his whole body stiffen from the tips of his toes to the hairs of his head.

“He’s dying—he needs a kidney transplant. He has AB negative blood. I have O positive. I’m not a match. And he’s been on the waiting list forever and there is no one. There just isn’t anyone for him. The doctors say his very best chance is a blood relative. You would probably be a perfect match. Darius, you can save his life.”

Despite the hostility radiating off the man, Liz moved closer to him and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. He flinched but didn’t pull away and she took that as a good sign.

“I know I have no right to ask this of you, but here I am asking. Please, Darius, I’m begging you, please.”

“I should’ve had security kick you out the minute I spotted you instead of following you here.”

“But you didn’t. And now that you know why I’m here can you in good conscience turn me away?”

He glared at her over his shoulder. “Don’t you dare try to preach to me about good conscience.”

Liz removed her hand and circled around to stand before him blocking his view of the luau. “If there was any other way, believe me, I would’ve chose it. My son is everything to me. I would do anything for him. I’d make a deal with Satan if it would save his life, so swallowing my pride and coming to you was small by comparison.”

His brown eyes narrowed on her face in the same analytical manner she’d seen earlier than day. “A deal with the devil, huh?” His full lips kicked up at the corner. “That sounds about right.”

As hungry eyes roamed over every inch of her body Liz only then considered the lack of intelligence involved in luring a man who hated her to a deserted portion of beach. She glanced over her shoulder to be sure the hotel guests were within screaming distance.

She swallowed and determinedly pushed forward. “Will you do it?”

His eyes came up to hers and he simply stared unblinking while she waited for the verdict that would either condemn Marc or save his life. As he stared she felt her skin becoming covered in goose bumps, knowing her greatest fear was his immediate rebuff. Still, having no idea of what he would say, she never expected the next words that came out of his mouth.

“What’s in it for me?”

She frowned, not sure she understood the question. “What?”

“Your Marc gets a new kidney, but what do I get?”

“Is this a joke?”

“No more of a joke than you asking.”

She shook her head, realizing she’d failed. He was not only refusing to help, he’d decided to taunt her in the process. “If you’re not going to do it just say so.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. But everything costs.”

Liz focused on his face trying to determine if he was serious. She couldn’t tell. “So what’s your price?”

“Well.” He thoughtfully rubbed his chin as if he didn’t hold the weight of her world in his large hands. “The devil would require your soul. I can at least promise you my price will be much smaller.” He huffed. “Quite honestly, I’m not certain you have a soul to bargain with anyway.”

Liz swallowed the sharp retort that immediately came to mind. He hadn’t said no. She could stand any insult if it meant he’d do it. “So what now?”

He took a deep breath. “We go back and enjoy the rest of the evening. Get some sleep—if you can. And in the morning I’ll tell you what I require in exchange for one of my kidneys.”

She narrowed her eyes on his handsome face. “What the hell happened to you, Darius?”

“You did.”

She bit her lip, knowing that was probably true. What she’d done could make a man hard and bitter. Was it really any surprise that he would keep her dangling miserably now that he could?

His eyes widened. “Of course, there is always a chance I won’t be a match, and then any stipulations would be null and void.”

“You’ll be a match.” She turned and headed back to the hotel.

He frowned at her retreating back. “What makes you so sure?”

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