Page 3 of Fighting Fate
Well, Rosie didn’t have the words to describe how soul-crushing having to face every day with this hanging over her would be.
There was only one logical conclusion to all her problems, both her complete lack of a love life and the disastrous hole she’d dug for herself in her workplace. Which was also her home.
There was no escape.
Unless she left.
The thought was so terrifying Rosie felt short of breath. Pressing her hands to her chest, she tried to take deep breaths, but the thought pressed in on her until it was the only thing on her mind, an unpalatable but inescapable truth.
If I stay here, I’m never going to find love.
Not to mention I’ll spend every day dying of embarrassment because everybody knows what an epic disaster I made of propositioning Luke.
But leaving Sunfish Island…
She felt sick at the mere idea. Her friends were here, the closest thing she really had to family, her home. Leaving and starting again somewhere else was terrifying to contemplate… but it was the only answer to her predicament.
Drawing her knees up and hugging them, Rosie gave in to her misery and began to cry.
CHAPTER TWO
DAWN was just beginning to turn the eastern sky over the Pacific Ocean a spectacular shade of rose gold when Adam Gillespie began his morning jog. He admired the colours as he began with a few stretches before starting a slow jog along the broad track leading down towards the beach on the island’s eastern side. By the time he hit the sand he’d picked up speed, and enjoyed the way the fine sand sucked at his feet, making him work hard for every step.
Nothing like running barefoot in soft white sand, still cool from the night, he thought as he pounded through the sand, feeling the strain in his calves and hamstrings with every stride. He’d missed being able to run barefoot, the way he’d grown up.
Adam had almost half a mile of beach to run on, and he planned to run the full length and back at least three times before heading back to his villa to do the weight-training part of his daily routine. As he neared the far end where the main resort was, though, a sound which wasn’t softly lapping waves or birdsong reached his ears and made him slow his pace.
There was a woman on one of the lounge chairs pulled back under the palm trees, curled forward over her knees and absolutely sobbing her heart out.
Adam didn’t hesitate, diverting immediately to run over and fall to his knees at her side.
“Hey, are you all right? Are you hurt?”
The woman flinched back from him, her head coming up and red-rimmed brown eyes meeting his. To his surprise, Adam recognised her; he’d seen her several times since his arrival a couple of weeks ago, wearing the resort uniform of turquoise polo shirt and khaki shorts, striding around the resort with a tablet in her hand, always busy, always with a smile on her face.
He was pretty sure she was in Human Resources or whatever the resort called that department, since she always seemed to be interacting with staff members rather than guests. Certainly she’d never even given him a glance, though he’d looked at her, attracted by her curvaceous figure and that ready smile.
She was wearing what he suspected was a designer dress, a pair of high heels thrown in the sand beside the chair, her brown hair tumbling in softly messy waves around her shoulders, mascara streaked under her eyes.
“Are you okay?” he tried again when she just stared at him. “Only, I saw you crying, and I’m a bit of a sucker for damsels in distress.” Aware he could appear slightly terrifying to those who didn’t know him, he smiled gently, sitting back on his heels and trying to look as friendly and harmless as he could manage.
***
Stunned by the sudden appearance of a concerned stranger, Rosie took a moment to try and gulp back her sobs. She’d been sitting on the lounger all night, trying to come up with a way out of her predicament which didn’t involve handing in her notice and leaving the island, and unable to come up with one. Really, she should have run out of tears hours ago, but it seemed the beauty of the sunrise had the power to set her off again, as she wondered despairingly how many more island sunrises she’d get to enjoy.
“I’m, I’m fine,” she gulped out, shaking her head.
“You don’t look all that fine,” the stranger said bluntly. “Has someone hurt you?”
“Not physically.” Her heart was another story, but she couldn’t blame Luke, not really. He’d never given even the slightest indication that he might be interested in her romantically, nothing that could even be misinterpreted. Rosie was honest enough with herself to admit she’d just hoped he was hiding his feelings and would admit he felt the same way about her once she made the first move.
“Ah. Broken heart?” The stranger gave her a sympathetic smile and she rubbed at her eyes with a pained wince, taking a good look at him for the first time.
He was absolutely massive, was her first impression. Even sitting back on his heels in the sand, she had to look up to meet his eyes, which were a very dark brown, in a dark brown face. Symmetrical, strong features with deep-set eyes, a squarish nose and a firm mouth made her think he was probably Aboriginal rather than African or African-American, as did the distinctly Australian accent.
Her eyes slid downwards, snagging on a tattoo which began on the left side of his neck and curled downwards in dots and lines, bands of red, green, yellow and blue making up the shape of a magnificent serpent. The snake curled down across his torso from left to right, ending on the lower right side of his abdomen in a flicking tail.
Fascinated by the incredible detail of the tattoo, Rosie forgot herself and stared. A kangaroo bounded across sharply defined abdominal muscles; there was a goanna climbing his left pectoral, a bright green frog on his shoulder, all contained within the serpent’s massive body.