Standing up, she took a deep breath, wanting to use all her strength to toss the bottle.
She lifted her arm up in a mighty swing—-
The bottle flew out of her hold in the opposite direction.
SHIII—-
Wait, she couldn’t curse.
Curse it!
Why couldn’t have she inherited Magnolia’s athleticism as well?
Curse it, why?
Instead of flinging the bottle into the sea, Daria had ended up throwing the bottle back to the island’s beachfront path.
A moment later and she heard someone curse.
“What the fuck?”
Daria whirled around, paling at the thought that she might have just committed homicide, and all because she wanted to find a prince among frogs.
The first thing she saw was her Gatorade bottle, lying helplessly next to a pair of murderously expensive-looking beach sandals.
Curse you, bottle. It should have known better than to slip out of her grasp!
Another moment, and the pricy footwear’s owner had bent down as he reached for the bottle. Daria caught sight of someone tall, long-limbed, and bare-chested.
The figure straightened.
Beautiful silky black hair, curling at the nape, so thick she wanted to sink her fingers in it and start to comb them.
Olive skin, such a contrast with her pale complexion, and she found herself wondering dizzily if he was that dark all over.
Sculpted body, with his broad shoulders, powerfully muscular arms, rock-hard chest, and washboard abs—-
The stranger looked up.
Daria gasped.
The sound had his furious brown eyes jerking up, and the stranger’s gaze instantly found and labeled Daria as the culprit.
She didn’t mind at all. In fact, she found herself praying that he was a cop. If he were, he could arrest her, and she’d go to him willingly.
They stared at each other for a long time.
You’re cruel, God, Daria thought with a mental sniff. The longer she looked at the beautiful stranger she had almost murdered, the more she was convinced this was all a test. It had to be. There was no other reason that God would suddenly place her in the presence of this perfection.
Daria lifted her chin. I won’t fail You, God.
****
WHAT DID PEOPLE DO on vacation aside from resting? It was a question that Nik Alexandropoulos had been struggling with since the day he arrived at Kyrillos Gazis’ pleasure island, and until now the answer managed to evade his normally cunning mind. Give him a stock market crisis to solve anytime, Nik thought, and he wouldn’t feel as lost as he felt now. But this whole goddamn vacation thing? How people could stand to spend days doing nothing was beyond him, and if not for the doctor ordering him to rest, Nik wouldn’t have ever bothered to figure it out.
An overseas trip had exposed Nik to a rather severe virus, requiring a week’s stay in the hospital for treatment. Upon his discharge, the doctor had given Nik an ultimatum. Take a month off from work or risk a life-threatening recurrence.
After just a week on the island, Nik’s days had fallen into a routine. He would wake up at four in the morning, work out in his hotel’s gym for an hour, take a shower, go for a run along the beach, and afterwards take a dip. All this he made sure to do before breakfast, which would then be followed by several hours of reading. The need to do more chafed at him, but Nik knew it would be the height of stupidity to ignore his doctor’s advice. And so he forced himself not to do anything after breakfast, since he was anything but stupid.