Addicted (The Addicted Series, #1)(107)

I slowly chewed at the piece of mango that was currently on my fork, swallowing carefully before answering. "I think I was trying to kill myself," I said. "I don't really know; I was just kind of walking until I gave out."

Dwayne sat across from me in the dining room, still carefully studying me. I was wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from my bag, both of which hung on my body. I'd probably lost close to twenty pounds in the three days since I'd left Castelbon Manor, mostly water weight though, and my hands still shook slightly from the effort of trying to feed myself. "So what happened? This isn't the same Julian that I knew years ago."

I thought back to soon after I'd left college for the second time. Wanting to get away again, I'd flown to the Virgin Islands, where I'd met Dwayne Forrester. The youngest son of the Forrester Hotel empire, he and I had hit it off well, with a lot of second hand familiar connections. He was a few years older than me, and we formed a kind of mentor-apprentice friendship. We'd spent close to three months partying it up among the islands, hopping from place to place probably about two steps ahead of the local constabulary. "Yeah, Curacao was pretty wild, wasn't it?"

Dwayne nodded and gave me a ghost of a grin. "And Trinidad, and Maracaibo, and St. Kitts, and Santiago. Hell, by the end of it I was wondering if we were just going to become a pair of buccaneers and start raiding the Spanish Main again."

"Well, we did plunder quite a few bootys," I joked, feeling a bit of strength return. "Although I don't remember who got more."

"Doesn't really matter," he replied. "But what's up with you now? I mean, I've read your name from time to time, you seem to have kept your penchant for getting yourself in trouble."

I nodded. "Yeah, I have at that. Meanwhile, the little I've read about you has been nothing but good news. Congratulations on taking over the Forrester chain. By the way, what's this about Erica and Liz? Is your sister living with you or something?"

Dwayne shook his head and got up, getting a photo from the kitchen. "Here, take a look."

I looked at the simple snapshot, and was blown away. The woman with Dwayne was tall, easily five ten, and beautiful in a lot of the same ways Krystal is. Their bodies weren't at all alike, Krystal being shorter and more voluptuous, but they both had a quality to their eyes that told me she was a good person. Held between them was a precious little girl that looked maybe a year old, I wasn't too sure. "You're married?"

"I am," Dwayne told me, a huge grin on his face. "The picture's a little old, but that's Liz in between me and Erica."

I shook my head in disbelief. "Wow man. You found yourself a beautiful woman too. Just your type, tall, leggy.... she looks like she should be a model or something."

"Would you believe she was? She then went into designing, and we met through a fashion show in London. There were a lot of bumps along the road, but we found happiness together. Now that you look a little more like a human being, I wish she and Liz were in town. But, they're overseas in France right now. I'd be with them, but I have a quarterly shareholders meeting I have to go to tomorrow, and frankly I can't miss that. I'm flying to Paris the day after tomorrow though."

"I see. Wow, you've got your life on the right track. Jesus," I said, before the enormity of my crisis crashed down on me. I sat there, emotion choking my throat so that I could barely even make a noise, and told Dwayne everything. I had to give it to him, he didn't once interrupt me or look at me in any way that would make me think he was being disparaging towards what I'd laid out. Instead, he waited until my words trickled off, making sure I was done.

"Dammit Dwayne, what am I supposed to do?"

He thought about it for a second before answering. "I'm of two minds, Julian, and they aren't exactly disagreeing with each other in terms of wanting to help you, but they do disagree on the best way on how to do it."

"What do you mean?" I asked, intrigued. Dwayne was one of those guys I respected for quite a few reasons. First of all, his family is about as rich as the Castelbons. Both of us could, and probably at some point in our family histories, had bought a US Senator or two. Hell, we could probably afford to buy a whole country. So for Dwayne, there was never any reason for him to be intimidated or in any way, shape, or form be concerned about my money. Secondly, Dwayne was almost as fit as I was. While his height and frame were a bit lankier, he wasn't a beanpole by any means. In fact, there was one time the two of us had gotten into a bar fight during our carousing of the Caribbean that I had to admit, he did more than carry his half of the brawl as we took on seven merchant marines. Finally, Dwayne was smart, plain and simple. Whereas I'd been blinded by my anger all my life, Dwayne had actually turned his anger into something constructive. Even when we were younger, it was obvious he was going places, despite his partying with me.

"A part of me wants to get up and slap the piss out of you for even thinking of such a f*cked up thing to do," Dwayne said, "and to slap the piss out of you for not manning the f*ck up and doing the right thing, which would have been to stick it out at the Castelbon Manor, and try and patch things up yourself. You shouldn't even be here in Miami; you should be in Chicago right now begging Krystal to let your sorry ass back into her life. By the way, I know who she is, although I doubt she knows me. When she was at Kendall College, Forrester Hotels sponsored a culinary competition for students. She was a sophomore at the time, but still cooked her way into the top five, losing out in the end to two seniors and a junior. My father was the presenter of the awards, but I was on the judging panel."