Table of Contents

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  About the Author

  Soulmates

  A Steamy Older Man Younger Woman Romance

  Mia Madison

  SOULMATES

  Copyright © 2017 by Mia Madison

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  1

  FORTUNE TELLER

  Taylor

  My only chance at love hung on the words of a dying fortune teller given to me five years ago.

  I remembered that day so clearly it could have been yesterday. I was thirteen, hanging out at the local mall with friends after school as we usually did. In rural Kauai there was not much else to do. The choice I had was to go straight home and help mom and dad run their B&B business, which I ended up doing anyway no matter how late I got home, or tag along with my classmates until past five in the afternoon, when their parents picked most of them up after work.

  The surfers, who were the cool dudes, hit the waves right after the bell rang. They were accompanied by their entourage of skinny, beautiful admirers, but I, with my flabby body, glasses, and freckles, was not one of them.

  The mall it was for me.

  We congregated around Kimo’s Shave Ice stand, the coolest spot for the not-cool crowd. Across from it was the old fortune teller’s shop, a grossly dilapidated store that looked like it had been there since before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

  The Filipino owner, lola Nora, certainly looked prehistoric.

  Most kids made fun of her, but I liked her. She had a quirkiness about her that I enjoyed, and every so often I would drop by the shop and get treated with milk in a red plastic picnic cup and some Oreo cookies. It was a secret treat I hid from my friends. They didn’t deserve it, not with the way they laughed at her.

  The old fortune teller would show me crusty albums filled with black and white photos of her younger days working for my grandfather in the sugar plantation. She told me stories about her past life, and her love. It was in the Koloa fields, doing backbreaking work harvesting sugar canes in the intense heat, that she met her future husband, Ramon Santos.

  Ramon was an avid photographer, and the picture albums that resulted from his hobby contained a treasure trove of historical significance during the time when sugar export was the number one industry in the state of Hawaii.

  Ramon had already been gone for over twenty years, a victim of tuberculosis, but lola, a Tagalog term meaning grandmother, never stopped loving him. I got the impression she enjoyed showing her albums because it allowed her to revisit her past life with Ramon all over again.

  It was from her that I first learned of the word soulmate.

  She believed each of us is never quite whole until we meet our soulmate. Until we find that person, we live our lives knowing there is something missing, but we never know what that missing piece is unless the right person comes along.

  “So lola, you and lolo Ramon are soulmates?” I had asked during one of my visits, my mouth stuffed with cookies, the crumbs scattered around my school shorts.

  “Yes, dear,” she nodded.

  “So you knew, as soon as you saw him, that he was your soulmate? How? Was there a sign?”

  She laughed. “No sign, dear. It doesn’t usually work that way.”

  “Then how will you know?”

  “It’s just one of those things. You will know it, the second you see him.”

  “Like my mom and dad, then.”

  The old fortune teller paused. “Tay-Tay, sometimes grown-up life can be… complicated. Being married doesn’t mean you’ve found your soulmate.”

  “But they love each other. They must be soulmates, right?”

  She ruffled my hair and smiled, but didn’t answer. Till now I had no idea how she knew my parents weren’t meant to be with each other, that the day would come when my mom would leave my dad for someone else.

  “I want to find my soulmate, lola,” I said. “How can I find him?”

  “You will find each other.”

  I frowned. “But what if he doesn’t like me? I’m fat and ugly.”

  “Oh Tay-Tay, you are most definitely not ugly. You’re beautiful, and in just a few short years you will grow into a stunning young woman, and you will have all kinds of guys chasing after you. Just remember, the right person for you is out there somewhere. Okay?”

  I nodded. “Lola Nora, why don’t you want to tell me my fortune? You tell the fortunes of other people that walk in here. I’ve seen you. Why not me?”

  “I’ve told those people only what they want to hear. You, on the other hand, are special. I can only read your fortune when it’s time, when you are ready to receive it.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Soon, dear,” she said, her gaze wandering off into the distance.

  “Soon.”

  She was right, of course. A couple of months later, on my thirteenth birthday, as my classmates and I gathered around Kimo’s Shave Ice, I was surprised to see the old fortune teller come halfway out of her store and wave at me.

  “Eh, Taylor, crazy lady looking for you,” one of the girls said.

  “She’s not crazy,” I said, giving the little twat a cold stare as I got off my stool and walked across.

  “Tay-Tay, come in, dear,” lola Nora said.

  I followed her inside the tiny shop, my eyes lighting up when I saw three chocolate chip cookies on a paper plate next to a plastic cup filled with milk. I’d been given one, maybe two cookies at a time when I visit. Never three. This was a treat, and I wondered if she knew it was my birthday.

  “Wow, thanks lola!” I said. She sat across from me, and I noticed for the first time how frail she looked. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, suddenly worried.

  “It’s nothing, dear, just my old age catching up to me.” She watched me gobble up the first cookie and drink a third of the milk.

  “It’s good!” I exclaimed, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

  “Remember some time back, when you asked me to tell you your fortune, and I said I can only tell you when it’s time?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, reaching for the second cookie.

  “Well, it’s time.”

  I froze, my chocolate-smudged fingers two inches away from the cookie as I stared at her. “Wait, seriously?”

  “Yes, Tay-Tay. Seriously. Do you still want me to read you your fortune?”

  “Yes!”

  “Give me your hand. Your left hand.”

  I squealed and extended my arm across the table. She took my hand and held it, her touch cold, the grip faint and constantly shaking, but she didn’t seem bothered by it.

  “What do you want to know, dear?”

  “My soulmate! Who is he? Where is he? What does he look like? When do I get to meet him? When will we marry?”

  She chuckled. “It doesn’t quite work that way, Tay-Tay. I can only see bits and pieces, shadows and light, an image or two. Now, be still.”

  She squinted, traced the lines, and mumbled incoherent gibberish to herself. After a few minutes she let go, sat back, and closed her eyes. She looked exhausted.

  “Well? What did you see?”

  When lola Nora didn’t respond for a long time I thought she had actually fallen asleep. I was about to poke her with my finger when she started whispering with her eyes still closed.

  “You will meet him here on the island,” she said. “He appears shimmering with the last rays of the sun, tall and handsome. He is not what you would expect, but do not let that fool you. There is strength in him, but also kindness, and a hurt that only you can heal. Look past convention, listen to your heart. Your love will face many challenges, but it will be worth it. I see a union in the mist, and children.”

  Without warning she opened her eyes and gripped my arm with a fierceness I didn’t think she had in her. “Beware of the shark!”

  With that final warning the old woman slumped in
her chair, her head hanging to the side. I thought she died right in front of me, but then I heard her snore.

  “Wake up, lola!” I said, shaking her. “What do you mean? What shark?”

  It was useless. Lola Nora had gone into a deep sleep, and nothing I did roused her. I remembered sitting there, finishing my milk and cookies while I watched her snore. When I was done, I left the store quietly and went back to where my classmates were chatting.

  “See you guys later,” I said, grabbing my school bag.

  I walked home, her words echoing repeatedly in my mind. I remembered telling myself I would go back the next day and try to wrestle more details out of her.

  I had no idea I would never see her again.

  When my friends and I went back to the mall the following day, the store was closed, and I couldn’t find her anywhere. It was not until I was watching the evening news with my parents that I found out the woman was found dead on her bed, surrounded by old black and white photos. They said she passed away peacefully in her sleep.

  She was 110 years old.

  Now, exactly five years later, on my eighteenth birthday, I stood in the local cemetery poised on a small hill with a grand backdrop of the Pacific Ocean, looking down at the tombstones of Nora and Ramon Santos.

  A lot of things had happened since. Mom and dad got divorced, I grew up, lost my chubbiness, and guys now kept following me around, wanting to be with me. All her predictions had come true.

  All but one.

  “I still miss you, lola Nora,” I said, kneeling as I placed a couple of Oreo cookies and a plastic cup half filled with milk next to her inscribed name. I had been coming here each year on my birthday, bringing cookies and milk.

  I stood up, got on my bike, and pedaled home. By the time I got to the Plantation B&B it was almost sunset.

  I parked my bike on the grassy lawn, but I didn’t feel like going in yet, so I sat on the curb and watch the start of the sun’s final descent. It was almost completely over the horizon when a taxi pulled up in front and a man got out. I couldn’t see his face, but he was tall, his complexion tanned, and he walked with an undeniable aura of strength about him. What got the hair at the back of my neck standing on edge was the fact that the last rays of the sun hit the man’s silhouette in such a way that he appeared to be shimmering.

  And he was walking straight toward me.

  2

  ARRIVAL

  Miles

  The plane touched down in Lihue Airport soft as a feather, and my four days of exile began.

  I grabbed my duffle bag, followed the line of passengers out the open air terminal, and hailed a cab.

  “Where to, sir?”

  “Do you know the Plantation B&B?” I said as I got in.

  “Fo sure, brah!” The driver said, his local accent bringing back memories from what seemed like ages ago. I was born and raised in Honolulu, but I had never been back to Hawaii since I left for college over twenty years ago.

  “First time in Kauai?”

  “Kauai, yeah. Used to live on Oahu though.”

  “Eh, you local boy, then. My name Keith.”

  “Miles.”

  “Where you stay now, Miles?” Keith said, glancing at me through the rearview mirror with curious Polynesian eyes.

  “Los Angeles.”

  “California? Right on! What you do in Cali?”

  “I’m a lawyer.”

  “Fo reals?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “For real.”

  “So you here on vacation?”

  No, Keith, I wanted to tell him. I’m here because my boss threatened to do something worse if I didn’t go on a forced break from work. “Something like that,” I said instead.

  “How long you here fo?”

  “A few days,” I said, staring out at the ocean. I should be excited about this trip. No sixteen hour days at the office and endless meetings, at least for a few days. I should be excited, but I felt nothing. Two years had passed since the divorce, since the day I came home early from a business trip and found my wife fucking my friend in our bedroom.

  It was a complete shock. I did not see it coming. I thought we were a happy couple. I thought we were cool together. We knew people with failed marriages, or were in the process of crumbling, but I thought we were different.

  Apparently not.

  Even after I caught them I didn’t want to lose her. Somehow the thought of continuing on with my life without her was unbearable, and I was willing to write off the incident as a momentary lapse of control, a one-time thing. Maybe she was drunk, or extremely horny, or both, and I wasn’t around, and she just needed a fuck, needed it bad. I was building a tower of excuses for her to use, but when Beverly told me she had been sleeping around for some time and wanted to continue doing so, that was it.

  The divorce was swift and, since we had no kids, simple. I left her the house, bought a condo near the office, and poured myself into my work. I was already good at what I did, but I became a ruthless machine, taking on the most difficult cases and shooting up the corporate ladder until I made it as a senior partner of the firm, only one step below my ultimate goal of becoming a named partner.

  Two years after that incident and I was fully recovered. I was past Beverly, had forgotten her, and I had moved on. I was done with her, and with relationships in general. My work was my world, and nothing could pierce that stronghold bubble.

  That was, until she showed up at the firm.

  It was unavoidable, of course. I was bound to run into her at some point. After all, she was the daughter of Tom Edsel. Yes, that Tom Edsel, as in Edsel and Associates Law Firm.

  My boss.

  “Hello, Miles,” Beverly said when I walked into my office that morning. She was dressed impeccably in a white Dior dress that clung to her like a second skin and did a great job of highlighting all the right bumps. Her long legs were stretched out in front of her, red-bottom stiletto heels resting on top of my desk.

  “What are you doing here, Bev?” I said, trying hard not to stare at those familiar legs.

  “Aw, can’t I just drop by and say hi to my ex? I mean, we’re still friends, right?”

  Friends? Friends?

  “I’ve got a meeting in fifteen minutes, Bev,” I said, not wanting to argue. “What can I help you with?”

  “Nothing,” she said, placing her feet down and leaning forward, her breasts practically spilling out of her low-slung dress. “I just visited dad and thought I’d stop by and say hi.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was hitting on me or she was just being her usual seductive self. She always did get a kick out of making the men around her drool.

  “So,” I said, sighing. “How are you doing, Bev?”

  “Just fab, thank you, dear. And what about you? Dad told me you’ve been doing really great, knocking all those cases out of the park. He has been very pleased with you. Except today. Today he’s pissed at you. Something about some deposition you screwed up on. I wouldn’t go see him now, if I were you.”

  The Kruger case. Fuck.

  Beverly got up and I watched in a mounting panic as she made her way around the desk until she stood in front of me.

  “He also said you haven’t taken a single day off in two years.” She placed her arms around me, her hands gently rubbing the back of my neck like she used to do.

  “Bev, what are you doing?”

  “I miss you, Miles,” she whispered in my ear, her breath hot, her breasts pressing against my chest. “I want you back in my life.”

  I could not believe this was happening. It took me a long time to get her out of my mind, out of my system, and here she was again, threatening to destroy that wall of safety I had built.

  “Bev, please stop.”

  “Can we just go out, Miles? Catch up, have a drink or something? I can tell dad you’re taking a day off. He’ll understand.”

  I grabbed her hands, brought them to her sides, and stepped back.

  “Please, just go.”

  She stared at me, a stunned look on her face, and that was when it hit me. Beverly Edsel always got what she wanted. No one had ever turned her down. Ever.