The Dashing Groom (Holliday Islands Resort Book 1)

by Jo Grafford

  The Phantom’s white helmet bobbed back into view as his movie crew converged on him with their many lights, cameras, and drones. Replays of his jump from a myriad of angles flashed in rapid succession across the screen. When at last his voice broke through the melee, he sounded winded but exultant.

  Dozens of voices joined in on the mountaintop where she sat, and Christian was one of them, as the Phantom gleefully raised a fist and shouted, “I’d like to see you try that, Jovie Cyrus!” That’s how he always ended his videos.

  The crowd of skiers pressed closer to her, chanting, “Jovie! Jovie! Jovie!”

  “Answer him!” the woman, who’d been filming her, begged excitedly. She crouched down in front of her “Omigosh! Answer him, Jovie, and I’ll post it online for everyone to see.”

  Jovie shot an anxious look at Christian who nodded his encouragement.

  “Go ahead, cheri. I’ll manage any PR fallout. Promise!”

  Adrenaline coursed through her at the knowledge that the Phantom would finally hear a rebuttal from her. All their interactions and “conversations” had been one-sided up to this point.

  “My answer to the Phantom’s Grand Teton challenge this afternoon is this.” She stood and smiled at her audience, throwing down one of her ski poles as if it was a gauntlet. The pointy end buried itself in the snow and held upright. “I’m asking you out on a date, Phantom.”

  The skiers around her gasped. A few titters broke out.

  “Not the wine and roses kind,” she continued with a grin, “but a one-on-one race. You aren’t the only skier with a few tricks up your sleeve.” Only Christian understood what she was talking about, at this point. The rest of the world thought she was an Alpine skier and nothing more. No one else knew about the crazy extra hours she’d been practicing her jumps away from the cameras, preparing her long-awaited response to the Phantom. She’d hoped against hope — though she’d never quite been sure — that this day would come.

  “I have two conditions, though.” She held up a gloved finger. “One. It’ll be a time and a place we both agree on. You may contact my manager, Christian Laurent, to set it up. And two.” She shot up a second finger. “At the end of the challenge, you’ll take off your mask. Don’t worry. I’ll keep whatever deep, dark secret you’re hiding from the rest of the world. Your unmasking will be for me and me alone.”

  Chapter 2: The Endorsement

  Dash

  “Your unmasking will be for me and me alone.” Jovie Cyrus’s laughing alto rang across the studio.

  The Bullhorn mashed the pause button on the amateur cell phone recording to freeze the stunningly beautiful skiing champion in mid-grin. “Well, boss? I can’t speak for you, but let me just throw this down.” His hazel-green eyes glinted wickedly. “I’d be willing to take off any item of clothing that hottie asks me to.” He ran one tanned hand over his reddish-brown goatee, looking like he was ready to drool.

  “Whoa! Keep your clothes on, Bull. That’s a visual I could’ve happily lived without.” Warren Dasher Holliday, better known as Dash to his family and innermost circle of employees, treated his announcer to a sardonic smile. He was accustomed to his friend’s oft-times inappropriate humor, but his comment managed to hit a nerve this time. Jovie was super special. He’d just as soon not have to listen to anything off-color said about her.

  His announcer chuckled and spread his heavily muscled and tatted arms wide. “Hey, you know me. I’m like a well-marinated steak at one of your highfalutin, pinky-stretching dining establishments—”

  “No. You’re not.” Dash pretended to plug his ears. “And I’m going to stop you right there, before you say anything else I can’t un-hear.”

  They were standing in his private video editing studio and business office in his Aspen high-rise. His penthouse was one level up, while his resort, Les Trois, comprised the lower six levels. It provided fifty-four luxury guest suites, two fine dining establishments, a state-of-the-art IMAX theater, a wildly popular casino, an ultra high-end spa that took reservations only, an award-winning gym, and a boutique that sold his exclusive Warren DH line of ski clothing and equipment. Like his father who owned and operated a luxury resort in Prince William Sound, Alaska, he’d been unable to shake the hospitality gene that seemed to run in their family. He’d built Les Trois from the ground up and was supremely proud at the way the facility combined the best Aspen had to offer — plush accommodations, world-class entertainment, and a one-of-a-kind dining experience with renowned five-star Chef Jaques Cartier.

  “At least tell me if you’re going to accept Jovie’s challenge,” Bull pressed. His real name was Blaine Westover, but everyone in the studio called him Bull — partly because of his YouTuber handle and partly because of his Paul Bunyan size.

  Of course I am! Dash arched a disbelieving brow at his Vice President of Operations. “You have to ask?”

  “Good.” Bull rubbed his hands together gleefully. “I’d say it’s past time you introduce yourself to her after all these years. I mean, isn’t that what we’ve been working up to? I’ll ring her cozy French manager right away to arrange the meet-up.”

  Okay. Dash clenched his fists at his sides. Okay. He’d always figured there would be an unveiling. Eventually. But in his way, on his timing. Being called out by Jovie on camera wasn’t part of the plan. He was going to have to craft his next move very carefully if he intended to remain in the driver’s seat here. What had started out as a prank had turned into something else entirely Something way bigger. Something far more special.

  “Raj?” He waited until his head IT glanced up to nod coolly at the door. As usual, Raj was working overtime on some project or another. Everyone else had headed home shortly after their return from Wyoming. “If you’re gunning for another sleepover, you might as well make the first coffee run. I’ll take a Black Ivory.”

  “Sure thing, boss.” Dr. Rajesh Batra shot to his feet with one of his nerdy lopsided smiles. His brown herringbone blazer was hanging from the back of his chair, his white shirtsleeves rolled up, and his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He pushed them higher with one long, coppery finger. “What can I do you for, Bull?”

  His V.P. waved a disparaging hand. “None of those expensive elephant droppings for me. I’ll take a Jamaican Blue made from regular ol’ corn-fed coffee beans, thank you very much.”

  “Got it. One Black Ivory and one Jamaican Blue coming up.” Raj disappeared after a quick harried search for his name badge. He would need it to access the secure parts of the building, namely the kitchen of Les Trois’ twenty-four-hour coffee shop and bar.

  “About that Laurent fellow,” Dash announced the moment the door shut behind his chief movie editor. He folded his arms and stared out the wall of windows overlooking the glittering nightlife of Aspen. It was tempered, bullet-proof glass that, by some trick of engineering, caught the light in a way that allowed him to either stare through the glass to the world outside or to examine his own reflection. He briefly and critically gave his Desmond Merrion suit a once-over. It was a hand tailored charcoal ensemble in merino sheep’s wool by one of the world’s most renowned designers on London’s Savile Row. Anyone who saw him wearing it would presume he was a high-powered businessman, not an extreme athlete who’d defied gravity, world records, and common sense a few hours earlier on the Tetons.

  “Let me guess.” Bull was already bent over the computer terminal next to Raj’s. He punched in his password to access their secure system. “You want to know where he lives, what he eats, what brand of boxers he wears, who his clients are—”

  “He works exclusively for Jovie,” Dash interrupted, though he couldn’t help grinning at Bull’s perfect Tony Soprano imitation. “I made sure of that five years ago when I recommended him to a friend of a friend which led him to getting the job; but, yes, to the other items on your list. I also want to know about his female relationships – all of them. Past and present.” He’d hardly given the man half a thought the past five years,
but that was before he’d been forced to watch his whole cuddle bunny routine today with the one woman in the world he truly cared for.

  “In other words, you’d like to know if you should be worried about her over protective manager who’s apparently fond of cheek presses.”

  “Worried? Hardly,” Dash snorted. “Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t enjoy the sight of him cozying up to her any more than you did. But the only person who’ll need to be worried is him, if you uncover any reason for us to doubt his honor or integrity.”

  “No problem. I’ll help you bury the body,” Bull assured cheerfully. He took a seat and started his digging through the wastelands of the cyber world. If anyone could dig up dirt on a person, it was The Bullhorn. Assuming there was any dirt to dig up, that is, which Dash sincerely hoped there wasn’t in the case of Jovie’s business manager.

  Ever since his chance encounter with her at a Hollywood charity event five years earlier, he’d been utterly entranced. It was one of those rose-colored-glasses type events where hopeful donors gathered beneath the lofty mission of finding a cure for cancer. Most of the attendees, like himself, had lost a loved one to cancer. He and Jovie had only briefly chatted before a fashionably dressed man had come to whirl her into the next dance. But it had been long enough for them to establish a bond — a real bond based on their mutual love of skiing as well as the mutual loss of their mothers to cancer, not the fawning frenzy of groupies who hounded them both for their respective fortunes.

  The night of the charity ball had also been her eighteenth birthday. Maybe it was because she was so young at the time. Maybe it was because he’d just been through a bad breakup and wasn’t looking for a rebound relationship. Shoot! He’d pretty much avoided all romantic entanglements after that breakup. Whatever the case, he’d not pursued his initial attraction to Jovie, something he’d regretted ever since. Which in no way explained his decision to start making prank and parody videos of her, a hobby which had all too quickly become an obsession.

  Being an extreme skier and online entertainer helped fill the void in his self-imposed solidarity. Call him a coward for choosing such an existence, but it wasn’t easy for a billionaire to have real and meaningful relationships with most people, especially women. Sure, he had an army of gorgeous females throwing themselves at him every time he appeared in public, but it wasn’t the real thing. Many were just trying to get their name in the paper or hoped he would show them a good time at his expense. Others wanted the clout of being associated with the Hollidays’ mega resort conglomerate.

  Ultimately, Dash had learned the world was a very lonely place at the top. His vast investment portfolios could buy him everything but what mattered most — things like friendship, loyalty, and love.

  Friendship, loyalty, and love. For some reason, this brought Jovie back to mind. His professional muse. The inspiration for nearly all his daredevil fetes in the past five years. And, not for the first time, he wondered if it was any easier for a celebrity athlete like herself to have friends, to date, or to fall in love. He’d followed her career pretty closely, and he’d yet to read a gossip rag describing any serious relationships on her end, either. The only conclusion he could draw was that she was having as much trouble finding the real thing as he was. If his speculations were correct, it was yet another bond they shared.

  For a moment, he indulged himself in the memory of her tossing her white-blonde shoulder-length hair in the frigid mountain breezes, her classically fair cheekbones pink from the Swedish wintery temps. Even more fascinating was the way she’d appeared genuinely concerned on his behalf as she’d watched the live video feed of his Grand Teton descent. Maybe it was foolish of him, but he hoped she was one of the few people on the planet who actually cared whether he lived or died.

  Which was why he was going to take her up on her challenge for a one-on-one downhill race. He’d hold her to her promise of secrecy, of course, when at last he took off his helmet. There’d be attorneys to put in touch and confidentiality agreements to sign, but his gut told him that Jovie Cyrus was a woman capable of keeping her word.

  His personal cell phone vibrated from the inner pocket of his blazer.

  Bull glanced up from his computer. “Sounds like big daddy’s ring.”

  “Or my step-monster.” Dash wrinkled his nose as he dug for his phone. Mara was his stepmother. Well, technically, she was his ex-stepmother, since his billionaire father, Gordon Holliday, had finally wised up enough to divorce her shallow, busybody, spendthrift, skinny hide. Despite his father’s tardy wisdom, she managed to continue livening up his life and that of his eight brothers with her constant personal crises, pleas for money, and overall melodrama.

  He accepted the call with a single swipe and held the phone to his ear without looking at the caller’s name. “Les Trois answering service. How may I help you?”

  “Dash? Is that you?” His father sounded surprised. Then he chuckled. “Never mind. I get it. You were worried I was Mara.”

  “You know me too well.” Dash smiled. “It was good to hear his father’s voice. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, he’d been meaning to call the guy.

  “Not as well as I thought I did,” was the surprising reply. “I always banked on you giving me my first grandchild long before your thirty-eighth birthday.”

  Dash burst out laughing. “Okay, I’ll bite. What gives, Pop? Because you’ve never been that guy, so I assume you have a good reason for the sudden need to guilt me about being single.”

  “I do, son. It’s called retirement.”

  “Oh?” Concern stabbed Dash in the gut. “Is everything okay? Are you okay?” It had been way too long since he visited home — since last Christmas, now that he was thinking about it. How had an entire year flown so quickly?

  “I am, but I thank you for asking. I’ll thank you even more if you promise to get on a plane and come visit your ol’ dad for Christmas.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Oh, and help me get a celebrity endorsement for the new black diamond and trick slopes I recently had built on your island.”

  New slopes on Dasher Island? Well that sounded about a hundred shades of intriguing! “When did you find the time to do that?” Since their last name was Holliday, his father had (in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner) named the islands on his resort after Santa’s reindeer. Then he’d gone on to bear nine sons via two wives and christen each of their middle names after the islands bearing their namesake. Which meant there was a Dancer Island, Prancer Island, Vixen Island, and so forth.

  Dasher Island specialized in providing skiing and snowboarding services to their guests. Besides three Aspen-style resort buildings, the island boasted a ski school, a 20,000 seat amphitheater, and slopes for every expertise level other than extreme skiers like himself.

  “I’ve had a crew out there working on those slopes the better part of the year,” his father confessed. “I expanded the amphitheater, too. It seats 40,000 now.”

  What! Why? “Dad, you sure everything is okay up there?” Genuine fear curdled inside Dash’s midsection.

  “It will be if you agree to come home and take over the running of your island. For good, this time.” His father’s voice was loving but firm. “What I’m trying to say is I need your help, Dash.

  “Come home!” He gripped his cell phone tighter at the realization that Gordon Holliday sounded as serious as death and taxes. “I live in Aspen, Dad. You know that.” I run a successful resort, just like you.

  “I’m well aware, but you have that Bull fellow to help you run the place. I need you home. Now, Dash. I’ve got your brothers running all over the universe, several of them not doing half as well as you. Living off their trust funds, partying, chasing skirts, making the kinds of headlines I don’t need being made. Maybe if you’d be the first to come home, you know, set an example for the rest of them…”

  So much for guilting him about his single status! His father was angling for something much more ambitious. If he
truly wanted his sons home, Dash’s past dealings with his father told him the man was already working every angle. And he wasn’t above making loving but sincere threats, adjustments to trust fund payouts, the whole enchilada. Gordon Holliday hadn’t gotten to where he was by being anything less than a very determined man. In fact, he so often got what he wanted, that Dash knew better than to fight him now.

  “Tell you what, Pop. I’ll be home in time for Thanksgiving. I may have to do some commuting between here and there, but I’ll stay as long as I can, at least until Christmas. That should give us plenty of time to discuss your vision for Dasher Island and where we take it from here.” There was no way he was moving back to Alaska, though. Not permanently, anyway. His life was in Aspen now, but he’d find a way to make his father happy. Some way, somehow. For starters, he could set up a schedule for more regular visits, maybe even host a clinic or two each year at the ski school. They’d put their heads together and figure it out.

  “Thank you, Dash. I knew you’d come through for me. You always do.” His father sounded genuinely grateful. “Now about that celebrity endorsement…”

  “I’ll get on it right after the holidays,” Dash assured. He’d need to install more staff on the new slopes first and expand the ski school to include expert level training.

  “I was hoping to have it before Christmas.” His father sounded put out. “Why drag your heels?”

  Before Christmas? That’s hardly a month away! Dash frowned and gripped the phone tighter. “What’s the rush?” What am I missing here? His concern on his father’s behalf increased tenfold. What was the man not telling him? Maybe Dash needed to have his executive assistant start sniffing around to see if something was up medically or otherwise back home.

  “What’s the rush?” His father’s tone was incredulous. “I just shelled out a fortune on upgrades to your island, son. I need those new amenities to start earning as soon as possible.”