Promises from a Playboy--A secret billionaire with amnesia romance

by Andrea Laurence

  “I don’t know if it’s the medicine or the bath,” he said as he followed her down the hallway. “Maybe both...but I feel like I could lie on a bed of nails and still sleep like a baby tonight.”

  “That’s good. I doubt my guest bed is the greatest bed in the world. It didn’t make sense to pay a fortune for something that’s never used. In fact, no one has ever slept on it before. You’re the first actual visitor I’ve had since I moved to the island.”

  Willow opened the door to the smallest bedroom, which she’d set aside for the guests she never had. She supposed she did it out of a sense of expectation her mother had instilled in her as a child. She had lived on a commune with her parents, who shared everything they had. When they divorced and her mom moved to Seattle with her and her sister, she was adamant they had a place with room for guests. It was just the way things were done.

  So when Willow looked for a house on the islands, she’d chosen one with three bedrooms. One was the master, one was her office and naturally one should be ready for a guest if she ever had one. She’d lived on this island for over a year now and she’d put sheets on the bed for the first time while he was eating his grilled cheese sandwich.

  Who was going to visit her? She hadn’t been exaggerating when she said she led a pretty lonely life. Her father had vanished. Her mother and grandmother had both passed away. Her sister had her hands full with her husband and a toddler. Her nephew was too young to visit his aunt without his parents in tow. The Bates sisters didn’t have any other family left. At least that Willow knew about. She’d lost touch with most of the friends she’d made in school. Those she did speak to were strictly social media acquaintances, not the kind who would visit your home.

  Here on Shaw Island, it was just Willow and Shadow, and had been for a while now.

  She went ahead of him into the room and pulled back the fluffy down comforter and sheets. The bedroom decor she’d chosen was as cheerful as she could think to buy. The room had white wood furniture and the comforter was yellow with pale pink roses on it. At the store, it had seemed like the perfect little ray of sunshine for a place that usually had gray skies and rain. Of course, it didn’t suit her very masculine guest at all, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  “Considering I slept on a beach last night with a log for a pillow, this will be great, I’m sure.”

  He slowly limped past her and lowered himself gingerly onto the bed. Jack eased one leg, then the other, under the blankets and lay back against the pillows with a wince and a groan. “It’s wonderful,” he said. “The most comfortable bed I ever remember having slept in before.”

  Willow smirked at his cheeky response. For a guy with no memory, he had a pretty good attitude about the whole thing. She couldn’t imagine being so laid-back about the whole situation if it were her. Then again, what could he do about it? Especially when he was trapped on this tiny island in a storm?

  She watched him settle in and pull up the blankets with a sigh. “I’m going to go get you a glass of water for your night pills,” she said.

  She disappeared from the room and went into the kitchen. There, she found Shadow sprawled out across the tile floor, keeping cool while he napped. For him, sixty degrees was warm. And with the house thermostat set at seventy, it was downright stifling for his bristly double coat. He lifted his head to watch her as she stepped over him and got a glass to fill at the refrigerator dispenser. Disinterested, he laid his head back down and returned to his nap.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” she said. “Once I get our guest settled, you’ve got to go outside to do your business and I’ve got to get some writing done. With my latest deadline schedule, I can’t afford to lose a whole day of work because some shipwrecked amnesiac derailed my afternoon.”

  One ice-blue eye watched her as he listened, then he grumbled back at her in the way that only huskies would do. She hadn’t deliberately chosen a breed that would talk back, but it did help with the loneliness sometimes. Unless he was being sassy, like now.

  “I don’t want to hear it. Rain or no rain, you’re going out. It’s only going to get worse later.”

  Willow stepped back over her dog and returned to the guest room. There, she found her patient was already asleep. He was sprawled out on his back, propped up by a couple pillows and softly snoring. One arm was draped protectively over his ribs and the other was limp at his side.

  She put the glass of water on the nightstand beside the bottles of medication he would have to take in a few more hours. She knew she should turn off the light and leave him to get his rest, but she was drawn in by the rhythmic sound of his breathing. She watched him for a moment as she had that morning on the beach. His face was even more beautiful now with the dirt and blood washed away. His thick golden eyelashes rested on his cheeks, which were rosy once again. If it wasn’t for the bandage across his forehead, you wouldn’t even know he’d probably just lived through one of the worst experiences of his life. In fact, he looked like she could lean down, kiss him, and he would awaken from whatever evil curse a witch had put on him.

  With a sigh, Willow turned off the lamp and left the room. She needed to stop listening to those folklore and fairy-tale podcasts. Her visitor was no secret prince under the spell of a wicked queen. He could be a high-end drug dealer who’d gotten thrown overboard when a deal went wrong on some cartel’s yacht. Or a partying playboy who’d drunk too much and fell off his own boat. Either way, nice boys didn’t wash up on the beach with amnesia. She’d written enough mystery novels to know that much.

  Willow forced Shadow outside for a potty break, standing stoically on the back deck in her raincoat and watching the sky. The rain wasn’t falling very hard yet, but she knew it was coming. The inky black of the sky was marred with a swirling gray mass of clouds that would periodically light up with a flash of lightning a few miles offshore. The latest weather reports had the worst of it hitting Shaw Island around two in the morning.

  While she waited, she walked along the back of the house, closing and latching the shutters to protect all the windows. By the time she was finished, Shadow was back on the deck, his white paws brown with mud.

  She cleaned him up, dried him off and then they both returned to her office to settle in for some late-night writing. She sat down at her desk and turned on her laptop. Shadow curled up on his plush dog pillow and covered his face with his bushy tail to block out the light of the computer so he could sleep.

  Willow opened up the file for her latest manuscript. She read over the last few pages she’d written to orient herself and prepared to start where she’d left off. But as her fingers met the keys, she found her heart and her head were not in the mood to write. Not tonight. She had too much real life on her mind for a change.

  The mystery of Jack Doe was at the forefront of her thoughts, not who had killed the town’s librarian with a letter opener during the Halloween festival. The book would have to wait. She sat back in her chair, frustrated, and stared at the screen without really seeing any of the words.

  Who was this man who had crash-landed in her life today? He was handsome and rich, if his clothes were any indication. He could be some Seattle corporate guy who’d fallen overboard at some business affair on the company ship. Or the lover of a rich married woman who’d had to jump into the sea when her husband showed up in his helicopter. No matter what, he didn’t belong on Shaw Island, so how else could he have appeared on her beach? A man like Jack hadn’t simply fallen from the sky.

  Or had he? Eddie had made the suggestion and said that she could figure it out even if no one else could.

  Willow frowned and slammed shut her laptop. She was wasting brain cells on this. Chances were his memory would come back at any time and his story would be completely sensible and benign without the slightest hint of high-stakes misconduct or television-like drama. And even if he wasn’t some criminal or lowlife hiding from the people wanting to kill
him—even if he was just a normal guy who’d had a freak accident—what did it matter to Willow?

  Really, honestly, would it change anything about her life in the end?

  The truth of the words hit her hard. He might not be an average guy, but she certainly wasn’t an average woman, either. She was a hermit, a self-sequestered loner, and for good reason. She hid her hollow shell of a body away from the rest of the world, which might look at her and see she was different. It was easier that way. Easier to avoid the looks and questions of well-meaning strangers. Easier than explaining to people why she didn’t get married and start a family with a nice boy like her sister. Easier than looking at people’s expressions of pity when they learned the truth about her medical history.

  Jack was charming. He had a good sense of humor. He had a dimple in one cheek when he smiled that made her kneecaps turn to butter. And if he hadn’t basically landed in her lap, she never would’ve been exposed to a man like him. A walking, talking temptation like Jack simply didn’t show up in a place like Shaw Island, and that made her day-to-day life easier. It made distancing herself and suppressing any kind of emotions or attraction so much simpler.

  But now he was here. Lying in the other room. She’d briefly glanced at his naked body when she’d undressed him today and had to turn away as her cheeks flamed with embarrassment and interest. The lure was dangling in front of her, so to speak, making it that much more difficult to be the stoic, chaste loner she’d decided to be.

  Even then, there was no point in allowing herself to fantasize that they would ever have more than they had at this exact moment. Jack had a life somewhere. He might not know anything about it, but it was out there. A job, a family, maybe even a girlfriend or a wife. When his memory returned, he would want to go back to all that. And he should. This wasn’t where he belonged.

  And even if he was interested in her—and she seriously doubted that—it wouldn’t last long. Jack was the kind who asked a lot of questions. Tonight, they’d been innocent enough, but eventually he might start wondering about her and why she lived the way she did. It wasn’t an easy answer. Or a pleasant one to hear.

  When he found out the truth, he would happily return to his old life and she wouldn’t blame him. Whatever it was he’d left behind, it had to be more exciting and glamorous than what she had on this little island. His family and friends would be looking for him, and even if he didn’t remember who he was, the news of the missing man would reach them eventually.

  So Willow had to be careful not to get too attached to Mr. Jack Doe. He wouldn’t be around for long.

  * * *

  Kat Steele paced the kitchen floor, rubbing her very pregnant belly while she walked. Finn was missing. He might even be dead. As complicated as her situation with twins Sawyer and Finn was, losing Finn wouldn’t make it any easier. He was her brother-in-law, but he was also the father of her baby. Sawyer would absolutely step up to be the best dad he could be, but she didn’t want him to do it because Finn was dead.

  She heard her husband, Sawyer, hang up the phone and come into the kitchen. She stopped and looked at him, desperate for some news. “Have they found him?”

  “They found the plane,” Sawyer said with a somber expression on his face.

  She knew this couldn’t be easy on him. Possibly losing his brother was bad enough, but Finn was his identical twin. That had to be like losing part of himself, somehow. “And?”

  “It crashed in the woods in the middle of nowhere in Washington near the Oregon border. No one else was injured, but they found four bodies in the wreckage.”

  “How many people were supposed to be on the jet?”

  Sawyer didn’t meet her gaze for a moment. “Four. Two pilots, a flight attendant and Finn. All four bodies were burned beyond recognition, so they can’t positively identify any of them yet.”

  Kat groaned and lowered herself onto a nearby barstool. “So we won’t know for sure until they look at the dental records, right?” She was grasping at hope for the sake of her husband and daughter. But she knew it wasn’t likely to end well for them.

  “Yes. They’re transporting all the bodies back here once the crash site has been released by the FAA. Then we’ll know for certain.”

  Kat closed her eyes and bit back tears. Finn had been a massive pain in the ass nearly from birth. She’d almost married him, in some mistaken drive to build a proper family. But he had been working hard at becoming a better person lately for his daughter’s sake. He didn’t deserve to die like this. No one did.

  She felt Sawyer’s arms wrap around her and she gave in to the embrace. When he held her, it felt like the world couldn’t get to her or her daughter. But even Sawyer’s strong arms couldn’t protect her from this grief. It only added fuel to it, knowing how much he must be hurting, too. How much the whole family must be grieving his loss...

  “I want to say something, but I’m not sure how to do it. I can’t say it to anyone but you. They’d think I was crazy, but I hope that you’ll have an open mind.”

  Kat sat up and wiped the tears from her cheek. Sawyer was the serious twin, a man of few words, so if he had something to say, she would let him, even if it were crazy. “Tell me.”

  He glanced over her shoulder at the wall as he tried to figure out the words. “I don’t want to upset you or get your hopes up. But I just... I feel like if Finn were dead, I would know it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sawyer shook his head. “It’s not like I’m saying we had some psychic twin connection or anything like some twins claim. We didn’t. We’ve been opposites from the start. Mirror images of each other. But he doesn’t feel dead. I feel like I would know if he were really gone.”

  Kat frowned. Sawyer had lived a life of privilege, never having to face real loss before. “Losing someone never feels the way you expect it to. When my parents were killed in an accident, it seemed like they were just on a trip and would be home anytime. Even after I identified their bodies, I kept waiting for a call or something from them. When it happens so suddenly, it feels harder to process. At least it was for me.”

  “I know what you’re trying to say. And yes, when they identify him for certain, I’ll give up the ghost. But I would be able to feel it if he were dead. I’ve had a headache since yesterday before the phone call. No medicine will touch it. I think Finn is hurt. Maybe he hit his head. But I believe he’s alive.”

  Kat wasn’t quite sure how to be supportive of her husband in the face of his denial. They’d found four bodies. Finn was more than likely amongst them. She hated it for him and his family. She hated it for her daughter, who would never get to meet the funny, carefree man who’d helped to make her. But hating reality didn’t change it.

  “You don’t believe me.” Sawyer’s face was red with indignation. “I shared something very personal with you and you don’t believe me.”

  Kat sighed. “I don’t know, honey. I want to believe you. I want more than anything for Finn to be okay. Maybe he is and you’re right.” She reached out and stroked his arm. “We will know for sure, soon.”

  * * *

  Jack expected to be awoken by the alarm reminding him to take more medication. Instead, he was roused from his sleep by a brilliant bolt of lightning hitting too close to them for comfort. The whole house immediately shook with the thunder, jerking him upright in bed. Thankfully, the rumble smothered his shout of pain as his rib cage protested the sudden and unanticipated movement.

  Clutching his ribs, he lowered back against the pillows with a groan. He reached out for the lamp, hoping it would illuminate the clock and prove it was almost time for him to take his medicine. But the click of the knob yielded no results. The room remained dark. The clock face was dark. The house was silent, no hum of the heat or appliances in another room. He realized then that the storm must’ve knocked the power out.

  The creak of the door opening so
unded unusually loud in the quiet house. When he looked over, he saw the illuminated face of Willow with a flashlight in her hand. The bright bulb highlighted the interesting angles of her face as her dark eyes searched the room for him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I just got startled. Hurt like hell, but I’ll live.”

  As if in response, the skies seemed to open up overhead, and the lightning and thunder was joined by the roar of hard rain coming down on the roof and windows. “The power is out,” she said. “It will be until tomorrow, at the earliest. We don’t exactly have an emergency power crew on standby here. They’re all stuck on the mainland in storms like this. I have a generator that will kick in and keep the refrigerator and a few appliances running, but that’s about it.”

  Jack sat up and swung his legs out of the bed as gingerly as he could. “Do we need to do something? Cover the windows?”

  “I did all that after you went to sleep. We may want to move into the living room, though. Without the heat running, this place is going to get chilly pretty quickly. You’ll be more comfortable by the fireplace.”

  “Okay.” Jack pushed up from the bed and Willow handed him the flashlight.

  “If you can take this, I’ll get your stuff and bring it out.”

  He watched her gather his blanket and his medicine and follow him into the hallway and to the living room. The room had vaulted ceilings with heavy wooden beams and a stone fireplace against one wall that went all the way to the top. She put his blanket on the recliner and set his water and pill bottles on the small table beside it.

  “Go ahead and get comfortable. I’ll get a fire going.”

  Jack watched with curiosity and a little guilt as Willow moved quickly to light a fire. He noted how carefully she stacked the logs, placing smaller pieces between them along with tiny chunks of what looked almost like sawdust cakes. She was experienced enough that it caught quickly and within a few minutes, the fire was on its way to becoming a large and warm light source for them both.