Stranded With My Billionaire Stepbrother (Complete Series)

by Kira Ward

  I wasn’t expecting his question, and I paused to consider what I was going to say. The stubby man was still eying Kendra. She looked a bit rough with the front of her bikini tied in a knot from where I broke it during one of our heated moments. I felt compelled to lie. “Just on vacation with my girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend? I thought you uh says she is uh your sister?”

  “Sister? Sorry, no. She is my girlfriend.”

  The tall man said something in Italian to the stubby one, and the stubby man rose to his feat. “Where is your boat?” The tall man asked. His eyes scanned the beach and fell on our shelters. “What is this?”

  “Ummm…” I scratched the back of my head and then continued with the lies. “We got dropped off here. We are survivalists, trying to live off the land.”

  “No one comes here for something like that,” the tall man said.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Too far from mainland. Too much fuel. Not even good for fishing.”

  “But you are fisherman, right?”

  “We not fish here. Pass by to tuna waters, several kilometers away.”

  “How often do you come here?” I asked.

  “Pass by once per month, but never stop.”

  “Anyone else come by here?”

  “No one comes here. When your boat return? Do you need off of this island? We dock in 5 days. Can sail with us.”

  I paused for a moment and glanced down at Kendra. The men seemed friendly enough, despite checking Kendra out. They were our way out, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to leave. The past few days had been the best days since we had been on the island, and possibly the best days of my life.

  The men assured me that Kendra was fine, and we had plenty of food, water, and our shelters were good enough. I knew that when we decided to go home, we would have to confront our parents and most likely sneak around if we were to continue on with our new romance. Not only that, but I’d be overwhelmed with the business, and I wasn’t sure how much time I’d even be able to spend with Kendra.

  I made a wild and risky decision, one that I was pretty sure Kendra would not approve. “No, we’re okay. As long as she is fine, we’ll stay here and finish our survival training.”

  The men eyed me suspiciously.

  “In a month, when you guys pass, look out for us. If we’re still here then, something went wrong with our boat. Maybe you two could stop by again?”

  The two men looked at each other and then began speaking Italian. Finally, the tall man shrugged his shoulders and said “Okay, well it’s uh up to you. We’ll look for zee crazy arms next time we pass.” He began mimicking the wild motions that I made in order to get their attention.

  “Thank you so much,” I said and extended my hand to shake.

  Both men shook my hand and turned back towards their raft. The tall man spoke one last time. “Take care of this girl.” He pointed his finger to Kendra, still laying silently in the sand. “She is uh very beautiful. If have problem it would be uh very sad.”

  “I will,” I said, almost starting to regret my decision the minute I heard his words.

  The two men headed off in their raft, and before long both the raft and the boat were gone.

  Chapter 4

  When the last traces of the boat disappeared over the horizon, I began to feel terribly guilty. I wanted to stay and spend as much time with Kendra as possible, but I made the decision without consulting the other half. She seemed to be enjoying herself, but deep down I knew she wanted to get back home and to normal life. Our parents were probably worried sick, and my business was probably grinding to a standstill. How selfish could I be?

  I cursed myself under my breath, and was shaking my head in disgust when I heard Kendra stirring behind me. We were sitting in the shelter, and there was the slightest light emanating from the campfire outside.

  “Kendra?” I asked while looking down at her.

  “Mmmm…” she mumbled, and her eyes finally started to part. “It’s nighttime already?”

  “You’ve been passed out for a few hours now.”

  Kendra licked her lips, and I could tell that she was thirsty. I picked up a coconut full of water, placed it against her lips, and she began to sip. “What happened?” she asked.

  “Don’t you remember? We were walking back from the falls when you got sick. I thought you were resting in the shelter, but when I came back from getting wood, I saw you lying face first in the sand.”

  “Yeah, I remember. I was laying here, staring out at the ocean and then I saw a…” Suddenly, Kendra’s eyes shot open ,and she was much more alert. She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Boat… I saw a boat! Where’s the boat? I saw the boat and tried to yell for you, and then I guess I tripped or something.”

  Her excitement about the boat made me feel even more guilty. I had no idea that Kendra had even seen the boat, much less had forced her sick body out of the shelter to come find me because of it. I had been lying all day, so I figured one more wouldn’t hurt. “Yeah! I saw the boat too. I tried to get it’s attention, but it didn’t see us. It was gone as soon as it came.”

  Kendra sighed, squeezed her eyes closed tight and fell back down on her back wit a light thud. “Fuck!” she yelled. “That was our chance.”

  “Relax Sis’,” I said and grabbed her palm in mine. “There will be other boats.”

  “Other boats?” she snapped. “We’ve been out here how long now? Weeks… That’s the only sign of life we’ve seen so far.”

  “If there’s one then there will be others.” I tried to smile, tried to push my happiness on to her. “Look on the bright side. We get to spend more time together. We get more of this.”

  Kendra sighed. “It’s just disappointing is all.”

  “I’m just glad you’re alright.” I handed her the coconut, and she began drinking up the rest of the water. “You must have been dehydrated.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “I didn’t feel dehydrated, just weird, and I’ve been drinking lots of water. It just came out of no where.”

  “Bad fish maybe… bad water maybe. How do you feel now?”

  Kendra rolled her eyes. “The nausea is gone, but still a bit groggy from just waking up.” She rubbed some grains of sand off of her face with her hands. “Ugh. I really need a bath.”

  “You should relax.”

  Kendra ignored my advice, forced herself up and slowly crawled out of the shelter, grunting the whole way. When she was outside, she stood up and headed for the water. I watched as she undid her bikini top and slowly started wading in. “Do you have any more of that soap plant in there?!” she yelled.

  “Yeah!” I yelled back as I grabbed one of the plants and exited the shelter myself.

  By the time I made it to the coast line, Kendra was nude and waist deep in the water. I pulled off my board shorts and walked into the water with her. When I was close by, I leaned down and kissed her on the lips, then motioned for her to turn around. “I’ll do it for you babe,” I whispered.

  She turned around, and I began rubbing the plant liquid on her back, then down her ass and around to her breasts. The moment I touched her, I began to feel turned on. I looked up to the stars, the dim moonlight, and inhaled the amazing plant scent as I listened to the ocean waves crashing around us. I was in the perfect setting with my perfect girl. I felt guilty as fuck for lying to Kendra and the fishermen, but damn, I was happier than I had ever been in my life.

  Chapter 5

  Kendra

  “Shhh,” Alex whispered. “When I circle around, just start running towards it it.”

  We were crouched in foliage watching a small pig sniffing around for something. The so-called “wild boar” that we had seen earlier turned out to be a lot smaller and less dangerous looking than we first imagined.

  I watched as Alex crept around the pig as quietly as possible with his fishing spear in his hand. Each time he would rustle leaves or snap a twig, I would flinch, thinking t
hat the pig would freak out prematurely. Thankfully it didn’t, and when Alex had made it quit a bit away from me, he put up his hand as a single that it was time.

  I screamed and ran directly at the pig. I saw it freeze and look up at me for a moment before turning around sharply and running as fast as it could in the direction of Alex. When the pig was inches from Alex, he jumped at the pig and pushed it with his hands, causing the pig to lose balance and fall on it’s side. It struggled for a moment to gain it’s footing, which was just enough time for Alex to hammer down his spear in the pigs belly.

  The pig squealed loudly, and I immediately covered my ears and ran the other direction. I loved bacon, but I had never been witness to the requirements of nature to actually obtain bacon.

  That afternoon, we ate well. Alex roasted the pig, and we filled our stomaches until we were about to burst. We had been eating heartily on the island, perhaps even more than we did back home, but we were both craving something other than fish for meat.

  I looked over at Alex while he ate. He was so happy… I had never seen him so happy before. We were both happy actually, but there was something that continued to plague my mind.

  Alex lied.

  The same night I passed out, I noticed some weird markings in the sand, as if something had been dragged against it. I didn’t mention it at the time, but I also saw footprints in the sand the next morning. They didn’t look like our footprints… They were feint, but they appeared to be footprints of someone with shoes. Two different sized footprints I had never seen before, marked closely near Alex’s normal footprints.

  I suppose it’s possible that someone came to the beach while I was passed out, and Alex didn’t see, but that was unlikely. He said he saw the boat, and it was gone just as quickly as it came. No, I suspected that someone actually came to the island and Alex met them. But why would he lie? What on earth could there be to hide? And if someone did come, why didn’t they rescue us?

  I had been wracking my head for the last 2 weeks, but decided not to bring it up. Everything seemed like it was going too perfectly for me and Alex, and I had always been a stubborn girl. Why did I need to bring it up? I wanted him to admit it to me. I wanted him to have a conscious, and I also didn’t want the realization that the man I loved was a liar. More than anything I hated liars. The fact that he was my stepbrother was already hard enough to deal with— but a liar too?

  Since that night, I had been having hot flashes, intermittent nausea, and my breasts were getting sensitive. At first, I thought it was sickness, but deep down inside I started to realize that I had become pregnant. Here we were out on an island, having irresponsible sex constantly without using any birth control or protection. What did we expect was going to happen?

  I hadn’t told Alex yet and wasn’t sure how to tell him. I needed to know if he had lied to me first; needed to clear the air. If he said anything that assured me that he hadn’t lied that night, I’d be ready to move on to our next big obstacle, which was figuring out how we were going to handle a baby.

  “Alex…”

  “Yeah Sis’?” Alex asked as he chewed on a piece of pork. He was caught in his own world, looking out over the horizon of the sea. “We should try swimming out as far as we can… Let’s see how deep we can go.”

  “Alex…”

  Finally he looked away from the water and made eye contact with me. “Yeah?”

  “What happened with the boat that day?”

  “Huh? I told you already. It just kept sailing on by… I’m sure there will be another one coming back here anytime soon.”

  “Really? There isn’t anything you want to tell me?”

  Alex fell silent and looked me in the eyes. He could tell that something was off. “Why do you ask?”

  “Alex, I saw footprints in the sand. They weren’t ours.”

  Alex’s shoulders fell and his eyes grew vacant. He slowly swallowed the last bit of pork that was in his mouth and let out a deep sigh before tossing his leftovers in the camp fire. “Well…”

  “Well what?” I asked a little bit more sternly.

  “I’m sorry Kendra… I should’ve just told you the truth.”

  “Well, why don’t you tell me the truth now?”

  “The truth is… Two men did come to the island. Two fishermen from the boat that we saw. They spoke Italian, barely a word of English.”

  “So you couldn’t communicate with them, and they left?”

  “No… One of them spoke English well enough that we got along.”

  “And they just left? Why didn’t they want to save us?”

  “The truth is…” Alex gulped. “The truth is, I told them that you were my girlfriend and we are survivalists on vacation.”

  “Why would you tell them that?” I was so confused.

  “They had looks in their eyes. I was afraid they might want to stick around and make a move on you if they thought you were just my sister.”

  “Okay, so you told them to fuck off because you were scared for my safety?”

  He sighed again. “No… Truth is, the men seemed decent enough. They offered to let us get on their boat, but I told them no.”

  “What!? Why?” My heart was racing.

  “I didn’t want to go home. I’m not ready to give this up yet…”

  Alex reached to place his hand on the top of mine, but I jerked away. “Are you freakin’ serious? You told our only chance at getting back home no because you’re not ready yet?”

  He looked away and tilted his head slightly, acknowledging the truth.

  “You’re… You’re…” Anger was flooding my head, and I couldn’t find any words to describe to him how betrayed I felt. “Ughhh” I grunted, and picked up a bit of sand and tossed it at him. I quickly rose to my feet and stormed off towards the trees.

  Alex sat in silence, looking as defeated as I had ever seen. He was clearly not expecting to be caught in his lie.

  I pushed myself hard through the jungle, going deeper than I had ever gone alone before, trying to transfer my anger into my steps. I had no idea where I was going. I just needed to get away and cool off, collect myself, and figure out what exactly was happening.

  It was beyond my understanding how Alex could have told the boat to just leave. He had a huge corporation to take care off, all the money in the world back home to return to, yet for some reason he chose to stay in that deserted place? I had grown quite fond of the island myself, but at the same time that one boat was the only boat that we had seen the whole time that we were there. Who knows when the next time would be that we’d see another chance to get off? It could be months, maybe even years. What if we were stuck there forever? The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

  Further I pushed, deeper and deeper into the unknown, having no idea where my feet would take me.

  And then it happened- my biggest fear.

  I screamed so loud that it must have echoed across the entire island.

  Chapter 6

  My shoulders started shaking erratically, and my hands were going crazy, wildly wiping invisible death off of my body. I was simultaneously running and muttering gibberish as I ran, fear piercing my entire soul.

  I wanted it off.

  I wanted everything off.

  Just get it off me.

  I couldn’t think of anything else but getting the spiders off my skin.

  In my angry state, I hadn’t been watching where I was going and foolishly ran into a web covered with spiders. As soon as I felt the silky strands touch my flesh, I looked down and saw at least three of them crawling across my body. I hated spiders more than anything. Even more than I hated Alex at the time. I just wanted them off, and I wanted to get away from wherever it was that they fell.

  My mind knew that the spiders really were off of me, probably had jumped as soon as I freaked out, but my fear wouldn’t let up. I just kept running and running back towards the beach until I tripped on a fallen log and crashed to the ground.

  I grabbe
d my leg and whined after I fell… “Owwwww…” That’s when I saw Alex rushing towards me.

  “Sis’, are you okay? I heard you scream.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I snapped at him and tried to push myself up. “Owww,” I moaned again.

  “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Just relax. Let me have a look first.” Alex put a forceful hand on my shoulder and started to look at my leg. “What happened?”

  “Spiders…”

  “Spiders?”

  “I ran into a spiders nest. They were all over me.”

  Alex huffed. “You always have been afraid of spiders. Do you remember that time-”

  “Hey, knock it off,” I interrupted harshly. “Just because I’m scared and fell down doesn’t mean that I forgot what a fucking liar you are.”

  Alex sulked. “Kendra, I am so sorry. It’s just…”

  “Just what? What the fuck were you thinking?!”

  “We’ve just been so good out here together. I wasn’t ready to go back and face our parents yet. I wasn’t ready to go back and face life. I just wanted to live in this dream with you… just a little longer.”

  “A little longer, huh?” I laughed sarcastically. “The next chance we’ll have to get off this island could be years.”

  “No Sis’. The fishermen said they pass by once a month. I asked them to come by again on their next trip… Should be about 2 weeks from now.”

  “2 weeks?”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t have made that call if I thought it was our only chance. They’ll be back, I’m sure of it.”

  I swallowed hard. I wanted to be mad, but I was slowly inching closer to forgiving him. “Well, it’s not fair that you didn’t consult with me first.”

  “You were passed out.”

  “Hmph…”

  Alex sighed. “You know… I hate liars too, and I hated lying to you. It was one little white lie, and I promise it won’t happen ever again.”

  “It’s a big deal, Alex.”

  “Your right. But this thing that we have together is an even bigger deal to me. I’m scared that things will change after we leave. And what are we going to tell—”