by Zoe Chant
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I wasn’t paying attention. I thought I saw... well, no, there’s no excuse.” She shook her head ruefully. “I’m an experienced field worker – I should know better than this. I’m really sorry I disturbed your walk, and I promise you it won’t happen again.”
Josie held her breath, hoping that would be enough. Who knew with these eccentric billionaires? Though when she looked at Isaak, ‘eccentric billionaire’ was the last thing that came to mind. If anything, he looked like he belonged on the pages of a men’s fitness magazine. With his striking combination of black hair and green eyes, tanned skin, massive shoulders and bulging biceps...
... Josie shook her head.
Focus!
“It’s... it’s okay.” Isaak’s voice was soft, and he was still staring down at his hand. Slowly, he flexed his fingers. Suddenly, he seemed to give himself a shake, and then glanced at her. “The terrain here can be... treacherous. You’re not hurt?”
Josie shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Just a little banged up. I’ll probably have a few bruises tomorrow.” She laughed, trying to sound lighthearted. “No big deal – nothing I’m not used to.”
Isaak blinked, mild alarm spreading across his face. “Nothing you’re not used to?”
Josie raised her hands reassuringly, feeling flustered. “Oh, no – only because field work can be kind of rough sometimes. I’ve banged my knees up plenty of times getting out to a location. It’s just part of the job.”
Isaak still didn’t look particularly reassured. Josie swallowed as his eyes ranged down over her body – though the look in his eye was one of concern, rather than lasciviousness. Josie hesitated, caught halfway between relief and disappointment.
On the one hand, she’d had enough of men looking her over to last a lifetime. But on the other...
“You’re bleeding.” Isaak’s voice was intense, his accent becoming slightly stronger.
“Oh – where?” Josie glanced down at herself, twisting a little. He was right, though – she had a scrape on her thigh that was just beginning to ooze blood. She bit her lip as the adrenaline that had been flowing in her system finally receded enough for her to feel the sting of the cut.
It wasn’t especially deep or serious, but she’d have to be very careful to make sure there wasn’t any dirt or small stones left in the cut. That was going to be difficult, considering its location on the side and back of her left thigh. She was going to have to be very careful when she cleaned it – and it meant she could kiss goodbye the idea of doing any more exploring today.
Sighing in frustration, she ran her hand through her sweaty hair, which had started to come loose from its ponytail.
Annoyed, she tightened it. She’d always had unruly curls, and she really ought to get it cut. But being out in the middle of nowhere for months hadn’t really given her much chance to visit a hairdresser.
Great, and now you’re standing in front of the most handsome man you’ve ever seen with your hair a mess, bruised to hell, and – oh yeah – he was forced to rescue you after your own silliness! Good work, Josie!
Disappointment sliced through her chest – though whether it was at the lost day of exploring or at having to leave Isaak to get herself cleaned up, she wasn’t sure.
It was a strange feeling, this reluctance to move away from him. Sure, he had a kind of rugged beauty that took her breath away, but that didn’t account for the strange tightening in her chest when she looked at him, and the way her skin was still tingling from when he’d touched her.
Weird.
But Isaak himself had been extremely taciturn throughout their meeting. Given what she’d guessed about his love of isolation, he probably wasn’t thrilled to be stuck here talking to her when he’d presumably just been out for his morning hike.
I should leave him to it, Josie thought. I’ve bothered him enough for one day. Or lifetime.
“I’m sorry again for spoiling your walk,” she said. “I guess I better get back to the guesthouse and get this taken care of.” She shook her head. “Thanks again – I’d say I’d see you around, but I’m sure you’d prefer it if I left you alone from now on!”
Josie hesitated a second longer, still not quite able to tear herself away. But then, steeling herself, she began to turn to head back the way she’d come.
“Wait –”
Josie stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of Isaak’s voice. She glanced over her shoulder at him, a little surprised.
“I mean, wait, please.”
As she watched, he squared his shoulders, seeming to collect himself.
“I can’t let you go with a wound like that.”
Josie blinked. “Oh – no, it’s just a scrape,” she said, waving a hand dismissively, even as her inner voice yelled at her to take Isaak up on his offer.
He’s telling you you don’t have to go! You can stay with him!
She shook her head a little.
He’s only offering because he feels obligated, she answered herself. I can’t abuse his hospitality. He’s not out here on this island because he wants company.
“Even a scrape can be dangerous if it gets infected,” Isaak said, taking a step toward her. “Dirt or rocks could have become embedded in it. I know first aid – it’s necessary when you live alone as I do. Please – let me take a look at it under some decent light back at the villa. I’d hate for you to suffer a worse injury than necessary.”
Josie swallowed. The offer was a tempting one – and not just because she was sure Isaak could do a more thorough job of cleaning the scrape than she could, twisting around to look at the back of her own thigh.
She shivered as she remembered how hot his hands had been, and how they had made her skin prickle with excitement.
“All right,” she said, before she could give herself time for second thoughts.
Chapter Four
Isaak
“Ouch! Oh, that smarts.”
“I’m sorry – it’ll be finished with soon.”
Isaak swallowed as he looked down at the expanse of bronzed thigh in front of him.
Thankfully, the scrape hadn’t been any deeper than it looked, and he’d been able to clean the dirt out of it quickly and gently. Now, he was dabbing disinfectant onto it as softly as he could, highly aware that it would sting as it touched Josephine’s broken skin.
Call me Josie, she’d said as they walked back to the villa together. Nobody calls me Josephine except my Great-Aunt Ana. And even then, only when she’s angry.
Isaak took in a deep breath as he lowered the cotton swab again, dabbing gently along Josie’s thigh. He could see her muscles tensing as he touched it against her, and heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Is the pain... too much?” he asked, glancing at her in concern. “Do you need to take a break?”
Josie shook her head.
“No – in fact, it hurts a lot less than I thought it would. A lot less than a few minutes ago, anyway. Sometimes it’s best to just get these things over and done with.”
Isaak nodded. “I agree.”
He drew a deep breath, trying to focus once more on the task. He tried not to think about how soft her skin was, or about the generous curve of her thigh before it met the arch of her hip.
Up close, she was every bit as beautiful as she had looked yesterday when he’d seen her at the dock. She was stunning, all lush curves and cascading hair, black eyes and golden-brown skin. She was everything a woman should be.
But her beauty wasn’t the only thought in his mind as he gently ran the cotton swab over the scrape on her thigh.
His thoughts jostled against each other as he tried to make sense of what had just happened.
How did I know she was there?
Isaak had spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in his sweat-soaked sheets, before at last giving up just as the dawn’s light had touched the sky. He had tried swimming, doing laps until his lungs burned. But nothing had managed to calm the beas
t within him.
It had been frantic ever since he had caught his first glimpse of Josie yesterday. Nothing seemed to calm it down.
As he had dragged himself out of the pool, his arms shaking from exertion, he had made up his mind that he would have to tell her to go. He couldn’t risk it. Not if her presence made the monster inside him behave in this way.
He had showered and dressed, and been on the verge of sitting down at his computer to email his lawyer with instructions to ask Dr. Torres to leave the island when he had felt it. Something in his head telling him to run. NOW!
It had been impossible to ignore. Something inside him was telling him to move – that if he didn’t, something awful was going to happen.
He hadn’t understood it, any more than he understood the beast inside him – but nor could he argue.
Isaak had dashed from the main room of the villa and out into the garden, bounding over the plants and into the wild forest beyond without a moment’s thought. He had always been strong and agile, ever since he’d been young. It had led him to sports when he’d been at school, but he’d always outdone even the most athletic of his teammates, to the point where he’d found he had to hold himself back to avoid hurting someone. Despite the fact he’d enjoyed it, Isaak had decided to quit the teams he was on before he caused someone a serious injury.
But that strength and speed had come in handy as he’d raced through the forest, avoiding low branches and leaping small streams as he went. Tree roots and boulders were no obstacles. It was almost as if he’d known they were there before he reached them, and he’d simply leaped over them as if they weren’t even there.
Go. Go faster!
The voice in his head had been screaming by then, pulling him along. Isaak had had no idea where he was going or why, only that he needed to. There was no choice: he had to keep going.
It took several minutes before he heard it: somehow, through the rustle of the leaves in the breeze and the calls of birds, he could make out the sounds of someone in trouble. The sound of feet scrabbling against loose rocks; of panting, distressed breaths.
It’s her.
He didn’t know how he knew – of course, she was the only other person on the island, but it wasn’t that. It was the knowledge, deep in his heart, that the woman he had seen yesterday was in trouble, and he was the only one who could save her.
Somehow, his instincts had guided him straight to her.
He had found her only just in time: the branch she had been clinging to as she hung over the ravine had snapped even as he watched, and he had flung himself forward without even thinking about what he was doing, catching her wrist before she could tumble to the rocks below.
He had been only just in time.
It made Isaak shudder to think of what might have happened if he had been only a few moments later, or if he had been somehow able to ignore that sudden, wild impulse to run.
But it wasn’t only that, nor the mystery of how he had even known where she was.
There was also the fact that, far from the roaring, roiling mass the beast inside him had been yesterday, now it seemed almost... calm.
It was still there, as it always was.
But, for the first time in years, Isaak felt that it was, somehow, peaceful. Content, even.
Far from his fear that it would somehow cause him to hurt her, Isaak realized that being near her had seemed to soothe it somehow, as if her mere presence was some kind of healing balm.
Or maybe, Isaak thought, it was just that the whole of his mind was taken up by how powerfully attracted he was to her.
He swallowed as Josie shifted her leg a little, glancing over her shoulder at him.
My God, she’s beautiful.
“I can’t thank you enough for this,” she said, as Isaak tried to get his focus back to disinfecting her scraped leg. “I know that one of the conditions of me being here was to not approach the villa. I’m sorry I disturbed you.”
Isaak glanced up at her, shaking his head. “No. Please don’t apologize. This is no inconvenience, I promise.”
If only she knew...
Clearly, Josie thought his instructions to stay away from the villa were because he wanted to be alone. But that wasn’t true at all.
He had always felt different from others, even before the beast inside him had made itself known. But he had always craved company, longing to find someone who might truly understand him.
Living alone on the island was pure necessity, and nothing more.
He couldn’t risk harming someone.
But if only she knew how lonely I’ve been...
And if only she knew how her presence here had brought him the kind of calm he hadn’t known in years.
“Still, I promise I won’t bother you any more after this,” Josie said. “You’ve been very kind to me. And I mean... wow...”
Lifting her arm, she gestured a little to the room they were in.
It was Isaak’s favorite room in the villa. Massive glass doors opened out onto an enormous terrace overlooking the azure beauty of the ocean. The walls were rough-hewn, the white plaster still showing the ancient stone of the monastery the building had once been. Trees growing on the mountainside crowded around the windows and provided shade on the terrace, giving the room a feeling of secrecy and seclusion despite its openness.
“I have to admit, if I had a place like this, I probably wouldn’t leave either,” Josie said, laughing a little.
Isaak nodded. “I’m... extremely fortunate.”
He knew it was true. He didn’t like to consider what his life might be like if he had been adopted by people who couldn’t give him all the advantages the Vallases had. To think that he might not have been able to hide himself here, never knowing when the beast might have broken free...
“It sounds like you can take a lot of the credit for it, though,” Josie continued. She glanced at him again, her expression a little sheepish. “I hope you don’t mind that I... well, that I read up a little on you before I wrote to you. You should be proud of what you’ve accomplished Seems like you saved your father’s business. You’ve earned your success.”
Isaak frowned, almost wanting to disagree with her. “I won’t deny it was hard work at times. But many people are not so fortunate to even have that opportunity. Even if I hadn’t been able to save the company, I inherited enough money on my father’s death that I never would have needed to work again.”
“You still did, though,” Josie said. “As you say, you could have just sat on your a – I mean, sat back and done nothing. I think that’s at least a little admirable.”
Maybe she was right, Isaak thought as he tore off a strip of medical tape, using it to affix a square of gauze over the scrape on her leg. But despite the fact he’d known he wouldn’t personally be affected by the collapse of Vallas Shipping, he’d felt he couldn’t be responsible for all the people who worked for it losing their jobs. When times had been tough, he had insisted on not taking a salary so that they wouldn’t have to lay off a single worker.
And besides which, Nikos Vallas had built the company from nothing. He had poured blood, sweat and tears into it. Isaak knew he would have been betraying his adoptive father’s memory to simply let the company die.
Isaak tried to ignore the way his blood throbbed in his veins as the tips of his fingers slid over Josie’s skin as he attached the gauze. But he couldn’t ignore the way she shivered as he touched her, or her sharp inhalation.
“Sorry,” Josie said again, sounding a little breathless. “I’m talking about things that’re none of my business.”
“It’s... it’s okay,” Isaak said. He realized belatedly that his fingers were still resting against the soft skin of her thigh. He could feel the thrill of the contact all the way up his arm. He swallowed. “I believe I have finished treating your scrape.”
With effort, he drew his hand back, suppressing the urge to groan with regret as he did so.
What was it about her that aff
ected him like this?
“It sounds like you’re no stranger to hard work yourself,” he managed to get out, curling his hand into a fist and raising his eyes to her face, where he immediately found himself lost in her black eyes.
Josie laughed a little, sitting up on the sofa and moving her leg from where it had rested on his knee. Was it just him, or did she seem just as reluctant as he was to break contact with him? Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. Her lips were full and moist.
“Well, perhaps that’s true,” she said. “I’m not going to lie – being out in the field comes with its hazards – I guess that must be pretty obvious! But it’s not just that. I’m constantly fighting for funding to continue my work, and every year it’s getting harder. I need to be out in the field, but I also need to write papers and teach students. Not that I don’t enjoy all of that, but it’s hard not to feel like you’re being pulled in about a thousand different directions at once. And it’s not like it leaves a lot of time for a social life.” She shrugged, glancing at him. “But then again, I always was kind of a homebody. Maybe that’s why I envy you your little island home so much.”
Isaak forced himself to look away from her. He wasn’t sure how he could explain his situation without coming across like a poor little rich boy – Oh, yes, I have all this money and this beautiful island all to myself, but if only I weren’t alone...
He gave himself a mental shake. He didn’t want to talk any more about himself, in any case. He wanted to know more about her – and to try to figure out why it was he felt so calm when he was near her.
“But it seems you’re passionate about your work,” he said, turning to look at her again, feeling excitement slice through his chest as he found her eyes still trained on him, as if she had been studying him while he wasn’t looking.
“Oh yes, of course,” Josie said, her eyes shining, a smile spreading across her face. “I’ve never wanted to do anything else, ever since I first started watching birds in my mother’s garden. A few bumps and bruises is nothing compared with being the first person to discover a new species, or finding the final piece of evidence you need to solve some mystery everyone’s been working on. And I love the teaching aspect of it too – it’s amazing watching students fall in love with their studies. Ordinarily I don’t like talking to people much, but when it’s teaching...”