Stranded with the Hidden Billionaire

by Elana Johnson

  “I walked all the way up here,” Holden said, taking a few steps toward her. “I can walk to get a drink.”

  “The edge is only a few feet from here,” she said. “Please? Can’t that be the rule? If I need a drink, I’ll wake you up. If you need one, you wake me up.”

  “All right,” he said, deciding to employ the laid back side of himself instead of the fired up side. “Can I go to the bathroom alone?” he muttered as she walked away.

  “Only if you don’t fall off the cliff to do it,” she tossed over her shoulder. In the next moment, she laughed, and Holden couldn’t help joining her.

  They went back down the path and off the path into the trees. There were big boulders here too, and a couple of them together made a nice little room with walls on two sides. A grouping of eucalyptus trees provided some good cover for them, and it was almost like a spot had been made for them.

  “What about here?” he asked, noting the ground was flat and relatively smooth. “I can gather leaves for a ground covering, and it’ll provide some shelter from the wind up here.”

  There were a few banyan trees up this high, but the leaves weren’t nearly what they were down at the lower elevations, with waterfalls nearby. But it would be better than sleeping on rocks. Eden agreed to the spot by setting her backpack down beside the boulder, and the two of them got to work gathering whatever they thought they needed to make it through the night.

  She removed all the fruit from her pack and began stuffing it with eucalyptus and other types of leaves. “A pillow,” she pronounced, obviously quite proud of herself.

  Holden couldn’t help smiling at her, though she’d basically rejected his idea of starting a relationship. But he couldn’t let go of the idea of a second chance romance with her.

  People got second chances. Maybe this time he wouldn’t be so consumed with feelings of loss and dealing with familial matters that he’d lose her.

  Maybe this time, they could make it work.

  His hopes lifted and kept him working long past the time when his body was crying to him to stop.

  Finally, with his bed made out of leaves and using her zipper bag as a leaf-filled pillow, he collapsed in the V of the two boulders with the words, “I’m exhausted.”

  “Me too,” Eden said, pulling her much bigger and softer pillow over to his left side. She sighed as she leaned into him and allowed him to drape his arm around her shoulders. “Me too.”

  Chapter Nine

  Eden was just starting to fall asleep when Holden asked, “What are you doing?”

  She’d have to be deaf not to hear the growly undertone in his voice. “Sleeping.”

  “I’m confused. I told you I still had feelings for you, and you shut me down. Fast,” he said, his breath wafting over her shoulder. “And now you’re all cuddled into me.”

  Eden straightened, but she was immediately cold. The higher elevations in Hawaii could be chilly, and they were at the highest one on the island of Getaway Bay.

  “I just thought….” Her voice trailed off, and she searched his face in the gathering darkness. He had a tremendous ability to hide how he felt until it exploded out of him, and right now, he wore a stoic mask.

  “What did you think, Eden?” He remained very still, and Eden wasn’t entirely sure what she was thinking.

  I still feel intensely about you, Eden.

  The words in his husky voice hadn’t left her mind since he’d said them.

  “Look, it’s just cold up here, and I was hoping we could share the heat source.” She looked pointedly at him. “That’s you, by the way. You never get cold.”

  A lazy smile crossed his face, and Eden really liked it. Felt one stretching her lips too.

  No, she commanded herself. Just because she was attracted to him didn’t mean they could have a relationship. She’d been kicking herself for kissing his cheek that morning for the entire day.

  “Tell me why you think my feelings for you would change just because we get back to town.”

  Eden blinked at him. “You haven’t been interested for five years, Holden. Five years. And I’m supposed to believe that just because we get stuck together for a few days, you’re magically interested in me again?”

  Holden gazed evenly back at her. “Yes.”

  Eden opened her mouth to argue and found she had none. “I—”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps I’m embarrassed about how things ended between us last time?”

  Eden didn’t know surprise could layer on top of itself the way it was. “Things ended fine, Holden,” she said. “I don’t hold any grudges against you.”

  “That’s obviously not true.”

  A gust of wind blasted right into their makeshift shelter, and Eden shivered. Holden lifted his arm, and she hesitated for only a moment before slipping back into his embrace. He really was a human heater, and she sighed as her body absorbed the warmth from his.

  “I really don’t feel badly about how we ended.” It was much easier to talk to him when she didn’t have to look into those dark as night eyes. And she didn’t harbor ill feelings toward him for how they’d ended, only that they’d ended at all.

  “Well, I do,” he said. “And I’d really like to take you to dinner when we get back to town. No fruit. Nothing with mango or banana, I promise.”

  She laughed quietly, and Holden did too, a delicious secret between them now.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  Eden thought she’d get her heart filleted again. “I think dinner would be nice.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “You don’t have to sound so shocked.”

  “I think I’m entitled,” he said. “I mean, after what you said—”

  “I know what I said,” Eden snapped. “Maybe I’m just starving and anything besides mango sounds good. Have you thought of that?”

  “Mm.” He pulled her closer and slid his lips along her hairline. And Eden finally slept.

  When she woke, the first rays of light had barely started to brighten the day. Only the second day in the mountains, but it felt like she’d been up here with Holden for weeks.

  “Morning,” he said softly.

  “You must be feeling better.” Yesterday, she hadn’t even been able to wake him. The terror that had flowed through her veins felt as real now as it had then.

  “A lot better,” he said. “Still sore from sleeping on the ground, but my leg barely hurts.”

  “Want me to look at it?” she asked.

  “Yeah, check it out and see if it’s better.”

  Eden looked at his leg, and it was hardly red at all. “It looks great, Holden.” She smiled up at him. “And we have enough fruit for breakfast. And water just up the hill.”

  They’d survived the rain. The wind last night. The challenge of finding food and water.

  Now their biggest obstacle would be boredom.

  Eden kept herself busy for about half an hour as she ate and walked up the trail to get a drink. She excused herself to use the woods as a bathroom, and she stayed out in the trees for a few extra minutes, staring up into the sky and wondering why she’d accepted an invitation to dinner with her ex-boyfriend.

  She didn’t feel crazy, but she was certainly acting like it. Maybe desperate times called for desperate measures. She’d been cold. He was warm. Maybe she’d said what he wanted to hear, but she didn’t think so.

  If Anna were here, she’d tell Eden to jump at the chance to go out with Holden, and Eden actually felt like leaping.

  When she got back to their tree branch shelter, Holden wasn’t there but several more pieces of fruit sat on the leaves. She sat down and pulled all the leaves out of her backpack. She didn’t have cards or puzzles or anything to pass the time. Just her own thoughts, and she didn’t want to spend much time there.

  “I found a new kind of fruit,” Holden said, walking toward her. He still leaned heavily on the walking stick, but he carried a few pieces of papaya and laid them down
before sitting beside her.

  “Does your phone have power? Can we call and let someone know where we are?”

  Eden pulled the phone out of the front pocket of the backpack. “I doubt there will be any service up here,” she said. “I think there are new cell phone towers coming in, because Getaway Bay is growing so much, but I don’t think they’re here yet.”

  She powered on her phone, and sure enough, there was no service. Not even a fraction of one little bar. She tilted the phone toward him. “See?”

  “Should we go back down?” he asked. “As soon as we see we have a signal, we send a message. Say we’re up at the spring.”

  “I guess we could,” she said, but her ankle and the whole rest of her body did not like that idea. “We probably should’ve left a note or something.”

  “Do you have paper in your magic backpack?”

  Eden laughed, wishing she had a way to wash her hair up here. Maybe she could at least hold her hair under the spring, even if she didn’t have shampoo and conditioner. “If my backpack were magical, I would’ve pulled out a jet pack and gotten us off this mountain.”

  “Wow.” Holden chuckled most of the word out. “A jet pack.”

  “What would you want in a magical backpack?” she asked, enjoying this game a little too much. Or maybe just enough. Maybe this would be her and Holden’s new way of being. Would they hike back up to this spring every spring to remember how they’d met?

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Toilet paper, for one. One of those machines that replicates food from Star Trek.”

  Eden giggled and she picked up one of the pieces of fruit he’d brought back. “And what would you have the food replicator make?”

  “Pizza,” he said. “All meat, with extra cheese. And some of those pork potstickers from that new place on Gardenia. Have you been there?”

  “Yeah, I had one of my first dates there.” Eden realized a bit too late what she’d said.

  Holden didn’t miss a beat when he said, “One of your first dates?”

  Eden wanted to go back to the magic backpack game. Instead, she decided to be honest with him. “I’ve been out with several people in the last few months.”

  “The same guy?”

  “You think I’m dating someone?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Holden,” she said, in that same reprimanding voice she’d used when he wouldn’t take the painkillers. “I told you I’d go out with you last night.”

  “I know.” He reached over and trailed his fingers down the side of her face. “Are you seeing someone else?”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve had a string of first dates. Can’t get a second.” She gazed evenly at him, almost daring him to find anything about her love life funny.

  “I’ll take you on a second,” he said, his dark eyes positively dreamy. If he knew he possessed eyes that drank her up and made her woozy…. He doesn’t know, she told herself. And maybe his eyes didn’t have the same effect on everyone that they had on her.

  “Have you been out with anyone?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Not even one woman?”

  “Dean’s tried to set me up with people, and I’ve had a date or two scheduled. I always cancel at the last minute.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do to me?”

  “Nope.” She smiled at her, that sweet, sly smile that said he was thinking about kissing her. In fact, his eyes dropped to her mouth, and Eden’s whole soul sang.

  He pushed her hair off her face, tucking the disgusting, muddy strands behind her ear. “I need to wash my hair,” she whispered.

  “You can do it after.”

  “After what?”

  “After I kiss you.” He leaned down, and Eden’s eyelids fluttered closed, her heart skipping a beat every other pulse.

  His lips brushed across hers, sending heat and fireworks through her bloodstream. She breathed in and matched his mouth to his, telling him how she felt whether she wanted to or not.

  Holden Holstein might not have been out with another woman in five years, but he had not forgotten how to kiss one. How to make her feel cherished and adored. How to make her feel like he was the only man for her.

  Chapter Ten

  Holden couldn’t believe Eden was kissing him back. She’d been so resistant to the idea of them trying again, but she certainly wasn’t kissing him with any hesitation.

  He’d forgotten how it felt to have every cell in his body buzzing. Every muscle sinking into a warm bath. Every stroke of his mouth against Eden’s igniting the fire in his blood.

  In fact, the fire inside Holden had been cold for years.

  But Eden knew exactly how to stoke it, from scraping her fingernails gently along the back of his neck to sighing into his mouth as they parted.

  He held her close even after their kiss ended, because he needed her strength to stand after a kiss like that. His pulse testified that he’d just run a marathon, even though he hadn’t.

  “Want me to help you wash your hair?” he whispered, his eyes still closed, the scent of earth laced with Eden’s perfume filling his nose.

  “If you want.” She fell back a step, leaving Holden to balance himself on his walking stick and his good leg. “Then we can go down until we get a signal.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  She nodded, her eyes darting everywhere but at him, and Holden smiled to himself as she bent to get something out of her pack. She snapped an elastic ponytail holder on her wrist and reached for his hand.

  Their eyes finally met, and Holden couldn’t help chuckling. “You haven’t been kissing any of your first dates, have you?” he asked.

  “What kind of question is that?” she asked.

  “Just wondering.”

  “I’m not easy, Holden.”

  Oh, that much he knew. Being with Eden had been challenging for him before, but this time, it didn’t feel hard. She made him want to be better. Made him think about things. Opened his eyes to new possibilities.

  “I was just thinking you must’ve been practicing that kiss,” he said. “It was amazing.”

  Eden tripped over her own feet, and Holden’s grip on her fingers tightened. Their eyes met again, and this time Eden wore a hint of embarrassment in hers. A pinkness stained her cheeks in a sexy way, and Holden couldn’t help kissing her again.

  “Mm,” he said, pulling away before he would’ve liked. “Yeah. Amazing.”

  Eden grinned at him and said, “You’re not so bad yourself. I’m not sure I believe you haven’t been out with anyone since we broke up.”

  “Believe it,” he said. “Ask Dean if you want.”

  “I don’t need to ask Dean.” They passed the tree line and came to the spring. Holden positioned himself with his bad leg against the rock while Eden crouched down and bent over to put her head in the water.

  “Holy cow, that’s cold,” she said.

  It was such a trickle that Holden had to scoop it with his hands into her hair. He ran his fingers through it, working out the worst of the dirt, mud, and grime. The action was almost erotic, the way his fingertips sizzled when they touched her scalp, despite the iciness of the water.

  “I can’t take anymore,” she said, and Holden stepped back, completely mesmerized by her. The touch of her. The feel of her. The scent of her. The sight of her.

  How had he lived this long without her in his life? Five years.

  He hadn’t been living at all.

  She scooped her hair into a high ponytail on top of her head, squeezed the water out, and secured it with the elastic. When she faced him again, the pinkness in her cheeks had disappeared, and she looked fierce and lovely at the same time.

  Holden wetted his hands and ran them through his hair a few times, feeling the mud there too. He cleaned up much quicker than she did though, and soon enough, he felt like he’d gotten all the gunk out of his hair.

  “Let me get my pac
k,” she said when they reached the spot where they detoured off the path to their shelter. When she returned, she positioned herself on his left side and slipped her hand into his.

  “New game,” she said, the cell phone gripped in her other hand. “You tell me something new or different about you in the past five years, and then I’ll tell you something about me. Whoever can’t think of something first, loses.”

  “You’ve already won,” he said. “I’m the same.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true,” she said. “Number one, you have a new job.”

  “You said new or different,” he said. “You already knew that.”

  “It still counts.”

  “All right,” he said with a smile. “I have a new job at The Web Developer.” And as the owner and CEO of Explore Getaway Bay. Why didn’t he tell her that?

  Maybe because she was already talking. “I got rid of my cats.”

  “You did?” Holden looked at her, his leg feeling better all the time. “Wow, Eden.”

  “My dad was allergic, and he couldn’t ever come over. So, I found a new home for them.” She shrugged. “It was the right thing to do.”

  “Well, going off that, I got a dog.”

  “You did?” She sounded as surprised as he had about her losing the cats. He’d never particularly enjoyed her cats, and he couldn’t say he was all that sorry about them being rehomed.

  “Yeah,” he said. “He’s a white golden retriever. He usually comes with me when I go out hiking.”

  “Why didn’t you bring him this time?”

  “Willie’s the office dog,” he said. “I was only coming out for an hour or two. Just to clear my head after finishing a stressful project.” He paused while she lifted the phone to check the signal.

  “Nothing.”

  He sighed and continued with, “I’m sure Dean took him home. He sometimes does anyway.”

  “Willie. Nice name.” She gave him a look that he couldn’t interpret before he had to check the ground for his next step. “I took a pottery class.”

  “Yeah? You make anything?”