by Lexi Duval
“Just be yourself,” is the main message. Apparently, there's an innocence about me that the public are going to adore.
Still, I feel completely out of my depth in the middle of this media storm, and my mind develops a habit of thinking of the island more and more. Being back in the real world, surrounded by people, is surprisingly difficult to negotiate and take on board.
I'm happy only when it's me and Flint, the two of us alone in his mansion, hidden away from the world. From its peering eyes and whispering voices.
It's only going to get worse, I tell myself, knowing that after the interview I'll be expected to do more. That my world will become the domain of public interest.
“You'll get used to it eventually,” Flint assures me, and I take his word for it.
Because, really, he knows more than anyone, and I can see by the way he's coping with it that he's a complete pro. That nothing fazes him, and that he'll transition back into normal life much better than I could ever hope to.
On the day of the interview, my nerves reach an all time high. Flint's there, by my side, always reassuring, telling me to be myself and tell my side of the story like we practiced.
His presence helps to soothe me and give me confidence, and by the time we walk out together, hand in hand, it grows quickly obvious that the rumors are true. That yes, we did have a romance on the island, and that yes, we are now an item.
It's the stuff that dreams are made of for the press. A billionaire and a regular girl, stranded together on a tropical island for 6 months. Learning to live off the land and survive, and falling in love in the process.
We tell our story, and the audience sit in almost total silence, completely entranced by the little world we paint for them. Shrouded in blackness, I can barely see them, my view obscured by the bright lights blazing down on the stage.
After a while, it feels like only me and Flint and Donald out there, just as we were in Flint's mansion. I start nervous, but Donald eases me in, ever the pro, and gradually I relax.
We speak about the things that no one knows about yet. Flint talks about the sheet of metal from the fuselage of the plane, how it saved our lives and took us to the island. He never says he saved my life in so many words, but his explanation of his actions make that clear.
He gets a round of applause and I kiss him on the cheek to a chorus of 'ahhhs'.
We speak together about our time on the island. About the storms that shook the earth and turned the seas into a violent torrent, but kept us alive with the water they spilled down on us.
We speak about the coconut and our methods of hunting fish and the great fire pit we built to try to signal any passing boats or planes. We talk about our shack, which started as nothing but a means of keeping the rain off us and ended as our haven.
We talk about how we learned to live there, accept it, before everything turned in our minds and we began building the raft. And then Flint speaks with great emotion about the fall that broke his leg, that led him to the door of death.
He looks at me, and tells Donald, and the audience, and the entire world, that I saved his life. And the crowd roar and clap and stand, and I hear calls of 'hero' among them.
The spotlight falls only on me when I recount my tale, becoming the main character of the story as Flint fell ill. I describe how I finished the raft, gathered provisions, and set my mind to taking a risk on the ocean. Either escape or die, there was no other choice.
And then the final disaster – the storm that engulfed the world and stole the raft from my grasp. The sight of Flint's body giving out with nothing I could do to help him. I feel a tear falling down my cheek as I talk of it all, but I don't break stride, and I don't break down.
And eventually, we speak of the love that grew. Of the deep bond that we now share. Of the fact that now, back in the real world, we're taking it one day at a time, and it's going well.
When we're done, and are backstage once more, Donald tells us both how well we did. He gives me particular attention, telling me the ratings are the highest of the year, and that the public have already fallen in love with me.
“You alone might just save Flint's reputation,” he says with a wry smile.
It feels strangely liberating to get it all off my chest, telling the world our story. I feel that, now that we've done so, things will ease up and the press will stop hounding us quite so often.
Of course, I'm sure we'll have to make some more appearances, but now that I've got the first out of the way, I start to feel that everything will be a little easier after this. In fact, there's an unexpected buzz running through my body that I certainly didn't expect.
That evening, we attend an after party, and for the first time I meet Flint's mother and sister. As soon as Flint and I were rescued, they'd visited him in the hospital, but I hadn't met them, preferring to give them time alone as a family.
After that Flint had kept in contact with them via phone, mainly, not wanting to have them come to the mansion and get involved in the media storm around us. Now that we've told our story, however, we finally have a chance to meet.
When she greets me, she does so with the warmest hug. The sort of embrace I'd expect to get from my own mother, from someone I'd known for years.
“Thank you for saving my son,” she tells me in my ear, her arms gripped tight around me. “I will never be able to thank you enough for returning him to me.”
I tell her that I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. That I just did what anyone would do. Yet still, like the audience who cheered and called me a hero, she waves off my words as mere modesty and looks at me with a gratefulness and reverence that I've never witnessed before.
Flint's sister is the same, if slightly less over the top. She hugs me as a sister and calls me just that, her smile sweet and a tear in her eye. She's more my age, too, several years younger than Flint, and is just as charming as both her brother and mother.
That night we enjoy the party after the show, and I'm treated as one of the family. I'm asked a hundred and one questions by Flint's family, but only few of them relate to the island. Instead, they seem interested in me, who I am, my life before the event.
They're incredibly gracious and inviting, trying to get to know the woman who Flint has fallen for. Perhaps wondering if it was merely our forced proximity on the island that created the bond between us, or whether I am truly up to his level.
I find myself desperately hoping that they like me. Wanting them to report to Flint that he has their blessing for continuing the relationship we've started. Mostly, I still feel incredibly out of my depth. Not only with all this media attention, but entering Flint's world.
On the island, we were on an equal footing. We were stripped of everything we were before and were nothing but two human beings trying to survive.
That's no longer the case.
Now I'm being integrated into the world Flint left behind, a world of chauffeurs and chat shows and mansions. A world of fame and incredible fortune which my life was never going to include.
Before I left, I was nothing but an aspiring lawyer, set to have a decent, if unremarkable, career and live nothing more than a steady existence. Now, I'm world famous, in a relationship with a billionaire, and being hailed a hero all over the globe.
But at night, that all fades, and I'm comfortable once more. At night, when it's just me and Flint, I can forget about the world and focus only on him, on us, and on the memories that will never leave me.
Some will haunt me forever. The plane crash, the sight of Benjy's lifeless eyes. The desperate thought that I'd have to watch Flint slowly die in my arms and be left alone on the island afterward.
But, sprinkled within those nightmares that torment me are those that brighten my mind, that send me into delirious daydreams. The memories of Flint and I making love under the stars or in the ocean. Of the time when we forgot the world for a period and looked only to each other for comfort.
Much of my time on the island was
spent in great happiness, against all the odds and all expectations of the early days. And now, strangely, I'm finding it hard to recover, hard to reintegrate myself into the world. One that's changed so dramatically from when last I saw it.
Gradually, however, I grow used to my fame. Together, Flint and I attend other talk shows and tell the world more of our story. We become the couple of the moment, Hollywood execs already approaching us with ideas of putting our experience up onto the big screen.
And then, just as I'm getting used to it all, and perhaps even starting to enjoy it, things calm. The media storm softens to a light breeze. And slowly but surely, Flint returns to his work and his world.
And I'm left wondering just what the future holds for mine.
Chapter Five
It's over 6 months after being rescued that Flint comes to me telling me he has a surprise.
For the last few months he'd been continuing his rehab on his amputated leg and, by now, has managed to have his prosthetic fitted. When he's wearing pants, you'd be hard pressed to realize he's got his lower right leg missing at all.
His walking isn't stymied, and unless he intends to go out running or engage in a competitive game of tennis, little in his life will be affected.
Certainly, his mood hasn't been, and not once has he moaned about it or even mentioned it in a negative fashion. He remains, and forever will be, grateful to be alive, legless or not.
It's the weekend, and in the last two months I've turned my attention back to work. Once the media focus began to shift away from our story, and the masses took up some new idols, I found myself at a loose end.
Flint started back at work, refocusing his energies on the various businesses under his wing. Of course, already being famous before the incident, little truly changed in his life. His world was pretty much as he left it.
The same couldn't be said for mine, and having fame heaped upon you is always going to make returning to a regular job difficult, if not impossible.
Flint advised me to channel my energies into other projects, and so I did. In particular, I began to look for charity work, particularly working with disaster aid charities around the world.
It's only been a couple of months now, but I truly think I've found my calling, and am able to use the fame bestowed upon me for good.
But this weekend I have off, the first since I turned my attention to my charity work, and Flint has promised me a surprise.
First, he takes me to the airport in Sydney, where we've continued to live together since arriving back here, and onto a private jet. It isn't the first time either of us have flown since the crash – his work and mine taking us around the world regularly – but I can't help but feel that twinge of panic when stepping on board.
It's natural, of course, and I'm sure it will always be there. But I wasn't going to turn away from air travel forever, and feel confident that one crash is going to be the limit of my suffering during my lifetime.
Yet still, I do like to check the weather before traveling, and won't hesitate to take another flight if possible, should I spot any black storm clouds on the horizon...
Today, though, the weather is clear, and the skies blue for a thousand miles in every direction. So we step aboard the private jet and set our course eastwards out of Sydney airport, quickly leaving the landmass of Australia below and cruising over the wide Pacific Ocean.
I look down over the water, and naturally my mind turns back six months, reflecting as it often does on the island that held us captive for so long. I look up at Flint and ask him where we're going, and all he does is smile and say: “you'll see soon enough.”
Right then and there, I know just where he's taking me.
The flight doesn't last long, and soon we're touching down on a small private airstrip on the main island of Viti Levu in Fiji. It's my first sight of a tropical landscape since our island, and I find myself immediately captivated by the smells and sounds and lush colors of the world around me.
We're transferred to a speedboat that's moored on a jetty on the coast nearby. And that's where we're left alone.
We step onto the boat, just the two of us, and Flint begins navigating up across the ocean. The sea is choppy, but the boat large enough to deal with it all as we travel for a little over two hours out into the wide ocean.
I don't speak much, and neither does he. I just look at the uninhabited islands we pass and wonder when we're going to arrive at ours. Wonder how it might have changed and how it will make me feel to see it again.
Eventually, with the sun still high in the sky, I spot the sight of the long white beach that we called home for half a year. Of the thick jungle beyond, and the high hill climbing up in the South.
We grow nearer, and I spot the rocks that we would stand and fish on, thrusting our spears into the fish beneath the surface of the sea. I trace the line of the beach with my eyes, and feel my hands trembling at the sight of our shack, still standing under the canopy of palm leaves above.
I feel tears forming in my eyes, a strange feeling of longing and nostalgia and trauma all overcoming me at once. Flint gently pulls up against the rocks on the beach, tightly fastening a rope around them to moor the boat.
I look on, thinking of the raft that escaped my clutches, of the feeling desolation that overwhelmed me at that point. Thinking Flint would die there and I'd be alone.
He helps me off into the shallows, and I feel the warm seas that I bathed in everyday. We don't speak as he leads me up the beach, hand in hand, walking slowly around the island and taking it all in.
We reach our shack, and look inside, and see that nothing has changed. That it's withstood the other storms that have been thrown at it since we left. Our haven and home.
I can feel the tears shaping down my cheeks now, and Flint hugs me and kisses me, his own face filled with emotion.
“You said you wanted to visit again,” he says.
“I did.”
“Are you happy to be here?”
I nod as I slowly look around at the island once more.
“Good,” he says, “because this isn't the only surprise.”
We return to the boat, and Flint retrieves a couple of bags from inside. Within are provisions for the night. Sleeping bags, firelighters, food and wine.
“I thought we could spend the night,” he says with a smile. “Only, I thought we could do with being better prepared this time.”
He pulls out the firelighters and matches, and even a small can of lighter fluid.
“I don't think starting a fire will be quite so difficult this time.”
I laugh, and together we set about retrieving some wood from the jungle to fill the fire pit, which remains untouched as well. We light the fire, pop open a bottle of wine, and start eating the picnic foods that Flint brought along for the ride.
Together we reminisce, and lie under the stars, and make love to the sound of the lapping waves as the moon continues its march across the sky.
And when we're done, and we're lying naked together on the sand as we once did, Flint returns to our camp to collect a bottle of champagne.
He returns, and pours two glasses, and as I sip the golden liquid under the white glow of the stars above, he pulls something from behind his back.
He drops to one knee, and my heart almost gives out.
“Libby,” he says, naked on the sand, “will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
I drop the champagne, and the glass falls with a dull thud in the sand. My body rushes toward him, my arms wrapping around him, and we crumple into a heap of arms and legs on the beach.
“I'll take that as a yes,” he says through my kisses.
And the island that was our prison and our haven, becomes the one where I got engaged to Flint Young.
CAUGHT BY A BILLIONAIRE
PART ONE
Prologue
“You're going to do everything I tell you to do. When I tell you to open your legs, you're going to open your legs
. When I tell you to bend over, you're going to bend over. Do you understand?”
I nod, and wait for my first instruction, dressed in a black slim fitting gown and black heels. As instructed, I'm wearing black lipstick and eyeliner too, adding to that mysterious appeal that he seems to like so much.
Sage Dalton stands ahead of me, covered in a gray suit that hugs his tightly manufactured body. His hair is short, dark, and perfectly matches the color of his eyes, a brown so deep they look black from more than a couple of feet away.
He wears no smile on his face, just a look of power and control and lust. A look to say that he's the boss, and I have to do everything he says.
He walks toward me slowly, purposefully, and puts his thumb and index finger to my chin. He raises my head so that it's tilting up toward his tall frame, and drops his lips to mine.
He kisses me gently, and I don't kiss back, still waiting for an order. He pulls back, and runs his tongue between his lips, his face cracking into a lascivious smile.
“I like the way you taste,” he tells me.
The room is warm, a comfortable heat, but my body is still shivering a little. A mixture of nerves and excitement pulses through me, the lingering feel of his lips on mine setting my body trembling just that little bit more.
Right behind me is a bed, large and luscious, covered is colored cushions and drapes and duvets and sheets. The room drips with a blood red tint, the walls warm and alluring and romantic.
The light is low, the sort of dim light that magnifies assets and hides flaws. The sort that conceals any imperfections on your skin, any slight blemishes and blushes on your body. Right now, my cheeks, glowing a light pink, are dulled by the shade.
Sage takes a couple of steps back, and looks me up and down. I stand upright, trying to maintain my pose and posture, trying to keep my legs from shaking as his eyes snake over me.
“Remove your dress,” he says, returning his eyes to mine. “Do it slowly. Do it sensually.”