BILLIONAIRE Island: Idyllic Mischief (5 page)

Indie swiveled around on the stool to watch the two talking fast and heated, not a fight, more a persuasion, a battle of wills to dominate. Conversation could be very interesting when you don't understand the words and have to listen through body language which they say is the strongest part of communication. This one was also sexy as hell as the muscles in two torsos rippled and flexed beneath tight tees in their own dispute.

When the discussion between the two combatants became more tempestuous and began to attract interest from the couples all around, ramping up their physical fascination in each other getting ready to take it somewhere more private, gorgeous one grabbed the other hunk's arm and led him out to the parking lot.

“Are you causing trouble already?” Sasha appeared from behind the bar as the gold metal front door slammed shut on the two fiery hunks. She was followed immediately by Patrice, who popped champagne for everyone left standing at the end of the night.

“Nothing to do with me, just minding my own business all by my lonesome.” A naughty picture of faux innocence stuck to her face.

“Sorry about that, it's the only chance I got to see him in over a week.”

“No worries, I've been amusing myself just fine, however I am ready to keel over of this stool.”

“I know, you must be completely knackered after that flight without happy pills. Come on let's go home.” As she kissed Patrice goodnight rather more lingering that was good for public performance, Indie felt a pang in her heart at not getting to say her own goodnight. The raven-haired Frenchie was over confident in the extreme but when he pressed just a little too close, something had ignited her senses all the way down to her peep-toes.
Dang, get a grip why don't you? He is not goodnight material.

“You surely aren't going to drive,” Indie said as Sash strode across the lot to her car.

“Of course. Stop being such a goodie-girl, it's different here.” Reluctantly, with no option, Indie opened the passenger door just as a gleaming black truck swerved into the lot and screeched to a halt beside them. The door flew back on its heavy hinge as the heavenly hound from the bar swung his slim hips off the black leather seat. The dipping dance in Indie's heart flew into her throat as he halted in front of her, suddenly tongue-tied with nothing to say. Sasha stopped mid-way getting into the car.

“Hi, Damien. You okay?” she asked, confused at to what was happening between the two people in front of her staring stupidly at each other.
Damien. Damn you Damien you are so fucking hot.
He stood in front of Indie, eyes locked, struggling for words, a reason to be there.

“Hi, Sasha. Er, how are you?”

“I'm fi-ine.” She was looking back and forth between them, curious.

“Well, okay good night then.” Damn Damien, got back into his truck and started the engine with the door still open. Heart plopped back into gut, Indie turned to get into the car, wishing she could think of something, that her mind hadn't totally wiped out.

“Hey Sasha, how's the skiing?” Damien suddenly looked up from the wheel and called through the door.

“Bit out of practice since Tolar smashed up the boat.”

“Bad luck about that. Do you fancy going out tomorrow?”

“I, er, sure.” Sasha was really confused now, very unlike her normal stance.

“Great. Come over tomorrow about four.”

“To the hotel?”

“No, come to the house. And bring your friend.” With that instruction Damn floored the gas and wheeled the truck around before remembering to pull the door closed.

“Trust you,” Sasha said as she wheeled her own car around toward the deserted road. “First day here and you reel in the hottest guy on the island.”

“Him? He's hot I guess, but he works in a hotel.”

“He
owns
a hotel. Or twenty. And his father is the most powerful man in Mauritius. Oh, I can't wait-I've never been invited to his beach house. No one ever gets inside those hallowed portals.”

Chapter Five

Damien

Merde
. What the fuck is wrong with me? I'm so pissy about that woman I can hardly think and I never get wound up about women. Women are good for one thing and I don't care if that sounds harsh, I can't help it, I just don't want them close to me. But that one, Polly-Anna, she got me so riled up in that slink of tiny dress covering that steaming body, I'm still fucking pissed. I should have pulled her back into the stall and got between those naked thighs because then I wouldn't have been imagining it the rest of the night. I was so angry about I don't even know what, I virtually shoved Laurent out of the cab when I dropped him off at his place. Fuck that too, what am I going to do about him living in that house? She's got me so tense my jaw is actually aching. There are a thousand women on the island, what's the big deal about this one.

She's just so- I dunno- real. She's as gorgeous as heaven on earth but she doesn't know it. I love how she says she's just a clothes horse, standing around all day having pins stuck in her, downplaying the New York model thing that most of them play up. Fuck it, that one I met on the beach last week doing a shoot for Vogue, what was her name, Camber, or something, could not stop looking at herself long enough to look at me. Even when I was fucking her, she was looking at herself over her shoulder in the reflection in the glass door to the terrace. Then she walked around the house like an auctioneer, pricing everything up as though she was planning her divorce payout already. Fat chance little bitch. Great tits, tits you just wanna mound in your fist and grind, but the rest of her bored me stiff, not in a good way.

Polly is different alright, but there was something about her, something held back. She was hurting somewhere inside I know it. I got the delicate sense of a person wounded and moving tenderly through the world to keep themselves safe. And for once I loved that, it was so adorable. I didn't want to take it and crush it, just the opposite, I had the overwhelming and uncomfortable urge to put my arms around her and protect her from everything forever. I have never in my life looked forward to seeing a woman like I'm dying to see her tomorrow, at least not that I can remember.

So when Faustine tapped lightly on my door and whispered was I awake, I should have kept quiet, let her think I was asleep already. But I was too mad. Mad at everyone and everything without knowing why so I told her to come in, even though I knew what her game was. She sat down casual enough, although the bottle of tequila in her hand should have been a bit of a clue.

“How's it going?” I asked, casual as next Tuesday. “Liking the new job?” Fuck, I wished I hadn't brought that up. Right now, the last thing I wanted was for her to talk about her boss and be reminded of- that.

“It's great. I might be able to work full time by next month. Which would be awesome seeing as you and Laurent don't seem eager to get me on board with you. Oh, my boss says to say hi.” There it was, fuck it. I could have just let it roll over me, instead I took another massive slug from the tequila bottle and felt the amber liquid sear through my throat all the way down to my gut. It seemed to please Faustine no end, my discomfort and she slid out of the chair across from me to sit beside me on the bed.

“Stina, you're my cousin,” I told her.

“Second cousin,” she replied too fast, as though she had it planned. “It isn't illegal, we could even get married.”

“Yeah, I ain't the marrying kind.”

“I know. But you are the loving kind and so am I. You know I've always loved you. Since I was a little girl and you ducked me under the water when we were swimming.”

“That was a long time ago. You've been at school in Cape Town for more than a decade since then.” Faustine was from a bizarre off-shoot of the family, hence her slanted dark eyes and coarse hair that made me awkward to admit we were related, because of course, she had to tell every single person she was a Beauregard.

Her hand on my thigh burned through me and that girl came into my mind. I had wanted it to be her here in my room, the room I'd been moved into, evacuated from the master suite in my own house.

“And I've been waiting for this moment all that time,” she breathed, eyelids lowering in a futile attempt to be sexy. Still. Her hand working up the inside of my muscle, grazing my already tight groin was too much. Her palm found her desire, tugged at the zip and slipped it out of my jeans. She bent over and wrapped her mouth around the shaft and I closed my eyes with a moan, imagining those coral lips of the girl in the john at the club.

When I came out of the stall and found her bent daintily forward across the sink, lips pouted out to run the sponge of gloss all over I swear to god my cock roared with the demand to drag her back into the stall and pull that dress up and fuck her hard.  Shit, I wouldn't even have had to pull it up, it barely covered her other lips and I could not get them out of my mind. Blame it on the booze, blame it on Pollyanna and that slip of black jersey clinging to that dangerous body and barely skimming over that pert round ass.

I flipped Faustine over and yanked her shorts down, no way I was getting my mouth anywhere near her. She was fine with it, as the desperate ones always are, thinking if they can get your cock inside them you're sure to love them right after when in fact it's the total opposite. I rammed into her and she matched my thrusts, impaling herself back onto me, milking me hard. With thoughts of Polly, I came in less than a minute but I didn't care. I wanted it over and didn't bother to make excuses or reciprocate. I felt like a shit but she got what she wanted and I fell back on the bed, into sleep thinking only of tomorrow and nothing else.

Indie

Indie woke late the next morning- part jet lag, part excess fizz. The sun was flooding the room with soft light and she could hear the girls squealing as they splashed in the pool below the window. She stepped out onto the terrace and observed the island in the first full light of day, the sweet air warm and fragrant. Some great author had apparently written more than a century ago that when God finished creating Heaven, he made Mauritius, or some shit like that but wow, it was spot on.

From the second floor she caught a flash of brightest turquoise- the smooth ocean was minutes back down the track and she couldn't wait to see it that afternoon, albeit with a heady mix of trepidation. Every nerve ending was firing with the thought of seeing sexy Damien, who she would only ever think of as Damn from now on, but she was also terrified. Aside from a body built for damage, there was something about him so intense and powerful, she knew she was out of control as much as she acted the nonchalant princess.

“Finally, you're awake, you missed tennis this morning.” Sasha threw open the bedroom door and walked straight out to the terrace. A maid scurried behind her bearing a tray of fresh juice, pastries and
bols
of strong french cafe au lait. Just what was needed. “Ready for skiing this aft?” She pursed her lips together in a naughty smirk.

“No. I'm not. I can't water-ski. I did it once on vacation in Aruba, face-planted and lost half my bikini.”

“You'll be fine. I'll show you how. And are you going to fill me in on your meeting with Damien Lothaire Beauregard Le-Comte?”

“Sheesh, what a mouthful. And there’s' nothing to fill in. He came, he didn't conquer. End of.”

“Not yet but Damien is not a guy that doesn't conquer. I have to warn you to be careful, he's got a demonic reputation all over this island. He's seduced every available woman and half of those who aren't. There's no one left to him now apart from the French aristo girls who are kept locked up by their families. If he ever got his filthy hands on one of those there'd be a lynching.”

“Okay, okay, I get it but there's absolutely nothing to warn me about. I took his number right away and anyways I'm not in the head space or any space for an affair right now.”

“I'm sorry, Ind. I haven't asked you about it because I didn't want you upset the minute you arrived. I figure you'd talk about it when you were ready.”

“I know. I'm not sure if I ever wanna talk about it. It was the most awful end and I keep feeling it was my fault. That I killed my own baby.”

“Don't even think that. You didn't do anything wrong. Miscarriages happen far more frequently than women realize and if anyone was to blame it was bastard Bradley not you.”

“Perhaps I did something that pushed him over the edge into drinking to the point of rage. He wasn't always like that.”

“Yes he was. I remember when I was I New York for fashion week and in the three times I met him that week he was pissed at every single one. He got mad with the bartender for not getting him a drink fast enough and tried to punch him out. The only thing Brad had going for him in my eyes was how much he adored you. You guys were at that party, thronged with models and he was talking to some other model hound who was already looking around for an upgrade. He tried to get Brad into rating the passing trade and your boyfriend told him; 'I'm happy with what I've got'. That made him okay in my book but I guess I was too easily sold.”

“So, what are we wearing for our water-skiing date?” Indie said, suddenly keen to get her mind off the recent past.

After feeding the girls lunch, or supervising the maid feeding them, Sasha changed into a swimsuit with a sarong tied low around her gazelle hips. Indie put on a Norma Kamali Hollywood Starlet bikini and sarong-less, embarrassed about her pasty white thighs, begged a borrow from her friend. Tolar was seated in the center of a long sofa on the terrace shouting at molasses-eyes Youssou, the manservant.

“You do not throw the chemicals into the pool, you put them in the filter. Stop fucking grinning at me idiot. Now I have to pay to get the water changed.”

Youssou stood on the grass below him, grinning wide and nodding madly.

“Don't forget to tell my wife she's the fucking best at skiing and everything else, Indie. Otherwise she'll drop you like she has me,” Tolar screamed across the garden as Sasha dragged her quickly and they piled into the car. After the rough drive down the track and the few blocks toward Grande Bay, they pulled up on a private crescent road sporting the entrance to the Grand Imperial hotel. Its crystal entrance was guarded by a pair of Indian footmen in white turbans.

“That's the best hotel on the island,” Sasha whispered as they headed for a pair of foreboding electric gates next to the hotel, set into a high, long, blank wall giving zero indication of what was hidden behind. The drive easily held the eight parked vehicles and a private security guard sat at the gate to buzz them in.

They were permitted entry to the walled enclosure and a majordomo waited to greet them at the front door of the low, wide house buried behind a jungle of palm trees, once they made our way around the giant freeform black-tiled pool. The hall and reception rooms were colossal, dark and loaded with ancient furnishings more Loire Chateau than desert island beach house. But they were led through the passageways, into a sunroom half the length of the house and emerged onto a broad verandah peppered with deep cushioned loungers fronting directly on the diamond dust beach. Indie gasped at the expanse of blistering blue water dominating the one eighty degree vista, edged by a paler blue sky and a white hot sand beach.

She'd somehow expected that only Damien would be there, waiting to take them out skiing but the verandah was crowded with people of various ages and all fully clothed. She felt exposed and flaunting in the Marilyn bikini with only a sarong around her waist, when Damien leapt up from his lounger to kiss both women on each cheek then introduced them around.

Shit, they'd stumbled in on a family gathering. He introduced his brother Chrestien, and his brother's new wife. The various friends of theirs still hanging on after the recent wedding celebrations, plainly reluctant to leave the luxury hideaway. There was his cousin, then the guy he'd been arguing last night sitting sullen in jeans and tee shirt despite the heat of the day. Damien introduced him as Laurent and he gave a desultory wave of hand before turning back to his fashion magazine. The men sat holding beers and talking with loud jocularity at one end of the terrace, the women sat at the other, circling a beautiful older woman. The old lady sitting in the shade and resplendent at the head of the group, neither responded with a wave or even looked up to greet the new arrivals when introduced by Damn as his Lady mother. Madame Beauregard Le-Comte plainly had no time for her son's friends.

They sat perched uncomfortably on the edge of a lounger and Dam made sporting conversation with Sasha. Indie looked from under downcast eyes at the regal gathering. If it hadn't been for the tropical surroundings, the hibiscus and bougainvillea dripping from abundant foliage, they could have been mistaken for a party in the drawing room at Pemberley. (Indie was a sucker for those books about thwarted romance and Pride and Prejudice was her absolute fave.) What a motley crew of a family- Chrestien was the eldest son, taller and broader that his younger brother as well as having a mop of golden blonde hair. He was completely the opposite of Damien and his mother who were both dark tan with midnight black hair. And then the cousin who was darker still with hair that, if she wasn't mistaken, had been ironed.

Indie stole a glance at Laurent, sitting alone, apart from the brother's friends with a definite pout on his soft lips that didn't match his razor jaw. He was plainly angry still about whatever he and Damn had disagreed about last night. He must have caught her thought because he raised thick lashes to sneak a peek at her and they locked eyes. Indie smiled a let's be friends smile that he barely returned before flipping the page and returning to his mag.
Or not then. What the fuck does he have to be upset with me about? I had nothing to do with his fight with his friend.
The family behaved as though the new arrivals were utterly invisible, the brother spoke only to his male friends, while his wife, Anouk and Damn's cousin, Faustine was it?, only came to life when the grand Mama spoke. Jumping to do whatever she'd instructed, her every utterance like a command from the heavens above. It was hot, she said, so Anouk leapt to turn the ceiling fan control higher, followed by Faustine who brought her a cool drink.