The Sweetest Kiss: A Billionaire Love Story

C
opyright
© 2016 by Kate Ward

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The Sweetest Kiss
is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

F
or my Family

R
ock Star
: The Song

Rock Star: The Contest

Rock Star: The Deal

All of the Rock Star books are stand-alone reads, however, you may find they are best enjoyed in the following order so that you can see the change of the characters over the course of the series.

For more on the author visit
www.katewardbooks.com

“
T
here are
some things money can’t buy.”

When career driven Hayley Fields twin sister Emily unexpectedly passes away and leaves her entire estate on a tropical island with her, things are about to get complicated. Especially when there are two prerequisites: She’s not to sell to the owner of the island or sell the vacation property within a year.

Handsome Billionaire Ethan Wayland only had one task from his father: Get her to sell. But when he falls in love with her, it’s easier said than done.

I
must have been
out of my mind. This was pure madness. I was a city girl. What on earth was I thinking?
Go, you will love it. You will never get another opportunity like this. I wish I was you,
my friends said. I had bought into the hype and now I was paying for it. It wasn’t just that I had been worrying myself sick at the thought of going in a plane, but it was the thought of smaller things like battling hurricanes, encountering spiders, and getting huge welts from mosquito bites.

After a six-hour flight from New York to Bridgetown, Barbados, I was beat.

But the nightmare still wasn’t over. One more flight to St. Vincent, that would take almost an hour, and then a delightful twenty-minute boat ride to get me to the private island.

Delightful? What planet were these people on? I leaned over the boat and hurled up my breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a few snacks that I was told were good for seasickness.
Yep, they worked well.

“Ma’am, can I get you some water?”

I looked around at Jamaal who was a representative for the island. I nodded as a wave of humidity hit me like a wall. The salty ocean water sprayed in my face as the small boat bobbed up and down beneath my feet. Okay, I admit it, I wasn’t a very good traveler. Everything about traveling made my blood pressure shoot through the roof, and I was twenty-eight, okay, nearly twenty-nine but still too young to be suffering from high blood pressure. It was anxiety really. It was something to do with feeling out of control. You know, like paranoid the worst was going to happen even if the likelihood was miniscule. Anyway, my doctor had prescribed these tiny little white pills. They were meant to make me feel calm and relaxed, at least that’s what I told the guy who was sitting next to me on the plane. I’m pretty sure he would disagree. Poor guy probably still had my finger marks on his knee. Though he was ever so polite. At least I thought he was until he moved seats about thirty minutes into the journey.

How did I get here? Let me back up.

Jamaal had been waiting for me in St. Vincent. I have to admit he was a cheerful-looking fella. Had he been holding a sign I probably wouldn’t have walked right by him. I don’t know what I was expecting. Someone in a suit? He had thick black dreadlocks that came down to his shoulders, a goatee, and dark shades on. As for his attire it was something to behold. He wore shorts, flip-flops and a tie-dye shirt with every color of the rainbow.

As I stood there looking around like someone searching for their car, he approached me from behind. I nearly jumped out of my skin when he leaned in and spoke my name, “Hayley Fields?”

I spun around startled.

“Jamaal?”

“That’ll be me, ma’am,” he said in a thick Jamaican accent. I shook his head and he flashed me one of his award-winning smiles. The kind that they know will earn them an extra-large tip.

“How did you know it was me?”

He smiled. “You’re the spitting image of her.”

He was referring to my sister.

“Let me give you a hand with your luggage.”

“Ah, I haven’t collected it yet.”

“Please come,” he said before leading the way to a small baggage carousel. It was a tiny airport. All the luggage was taken off the plane and quickly brought into the building.

“So how did you enjoy the landing?”

I showed him my knuckles that were still white.

“That good?”

“I fared pretty well, I can’t say the same for the guy beside me.”

I had pretty much terrorized two male passengers. One who shifted seats between New York and Barbados and the other who was forced to endure my nail-biting, knee-clinging, have we landed yet? antics.

Jamaal let out a deep laugh. We collected all six of my bags. Each time he lifted one off the carousel he would groan about how heavy it was. I just told him I had a rock collecting hobby and I couldn’t bear to leave my babies behind. Truth was they were jam-packed with my entire life. My friend Hanna had given me a hand with packing. It wasn’t that I needed her to physically help shove clothes and shoes into bags, it was that I couldn’t decide what I should or shouldn’t take. In the end I bought four more suitcases and took the entire lot. I swear it was my luggage that had given that last plane trouble lifting off the ground.

Outside the Caribbean air tickled my senses, or perhaps it was the sun that made me sneeze.

“You don’t have allergies, do you?” he asked as he piled the luggage into every available space.

“Only to planes, boats, spiders, and anything that makes me scream.”

He chuckled.

I breathed in the warm air and looked up at the clear blue sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. It made a change from the cold that I had endured over the past winter. Between December and March, it was brutal in New York. I felt a bead of sweat drip down my back. Like my packing fiasco, I couldn’t determine if I needed a coat or not so I had brought one with me. It wasn’t thick but the Caribbean sun was practically burning a hole through it. I tossed it over my arm and slipped into the black SUV. The smell of new leather and the rolls of cold cloths were welcome. And as for the air conditioning it was heavenly.

After Jamaal got in he leaned over.

“Water?” He handed me an ice-cold plastic bottle. Beads of condensation trickled down the outside.

“Jamaal, this is upscale?”

“What? The vehicle?”

“Yeah.”

I had noticed most of the taxis and other vehicles outside were banged up. They looked as if they had been on the road for far too long. Whereas this one was in pristine condition.

“New owner of the island.”

He shifted the car into gear and we pulled away. Outside, families were cramming into taxis. Luggage was stacked on the top. A rickety old bus shot by with islanders clinging to the back. Dotted all around the airport were palm trees and exotic plants making the whole place look like a paradise.

We hit a few potholes on the way to the boat launch.

“So you are Emily’s sister?”

“Yes. You knew her?”

“Ah, me and Ms. Emily go way back. She was always good to me.”

I nodded, thinking fondly about the way were as kids. Emily was my twin sister. She was an entrepreneur at heart, and I knew she was going to do great things with her life from an early age. I just never knew those years would be cut short so soon.

“Where are you from?”

“Brooklyn.”

“Oh, the Big Apple. I’ve always wanted to visit there.”

“Trust me, you’re not missing much.”

I thought about what my life was like before this. Rushing through clogged-up streets and subways trying to get to work on time. Dealing with cab drivers and offhanded remarks from men. I swear the homeless were nicer than those I worked with. Henry, I shook my head at the thought of him. Every day I would see him panhandling on the way to my job at the
National Enquirer
. What initially started as me dropping a few dollar bills into his cup, eventually became me bringing him a coffee. I’d learned a lot from that man. He wasn’t your typical down-and-outer who spent his money on drugs and booze. He had lost his job and had his home taken from him by the bank. The guy had fallen on hard times. Before I left New York, he told me that he had finally landed a job working as a cleaner. I admired him for taking something that others might have turned their nose up at.

“But you have Yellow Cabs, the Yankees, hotdogs and Donald Trump.”

I let out a laugh?

“Trust me, it’s all overrated. Well, kind of...”

In all honesty I loved the city. Before moving there from Nevada it had been the only place I had ever wanted to live. Photos, videos, and movies romanticized the place. That was until I had to make ends meet and deal with a womanizing landlord and a boyfriend that cheated on me.

“So you are taking over Ms. Emily’s place?”

“I’m going to give it a shot. Yeah. The photos looked amazing.”

He eyed me in the mirror.

“Uh. Huh,” he replied. I caught something in his tone. Amusement?

We pulled in at a private boat launch. I had expected the boat to be a tiny fishing boat. When Jamaal pointed it out my eyes widened like silver dollars. It was a huge 47-foot, two-tier white luxury yacht. This was no run-of-the-mill boat, it was a super yacht. The kind that celebrities were seen on, the ones that usually came across my desk back at the
Enquirer
.

I looked at the deep turquoise ocean. For as far as the eye could see large and small boats were bobbing around. Fishermen and those who had more money than sense. Or perhaps they did have sense?

“Jamaal, the company you work for? They pay for this?”

He was getting assistance from another guy. They had loaded up the luggage on a trolley and were in the process of wheeling it down to the dock when he replied, “Yep, pretty sweet, isn’t it?”

“Has it always been like this?”

The two men burst out laughing. He brought the trolley to a halt in front of me. “You see those boats over there?”

I arched my hand over my eyes to lessen the glare of the sun. He pointed to two colorful metal fishing boats.

“Those used to be ours.”

I nodded slowly, thankful that I wasn’t going to be getting into those rust buckets.

“I’m guessing they pay you well?”

“I couldn’t have a better job. Where in the world do you get to serve others and practically live like a king, while basking in the beauty of these sun-drenched islands?”

He beginning to make me forget the two flights and any fear I had of the water. I boarded the boat with some assistance. Looking out across the ocean, I could now see why Emily had been drawn to this place. It was beautiful. I tried to keep that picture in my mind and not allow myself to think of what it was like when a hurricane swept through here. The engine roared to life and the other man navigated it out of the dock into vast ocean. The journey would only take twenty minutes. What could possibly go wrong?

I returned to the present moment. My head dropped over the side as I felt my insides turning inside out. It was brutal. I wouldn’t have cared if the ocean swallowed us up right there and then. I felt like I had drunk one too many vodkas.

“Here you go, Ms. Hayley.”

“Thank you.” I took the bottle of water, and a cloth. Wiped my mouth and drank it down trying to replenish my body with fluids. Jamaal took a seat and continued puffing away on his extra-large doobie. The smell made my sickness even worse, but I wasn’t going to tell him to put it out. Instead, I just moved from the path of smoke pouring out.

“So Ms. Hayley, you plan on keeping the three cottages?”

“That’s the plan, or at least seeing how business progresses.”

“You are lucky. There’s not many cottages that are independently owned.”

“Independently?”

“Yeah, most of them sold after the island was bought.”

“By who?”

“The Waylands.”

My gag reflexes kicked in again. I wasn’t sure if it was the motion of the boat or the news. The Waylands had made a name for themselves over the past ten years. While other billionaires invested in oil or the latest Silicon Valley venture, they bought up islands, did them up, and resold them. They were known for being a shady family. Their out of business hour antics were forever filling up the pages of the
Enquirer
. Mainly it was the father. He was a womanizer. He had four kids. Most of them kept to themselves. Max Wayland had always been protective of them. Though his daughter was starting to make headlines as someone who liked to party a lot. They were filthy rich and would never want for anything. None of them knew what it meant to do a hard day’s work in their life.

“I’m sorry to hear about your sister. It was tragic.”

I nodded, trying to pull myself together. As the boat bounced up and down on the waves I looked at myself in the water and for a second I thought I could see her. My sister and I were twins. We were the spitting image of each other. Long dark hair, green eyes, and a figure that had come from hours of being driven hard by a personal trainer. I can’t say I enjoyed working out as I didn’t. I hated jumping up and down like a jack-in-the-box. I was quite content to hit the gym once or twice a week until I met Markus. He was always yapping on at me about how I was getting fat. I wasn’t stupid, I saw him scanning other women when we went out together. Perhaps I acted a little naïve but I honestly thought if I got a personal trainer that I would eventually change that. It didn’t. And to top it off, he ended up cheating on me with a friend of mine. It was horrendous. I wanted to disappear from the face of the earth. The embarrassment was only made worse by the fact that she worked at the same place as I did.

Which I guess in many ways made making the decision to come to the island that much easier. The island Petit Columbus was forty miles south of St. Vincent in the Grenadine Islands. As we drew closer I took in the breathtaking view. Its gentle rolling hills were covered in vast green tropical woodland encircled by two miles of white sandy beaches. Tiki huts with lounge chairs and hammocks could be seen in various spots. The water near the beach was crystal calm and crystal clear.

“Yeah, I’m gonna miss her, Ms. Hayley.”

“Me too,” I replied looking towards the island.