BILLIONAIRE Island: Idyllic Mischief Read online

  BILLIONAIRE ISLAND Idyllic Mischief

  (Billionaire Island Book One)

  by

  Savannah May

  www.DirtySexyRomance.com

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  This book is a work of fiction and the product of the author's imagination. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.

  Copyright © 2015 Savannah May. All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.

  Version 2015.05.29

  This book was previously published as “Mauritius Idyllic Mischief” under a different pen name. If you discover you have already read Mauritius please return the book for a refund.

  Excerpt

  Five minutes later they turned in toward land and Damn coasted the speedboat into the sand in front of his sprawling beach house. Sasha jumped out and waded through the water while Laurent tip-toed across the engine and jumped off the prow where the water was shallowest.

  Indie swung her legs over the side to follow Sash, but Damien was in the water in front of her. He flipped her knees over his bicep and caught her up in the other so she was held in his arms, like a maiden in a faint.

  “That really isn't necessary,” Indie said, wriggling to get down.

  “Shhh.” He waded through the water with her nestled into the smooth mounds of his chest. It was ridiculous, the water barely covered his calves, he was treating her like a little girl, but still her heart was flittering from being so close to him, wrapped so tight in his corded arms.

  “There that wasn't too bad was it?” He didn't set her down into the softest powder sand until they were halfway up the beach and the lights of the house illuminated them.

  As Indie reconnected with earth, he held her to him with one arm circling her waist and a deep burrowing gaze such that she was sure, for just an instant he was going to kiss her. His mouth leaned down so very close, the salty smell of his warm skin was intoxicating and her body expanded ready to feel his mouth envelop hers.

  Chapter One

  At the same time it was both the bestest news and the worst.

  “Congratulations, it's positive.”

  Indie's mind started the hula-hoop as soon as the words left the nurse's mouth. But that isn't possible. How is that possible? I mean, you know, we don't actually... any more. In so many ways she was excited to hear she was pregnant.

  Big relief to hear confirmation that your body can accomplish the task it's built for. Maybe every woman carried within an unspoken fear that it may not, until solid proof that it can is delivered. But did it have to be now? Indie did want a baby. She'd always thought she'd be pregnant around this point, a year after the wedding. But not now, not with the way things are. Shit, did she say that out loud?

  “Oh, you're not pleased,' the doctor's nurse said, looking displeased herself. Obviously Indie's face had spoken out loud and telegraphed to the shocked woman that she didn't want her baby. Well what business was it of hers to judge? She had no idea of the situation and it was not one conducive to welcoming a newborn. If I can barely get through each day walking on eggshells around Bradley, it's hardly fair to subject an innocent child to the strain.

  “Well, the doctor will want to see you in the next couple of days,” the nurse continued. Was there a note of snippy in her voice or was it Indie's guilty projection? She felt like that woman-the one that wasn't thrilled about having a baby.

  “You're already five and a half weeks along so we need to get you straightened out soon.” Indie was sure she detected a note of menace in the words 'straightened out' and their implication she was going to take the negative route.

  Five and a half weeks! That was how it was possible. The weekend Bradley took her to Nantucket and promised he'd turn over an entire barrow full of new leaves and things were going to be different now.

  They had such an incredibly romantic couple of days, walking on the white sand beach, cracking lobsters at a dockside restaurant and laughing hysterically as the shell flew everywhere. They were completely relaxed for the first time in over a year and Indie forced back the quell of anxiety that rose each time her husband lifted the bottle to refill the wine glasses with cold Sancerre.

  Usually Brad didn't like wasting money on a good bottle of wine, seeing as he was only going to throw it back fast in a race to drain it. But that weekend he hardly touched a drop.

  And she'd believed every one of his promises to reform. Believed he was working on changing because he loved her- their marriage, the family they would have, was worth the effort. And they'd made love for the first time in months, first on the floor of the cottage he'd rented, busting through the front door after the lobster dinner and tugging at each others clothes in eagerness to celebrate the start of new lives with good sex.

  Then they took it to the bedroom, giggling as they tiptoed across the floor in front of the undraped windows, half hoping the nosy neighbors were out on their porch even though it was nearly midnight. That weekend took them back to the days they first met and Bradley was stoked enough by falling in love to stop, or at least get control of, his drinking.

  But just like the days immediately following marriage, Brad's promises fell away with the extreme effort of avoiding a drink. Soon to be replaced by recrimination at the one who was forcing him into it.

  “Mrs Malone, are you okay?” The nurse, Emma, she was sure that was the woman's name, was looking at her strangely.

  “Yes, sorry, I'm fine. It was just a bit of a shock, you see, my husband and I, we aren't, I-er,” She trailed off, halted by the awkwardness of explaining.

  “I understand.” Emma was looking into her face with compassion now, perhaps recognizing that not every new arrival was a joyous event. “Why don't you make an appointment for later this week?”

  “Yes.” Indie emerged from the office onto the ordered craziness of eighty-sixth street and began wandering like an amnesiac back downtown along Madison. Almost six weeks pregnant-it was too enormous for her head to contain. Her mind felt like it was spilling over, unable to hold another thought.

  She got it now of course, realized that somewhere in her subconscious or unconscious or wherever thoughts we can't handle live, she had known. She had known at work when Betty, the fitter had measured her across the chest to double check. Betty, the dominatrix of pattern and cloth who could size a garment and a girl to within a millimeter, had known just by looking.

  “Thirty-six and three quarters,” she'd said with the shock horror equal to a forty-four double D measurement. “You've expanded two and a half inches, dear, that won't do.”

  No, it wouldn't do, her job as a showroom model required her to maintain an exact standard size six in order to fulfill the job description. She was responsible for every item of clothing rolling off the line fitting true to size and not causing thousands of returns. Even as Betty, the mother figure for all the girls and seamstresses in the showroom, looked at Indie kindly and patted a hand lightly on her stomach, she remained in denial. Betty was surely just checking to see if the
weight was expanding her all over.

  Betty had known, or suspected what Indie had repressed. Shit, it wouldn't be long before she'd be forced to give up work. She tugged at her skirt band, checking the tightness as she walked the Avenue, for once not stopping to gaze into all the designer store windows lining Madison Avenue and seeing herself as a showroom model in Paris for one of the great couturiers. It definitely felt snug and, oh crap- Paris.

  How long would it be before her body expanded beyond acceptable showroom model measurements? September was around the corner and the European trade shows were three weeks away. She'd been looking forward to getting away from her New York strained home life for a while and seeing the bright lights of London, Paris, Milan. Each city tour lasted a week to show the line and sell orders for the new season.

  She knew she was already blasting the seams of the blouses with her exploding boobs and it hit her that she wouldn't be able to go on the Eurotrip for the first time in five years.

  Indie's heart fell even heavier into her legs as she meandered along half-blindly, never a good choice on Manhattan's loaded sidewalks. She'd miss all the good times in Europe, going to dinners and parties with clients and the other rag trade showroom owners who were competitive back home but liked to play together on the road.

  Worse, she'd miss meeting up with her best friend Sasha, in London. Damn, shit, bugger. She was so looking forward to a good heart to heart with Sash. She hadn't seen her in ages, not since her friend's fairy tale romance with a giant had taken her off to live on a luxurious tropical island in the Indian Ocean.

  Sasha and Indie were about as different to look at as two girls could possibly be, so there had never been any model jealousy between them. While Indie was standard showroom model height with long honey gold hair, Sash was almost six feet tall, with stunning coffee colored skin and sleek black curls from the mix of her Jamaican father and ice-blond Danish mother. Her legs stretched almost as high as Indie's armpits and she looked like an Amazon warrior woman, which was the look her showroom had paid her highly to sell for them.

  Suddenly convinced her own legs weren't going to go the distance, Indie hailed a cab and rode the rest of the way back downtown. With the time difference it was hard to get a Skype call through to Sasha all the way around the planet on the island of Mauritius. She had to wait more than a day before her friend returned her call.

  “That's great news, you're going to be a fab mommy.” Sasha was genuinely thrilled. “Don't worry, it's a breeze. Nowhere near as hard as everyone makes out.” She had two little girls aged five and three, who Indie could tell from photos already had their mothers looks, height and curls, except theirs were blonde.

  “Easy for you,” Indie laughed. “Not everyone is blessed with your idyllic lifestyle, not to mention a tribe of live-in servants.”

  “Shhh, we don't say servants, it makes them angsty,” Sasha whispered in her funky British accent, looking behind in case the maid was eavesdropping.

  “Well anyway, with my expanding waistline I'm going to have to quit the showroom and I won't be coming to London next month. That is if I keep it.” There, she'd said it.

  “Oh, you and Brad don't want children?” Sasha's face changed, falling almost as fast as the nurse's.

  “Brad doesn't know yet, I haven’t told him. I'm trying to decide what to do.”

  “Things aren't getting any better?” They saw each other so rarely and the time difference made chatting so impossible that Indie's bestie had little idea what she was living with every day.

  “No, in fact I think they're getting worse,” Indie said, tears pushing at the edge of her eyeball sockets. “This baby is almost an immaculate conception because we never have sex at all, shit, we barely even talk any more. Every connection we have seems to revolve around the drinking. Him evading the possibility of the problem coming up and having to do anything about it and me wanting to fix the problem but not wanting to face the blow up if I start the conversation.”

  “That's tough. But at least he's away a lot, right?”

  Sash had no idea what her friend was talking about, no one did who wasn't living right in it. There was always an attitude that the drinker should just get control and stop, when the whole issue was not wanting or being able to gain control. Control was the problem and alcohol was the only solution to letting go of the pain of maintaining control over the pain every moment of living.

  Bradley on the surface was amusing and highly driven, a real Mad Man who'd achieved success in his advertising career. The clients loved his ability to talk them into any crazy new marketing idea that would cost them a bundle while wining and dining them to the limit. His life was fine restaurants and whisking the clients away for heli-skiing in Aspen and Whistler. He was very experienced in the art of seduction, sales and empty promises- his daily grind in the advertising world.

  “He travels around the country shooting commercials but he's not away for weeks at a time like Tolar.”

  Indie had been with Sasha the night she met her husband, Tolar, at the shows in London, before he whisked her friend away to his island home on Mauritius. She had found him pretty terrifying. He only ever wore black leather and was seven feet tall with a booming German voice that for some reason made her quake. Every time he spoke it sounded like Colonel's orders.

  Indie was younger then of course, Sash and she were both twenty while Tolar was easily forty. He and his friends seemed as ancient as the hills when they took the models to the Blue Bar after the show, then on to dinner at Nobu, followed by more drinks at the Met bar and dancing at private members club, Tramp.

  It was exciting but that was their life- even lowly showroom models were the ones in the room every guy wanted to fuck. They were completely accustomed to every client or the owners of other showrooms trying to get them to drop them. Sasha found it hysterically funny while Indie was a little more reluctant, waiting for the one and all that.

  It happened really fast between Tolar and Sasha. That night they couldn't keep their eyes off each other and Sash was plainly delighted at the attention Tolar showered on her. Indie could hardly blame her although usually they had each others backs when out with old guys and Sasha was dropping the ball. She left Indie at the mercy of Willy, one of Tolar's buddies who must have been almost fifty for crissake.

  Tolar and Willy owned a leather factory on an island in the Indian Ocean. He delivered Sasha a ton of expensive clothes and she started dressing like him in top-to-toe black leather. He took her to dinner every night, and cocktails, and dancing. In the teetering heels Sasha always wore, she was at least in proportion to his size and at the clubs they appeared like a giant warlord couple from the future.

  When the parade moved on to Paris for the week of trade shows in the city of romance, Tolar appeared on the last day. Sasha was getting friendly with a cute guy from a famous French house, but Tolar stomped all over that.

  “He's so powerful,” she giggled. “I love when he tells me what to do. I feel safe with him.”

  Indie understood that Sasha needed to feel secure after her lousy upbringing with a father who disappeared permanently out of her life to get back on the musician touring circuit – he was a very famous singer back in the day- and a mother who continued with the groupie behavior despite having a toddler in tow. She just couldn't understand why it had to be with Tolar who she sensed was chasing a trophy.

  “Don't be jealous.” Sasha burst into the change room waggling her hand under Indie's nose.

  “Jesus fucking Jehoopiters,” Indie squealed, taking her hands as they jumped around the room.

  “It's almost two friggin' carats,” she said, “It must be worth a goldmine.”

  “Yeah but you hardly know him.”

  “Ah don't piss on the parade, Indie, aren't you happy for me?”

  “Of course I'm over the Moon and Venus for you, I only wondered, you know, do you love him? 'Cos this is for freaking ever, not just for Christmas.”

  Chapter Two
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br />   When Indie got off the call with Sasha, she hadn't managed to fulfill her hope of reaching a decision after talking it over with her BFF. Sasha's life was completely charmed, living on a tropical island in a massive house with private pool close to the beach, a rich husband, two beautiful children and an outhouse full of servants. All she had to do was play tennis and go horse-back riding or water-skiing, all of which she'd become expert at through constant practice. She had no idea what instability and insecurity felt like.

  For months Indie had been questioning herself every single day, hell, every single minute of the day, and the thought pressed its unpleasant query on her again- How much more can you take? As a kid from a broken home, she always swore she'd only get married if she could be absolutely sure that it would never end up in divorce. Okay, that was kind of girly because there are no absolute guarantees in love, not even if you were Princess Diana. But she'd made it very clear to Bradley, when it became obvious he was moving toward forever. She had to be sure they had the kind of connection that meant they'd work together through every mishap life was bound to fling in their path. She figured people made the decision to separate far too easily now. They decided the love was gone and there was nothing left to fight for. Maybe taking the challenge and getting up in its grill together would be the catalyst for finding out love was there all along. It just got buried by the wayside of overwhelming issues.

  Brad had sworn so many times that he was in it, truly in, that perhaps she should have known it was part of the chase. Maybe he just needed to convince her and conquer all final resistance. She'd observed the reckless abandonment to love in her best friend yet couldn't see it in her own yard. I'll never know for sure I guess, but one thing I do know is that one person can't make a commitment to a marriage if the other one has an engagement elsewhere. Indie felt she was working alone, trying to bring them together, get some kind of honest communication going, with someone who was existing on a completely different plane. Separating would make no real difference because Bradley was already so separated she was living a life totally alone.