The Billionaire's Lockdown Baby

by Rayner, Holly

  Good. She was already getting him to relax.

  “Governor,” I said, stretching my hand out to take his as he stood up. “I’m guessing you know exactly why I’m here today.”

  He nodded. “I know,” he said heavily, “and I have to say I’ve been expecting this visit.”

  I’d just taken his hand when the entire world shook, again, shoving the desk forwards and sending Aubrey flying across the room.

  Chapter 22

  Aubrey

  The shaking was so powerful this time that it actually threw me into the air, and my chair flying out from under me.

  I gasped as Damon’s arms came around me and he brought me to the ground, the two of us rolling like acrobats across the floor and coming to a sudden stop against the wall. He curled himself around me, forcing me into a fetal position in front of him, and put his hands over my… face.

  Okay, this was all getting way too weird.

  The shaking had stopped, which I assumed meant that we were okay to get up. Preferably without someone else’s hands on our faces. Because seriously, have you ever had someone cover your face with their hands? It’s creepy.

  “Damon, what are you doing?” I asked, my voice muffled by his hands.

  I felt a jerk behind me, followed by a rapid shuffling back of the body that had been pressed up against me—as if he’d just realized what he’d done, and was immediately second-guessing his actions.

  “Um, I was protecting you. Obviously,” he said from further away.

  I turned over and lifted one brow in his direction. “By trying to smother me?”

  He gave me a rueful grin. “I didn’t want anything falling on your face or cutting you or anything. It seemed logical at the time.”

  I grinned back instinctively—and not only because of his statement, but with the adrenaline of the moment. Now that I was actually able to think of something other than Damon holding me up against the front of his body, I was feeling all sorts of giddy to be on stable land again.

  And I was able to sort through what had just happened.

  Another rocking explosion. And one that had felt even more sudden and violent than the one I’d already experienced. Given what had happened a few days ago, I thought there was probably only one explanation for that.

  Another volcano eruption. In which case…

  “Do you think we’re okay?” I asked, scrambling to my feet. “That had to be another eruption. Do you think…”

  “I think that if we were in any immediate trouble, it would have already happened,” Damon answered, mirroring my movements with his own. “We’re still alive, which means we weren’t that close. Still.”

  He reached out and took my hand, pulling me toward him—which made me think he wasn’t actually finished playing hero.

  I leaned into him, not finished letting him, and looked around. We were alone now, though I didn’t know where the governor could possibly have gone in such a short period of time.

  “Let’s go find someone who can answer some questions,” Damon murmured.

  We shuffled back out of the office, on a mission to find someone with information, while in the back of my head I laughed at us for looking like two people out of a movie.

  “Tourists caught in volcano explosion fall in love during isolation,” the narrator would say in his booming voice. “But will they survive to get home and explore their love?”

  Wait, what?

  * * *

  We were once again sent into lockdown, the governor’s office hustling us back to our hotel with instructions to stay inside as much as possible and make sure we were always close to shelter.

  Which was, you know, annoying. Since we’d just freaking escaped shelter. A much prettier, much closer-to-the-beach sort of shelter.

  A shelter that included easy access of the water. And surfing.

  Damon and I parted in the hallway in front of our doors, both of us, I thought, too shaken up to want to do much more than get into a safe space and recover our cool. Personally, I wanted more comfortable clothes than what I was wearing and a stiff drink. After all, even living on Hawaii, we didn’t experience volcano eruptions that often.

  And those aren’t the sorts of things you just shake off easily.

  I got into my suite—which was bright and airy, with a view of the water, thank goodness—and wondered suddenly if it would be the worst thing to just stay in this room for a couple of days. I had plenty of reading material with me. I wouldn’t have to deal with any more drama.

  Because I had a lot of thinking to do.

  And some emails to draft.

  No, I probably didn’t have any internet coverage, since that seemed to go down when the volcanos were active—something, I thought, that Damon’s company could perhaps extend operations to take care of?—but I could still use the word processing app on my laptop.

  Maybe I would just lay low for a couple of days. Keep to myself. Try to figure some stuff out. Try to get back on my own road again, rather than the road I’d been sharing with someone else.

  Because God knew, spending isolation time with Damon had done nothing but introduce new complications into our relationship. Sure, I’d been having a terrific time with him. The truth was, I’d been having the time of my life—both when we were actually doing something and when we were just talking late into the night. I’d thought I was falling in love with him, and him with me. Up until it suddenly stopped and he went back to being Business Damon.

  Up until the moment when he evidently forgot everything we’d talked about. Everything that had happened between us during those days on the beach.

  Yes, I realized, it was time to spend some time with myself, and only myself. I needed to get away from the distraction that was Damon Parker. Especially if I needed to prepare to give him more bad news. Spending time alone was the safer option here. I needed to get myself back on the track which I’d come to Saipan on—and that meant keeping my eyes on the prize. I was going to be leaving Hawaii, and Damon, as soon as we got back to the island.

  Which meant there was absolutely no reason to allow myself to fall any deeper in love with him.

  * * *

  Of course, the whole staying-in-my-room thing only lasted for as long as it took for me to start getting hungry. Although I did have a kitchenette sort of thing in my suite, the way we were set up was that the larger kitchen—and the one with the food in it—was in the space between our personal compartments.

  Anyone would think that Damon and I were being set up to have to interact with each other. And though I didn’t think that had been intentional, I also didn’t see any way around it.

  I opened the door that led from my room into the kitchen area and poked my head out, running my gaze quickly across the kitchen. It wasn’t as well-outfitted as the one in the villa had been, but it would definitely do. And if Janice had done her job the way I’d trained her to do it, then this kitchen also had a full selection of food. Hopefully, there was stuff that was easier to cook than what had been in the villa. And faster. Because I didn’t want to be hanging out in here if I didn’t have to be.

  I moved quickly toward the pantry, already making a mental list of the things I would have ordered if I was the one setting up this particular dwelling, and when I opened the door, I saw with pleasure that I was mostly right—and that Janice had in fact managed to do her job well. I saw an array of quick pasta, soups, and chips and crackers, as well as some jars of sauces and the like—in case, I supposed, we actually wanted to go all out in the cooking department.

  I didn’t. I just wanted something to keep me from starving to death in my room. And if I was sneaky, I thought, I’d be able to move some of this stuff to my individual kitchenette, to make later.

  I grabbed a bag of chips and a bag of cookies, making plans to come back later for some pasta and sauce, and then turned, ready to make my escape—only to find that it had become impossible. Damon was standing right there, watching me with half a grin on his face.


  “So you’re just going to eat and run?” he asked, giving the packages in my hands a pointed look.

  I chuckled awkwardly, more than a little bit embarrassed at being caught. “Just looking for something to snack on,” I muttered, trying to make my way past him.

  His hand shot out and grabbed my arm, though, stopping me. “What, nothing for me?”

  I looked up and met his eyes, then looked away, reminding myself that I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to let myself fall prey to that particular trap again.

  “I’ve seen you cooking now, Damon. I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself. Your secret’s out.”

  He snapped his fingers as if he’d just been hustled, and shook his head. “Darn it, and I had worked for so long to keep that particular talent quiet.”

  I chuckled again—this time more naturally—and shook my head at him, meeting his eyes once more. “But now I know the truth. And you’re never going to be able to live it down.”

  I made my way back to my room without thinking about the double meaning in those words—and without offering to share my cookies or chips with him. We were on speaking terms, sure, and I had no doubt that we’d get this business deal done with flying colors. We’d go in there and kick butt, and get back to the office in Hawaii with victory in our blood. We always did.

  But I had no intention of falling back into the trap I’d stepped into on the beach. I just couldn’t afford the heartbreak. Which meant that for the rest of the time on this island, I had to keep him at arm’s length. No cooking dinner. No trying to teach him how to surf. No little field trips out of the hotel.

  No risking myself on something that he was backing away from as quickly as he could.

  Chapter 23

  Damon

  I watched her walk through the door and into her private area of the suite, my blood dancing in my veins and my skin buzzing with excitement, my brain echoing with that last comment of hers.

  My secret was out. She knew who I actually was. She knew what I actually thought.

  And I wasn’t just talking about the cooking thing.

  The thing was… in the last week, I’d told her things I’d never told anyone else. Things I hadn’t ever even really thought about, even in the privacy of my own head. Not if I could help it. I’d told her about how I grew up with parents who hadn’t really loved—or even really liked—each other. I’d talked about what it was like after my dad left, when it was just my mom and me. I’d even shared my relationship with my dad—something I never told anyone about—and some of my hopes and dreams from when I was a kid.

  They were secrets I’d kept from everyone. And I was starting to realize that I’d kept them because I hadn’t had anyone I trusted enough to tell them to.

  The truth was, I’d never thought I would mean enough to someone else that they would want to hear where I’d come from. I’d gone so long being nothing more than the rich guy, the CEO, the person other people wanted to hang out with just because he was a great connection, that I’d started to think that that was all I could ever be. Or rather…

  I walked to the fridge, got a beer out, popped the top, and took a long sip.

  Maybe it was actually that no one else had ever seen me as anything more than the rich CEO. Maybe they’d put me into that box and never even thought that I might want out of it. And maybe that was what had kept me from breaking free.

  Either way, it didn’t really matter. The outcome was the same. I’d spent my entire adult life fulfilling that expectation, and it had kept me from ever showing anyone the more human parts of me.

  And I’d never even realized it. I’d thought I was living a free and easy lifestyle. Never taking anything too seriously, never staying in one place for too long, and definitely never settling down with one specific purpose… or person. But it turned out, I’d been wrong.

  I hadn’t been free. I’d been trapped in that life.

  With Aubrey this week, I’d suddenly opened up. I’d started feeling free, for the first time since I could remember.

  And it had been wonderful.

  All of which led me to being more than a little bit excited about the idea of being stuck here with her for a little bit longer, my senses buzzing with anticipation. Because I couldn’t lie about that. I couldn’t pretend that I hadn’t done a secret little jig in my head at the news that we were going back into lockdown, courtesy of the most recent volcanic eruption.

  Of course, that little jig came after the eruption itself. The shaking, and the sudden feeling like the world was tipping right on its side—and putting Aubrey in danger. Because the fear that had rushed through my heart and gone spreading out into all my limbs like a flood of lava, mimicking what must have come from the volcano? Yeah, that had been unlike anything I’d ever experienced. And I didn’t particularly want to experience that part again.

  I also hadn’t exactly thought any further along that line—like why I’d had that reaction. What it might mean about my feelings for the girl. What it might mean for our future.

  And that right there? That reminded me that I’d already been through all of this. I’d already had this exact same discussion with myself, and come to conclusions about how to handle everything. And one little eruption wasn’t going to change that.

  I already knew that I couldn’t afford to do anything about any of this until we got back home. The rest of this trip was for business. It had to be. The sooner we got our business done with the governor, the sooner we could go home. And at that point, I meant to sit down with Aubrey and have a long, long talk about her staying in Hawaii. With me. With my company.

  Until then, I was just going to play it cool. We might be stuck together in another lockdown, and I might be beyond excited about it, but that didn’t mean I could afford to let my heart run away with me like it had before.

  This time, I had to keep myself under control. And that was all there was to it.

  * * *

  The next two days passed in something like a blur—though it was nothing like the blur that I’d experienced in that villa on the beach. None of that floating-through-a-cloud stuff. No laughing long into the night over too many bottles of wine. No learning how to surf while trying my best to look as impressive as I could—while falling again and again and again. No long afternoons spent floating on my back in the ocean, Aubrey by my side.

  If I’d thought being kept in one place without any access to internet or transportation was going to be like that again, I’d been dead wrong.

  First of all, there was no beach this time. We were on the beach, but our outlet from the hotel was into the city, and though we could have gotten to the ocean if we’d wanted to, it would have been a longer walk than either of us were apparently in the mood for.

  And I’m not usually one for naming names, but one of us definitely wasn’t in the mood to spend that much time with the other.

  The Aubrey I’d seen on the beach was gone. That soft, smiling girl—the one who’d tried every single surfboard she could find with me, and finally given up and decided we were going to do something that I might actually be good at—was long gone. Or rather…

  Well, I was guessing maybe she’d gone back into the vault that Aubrey usually kept her in.

  And I didn’t have the first idea why that might be. Even worse, I couldn’t remember what I’d done to get her to come out in the first place. And believe me, I tried. I cooked us dinner. I gave her wine. I even asked the hotel reception if they had Trivial Pursuit, since Aubrey had proved to be such a whiz at the game.

  But when I’d suggested a match, she quickly turned me down and retreated back to her room, saying that she was tired and was going to get some reading done.

  Sure, we still ate together and saw each other regularly through the days. And when we did, she was perfectly nice to me.

  But there was none of that spark. None of the fire that we’d been working with when we were in that little place by the beach. It was like we�
��d gone back to being the people we’d been before, when we were nothing more than a CEO and his assistant. I didn’t get that sexy little sideways smile from her, or the jokes. She barely even bothered to meet my eyes when we were speaking.

  And not being able to get that back again—not even understanding why it had left—was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life.

  Because there was something—someone—right in front of me that I wanted more than anything. And I couldn’t have it. I couldn’t just buy it or have someone procure it for me, and I definitely couldn’t just describe it for Aubrey and count on her to go out and figure out what it was and where to find it.

  Any other problem would have gone right to her. Any other question would have warranted an immediate email, or a meeting in my office, or a middle-of-the-night text that she would have lectured me about later, once she’d fixed my problem or found whatever it was I wanted.

  Because she was my fixer. She was the one who always figured out what was going wrong and either solved the problem for me or told me what I needed to do to fix it.

  Who was I supposed to call when she was the problem, herself?

  And how was I going to fix this before we left this island—and she started packing for her new job?

  Chapter 24

  Aubrey

  I got off the phone with the manager who handled our business here on the islands, relief flooding my body. We’d been released from the lockdown—again—which meant that we could move around the island—again. Which meant I could get out of this God-forsaken suite which, although lovely, was also very connected to the suite of the man who I both loved and hated right now.