BILLIONAIRE Island: Idyllic Mischief

by May, Savannah

  When Indie came to next morning, the girls were gone and the sounds of giggling replaced the smashing glass downstairs.

  “Come on you, it's past nine. We're going for a ride.” Sasha strode into the room and threw back the white linen drapes across the wooden shutters, already dressed in skintight riding pants and heavy boots.

  “We are? You know I don't ride.” And I've barely recovered from yesterday's sporting exertion. Her biceps and butt cheeks screamed out with every small move as she tried to rise out of bed.

  “Well you can learn. Or you can watch me today if you're tired. I want to show you my dressage.”

  Reluctantly Indie left the small security of the bedroom and went downstairs. As Sasha's guest she felt she had to do whatever her hostess requested. Tolar was nowhere in the house. Unusual that he'd moved from his central position on the outdoor sofa, ordering the servants about, waiting for his buddies to arrive and drink all his liquor. His absence was obvious from the lack of tension in her friend, her little girls and the servants. And he wasn't there when they returned back from the long excursion high into the hills in the interior where the swanky riding club was located. They had eaten a huge Sunday lunch in the country club dining room, surprised by the sudden appearance of Patrice which Sasha feigned shock at very badly.

  “I really must start bringing a book,” Indie said “And stop talking to myself while she disappears with her lover and leaves me alone like a lemon.”

  Sasha said they'd stay home that night and dine on champagne and dim sum. Indie was not looking forward to being ensconced with Tolar and his gross German buddies, both of whom in the past, had tried with no sophistication or charm at all to screw her.

  She went into the kitchen for the ice bucket and screamed loud enough to bring Fi, Youssou's toothless wife, running from their shack in the yard at back of the house. Youssou had arrived clutching a dirty sack and tipped its contents on the countertop – a bloody, mangled rabbit he'd caught for that night's curry.

  “It's quiet around here,” Indie said as they settled on to the terrace in the evening light with icy champagne.

  “Three glorious weeks,” Sasha grinned. “Tolar's gone to the factory in Indonesia for three whole weeks and the naughty mice are coming out to play.”

  Sasha turned off the main road into Grand Bay, into the middle of a bush that turned out to be an unmarked dirt track opposite Damien's beach house. She had dragged Indie around all morning, to her factory, to three meetings where she made her wait outside. Now the car headed inland, fighting its way through a thick bank of overgrowth hidden under tall trees. She pulled into a small unkempt yard and let Indie out in front of a tiny box house. Laurent came to the door of the house and they both watched Sasha maneuver a cramped three-point turn and drive out again at full throttle, as though she didn't want to be seen in the neighborhood.

  “So, this is your showroom?” Indie followed Laurent into the bare house- a yellowing kitchen on one side of the stair, a living area on the other, furnished with a round wooden table, simple wood chairs and a sagged sofa, no other decor. The furthest thing from Paco Rabanne Paris.

  “This is my house,” Laurent said. She reckoned the guy was about to fall off the cliff into deep depression the way he was always in the dirge dumps. He was wrapped in an even greater sense of loneliness than she was.

  “Oh, you live here?” Surprise threw out the disdainful response before Indie could bite it back. “Well, it's got a lot of potential, I guess.”

  Laurent looked at her, blinked and they both cracked up laughing.

  “What the fuck are you doing in a place like this? Didn’t Damien invite you to come down here and start a business with him?” she asked, grateful for having a more caring best friend.

  “He did and I was staying with him at the beach house for a month. Then he tossed me over here.”

  “He did not. Why?” Something to do with the fights and tantrums?

  “His big brother got married and the bitch wife, it's a very French girl, wanted the beach so they moved in.”

  “That place looks big enough to contain half the population,” Indie said.

  “Sure, but Madame does not want interlopers in her new relation. She complained to the father and he told me he had a nice place to offer me free of charge.”

  “This place?” Some billionaire with a dump like this in his property portfolio.

  “It's the house of the fucking servants that used to work in the beach house when the family lived there.”

  “Sheesh, no wonder you're mad.” Tee shirts and servants quarters, something must have happened in Paris to make him downgrade quite so far. “Pretty mean of the brother's wife.”

  “She's working on getting Damien out of there too. He's very stubborn and is digging his foots in but I think she will get her ways.” God, his accent was hot, and the way he mashed up words- super sexy. Now Indie understood why he was so sullen and angry in turns. Being seduced then tossed aside by a friend was rotten and she lost a bunch of respect for Damien for his treatment of Laurent.

  “So the obvious thing to do is to rent a place that you two can share,” she said. Laurent shrugged his very Latin shoulders.

  “Damien will do what Damien wants when he's ready.”

  “Yeah he's obviously used to getting his own way,” she snapped, angry on Laurent's behalf, the guy was really sweet, and oh so hot, making them coffee in an espresso pot on the single burner stovetop.

  “Not with you though,” Laurent grinned like a hot little demon. “That was fantastique how you told him no way. I don't think Damien had ever been told no by any woman, the shock almost gave him heart failure.”

  “Hopefully it woke him up to the realization that people aren't on this earth for his entertainment.”

  “I wouldn't go that far.”

  “Who the fuck does he think he is trying to get me into bed as a second best, beer-goggle, after- midnight make-do?”

  “Huh? Second best?” Laurent looked confused by her remark and she thought it was the slang speech. Better not start bitching Damn up to his friend. She changed the subject.

  “Shall we start work? I'm dying to see a Paco Rabanne designer tee-shirt.”

  Laurent handed her a pile of sundresses in slinky fabric, creased from not being hung from a rolling rack. But when she went upstairs to the empty second bedroom to slip into one, she was amazed how the thing skimmed her body almost perfectly. It was too irresistible to dip into Laurent's sleeping quarters- a low double bed with a plain wood frame, his clothes spilling out of a stuffed suitcase. Indie discovered a cloudy old mirror tacked into the bathroom wall and wondered how he didn't slit his throat trying to shave in that thing, but wow, she could tell the dress was a clinger in all the right places.

  She went downstairs and her breasts rose in a naked blush under the smooth fabric as Laurent took her in, sliding his eyes over her body, scrutinizing every stitch– of the garment of course, not the girl. With a combo of admiration and dissatisfaction, he began to pull the dress around her body, tucking and nipping, and periodically stepping back to gauge his handiwork. As was the job description, Indie stood still and uncomplaining as she was pulled about, one arm lifted, boobs pulled about in fabric until perfectly situated.

  They worked like that through the day, stopping to eat a bite of lunch and chatting about Laurent's discoveries about their island paradise. Mostly he found the fact that everyone knew everyone's business the instant they'd accomplished it was disconcerting, used to the anonymity of a capital city.

  “Dat, and the fancy French families think they are, how you say it le roi?”

  “They think they're kings?”

  “Exact, yes, they think they are kings and this is they're little kingdom. They order everyone about here like their servants and do whatever they want.”

  “But there is a huge Indian population and an Indian government.”

  “Pheugh,” Laurent guffawed. “They do not care about that
government. It does not exist for them. They are the aristocracy. And the girls, the daughters of those families are brat princesses. You have not seen Damien's sister, Virginie. She can barely lower herself to even look down her nose at any man other than her own brothers. It's a very French girl.”

  “Are those French girls the ones kept locked up from seducers like Damien?” Indie asked, curiosity about the french hunk getting the better of her.

  “He will never get one of those until he marries one.”

  “Oh.” Of course, it would be expected that the families would intermarry and keep the estates intact. “So then what sort of women does Damien date?”

  “Date? Dammo never dates. He seduces, he chases, and when he exhausts availability, he goes to town.”

  “Goes to town?”

  Laurent made a don't be naive face at her.

  “You mean, he visits a prostitute?” Laurent nodded and focused harder on pinning the next sample to her body.

  “He's never had a girlfriend?”

  “The only woman he ever saw more than one time is an American ex-pat here. She's older and married with another French. I don't know much, he never talks about it but I think she broke his heart by going back to her husband when the scandal blew up.”

  The sun was starting it's golden descent as they got to the last dress, a real stunner in white printed silk, tight through the bodice, flaring out in numerous panels.

  “You are a genius designer,” Indie told Laurent. “You make a woman look like a Goddess.”

  Their eyes came together and held there for longer than was necessary or advisable until they were startled by the squeal of tires in the yard. Damien pulled his black truck to dominate the space and leapt from the cab, leaving the door hanging. He dashed at the house and stopped short when he came on them, slightly flustered, Laurent fiddling with the dress, his hands circling Indie's waist to decide whether to pull the dress tighter.

  “Ah- you are still here,” he said, looking at Indie.

  “We just finished,” Laurent said. Damien looked her up and down and nodded approval of the design. His eyes rested on the cling at her cleavage longer than necessary and she felt her senses prickle, with both irritation and pleasure. How could it be both?

  “Good. Come on, we'll go get a drink.” Laurent moved to make excuses but Damien would hear none of it, hurrying them up, he wanted to talk to them.

  “I have to change,” Indie said.

  “No, you will go like that.” She turned to glare at him for ordering her about and he forced himself to add; “It looks good on you-you will keep it.”

  “That's my sample,” Laurent protested.

  “We'll make another one, come on, hurry up.”

  Chapter Eight

  When Indie arrived at club Lune Noire with the two french men, she was a little light-headed from the cocktails they'd polished off at the beach bar. Damien and Laurent had engaged in some ferocious disputes during the evening and when she inquired during a pause, Laurent said it was business. They were pressed to get the store open in time for the start of tourist season after Christmas but it wasn't ready yet. Remembering she was sitting at the table, they reverted to English, which held their tempers in check for a while.

  “Why can't you make a design simple enough that a factory can make?” Damien shouted. Laurent's design for the interior was so eclectic, it was a nightmare to find a trade able to translate his ideas into reality. Damien had spent all afternoon in the capital, arguing with the glass factory over the jagged edge free-standing mirror.

  “I do not design for what the factory wants to make.”

  “Well you should if we want to open in time and recoup all the money I've spent.” Laurent rolled his eyes at Damn's focus on cash.

  “I cannot create like this.” Damien rolled and sneered at Laurent's artistic pretension. “I know in my experience that the factory wants to make what is easy and cheap for the factory.”

  Damien glared at Indie and she realized she was nodding agreement, that had been her experience in the rag trade. She could also see that the two friends were fighting about issues that weren't really at the heart of their frustration. The manufacturer said a mirror could not be made with an edge like Mount Fitzroy, Damien insisted it could and would. The factory owner had called his father and his father had chewed him out about his pet project and told him to get back to the hotel.

  “You two should do this business together and I can go back to my own and my father can stop screaming me out all day long.”

  “Sorry, I didn't mean to butt in,” Indie said

  “No, it's okay,” Laurent interrupted. “Maybe he's right. We need some help if we're going to open in time.”

  “My father said I should let my cousin help us.”

  “She already has a job.” Laurent looked at Damien dangerously and Indie wondered what the deal was with the cousin.

  “It's only part-time. She can do both.”

  “She is working with...the competition.” Laurent said pointedly. “And maybe I don't want anymore of your family sticking their nose into my business.”

  The waiter came by and Damien ordered another round. While he cleared the table of empties, the tension at the table cleared also and the subject was changed.

  After two more rounds and an order of the baked crab, the three arrived at Lune Noire.

  “I will go to my home, I'm tired,” Laurent had said as they got into the cab, all three on the front seat.

  “No, we will go for one more drink at la Lune,” Damn informed him. Laurent looked at Indie helplessly, as if to say, how can he be made to listen? Indie thought Damien wanted to keep the evening going for the company more than anything, it was probably a drag living in a house taken over by newlyweds.

  “I have to go anyway,” Indie said. “Sasha asked me to meet her.” She didn't add that she'd been called to meet Patrice in the afternoon.

  “See. It is settled.” Damien happy, pulled out of the parking lot.

  Sasha zoomed up before Indie as soon as she came through the tall brass door. She wrapped her arm around her neck, bringing her head close to hers. “Patrice broke it off,” she said. Indie pulled back to search her eyes.

  “Are you okay? Why?”

  Sasha pulled her back in close, as though secure in the proximity. “He didn't show for our meet. Finally I got him on the phone and he said he'd been held up. Then he said Tolar, Willy and Horst gave him a visit after our fling in the hotel. They sort of roughed him up without actually touching him. Major threat. Some fucker told on us.”

  “Who would do that?” And so fast, Indie thought. Her eyes drifted around the busy bar over Sasha's shoulder and met Damien's, gazing at her intently. He held her stare until she felt the color rise to her cheeks and her clit tug between her thighs. What the hell was wrong with her getting all thrilly over the rich boy? Could he have reported back to Tolar, in order to get Sasha free for himself? “Are Tolar and Damien, do they know each other?”

  “They know each other, of course. Everyone knows everyone and they especially know Dammo. Why?”

  “No, nothing. I just can't figure out who would have said anything.”

  “Don't even think about it, it's the way people are here. I'm just pissed that Patrice caved in to Tolar and let me go.”

  “They must have intimidated him pretty hard.”

  “He said they put the screws on and he laughed them off. He is French after all and they don't appreciate foreigners here. But when they threatened his daughter, he decided it wasn't worth the hassle. Business can suffer if infidelity comes out.”

  “Tolar threatened his daughter when he has two of his own?”

  “Heeyyyy.” Sasha released Indie to kiss Kathlijn and Marc on the cheek, grinning ear to ear. “Haven't seen you out clubbing in forever, Marc,” she added while Kathlijn hugged Indie warmly.

  “So glad you are here. I begged him to come. He only wants to stay home but I was dying to go out dancing
with you guys.”

  “Yay, let's dance.”

  Marc shied off from dancing and let the three women hit the floor while he edged over to join the men at the bar. The song everyone swarmed the floor for brought Laurent to join them. He came in beside Indie moving his body way too fluidly to the rhythm, unusual for a man to dance so well.

  “I think somebody has an admirer,” Kathlijn laughed, making eyes of significance toward Laurent, lost in the beat and his body, dancing as though working off his frustration with Damien, the slave house and the family intrusion in their new venture.

  “You should have seen how he lifted her out of the boat last night, like a damsel in distress.” Sasha interrupted to agree.

  Kathlijn was momentarily confused. “Damien lifted her from the boat, or -?” She gestured with her head to Laurent.

  “Damn, it was Damn but he was just being polite,” Indie said, feeling the blush on her cheek.

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, and she just came from dinner with him.”

  “You had dinner with Dammo tonight, again, after last night?”

  “You guys stop,” Indie laughed. “It was business, I was working for them and like I said, that boat thing was him being polite.”

  “Polite?” Sasha guffawed. “Why would Dammo ever be polite to a woman? It lowers his power, it's beneath him.”

  “I don't think it's that.” Kathlijn shook her head and Indie noticed Sasha's frown of irritation. “He finds it hard to show any feelings but they are definitely in there. He hates to be vulnerable though. Marc is a little like that also but not as much as Dammo.”

  “And he carried her all the way up the beach. Swear I thought he was going to carry her to his room and ravage her.”

  “Don't be crazy,” Indie said, feeling the tug of wishful thinking between her legs. “I don't even like him.” The instant she said it she knew she was lying but why? Her eyes lifted to Laurent dancing in a reverie beside her. He was kind and thoughtful and oh so hot. And he didn't feel the need to order everyone around like he was master of the Universe. She swiveled slightly in time to the music and across at the bar, Damien was staring directly at her, barely listening to Marc at his side. Whether angry or otherwise she couldn't make out.