by Ann Omasta
Table of Contents
Bonus Chapter ~ The Billionaire’s Brother
Free Novella!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
BONUS Cupcake Recipe 1
BONUS Cupcake Recipe 2
Love sweet romance? Don’t miss The Pet Set Duet!
About the Author
The Broke Billionaire
The Broke Billionaires Club
Ann Omasta
Contents
Free Novella!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Bonus Chapter ~ The Billionaire’s Brother
BONUS Cupcake Recipe 1
BONUS Cupcake Recipe 2
Love sweet romance? Don’t miss The Pet Set Duet!
About the Author
Free Novella!
Escape into the enchanting Hawaiian Islands by reading Leilani's heartwarming tale of friendship, love, and triumph after heartbreak.
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Get Aloha, Baby!
1
It was difficult to see what the crumpled heap was by the glow of her taillights. Ellie rushed over, the idea that an injured animal might hurt her quickly fleeting with the knowledge that she had caused the injury and needed to help if she could.
As she jogged toward the dark lump, a wave of panicked nausea swept over her. Not having time to vomit, she forced herself to keep moving forward and face what she had done.
The animal that she had hit wasn’t an animal at all. It was a man! Ellie’s hands shook as she tried to figure out how to revive him. She patted his face, yelling “Sir? Sir? Oh, please don’t be dead, sir.”
Relief flooded her system when she leaned down and heard ragged breaths coming from him. “Thank God.” She sagged with relief, before adding, “You will not die on my watch.”
Frantically trying to think of what to do, Ellie realized she needed to call 911 for emergency assistance. Her phone was buried beside the seat in her car. The jogger surely had his cell phone with him, right? Tapping the pockets of his zippered jacket, she didn’t feel anything. Looking down at his dark pants, she wondered if it might be lurking down there.
“Who wears black clothes to jog on the road this early in the morning?” she muttered as she forced her inhibitions down and dove her hands down into his pants pockets.
Of course, he chose that moment to wake up. She froze with both hands down the front of the stranger’s pants pockets when she heard him croak, “I don’t know what you’re looking for down there, but I sure hope you find it.”
Yanking her hands back as if she had been caught with them in the cookie jar, she said, “We need a cell phone.”
“Don’t have mine with me,” he mumbled, his eyes now closed again.
She felt like chastising him for being out on the road without one, but considering she had just been driving distracted while she was searching for her phone and had proceeded to run over him, she opted to stay quiet.
“We need to get you to the hospital.” She said the words loudly because she wasn’t sure how lucid he was. “Can you walk?” She already knew the answer, but that didn’t stop her from hoping that his injuries were miraculously less than she feared.
He gave such a slight nod, she wasn’t positive that she hadn’t imagined it. His eyes were still closed. Giving a longing look up and down the dark road, she prayed to see approaching headlights, but none appeared. Unsure how she was going to get him in her car, she decided to make it as easy as possible.
“I’m going to back my car up so it’s not so far for you,” she told him, even though she wasn’t sure he was awake.
“Try not to run over me again,” he whispered, his eyes still closed. Then he flashed a wide smile at her. His gleaming white teeth were visible in the red glow from her car’s taillights.
“I’ll try not to,” she promised before jogging to her car, shaking her head at how good-natured he was about being mowed down by her vehicle.
Deciding he was probably just delirious from the pain, she whipped her car into reverse, but stopped well short of where he was. Running over him, then backing over him again would be horrifying.
Scurrying around her Beetle, she opened the passenger door, hoping to make it as easy as possible to get him in the car. When she returned to him, he appeared to be unconscious again.
Shaking him gently, she said, “Sir? We need to get you into my car, so I can drive you to the hospital.”
“Not sure I want to ride with you,” he croaked before gracing her with another dashing smile to let her know he was teasing.
How he could have a sense of humor at this moment was beyond her, but it helped diffuse the stressful situation. Besides, it was better than having him yell at her, which would probably come when he felt better and was able to fully process what had happened.
It was obvious that he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own, so she gingerly attempted to lift him to get her arm under him. He tried to help, but winced in pain.
“Where does it hurt?” she asked him.
His groaned response, “Everywhere,” made her feel even worse.
Not having time to wallow in guilt and concerned that things might get worse the longer he went without medical treatment, she summoned all of her strength and hefted him to a sitting position before pulling him up to his feet. He leaned heavily on her and held one foot up off the ground, but together they were able to hobble him towards the car.
He was much bigger than she had originally thought. The supportive arm she had wrapped around his back was at his abdomen level. Her fingers curled around his side and discovered nice tight abs. Knowing she shouldn’t be noticing such things at this critical point in time, she snapped her attention back to the task at hand.
Even though he was tipped to the side, allowing her to support much of his weight, she knew he was tall––at least six feet. They had almost made it to the car when he lost consciousness again.
She had thought she was bearing most of his weight, but when he suddenly slumped down, she realized he had been doing much of the work. The force of his sudden drop caused her to lose her balance. More concerned about making sure that he didn’t get hurt worse than her own safety, she cushioned his fall with her own body.
In a fraction of a second, they were both on the ground. She was trapped––pinned under the unconscious, dead weight of the stranger.
“Well, this is just great.” She puffed out.
2
The urge to cry was almost overwhelming, but she refused to give in to it. She would let it all out once the stranger was safely at the hospital receiving treatment for his injuries, but right now she needed to focus all of her energy on getting them out of this predicament.
She couldn’t help but notice that the weight of him on top of her wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but she didn’t have the luxury of time to be able to focus on that. As she was trying to decide if gently rolling him off her would risk injuring him further, she realized his breathing had hitched.
She didn’t have to wonder for long if he was awake. He shifted slightly and
she gasped in surprise when she felt the firmness in his pants pressing into her upper thigh.
“At least that isn’t broken,” he mumbled near her ear, making the tiny hairs along the back of her neck stand at attention as a thrilling chill raced down her back.
His apparently ever-present sense of humor helped to diffuse the impossibly awkward situation. She couldn’t help but giggle at their predicament.
He called her out on it by saying, “I’m glad YOU find it funny,” but he started chuckling too.
Coming up with a plan of action, he said, “I’m going to roll off you, trying not to break anything else in the process.” She cringed at the word ‘else,’ but he didn’t seem to notice. “I don’t think I can stand, but if you will help me sit up, we can both give a big heave and get me into the car’s seat.”
She wasn’t at all sure about ‘heaving’ him into the car, but she didn’t want to take the time to retrieve her phone and call for help when they were this close. Besides, she was happy that he was awake and able to make a plan, instead of relying on her own wits, which always felt numbed during an emergency.
With much grunting, groaning, and a couple of major heaves, they got him settled into the passenger side of the car. She ran around to the driver’s side and squealed the tires racing away to get him to help.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as she drove. His breathing was heavy as if the effort of getting from his horizontal position into the car’s seat had really taxed his energy.
There wasn’t any traffic this early in the morning, so she drove a little faster than she would have under normal circumstances. If the police pulled her over, she could explain the situation, and they would probably give her an escort to the hospital before promptly arresting her for reckless driving.
She bit her lower lip, wondering if that were really a possibility. Would she go to jail for her careless moment this morning? Would the man sitting next to her sue her and cause her to lose the bakery she had spent her life building into a viable business?
It didn’t matter at this point. Her course was already set. She would just have to deal with whatever consequences arose from it. She glanced over at the dark-haired, handsome man sitting beside her and said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t suffer any long-term injuries.
The headlights at the stop sign up ahead indicated there was another car on the road. It was the first she had seen since leaving her home that morning. The other car was stopped, and she was on a main road that didn’t have to stop, but something in her gut had her slowing down slightly.
Sure enough, as she approached, the car pulled out directly in front of her. She slammed on her brakes, her hand automatically going out to brace the stranger from flying into the dash. He hadn’t bothered with a seatbelt, so she did her best to become his safety guard.
Hearing the tires squeal, her whole body tensed as she braced for impact.
3
Somehow, they managed to get stopped without hitting the other car. The Volkswagen stuttered with the effort of screeching to a halt. She could smell the burning rubber smell emitting from the hot tires.
The other driver went on, likely clueless to the mayhem that had almost ensued. Shaken, Ellie sat there for a moment to regain her composure before continuing on this treacherous drive.
She looked over at the man beside her to make sure he was okay––or at least as okay as he could be, considering the morning they’d had. He filled up the seat and then some. In fact, the car felt somehow full with his presence. His knees were practically in the dash. He was still resting his head back with his eyes closed.
Just when she was beginning to wonder if he had slept through the almost-accident, he mumbled, “It was probably a woman driver.”
His words were so quiet, she almost wondered if he had actually uttered them. Eyes still closed, he began to chuckle at his own joke, confirming that he had made the insulting statement.
Forgetting for a moment their precarious situation, Ellie batted at his shoulder with the back of her hand. His “Ow!” of surprise was quickly followed by, “That was the one place on my body that didn’t already hurt.”
His words brought her back to the immediacy of the moment, so she slammed on the gas pedal and raced him to the emergency room.
Once there, he was quickly swept away on a gurney, while she was left to wait and wonder. The triage nurse quickly discovered that she wasn’t going to be much help when she couldn’t even give her the man’s name, so the woman moved on to her other duties, leaving Ellie wondering what to do next.
Ellie had physically cringed when the nurse had called the man “the victim.” She supposed that is exactly what he was…HER victim.
Finding an orange pleather chair, she sat down in the waiting room. Pulling her blonde hair out of the bun she always wore at work, she ran her fingers through the long strands and tried not to stress too much about how her victim was doing.
She wondered briefly what her regular customers would think about finding the bakery closed this morning, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She considered taking a few minutes to go put a sign on the door, but she didn’t want to take a chance on missing an update on the man’s condition.
After a few hours of waiting with no updates, she couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. She doubted anyone would come to fill her in on his condition anyway, since she wasn’t a family member, so she decided to take matters into her own hands.
Wandering through the halls, she searched for any sign of the man. Not knowing his name was an inconvenience. Should she just ask someone the whereabouts of the man who looks like he was hit by a car?
She peeked into several rooms, but it felt so invasive to look in at people when they were at their most vulnerable.
A kind-faced nurse finally took pity on her. “Who you lookin’ for, hon?”
“There’s a man, who was hit by a car,” she started lamely, letting her words trail off at the end.
“Oh, you mean Trey.” The woman’s face perked up immediately, making Ellie feel irrationally jealous. “I’ll go see if he’s up for a visitor,” the woman promised before her white rubber clogs squeaked off down the hallway.
Unsure what to do other than follow her, Ellie wondered about her odd flare of envy at the nurse’s familiarity with the stranger. Deciding that it shouldn’t be surprising that his nurse was on a first-name basis with him and the woman who put him here was not, she tried to tell herself she would just check on him and leave.
When the nurse turned into a room and closed the door behind her, Ellie hovered awkwardly outside. She wasn’t even sure if the woman had been heading directly to his room, but Ellie didn’t know what to do, other than wait. The nurse stayed in there for what seemed like an eternity. Just when Ellie was convincing herself that the nurse was evidently assisting someone else, she finally poked her head out of the door.
“He’ll see you now,” she said to Ellie, gracing her with a friendly smile.
Hands suddenly clammy, Ellie braced herself for what kind of condition he might be in. Her bracing didn’t help because she was not prepared for what she saw inside his room.
The man she had hit with her car was bandaged, battered, and bruised. One of his legs was elevated and his head was wrapped in white gauze that extended down over one of his shoulders. He was holding his head in his hands and groaning in misery.
She hated it that she had caused this much pain for him. Approaching his bedside, she told him sincerely, “I’m so sorry this happened.”
Doubting that he could hear her apology over his exaggerated moans of pain, she gingerly took his hand in hers to at least let him know she was there for him.
He winced in pain at her gentle touch. That was the moment when he went too far. She began to wonder if he was toying with her. The hint of a smile that played at the corners of his mouth confirmed her suspicion.
She dropped his hand as if it were a hot potato. “You’re fak
ing?!?” She screeched the words, shocked that he would go to such lengths to make her feel even worse.
He was already unwrapping the extra gauze from his head. “No, I really got hit by a car today,” he deadpanned. The nurse was chuckling at his antics as she left the room.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Ellie pouted. “What happened is bad enough without making it worse.”
Taking her hand back in his own, he said, “I was just trying to lighten things up a little. It’s so serious in here.”
Looking around, Ellie responded, “It is a hospital.”
“So, that’s what that smell is,” he grinned.
“Are you ever serious?” she asked him, returning his smile, even though she was unable to believe his anger at her hadn’t set in yet.
“Almost all the time,” he answered, and for once, his tone did sound serious.
Her brows furrowed in confusion at his response, but she didn’t ask him to expand. Since the light tone of the conversation had dissipated, she asked him what she really wanted to know. “How are you, really?”
“I’m going to be around for a long time,” he promised. Even though she knew he meant to assure her that he was going to be alive for a long time, a strange longing settled deep in her heart that he would say he planned to be around her a long time. The errant desire didn’t make any sense. The last person he would want to be around was the woman who mowed him down with her car.
“There is something we need to discuss, though.” His deep voice sounded more somber than she had ever heard it in the short time she had known him.
