Romance: The Billionaires Collection (Watched By A Billionaire, Stranded With A Billionaire, Caught By A Billionaire, Billionaire Stepbrother)

by Lexi Duval

  No birthdays. No holidays. No weekends and sick days.

  Every day is the same. Time is now marked only by the turning off of the sun at night and the lighting of the moon. The days of the week have no significance beyond that.

  So when Flint tells me it's his birthday, my question of how he knows is perfectly valid.

  To answer, he leads me along the beach and to the edge of the jungle. There, I see markings cut into a tree. There are almost too many to count.

  “Here was the day we arrived here,” says Flint, pointing at the first mark. “That was March 16, and every mark after is the next day in March.”

  He drops his fingers to the next line.

  “This is the start of April. That month has 30 days.”

  I quickly count the full thirty as Flint's fingers drop another level.

  “And here's May, with 31 days.”

  He keeps on going down to June, and then July, where he picks up a small stone from the ground and starts cutting the next mark into the tree.

  “It's July 10 today, my birthday,” he says. “We've been here nearly 5 months now.”

  The revelation shocks me. Five months? I thought it was more like three...

  “That long huh?”

  He nods, and takes my hand, and we walk back down the beach together.

  “So, if it's your birthday we should celebrate.”

  A faint smile rises on his face, but nothing more.

  “I'm turning 31, Lib. There's not much to celebrate.”

  He seems more downcast than I've seen him in months. During the early days and weeks we both had our fair share of low days, particularly me. But since then, since we both began to accept that, perhaps, we'd be here a long time, his mood had been stable.

  But not today. Today his face looks more haggard than I've seen him, his body suddenly looking slimmer and leaner. He still looks strong, but he's lost some of the muscle he first had. His eyes look darker, too, framed by dark patches, and I suspect that he hasn't been sleeping too well lately.

  But if he starts to lose it, then what hope do I have? He's been my rock, my support, and I need him.

  “That's not the attitude Flin,” I say, trying to inject some enthusiasm into my voice. “How about I do some hunting and try to catch you something nice for dinner?”

  He looks at me and nods, half vacantly, and I know that today, of all days, the reality of our situation is taking hold in his mind.

  He's probably thinking about his friends and family, about the party that they'd probably be throwing for him. Maybe he'd be going to some celebrity bash, hanging out with all his famous friends. And yet he's stuck here, on this lonely island, with no one but me as company.

  He returns to the fire, and I go and gather my spear, preparing to go and fish in the ocean. As I step down the beach, he stops me and pulls me in for a long hug, our warm flesh melting together under his tight embrace.

  He doesn't say anything. He just hugs me tight for a few long moments before letting me go. When he does, he drops back in front of the fire and I turn my eyes to the sea.

  For the next few hours I hunt in the water, doing something that's now become second nature to me. Time seems to pass differently here, with only the sun above our heads indicating the changing of the day.

  An hour might pass without you even noticing, the sun suddenly half way across the sky before you realize. Not like in the real world, where clocks and watches are everywhere, where your world is so determined by time. Getting up at the right time for work, going to meetings, seeing friends, having lunch, dinner, going to bed. Everything is scheduled into the day, but not here.

  Here, time flows like the ocean, wide and expansive and without any boundaries. When the sun goes down and the night turns dark, we sleep. When the first light of dawn begins creeping in through the opening to our shack, we wake.

  And so the day's go, one after another, fusing together as they lose their value. And that's just how I thought only 3 months had passed, when in actual fact we've been here for nearly 5.

  So I fish for hours, standing motionless in the water like a statue, waiting for the fish to grow accustomed to my presence and then striking with a sudden throw of my spear. I catch two fish that way, but consider them only a starter. I place them in a bucket formed of palm trees, and strike out deeper for a better prize.

  I swim out a bit, reaching the rocks that once caught the piece of the plane that carried us here on the currents. The jagged edges jut above the surface of the water, our metal raft now safely ashore in case we ever want to use it.

  I climb onto the rocks and out of the world of the fish. Soon, large ones have begun to swim around the stones, drawn by seaweed and other nautical plants. My first few attacks fall wide of the mark, but soon I've got another kill.

  This time, the fish is larger and more meaty. It will make a substantial main course for Flint's birthday dinner.

  I return to shore, carrying the palm leaf bucket with our food, and set about sticking them through with pieces of wood. I do the best I can to gut them, too, something I've got used to doing during my time here, and prepare the fish as well as possible.

  The day drags on, and I leave Flint to his wistfulness. He sits by the fire and takes walks along the beach and into the jungle, choosing to spend the day alone.

  A small flutter of concern rises inside me the longer he's gone, wondering whether he's beginning to lose all hope. Whether this mind is betraying him, betraying us, and torturing him on the inside.

  He returns at dusk, just as I begin to cook the fish on the fire, their flesh blackening under the flames. I prepare coconut for dessert, with nothing else available, and even manage to find some sticky, sugary tree sap to go with it.

  When Flint joins me, he comes straight forward and gives me a kiss as I turn a fish on the fire.

  “I'm sorry, Lib, for how I've been today. I know it's not what you need.”

  “It's OK,” I tell him. “We all have our down days.”

  “I know, but I shouldn't put any of it on you.”

  “Yes you should,” I correct him. “That's exactly what you should do. That's how we've got through this so far. We share our feelings, we vent to each other. If we don't, we'll go mad.”

  “OK.”

  He hugs and kisses me again, and we begin eating the delicious fish I caught earlier. He thanks me for it, tells me it's the best fish we've had since we arrived here, and slowly he begins to open up to me again.

  “Everyday, on my birthday, I'd spend time with my family,” he starts, the fire reflecting in his eyes. “That was always the case with us. Birthday time was family time, always. Last year, when my dad died, that made me head of the family. I'm meant to be there to look after my mother, my sister...and now...”

  His eyes begin to shine, tears threatening to fall.

  “Now they've lost me too. Now it's just them, and me and my dad are gone.”

  I move toward him and wrap my arms around him.

  “I just...I'm supposed to take care of them, Lib. And I can't do that while I'm stuck here.”

  “I understand.”

  His words make me turn inward, make me look at my own family, my own life. But I can't find the same notes, because I don't have any family anymore. I was an only child, and my parents died when I was young.

  For me, Flint has become the only family I've got. And I'd do anything to make him feel better.

  “So, maybe we should try to get back to them?” I ask tentatively, bringing up the subject we haven't covered in a while.

  He shakes his head, disheartened by the emotion inside him.

  “We'd never make it. It would be suicide.”

  “You don't know that...”

  “I do. We don't have any rope to build a raft anyway.”

  “We have vines, they might work.”

  “Maybe to hold the thing together, but not in any sort of rough weather. There are sharks out there, Lib, currents we don't know about
. Storms come all the time, you know that. I won't take that risk with your life. You mean too much to me.”

  “And you me.”

  It's the same every time, the same conversation, the same outcome. Flint, as much as he'd like to get home, to try to brave the sea, is a practical man. The odds, he knows, are far too low to take the gamble.

  And now we're too linked together. We care about each other too much to risk death. Not death for ourselves, but death for the person we've grown to care so deeply for.

  And for me, I'd rather stay here with the man I've fallen in love with, the two of us in this lonely island paradise.

  Forever.

  Chapter Three

  Several more weeks pass, and I begin to go to Flint's tree each day with him to mark it. For several days after his birthday, Flint seems a little withdrawn, and I begin to think that he's probably trying to figure out another way of getting off this rock.

  He spends a lot of time in the jungle, gathering vines, testing their durability, trying to find some suitable logs to lash together.

  He begins experimenting with the metal sheet from the plane that brought us here. I suppose his thinking is that if the thing could carry us here, why not elsewhere.

  So, despite telling me it couldn't be done, he begins to explore the options anyway. Perhaps just to keep busy, perhaps something more. But either way, gradually his spirits lift and he returns to his old self, his focus turning to more positive things.

  I'm grateful that one of them is me.

  He seems more playful again, as if a load has been lifted from his mind, and we begin to turn to each other again for pleasure.

  We make love often, having sex under the stars, in the sea, anywhere and everywhere our whims take us. We walk around the island sometimes, holding hands, naked as the day we were born, like two people who have never known the outside world. Like Adam and Eve before they learned of their shame.

  Our beach becomes a nudist beach, and the sight of my body, dripping from an early swim in the ocean each morning, is enough to send him off.

  He catches me, sometimes, in the sea before I come out. His hands run all over me, we kiss passionately, and he quickly slides two digits inside me beneath the surf. I groan and shriek and make as much noise as I please, with only the fish and the birds to disturb.

  Each time he comes, however, he pulls out of me, our only rudimentary method of contraception. We know the dangers that I could get pregnant, and the impact that would have on our little lives, but our lust often grows to a point where we can't help ourselves.

  Thankfully, as the weeks go by, I see no signs of impregnation, and we continue to fuck night after night, day after day, without any true heed of the possible repercussions.

  Flint continues to experiment, and I begin to pick up the household duties, such as they are. I hunt and cook and maintain the fire, while he explores and tries to figure out any new method of building us an escape vehicle.

  Unfortunately, suitable logs and lashings seem to be sparse, and he begins to concede that building the sort of raft he thinks could get us somewhere is impossible.

  “Perhaps we could float around for a while, but we'd be at the mercy of the sea,” he tells me over another fish and coconut dinner. “If we were to do this, I'd have to make sure we give us our best shot. I'm not going to risk your life unless I'm sure we might get somewhere.”

  His caring for me is so touching, and I show him that night be pleasuring in a way he's never been pleasured. I lick and suck and stroke until he explodes all over me, tying his hands up with some vines, making sure that he has no control at all.

  The next day, he enlists my help in testing out the raft. Over the previous few days, he'd managed to lash on a few logs around the edges of the metal sheet from the plane, the window pane in the center providing a way of looking at the ocean beneath us.

  With our combined strength, we drag the raft to the edge of the sea, slide it into the calm waters, and climb on top. It's stable, if not completely balanced, and we float about for a while using some paddles he's fashioned from layers of palm leaves.

  The experiment, in my mind at least, goes OK, but he's not convinced at all.

  “That would never do. As soon as any wave hit us we'd be turned over and be fish food for the sharks.”

  Over the next few days, he seems to spend even more time thinking, obsessing over the raft and how to improve it. He continues to lash more wood to it, and we try again, but once more it fails to impress him.

  Gradually, his entire world begins to revolve around it. What was once a flight of fancy, a means of keeping busy, has now merged into a fully fledged obsession.

  And all the while, I keep up with my day to day chores, acting the wife to his crazy inventor, his rugged beard and long dark hair now giving him the appearance of a caveman.

  But I still support him, knowing that if he wasn't doing this, he'd end up losing himself again. But all the while, I secretly hope that the raft continues to flounder. That he's unable to satisfy his strict criteria.

  Because, really, I'm scared to leave this island. I'm scared to go floating about on the open ocean, not knowing if or when we'd be found. Scared of falling asleep and into the water, drowning as Flint sleeps next to me. Or getting attacked by sharks or torn apart by the sort of raging storm we've seen several times before.

  In my mind, I have all I need right here. Food, water, shelter, and a man I love. Over the many months, I've grown accustomed to my little shack, my routine. Perhaps even getting pregnant wouldn't be such a bad thing. We could start a family here, away from it all, away from everything...

  As the thought crosses my mind, and I give it even the slightest bit of consideration, I realize that perhaps I'm the one losing it. I could never have a child here, away from medical attention. I could die, and so could the baby, with nothing but fish and coconut here to live on.

  The thought is ludicrous, and the fact that it even entered my head shows me that my own mind has been twisted by our solitude here. Clearly, Flint has already had his eureka moment on his birthday, a day when he realized that if we didn't at least try to do something, we'd both fade into nothingness here. And no one would ever know.

  The next day, I wake with a renewed desire to help Flint, to tell him we need to get out of here. That, even if it means, dying, we have to try.

  He smiles, and kisses me, as if it's what he's been waiting to hear me say all along, and I begin to help him in his task. And with the two of us working together in unison, we begin to make some ground.

  Slowly, surely, as the weeks go by, we create a more stable raft, one that might just withstand the weather and get us off this rock that's become our prison for good.

  And that's when disaster happens.

  Just when we're making progress. Just when it looks like we might have some hope, it's all dashed in front of our eyes.

  In the jungle, climbing a tree to gather some fresh vines to use as rope, Flint slips, and falls, and comes crumpling to the ground.

  I hear the thud, and the scream, from out on the beach, and run like my life depended on it. Because maybe it will.

  And when I enter the tangled jungle I find Flint there, eyes wide with pain, mouth gaping with anguish, roars of agony echoing around the island.

  Through his right leg, a bone protrudes, and blood gushes. I rush in, and remove my shirt, and tie it around his leg as a tourniquet.

  But I know, in that very moment, that Flint will never leave this island. And if he doesn't, then neither will I.

  Chapter Four

  I dab a cold rag at Flint's head, his fever rising as his body fights against the pain. His leg has stopped bleeding, but there's nothing I can do about the bone, jutting out of his flesh, snapped in two inside in lower leg.

  “I'll get the raft in the water,” I say. “We need to try...”

  He's shaking his head, grimacing through the agony.

  “There's no point, Lib. We have no stock
s of food, no water. We haven't prepared anything for more than a day or two at sea. It would be suicide.”

  “Well, we have to try! What else can we do?!”

  He takes a breath, his face contorting once more as a wave of pain rushes through him. Then a strange calm comes over him, his features relaxing, his head seeming to clear.

  “I'm going to die here, Lib. Nothing can change that now...”

  “No, you're not...”

  He takes my hand and squeezes it hard.

  “I'm not going anywhere. My leg will get infected, I'll die of blood poisoning or something. But you can try. Promise me, if I die, you'll try to get off this rock.”

  “You're not going to die!” I shout, almost angry at his resignation. “We can go, right now, and take our chances. I'd rather die with you than watch you die here and be alone.”

  He reaches to my face and holds his palm to my cheek.

  “Be realistic, Lib. The raft isn't even finished yet. And there are no stocks. It will take at least another week to prepare, and even then, the odds are short.”

  Now it's me who takes his hand, who grips it tight and stares deep into his eyes.

  “I'm not going to leave you here, and you're not giving up. I'll work day and night to get things ready if I have to, but we're trying our luck out there, OK.”

  The firmness of my voice, the intensity in my face, is enough to shut him up. He nods, and lies back, and that grimace returns to his face.

  I won't let him die here, and I won't be left alone...

  It's already starting to get late when I begin creating a splint for his lower leg, lashing together two suitable pieces of wood and fixing them in place. He howls when I tighten the knots, and I see the jagged bone move in his flesh, the pain growing too intense to the point where he almost passes out.

  That night, he tosses and turns with a high fever, and I spend the entire night awake, wetting a piece of rag and placing it on his forehead. His body begins to burn, the fever quickly taking hold, and a fear grows in me that without any antibiotics and in this intense heat, his wound will quickly develop into something more than a broken leg.