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

by Lexi Duval

  Two days pass, and I hardly have time in the day to get everything done. I split my time between tending to Flint, trying to finish the raft, trying to weave makeshift buckets and bottles to store water, fishing for food to eat and keep for our voyage.

  It's almost too much, and I have no time to take a break or even think. And suddenly, after spending months here in such leisure, hardly noticing the days go by, I'm working to a deadline that I might never meet, and one that isn't even clear.

  I wash Flint's wound regularly, bringing fresh howls of pain from his lips, but still it grows clear that infection is setting in. And for all his innate knowledge about survival, neither of us have any true medical knowledge to help us, beyond basic first aid.

  So, I wash his leg and hope for the best, hardly sleeping as I tend to him and spending each day under the scorching sun, fishing, weaving, crafting the raft.

  After almost a week, I can't wait any longer. Flint's condition is quickly worsening, and soon he's in an almost perpetual state of incoherence, his body beginning to lose its ability to function.

  He lies in the shade of the hot and humid shack, his wound festering, his body covered from head to toe in sweat. And as I tend to him at night, I begin to think that all I'm doing is watching him die.

  So I make a decision. Without sufficient provisions for a journey lasting any longer than a week, and with the raft hardly even seaworthy, I decide to cast off and leave this island for good.

  This island that has been both a paradise and a prison, that's kept us alive but wouldn't let us leave. I know, when I float off on that raft, that it will be bittersweet, but I also know that now, my hand has been forced.

  If I don't leave now, Flint will definitely die here. So, I have no choice.

  It's morning, and dawn has only just cracked through the horizon, the sky turning a strange color of purple. Flint stirs in the shack as I go to the raft and pull it, inch by inch, down the beach. It's a struggle, alone, but I manage it eventually.

  The wooden logs hit the water, and the raft floats confidently above the rippling waves. Through the glass window that was once part of our plane, I see fish glide effortlessly about, mocking me from their own world. I fasten the raft to a rock in the sand, and load it with the rations and provisions I've managed to gather.

  Then I go to the shack, and see Flint lying on the sand, delirious, his fever overcoming him fast.

  Don't give up on me Flint...

  I try to rouse him, try to get him to stand, but he's not with it. I pull him by the arm, trying to drag him out of the shack, but I hardly make any progress. He's on his last legs, and I'm sure he's going to die soon.

  The thought cuts into me, and I pull harder and harder. And as I do, I hear a distinct crackle of thunder behind me. I turn, twisting on my heels, and look out onto the ocean. My heart sinks at the sight of dark clouds quickly forming in the distance. A flash of light rips down from above, and moments later a rumble of thunder vibrates through the island.

  I keep pulling on Flint, frantically trying to wake him, to get him to move.

  “We have to go now! Now!”

  I shout, but my voice is drowned out by a sudden downpour of rain. And that's when I see it. I turn, look out to the ocean, and see the raft drifting away on the wind, broken free from its leash.

  I drop Flint's arm and start running toward the sea, diving in as it begins to rage. But it's no use.

  The raft is gone.

  And I know then that Flint will die in a matter of days. And once he has, I'll voluntarily follow...

  Chapter Five

  That day I fall into the deepest despair.

  The storm grows more forceful and more violent, the black clouds quickly swirling into a ferocious monsoon that seems to grow louder and more aggressive with each passing hour.

  Rain clatters down onto the roof of our shelter, pummeling through the canopy of palm tree leaves above. The deluge pounds harder and harder, and it seems as if the entire island might be engulfed in water. As if we'll both drown on dry land from the sheer volume of rain.

  I lie down next to Flint, the island shaking with a new rumble of thunder every few minutes, the sky growing so dark it seems like it's night. Intermittent flashes of thunder light up the opening of our shack, and the thunder follows so quickly that I know we're right in the middle of it.

  It all comes so fast I'm hardly able to think. If I'd have managed to get us onto the raft only half an hour before, we'd have been immediately swallowed up by the ocean as it begun to rage and froth.

  But still...we're going to die here anyway. Maybe it would have been worse to just get it all over with. Not suffer the long, drawn out death that is going to inch its way toward us.

  Flint still lies in the throes of his fever, unable to communicate as his body fights the infection. He groans and mumbles, his forehead beading with sweat, crinkled in pain and suffering.

  The sight brings tears to my eyes, seeing him die in front of me and knowing that I'll soon follow. That I won't want to live here alone, without him, with nothing to hope for and nothing to look forward to.

  I start to wish that I had been killed in that plane crash. That I'd never woken up on this beach, my life sparred by fate, only to have to suffer this sort of end instead.

  I think of Benjy, who never would have seen his own death coming. Who hit his head on the window pane and never woke up. A quick death, not the protracted torture I'm going through.

  His eyes would have closed like mine, but he didn't wake and I did. I wish, now, that I could have just joined him in that final journey into death. That I didn't have to see it coming, day by day, slowly moving toward me like a stalking lion.

  The day wears on, and I can do nothing but lie here, next to Flint, wiping the sweat from his head. He continues to stir and twist and turn, his body in turmoil, trying to battle against death, trying to preserve his mortality.

  All I can think of is how tough he is, how hard he's fighting. How weaker men would have succumbed by now, their lights extinguished. But not Flint. He keeps on resisting to the end, a war against a force he can't hope to beat.

  Gradually, the storm starts to fade, and the sky starts to clear. The powerful bashing of the rain on the roof of the shack weakens, and soon there's nothing but a light trickle that eventually turns silent.

  I step out onto the sodden beach, the sand soaked through and dark, and see the blackness of the storm retreat into the distance, ready to torment another island. Above, the blue sky comes out one last time, and I realize how late it is when I see the position of the sun, arching its path down over the horizon.

  The light fades, and I watch as the moon takes the sun's position in the sky, and the stars come out one by one. I look up at them like I did when I first came here, marveling at their brightness and concentration.

  There are thousands of them, millions. Too many to count. Every inch of clear sky seems to be filled, the unpolluted skies offering no mask or veil for the celestial lights above.

  They shine down gloriously in the aftermath of the storm, and I wonder if there's a more beautiful sight in the world. And I think that maybe, just maybe, dying won't be so bad if I get to go closer to them. If I get to transfer my soul to a higher plane where there's only beauty and joy and none of the suffering of this world.

  I sit under the night sky for a while, already feeling like the loneliest and most solitary person in the world. My body is invaded by an overpowering need for human contact, knowing that Flint's light will go out soon and I'll be left here, all alone.

  So I return to the shack, into the humid pestilential air inside, and lie down next to Flint once more. I wipe his head of the salty sweat, and kiss him on the cheek, and his eyes crack open in a moment of lucidity.

  He looks at me, eyes clearing, and I break down for the contact. His eyes turn shallow, and he lifts his hand to me and takes my cheek in his palm. I fall into his chest, and cry hard, and we stay like that for a few moments
, locked in what might be our final embrace.

  “Help me outside. I'd like to see the stars.”

  Flint's voice is weak, croaky. He's hardly spoken to me for days now, locked down by his fever, unable to break out. I look in his eyes and see them clearing, and help him to lift his weight off the palm leaf covered floor.

  His leg, still locked in the rudimentary splint, hangs lose under the light dressing I found in the first aid kit. Nothing else remained inside, however, that would make a difference to him.

  He hobbles out under my shoulder, and we reach the cooling night air. I set him down onto the beach, and he lies down on the wet sand, cooling his body right through.

  “It's beautiful,” he says, looking up at the stars.

  I lie next to him in his arms and nod, silent tears rolling down my cheeks.

  “How's the raft coming?” he asks weakly. “You need to escape this place, when I die.”

  There's an acceptance to his words, as if during his fever he's had time to come to terms with it in the recesses of his semi conscious mind. There's no fear, no brittleness as he speaks. Only a sober tone of reality. He knows he'll die.

  “The raft is...”

  I take a breath, and decide not to tell him the truth. Not to tell him that the raft is gone and that I'm now stuck here, soon to be alone, the most solitary person in the world.

  “It's coming along,” I croak.

  “Good. I can't bear the thought of you being here alone.”

  The tears stream harder and I feel his weak arm grip me tighter.

  “Promise me, if you escape, that you'll go see my mother and tell her all about this. Tell her I love her, and I'm with father now. Will you do that?”

  I nod, but can't speak. My voice wouldn't work now.

  We lie for a time, a silence dawning and the weight of the world crushing down upon us. Together we stare up at the stars, the salty tears still running from my eyes, and I try to hold onto this moment together. Try to remember it so that I can take it with me to the afterlife.

  Eventually, Flint croaks again, his voice whispering in my ear.

  “I love you, you know that Lib?”

  Now I turn, and I see that his eyes are wet too.

  I kiss him, our lips moistened by tears, and know that it's the first time anyone has ever said that to me before.

  “I love you too,” I say back, cursing the world for giving me this perfect man only to take him away again.

  And then I lie against his chest once more, and moon continues to drift across the night sky, and eventually, my eyes begin to close.

  I try to stay awake, try to preserve this moment for as long as possible, never knowing if I'll wake to find Flint dead, my head resting on his lifeless body. And then I think that maybe it will be best if neither of us ever wake up. If we could go together, hand in hand, from this world.

  Waves of exhaustion now hit me. The frantic day I spent trying to get everything ready suddenly catching up with me. The emotional turmoil inside now settling and flat lining as my eyes slowly draw shut.

  My unconscious mind takes over, and shows me images that I try to keep back in my sleep. I see the plane again, see Benjy sitting across the aisle, a smile on his face, excited for what the future might bring.

  I see Flint, sitting in his suit at the back of the plane, surrounded by people. He's the master of all he surveys, the king of the castle, but on this island he's just a man.

  A man I've fallen in love with.

  And those peaceful images soon turn dark, my mind intent on tormenting me. Refusing to let me sleep calmly as I had been for many months until Flint fell from the tree.

  It returns to the early days of my tenure here. Those days when I was scared of everything and my mind replayed the crash over and over again each night, waking me in the darkness not knowing where I was and who was lying next to me.

  Those horrible nightmares return to me now, the sound and smell and sight of the plane as it lost control in the storm dominating my thoughts. And I hear people screaming, and lights flashing, and know that I'm going to die all over again.

  And soon those flashes of light get brighter. So bright that they consume my vision, and I think that maybe I'm being taken to heaven. That maybe through sheer will I've left this earth with Flint, unwilling to part from him.

  I then I hear voices, and I hear a chugging sound, all of it blurred and indistinct. They grow nearer, more intense, and the bright light in front of my eyes continues to burn.

  And slowly, my eyes crack open, and I see that the bright light is that of the morning sun. And I see shadows and shades looming above me, an excited chatter in the air with words I don't comprehend.

  Gradually, my mind wakes up, and I see Flint to my side, lifted up by many arms. I try to reach out to him, to hold him back from being taken from me, and then I'm lifted too.

  I move down the beach, supported by the shadows and hearing the garbled chatter, and hear the sound of splashing. The chugging gets louder, and I'm lifted higher and set down onto a deck.

  There's frantic activity around me. Water is poured sparingly into my mouth. My body, dressed only in my panties and bra, is covered in a towel. I see Flint next to me, lying on the deck of a boat, his leg being inspected by many men.

  They look worried, and suddenly the roar of the engine sounds, and I feel movement. And within the distinct darkness of my mind, I feel myself being rescued, thinking it only a dream.

  And, slowly, my eyes shut once more, and everything around me goes black.

  PART THREE

  Chapter One

  I wake to the sound of beeping.

  A caustic, bitter smell fills my nose. I open my eyes and see mainly white, a color I haven't seen for some time.

  Gradually the room comes into view, and I realize I'm in a hospital bed, my body covered in a hospital gown, my arm tied up in a drip. I'm alone in the room, but outside I see people walking past, some casually, some in a hurry, most dressed in scrubs and white doctor's coats.

  I look around the room, and see things that were once mundane but are now so alien. A clock on the wall, ticking around with the time.

  Time.

  It had become such a blurred concept to me. And now, here I am, back in the real world where everyone lives by it.

  I see pictures on the walls. Paintings and artwork. Things I haven't seen in months. Machines tick and click and hum, nothing like the clicking and humming of the insects on the island.

  I melt into the bed underneath me, which feels almost too soft now. After months of sleeping on palm leaves and grainy sand, a soft mattress feels like a cloud of air.

  My eyes turn up to the door, where a doctor approaches. He steps in, smiles bright, and comes toward me.

  “How are you feeling Libby?” he asks, his accent Australian.

  “OK,” I croak. “How do you know my name?”

  It feels so odd speaking to another person. It feels like I've been absent from the world for years.

  “You told us, do you not remember?”

  I shake my head.

  “You've been through a very traumatic experience. How much do you remember?”

  Everything.

  “All of it.”

  Quickly, like a sudden bolt of lightning into my brain, I think of Flint. A rush of panic passes through me, my heart pounding behind my ribs.

  “Flint....where is he?! Is he alive?”

  The doctor comes forward, rests a hand on my hand to calm me.

  “He's in surgery now. We caught him just before he went over the edge.”

  “He's going to live?!”

  The doctor nods gently.

  “He'll live,” he says.

  Waves of emotion pass through me, overtake everything else in my head. I breathe deep and hard and tears rush from my eyes as I break down in front of him. He grips my hand more firmly, and I find myself inexorably leaning toward him and hugging him tight.

  He seems slightly taken aback
, but grips me in a comforting way.

  “It's OK, Libby, you're both OK now.”

  I hug him and cry for I don't know how long. I purge myself of all of the pent up emotion inside me, letting it all run out until I'm dry.

  I let go, and see that I've soaked his shoulder with my tears, and a weak apology escapes my lips.

  “It's quite alright. Do you want some time alone?”

  “No,” I say quickly. “When can I see Flint?”

  “He will be in surgery for a while. The doctors are working hard on him. I'll come back when I know some more.”

  “And...where am I. How did I get here?”

  “You're in Sydney. You were airlifted here from Fiji a few hours ago. Some fishermen found you...”

  He looks at me reverently, an element of amazement that I'm even here. That we both survived this long.

  “The authorities have been searching for you both for months. They found the wreckage of the plane but you two were missing...”

  “And where were we?”

  “Miles from where the plane went down, about fifty miles off the north coast of Fiji. You must have drifted there....but we were hoping you'd be able to fill us in.”

  He stops short, and stands up straight.

  “Unfortunately, its not my place to tell you this. A liaison for the search mission will be with you shortly. Do you feel up to speaking with him about what happened?”

  “Yes,” I say, nodding slowly.

  “Good. He'll be with you soon. It's quite a story you've got to tell, I'd imagine?”

  He smiles once more, and leaves the room, his question hanging in my head as I sit once more in silence.

  Quite a story...

  Not long after he's left, the liaison arrives, wearing a sympathetic smile and an air of authority.

  He's very gentle with his words, used, perhaps, to dealing with survivors of disasters like me. He coaxes me through everything, explaining what happened with the accident, how the plane went down, and where exactly we were found.