Stranded With a Billionaire

by Jessica Clare

  “Wow. Your cleanup crew is going to be working some overtime, I think.”

  Logan glanced back at her, a hint of a smile on his mouth. “I was planning on renovating the place anyhow. Someone told me I needed thicker walls.”

  She laughed at that, feeling warm at his regard. “Good call.”

  “I’m starving,” he said. “We should head to the gift shop. We can probably find some supplies there. I’m thinking water bottles, food, and maybe some dry clothes if it wasn’t too badly hit.”

  That all sounded good to her. She paused and thought for a moment, then pointed ahead. “Through the lobby and to the left, I think. Near the restaurant.” And then she felt stupid. He worked here—why was she telling him? “But of course, you know that.”

  “Of course.” His hand went to the small of her back, and he gestured at the lobby. “After you.”

  Brontë felt her body grow warm. He was looking down at her with such an impressed, amused that she . . . well, she didn’t know what to do with herself. So she offered him her hand.

  He took it in his, and her skin tingled in response when his fingers curled around hers. Touching Logan made her stomach quiver deep inside.

  At least, she told herself that it was her stomach.

  They waded forward, and Brontë struggled to keep up with Logan’s bigger strides as they headed into the lobby. It looked as if half of the hotel had been dumped here by the hurricane. There was more water, of course. Furniture was tipped over and scattered, and luggage was everywhere, the contents flung all over the room. Portions of the ceiling had caved in toward the glass doors, and all the glass was gone. She curled her toes, wondering where all that glass had gone. A sodden pillow floated in the water nearby, and a horrible thought occurred to her.

  “You don’t think we’re going to see any bodies, do you?”

  “I hope not.” He sounded grim. “If we’re lucky, everyone else was evacuated.”

  “Should we check the rest of the hotel? Just in case anyone else was stranded?”

  “We will,” he told her, and tugged her hand, urging her forward. “After we resupply ourselves. It won’t do us any good if you’re fainting with hunger.”

  “Me? You make it sound like I’m some weak flower on my last leg. What about you?”

  “I don’t faint.”

  She snorted. “‘Nothing has more strength than dire necessity,’ right?”

  “Another famous Plato gem?”

  “Euripides.”

  “Of course. That was going to be my next guess.”

  “Naturally. You’re a big fan of Euripides?”

  “Who isn’t?”

  She laughed, shaking her head at his comeback.

  They trudged through the massive lobby of the hotel, the weak streams of moonlight brighter the more destroyed the area was. The lobby was dark, but it seemed bright in comparison to the pitch-black elevator. Logan examined the ceiling as they walked, steering them clear of what seemed to be more dangerous areas. “The entire ceiling could collapse,” he told her. “We have to be careful.”

  “Now who’s Suzy Sunshine?” she teased, but stayed close.

  In the blue darkness, they spotted the gift shop, and Brontë sucked in a breath of disappointment. The security gate was down over the front of it. The glass behind the gate had been destroyed, but the gate itself was intact, with pieces of broken plants and other bits clinging to the metal. There was a large window to the right with a display of toppled mannequins in swimsuits, and through a miracle, it hadn’t shattered in the storm.

  “Just our luck,” she told him. “Do you have the key?”

  “No,” he told her crisply, and dropped her hand, walking away. “Stay there.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to be patient and failing. “What are you doing?”

  He returned a moment later, carrying a broken lobby chair. “Getting something better than a key.”

  “What about the alarm?”

  “Either it’s not working or we’re going to need to hope that the gift shop has earplugs,” he told her, and then gestured in her direction. “Stand back.”

  She sloshed backward a few feet and waited.

  Logan heaved the chair up, and she felt that curious flutter in her belly at the sight of his muscles flexing. He had big, broad shoulders that seemed to ripple with strength in the moonlight. And mercy, she liked looking at him.

  He swung the broken chair against the glass like a baseball player up at bat. Part of her expected it to bounce backward, as if maybe the glass were too thick to be broken by a chair if it had withstood the hurricane. But it crashed and tinkled into the water in a shower of glittering pieces.

  She shielded her eyes out of instinct, glancing over when the damage was done. Logan stood there looking rather pleased with himself, his body illuminated in moonlight. He looked . . . gorgeous. His hair was tousled, falling over his forehead, and his tall frame seemed all muscles and shadow from this angle. He was definitely easy on the eyes. Too easy. She felt her pulse flutter when he gave her a boyish grin.

  “Alarm’s dead. Come on.”

  But she hesitated, trying not to smile at his expression of pride. “What about all the glass? We’ll cut our feet.”

  He glanced down at the glittering shards. “You’re right. Stay there.”

  Again? She did as told, crossing her arms and waiting impatiently as he tossed his broken chair down, then knocked the mannequins into a messy sort of bridge, and disappeared inside. A moment later, he returned and laid a Styrofoam surfboard over the floor of the window front and extended a hand toward her. “Come on.”

  Stepping carefully forward in the calf-high water, she placed her hand in his warm one, ignoring that funny little jolt that ran through her at his touch. He was just being courteous, she told herself. Nothing to get excited about. She wobbled precariously on the board as it shifted and moved under her feet. “I think I’m going to—”

  Her feet slipped out from under her, and she pitched forward.

  Strong arms were there to catch her. Logan held her close, her breasts pressed to his chest.

  “—fall,” she finished lamely.

  If she tilted her face up, she’d be within kissing distance, and the thought made her feel flushed with heat.

  He helped her strand upright. “You okay?”

  “Just feel stupid is all.” She pushed away from him, straightening herself and trying to look casual. Brontë glanced around inside the gift shop. “Shoes? We really should have brought ours.”

  Logan glanced around, then gestured at a far wall. “I see them. Stay there. Only one of us should risk cut feet.”

  He waded forward, and she studied their surroundings. The gift shop was packed to the gills with a motley assortment of items, half of them on the floor. Racks of ugly t-shirts had fallen over and were currently soaking up water near her feet. A short distance away, there were equally sodden racks of beach towels, and destroyed straw hats floated nearby. Lovely.

  “I found you some water shoes. What size?”

  “Seven.”

  “This might be a seven. Hard to tell in the dark.” He plucked a pair off the wall and turned to her.

  She held her hands up, and he tossed them in her direction. Using one of the fallen racks to support herself, Brontë snapped the string tying the shoes together and slipped them on. Too big. Didn’t matter, they’d protect her feet for now. She’d get a better size when they had some light. She shuffled forward. “What supplies do we need?”

  “Flashlights, if we can find them. If not, something dry to use as a torch. Lighters. Food and water. Anything else you want.” He put on a pair of water shoes and began to move behind the counter.

  A change of clothes would have been nice. She glanced at the sodden heap of shirts nearby. Not exactly what
she had in mind. Picking through the mess of spilled items on the counters, she was able to locate some plastic-wrapped folded shirts, and she snatched all five of them. Perfect. “I found some dry shirts.”

  “Good, bring them. I found some lighters.”

  She moved toward him, sidestepping the mess in the aisles. He took one of the shirts from her and ripped it out of the package, then wrapped it around one of the broken chair legs. Next, he tied it with a shoelace and then flicked the lighter on. When it sputtered and went out again, he cursed, cracked open another lighter and poured the fluid on his torch, and lit it again. That did the trick.

  In the flare of the torch light, he gave her an almost wicked look. “Now we can get a really good look at each other.”

  Her stomach fluttered again.

  Logan was handsome, she realized. She’d known that he was clean-cut and well built, and he’d worn a suit when she’d stepped into the elevator with him. She didn’t remembered much more, though, and she’d caught glimpses of him here and there, but not a full-on look. The light flickered, outlining the planes of his face with shadows, but he was gorgeous. He had a perfect, straight nose and a gorgeous pair of full lips framed by dark stubble. His jaw was square and strong, and he had dark, arching brows over equally dark eyes. And those big, broad shoulders. A dark, circular tattoo blotted the skin on one biceps, visible through the wet fabric of a white dress shirt that was untucked from his slacks. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost his jacket. Not that it mattered—the disheveled look was working wonders for him.

  Logan was handsome, all right. She gave him a weak smile and waved her fingers at him. “Hi there. Long time no see.”

  The flickering light made his smile in response seem mysterious. “Hello, Brontë.”

  The way he said her name made her shiver, just a little. “You could have looked at me before. It wasn’t totally dark.”

  “Yes, but now I get to see everything,” he said, studying her with a long up-and-down look. “Not just shadows and suggestion.”

  That very blatant look made her feel fluttery all over again. Frowning, she gestured back at the store shelves behind her, feeling a little flustered and ill at ease. “I’m just going to look for some more stuff.”

  They continued to raid the store, rummaging through the mess for supplies. There was a cooler in the window display, so Brontë grabbed it and began to fill it with water bottles and sodas from the broken refrigerated drink case. Some had spilled on the floor, and she fished one out of the water at her feet, grimacing at the grit coating it. “I feel like a looter.”

  He was digging behind the counter for something. “You are a looter. You are currently in the act of looting.”

  “Gee, thanks. Are we going to get in trouble for this?”

  “Brontë, I’m the manager. Just consider the tab on me.”

  She picked up a handful of candy bars and tossed them into the cooler. “How long do you think it’ll take for them to get here and save us?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been in a hurricane before.”

  She hadn’t, either. Brontë chewed on her lip, looking down at the water bottles in the cooler. She counted them. Twelve in there and twenty more still in the case. Handfuls of candy bars. What if that wasn’t enough? “What if we’re here for a week? Or longer?”

  He tossed several lighters on the counter and turned, hands on his hips, checking the wall behind him for supplies. “Then we get to know each other really well.”

  For some reason, that made her blush all over again. Her mind went in an entirely filthy direction with that one single comment.

  Part of her hoped they would be rescued very quickly, and part of her hoped that rescuers took their sweet, sweet time so she’d be forced to be around this delicious, half-naked man for quite a little while.

  Something sparkled in one of the windows, and Brontë wandered over, her curiosity getting the better of her. One of the glass cases had jewelry in it—she supposed it was for the kind of tourist who wouldn’t be satisfied with a T-shirt or a postcard. The necklaces in the window were pretty enough, but one in particular caught her eye. It was a string of diamonds that, when worn, would spill delicately over the wearer’s neck as if on an invisible chain. It had a dark gemstone in the center that she couldn’t make out and matching earrings.

  “Pretty stuff,” Brontë commented as Logan moved to her side with the torch.

  “You like that?” he asked.

  She grinned up at him. “What woman wouldn’t? It’s really gorgeous, but it probably costs an arm and a leg.”

  “Want me to loot it for you?”

  Her stomach dropped. She shook her head, taking a step backward. “Absolutely not.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s expensive, Logan. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  He snorted. “The diamonds probably aren’t quality and I doubt that it’s worth the markup, but if you want it, I’ll get it for you.”

  “No. We’ll get in trouble.”

  “Brontë, there’s no one here. And I’m the . . . manager.” He seemed to pause on the word, as if it were unfamiliar.

  “I don’t want it, Logan,” she warned him, feeling anxious. “Looting it is wrong, and you’d be crazy to risk being fired over something like that.”

  He laughed. “They can’t fire me, but suit yourself.”

  To her relief, he let it drop, and Brontë moved carefully away from the jewelry counter. In her experience, expensive gifts were inevitably the result of lies and betrayal. It made her think of her childhood, and the long weeks during which her father—a traveling salesman—had been gone, and her mother’s anxious waiting for him to return. He’d roll back into town after weeks away, with quickly waved-away excuses and a shower of presents for his wife and daughter. Her dreamy mother had always been flattered by the gifts of jewelry and excited to see her husband return home.

  Now, as an adult, Brontë knew better. She knew that her father’s absences hadn’t been due to business as much as they’d been to see another woman, a girlfriend on the side. The presents he’d brought home were apologies more than gifts. She’d learned not to trust impulsive presents, because in Brontë’s eyes they were a way of hiding the truth, a distraction. And for some reason she didn’t want to put Logan into the same category as her smiling, lying father.

  They hauled a bag of candy, the cooler of water, and a few other bags of miscellaneous supplies back to the stairwell that they’d established as their base of operations, since it was currently the only place they’d found that was above water. Once back at the stairwell, Brontë grabbed a water bottle, climbed a few steps, and sat drinking her fill. When Logan sat next to her, she passed the water bottle to him, holding the torch while he drank.

  It sputtered and dropped sparks as she watched it. “How long do you think this will last?”

  “Not long. We need to find something better.”

  “We should check the rest of the resort, too. I’d hate to think of someone else trapped in the elevators, waiting for rescue.” She chewed her lip, thinking. She felt weak and tired, but someone still stuck in an elevator would feel much, much worse, and she didn’t want anyone dying while she sat a short distance away.

  He nodded, finishing off the water bottle.

  “Should we check the upper floors?”

  “I’m not sure it’s wise,” Logan told her. “You saw how badly the roof was destroyed in the lobby. We don’t know that the other floors aren’t on the verge of collapse. We can take a look from outside tomorrow and decide then.”

  “All right,” she agreed, then winced as her stomach growled. “I guess we should crack open those chocolate bars?”

  “Or we could head to the kitchens,” he told her with a sideways glance. “See if there’s anything worth saving now that the power’s been off for a while.”

&nb
sp; “Real food? Sign me up.” She got to her feet, feeling a burst of energy at the thought.

  There were two kitchens in the hotel, one attached to each restaurant. The first one smelled strongly of dead fish and the roof looked as if it had fallen in, so they went to check the other instead. The second restaurant wasn’t nearly as destroyed, but the kitchen had slim pickings. The enormous refrigerators were full of marinating meat that would probably spoil fast. There was a walk-in freezer, and they opened it, both groaning with pleasure as the cool air puffed out and brushed over their heated skin.

  “Still cold,” Logan told her, and gestured for Brontë to follow him in. “Might be cold for a bit longer if we keep the door closed.”

  The freezer was full of dinner items—frozen chicken, frozen fish, and myriad packages of sides and desserts waiting to be prepared.

  “We should eat some of this,” she told him. “Can we build a fire somewhere and cook some?”

  “If the stove doesn’t work, yeah. Pick what you want to eat.”

  They grabbed a few packages of chicken from the freezer and a large can of peaches from the pantry, and set about making dinner. Logan tested the stoves, and one of the gas ranges was working. They grabbed a skillet and began to cook the chicken, not talking. While they waited, Brontë found a can opener, opened the peaches, and offered Logan a fork.

  He took it from her and speared a peach, and then quickly lifted it to his mouth and popped the dripping slice in.

  Her stomach growled at the sight, and she quickly stuck her fork into a peach slice, lifting it to her mouth, her hand cupped underneath to catch the juices. The first bite was heaven—a sweet, sugary rush flooded her mouth, and the taste of peaches was overwhelming to her starved senses. She licked her fingers and leaned back against the counter. “I think that was the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until just now.”

  “We’ve had our minds on other things.”

  They savored the can of peaches while waiting on the chicken. Though Logan’s movements were precise, Brontë found herself ravenously wolfing them down. She didn’t care that her hands were sticky or that they were a little too sugary-sweet. It was food, and it was delicious.