Stranded with the Hidden Billionaire Read online

  Stranded with the Hidden Billionaire

  Stranded in Paradise Romance, Book 5

  Elana Johnson

  Contents

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  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

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Sneak Peek! Stranded with the SEAL Chapter One

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  Chapter One

  Eden McLaughlin tucked her blonde hair behind her ear, the Hawaiian spring wind trying to whip it right off her head. Once she got around the corner up ahead, she’d get some relief.

  If only she could get the same reprieve from her thoughts simply by rounding a corner. But no, they continued to go round and round even after she got away from the wind. Deciding to take a break, she found a level piece of ground on the trail she’d escaped to in the wilds of Hawaii—if such a thing could be found.

  And it could. Getaway Bay was thriving and growing, but there were still plenty of off-the-beaten-path trails and hikes and opportunities on the island. Sure, she had to drive a little. Yes, hers was the only car in the parking lot—which was little more than a patch of dirt next to a non-marked trailhead.

  But this kind of back-country exploring was what Eden thrived on. She sat down and pulled out the survival tool she’d jimmy-rigged to be everything she needed while hiking. Part knife, part can opener, part pair of scissors, it literally had everything—even a compartment for a solar blanket and a six-foot length of cord she could use for a dozen purposes.

  And no one wanted it.

  “Billionaires.” She scoffed out the word as she pulled the portable stove from her pack. Another invention of hers, she could heat a single serving of whatever she wanted in something the size of a can of beans.

  None of the billionaire investors that had flocked to Fisher DuPont’s huge eyesore of a hotel on the beach wanted to give her any money to get her line of survival gear off the ground. Her latest meeting had been yesterday with a man named Darius Blood. Yes, Blood.

  “More like bloodsucker,” Eden muttered as she got the container of chicken casserole from her pack and scooped it into the can. It had two bottoms, one of which was connected to the other with thin strips of metal, allowing her to stuff grass and small sticks into the gap between the two.

  Using her multipurpose tool, which also held matches, she lit the debris and got the flame going. No need to just pack sandwiches anymore. The speeches she’d prepared for her products lingered in her mind, always just out of reach. Ready to be called upon, should she get asked a question in line at the grocery store or on an elevator.

  After all, she understood the seven degrees of separation better than almost anyone, and it could be that the cashier could have a brother who knew someone, who knew who owned the biggest and most profitable survival company in Getaway Bay.

  Explore Getaway Bay.

  Eden had tried to find out who really owned the company. It seemed like every door that opened, five more closed—and she worked as a tour guide for the outdoor department of the company. And she still had no idea who really signed her checks.

  Not that there were literally any checks to sign. Not in this digital age.

  Sometimes Eden wanted to rewind time, go back to when she had to have cash to buy something, and everything passed from person to person. Now, people could buy whole islands with virtual money, and Eden didn’t understand any of it. She loved the land, the island, the act of going outside and exploring.

  And that was what she did, six days a week. Well, seven if her own exploration of Getaway Bay on her day off counted.

  The ocean in front of her brought a small measure of comfort, and she watched the horizon, wondering how long it took for the water way out there to crash against the rocks on the cliffs below her.

  Probably as long as it had taken Jeremy to know he didn’t want to see her again. She’d been on six first dates in the past couple of months, and she couldn’t get a man to commit to a second.

  Maybe she talked too much about her inventions. Maybe she didn’t talk enough. She’d tried both and failed both times. She told herself it didn’t matter, because between working in the shed in her backyard to make awesome outdoor products, her real day job, and all her investment meetings, she certainly didn’t have time for a boyfriend.

  She’d tried the app that had sent the island into a tailspin—Getaway Bay Singles—but she’d struck out there too.

  Eden leaned her head back against the rocks, deciding this week just sucked and she needed to hang in there until next week.

  Next week, she’d be on the submarine, her favorite tour, and that would make this week better. She had no more investment meetings, and she’d just take a break from the shed.

  That all decided, she ate her chicken and rice, her mood lifted somewhat by the food and the plan to move forward. Still with her back against the cliff, she pulled out her phone and sent a group text to her sisters.

  Maybe I don’t understand men because I don’t have any brothers.

  The message went zipping through cyberspace, where it would land on her sister’s phones. They’d send back condolences about Jeremy, who Eden had been very hopeful about. Then they’d throw in stories of their latest dating disasters, and Eden would offer to make dinner at her place that night.

  She’d always felt a bit out of place among her sisters, but they were her best friends at the same time. She wasn’t sure why her parents had gone for plant names for all of them, but she’d gotten Eden.

  Orchid, Iris, Ivy—and Eden. It might have made sense if she was the baby of the family. Like the Garden of Eden. But nope. She was the second oldest, and the twins—Iris and Ivy—had just celebrated their thirtieth birthday.

  The sky darkened, and Eden glanced up. Concern flowed through her, and she realized she’d been staring at her phone instead of paying attention to the weather. Things could shift suddenly out in the ocean, and she knew better than most. How many times had she said that to tourists coming through the office?

  Thousands.

  She hastily stood up and packed up her things, the first drops of rain already falling though the sun was still shining in parts of the sky. She’d climbed for a good hour before stopping, and it would be slick and hard to get down if the rain continued for very long.

  Big, heavy drops kept pounding the ground around her, soaking her face and hair before she’d even shouldered her pack. What a perfect way to end this horrible week, and it felt like God and Mother Nature had combined forces against her.

  She took a few steps to the corner and hesitated. Perhaps she should just stay here. One step into that wind, and she might blow away. Her calves burned from standing on the downward slope, but she couldn’t see very far behind her to know if there was a cave or a small divot in the rocks where she could at least find some shelter from the storm.

  Most storms like this raged for fifteen minutes or less, and if she could just wait it out, she’d have a much smoother hi
ke back to her car.

  Turning, she headed back the way she’d come, passing the flat spot where she’d eaten lunch. She kept one hand continually on the cliffs on her left, her situation growing more and more dire by the moment.

  She finally stopped, unable to keep climbing due to the slope and the slippery mud the path had become. Feeling stupid—how lame would a headline look about one of Getaway Bay’s top outdoor tour guides getting stuck in the wilderness?—she pulled out her phone and texted her sisters.

  Stuck out a Bald Mountain Cliffs. If I don’t call someone in an hour, send help.

  Help? Orchid’s text came right back, and Eden tried not to roll her eyes. Orchid never wore anything but heels, the thought of actually hiking a horrifying one.

  Eden couldn’t focus on the text string right now. She needed to get out of this rain. After zipping her phone back in her pants pocket, she turned back down the trail. Maybe she’d missed something, but it was pretty hard to tell.

  In the end, she crouched down close to the face of the cliff and ducked her head as low as possible, covering it with her hands. The storm would just last a few more minutes. Microbursts. That’s all Hawaii got, unless they’d already braced for a tropical storm or a hurricane. And there hadn’t been anything on the weather report that morning.

  She wasn’t sure how long she crouched there, but it couldn’t have been long—her knees didn’t even hurt yet—before an awful, cracking, crashing, thundering sound filed the air. Filled her ears, her whole soul.

  She gasped and lifted her head, trying to locate the source of the noise. But it echoed from everywhere, as if the sky itself had split open and the Earth would be ending in the next few seconds.

  The warm rain pounded against her face, blinding her, and Eden ducked her head again, true fear flowing through her.

  The ground beneath her began to shake, and she bolted to her feet.

  “The mountain is coming down.”

  Sure enough, in that moment, Bald Mountain Cliffs started shedding off rocks like a snake does its skin. Eden had nowhere to go to escape—not this time.

  She got swept away by the landslide as it rammed into her back, stealing her breath and shooting toward that corner she’d rounded. She knew the landslide wouldn’t turn and follow the path, but go right off the side of the cliff.

  And she was going with it.

  She screamed as she fell, landing much sooner than she’d have thought. She rolled as more mud and rocks continued to rain down on her, pain flashing through her temples, her knees, her back, and her hands.

  All at once, she found shelter from the rain and all the debris flowing over the path above. She drew in a shaky breath, the edges of her vision turning white.

  “I’m going to pass out,” she murmured, glad she’d texted her sisters.

  “Hey,” a man said, and Eden jerked toward the voice. Bad move. Her head swam, and she couldn’t see very well at all.

  She groaned and started to tip forward, the man catching her in his arms at the same time he said, “Eden?”

  Eden looked up in the gorgeous, if not a little bloody, face of Holden Holstein. Ah, Holden. This was a nice dream. One where he held her in his arms, kissed her, shared his deepest sorrows with her.

  “Are you with me?” he asked, and Eden’s eyes snapped open again. “Don’t pass out, Eden.”

  But she couldn’t hold on. Of course Holden—the one and only man she’d ever loved—would have to be in this cave. Had to be a witness to her falling off a cliff and passing out.

  “Holden,” she murmured. She’d wanted to say so much to him before they’d broken up all those years ago. But she couldn’t then, and her tongue was too thick and her brain too slow now.

  So she settled into the warm darkness, the scent of Holden’s skin and cologne lulling her right into unconsciousness, the way it had so often in the past.

  Chapter Two

  Holden Holstein couldn’t really hold Eden’s weight, though she was a tall, lithe woman with hardly any body fat. But a rock had landed on his leg, and he was pretty sure it was fractured.

  He laid Eden down as gently as he could, but he was pretty sure she groaned as he did. It was hard to tell above the pounding rain just a few feet away, and all that mud, foliage, and rock falling off the ledge up above.

  He couldn’t believe he’d picked today to come out here. It literally hadn’t rained in Getaway Bay in a month, and he’d thought the wet season had ended. It was the middle of May, and the weather usually played nice by now.

  Holden fell to the ground beside Eden, panting now that the adrenaline had worn off. Pain pulsed through his leg, and it would be a miracle if he got out of here alive. Of course, he would. If the hardships Holden had already endured in his life hadn’t killed him, this landslide wouldn’t.

  At least he’d told Dean where he was going. Of course, his advisor at Explore Getaway Bay knew everything about Holden. Everyone thought Dean was the brains, brawn, and billions behind the survival company, outdoor tours from underwater to the top of the dormant volcano, and mega-online resource for wilderness survival.

  Holden had brought his phone with him. At least Eden had a backpack on. He glanced at her, noticing that she was wearing an Explore GB T-shirt, and guilt spread through him like wildfire.

  She worked for his company, and surely she could get them out of this mess. But he hated that he couldn’t do it. Hated that he owned the company but couldn’t tell Eden. Couldn’t survive in the wilds of Hawaii by himself. Hated that he’d lost Eden years ago.

  But his mother had been dying, and he hadn’t been able to deal with the demands of a relationship too. Even though Eden hadn’t been a demanding girlfriend, Holden simply hadn’t been in a place where he could keep her.

  So he’d cut her loose. He’d cut a lot of people and things loose during that difficult time of his life, and he’d been slowly putting pieces back together since then.

  Privately. Behind closed doors.

  His half-brother had taken over their father’s cattle ranch and become a billionaire himself. Holden had been building his wealth through selling flashlights, emergency blankets, and rations to the hikers and outdoor enthusiasts that came to Getaway Bay to see some of the world’s most amazing sights.

  He worked closely with Dean Black, a childhood friend who’d stuck with Holden through all the ups and downs of his family life. When he tried to explain to people how he was younger than his half-brother, but that his dad was married to Lincoln’s mother…it hurt his own head.

  Shaking the thoughts from his head, he told himself to focus. He didn’t need a family history lesson right now. He needed to stay awake so there wouldn’t be two unconscious bodies under this ledge.

  He reached over and covered Eden’s hand with his. She wasn’t cold, which was a good sign, but she didn’t move either. Bad sign.

  “Mom, what do I do here?” When he got really stressed, talking to his mother was the best thing to do. After his dad had gone back to his previous wife, leaving Holden and his mother, they’d relied on each other for so much.

  “I just wanted an afternoon away,” he said. “Dean says there’s this new app service, and our company needs it. People can schedule their tours right from their phones. See availability. All of that. He says I should negotiate with Theo, because I already work there, and he thinks I could code the app myself. Get a deal on the design.”

  Holden stopped talking, because it was way past time for Explore Getaway Bay to have an app, and he knew it. His mother couldn’t really help him with this.

  No, what he wanted help with was Eden.

  It had been five years since they’d been a couple. Five years since his mother’s illness. Five years since the funeral.

  He’d thought of her every day since then, and while he’d blocked some memories from that time of his life and he knew he’d acted badly, he couldn’t help hoping she’d come back to him.

  Walk into his office one day and ask hi
m to lunch.

  Of course, she wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t even do that. Theo’s offices were in a luxury condo building that required a code to get in. He’d known Eden was on his payroll, but he didn’t really know the day-to-day details of her job. He didn’t have to know. He owned Explore Getaway Bay on paper only, consulting with Dean every Monday and working at The Web Developer the rest of the week.

  The rain beyond the ledge eased up, and Holden rolled toward the opening to see the water was definitely slowing down. A few feet of debris had piled up outside the ledge he’d found only a minute into the downpour. If he had anything besides his two hands, he could probably dig them out, even with the damaged condition of his leg.

  As it was, he couldn’t get himself to move. So he cupped his hand around Eden’s again, closed his eyes, and evened out his breathing. If there was anything he’d learned growing up on the cattle ranch for a few years, it was to breathe through the pain.

  His phone beeped, but it wasn’t the notification for a text or a missed phone call. It was his battery notification telling him his phone was almost dead. He didn’t even open his eyes. When he didn’t respond to Dean’s texts and calls, his best friend would call the cops.

  And Eden had a whole slew of people who cared about her. They wouldn’t be stuck up here forever.

  She groaned, and Holden’s eyes flew open. “Eden,” he said, and her hand shifted away from his. “Wake up.” He wasn’t sure if he was telling himself or her. Using his hands, he pushed himself up and looked down at Eden.

  She had beautiful blonde hair—at least when it was washed and curled. Even if she had it in its customary ponytail, he liked it. Right now, it was filled with mud, and Holden reached down and plucked a small stick out of it.