Island Road: The Billionaire Brothers (11 page)

Instead, he said, “Actually, if I’m completely honest—which I promise to be from now on—I think I fell in love with you from the first moment I set eyes on you. It just took me a day or so to figure it out.”

Miles watched her closely. This was the delicate part of the negotiation, he sensed. He’d laid it all out for her, the deepest truth of his feelings, and now Greta had to decide whether to retreat back to safety, or to take a leap of faith and trust someone who’d hurt her.

“I can’t…” Greta frowned, and Miles’s fingers itched to smooth away the line between her dark gold brows. “I don’t understand what you get out of lying about this.”

“Best-case scenario?” Miles traced his hands down the length of her arms to trap her cold hands between his. Bringing their twined fingers to his lips, he said, “I could get you.”

For one blissful, heart-stopping second, Greta swayed toward him, color blooming in her cheeks and her breath coming fast and light … but then she drew back. Fear flashed across her face and she pulled her hands from his grasp. “No! It wouldn’t work.”

“If you believe I love you, we can make anything work,” Miles said quickly. “I can give you as much time as you need to catch up. No pressure, no rush—we can start over and take it slow.”

“Right, slow.” Greta’s smile was bleak as winter, and she wrapped her arms around her ribs as if she’d gotten a chill. “However long it takes me to trust you again … you’ll just hang out here on Sanctuary Island and let your company go to rot without you.”

“There’s such a thing as videoconferencing,” Miles pointed out. “And we can travel back and forth. I got the impression you enjoyed New York.”

“I did love New York. That’s the not the point,” Greta cried. “I can’t leave Sanctuary! It’s my home. My mother, the shop—she needs me.”

“Your mother will always need you,” Miles said, treading carefully. “She loves you. And after what you went through together, the transplant and everything—that connection is unbreakable. I would never want to do anything to harm it. But she did mention there are other options available for help with the store.”

Greta was shaking her head hard enough to whip her hair across her cheeks. “No, I can’t…”

Despair yawned like a chasm beneath Miles’s feet, ready to suck him down into the black depths. “Greta. Don’t hide behind your mother.”

Her head shot up, fire in her eyes, but Miles forced himself to continue. “Please don’t say no because you’re afraid to leave home. Not you, my wild adventurer. But if you’re hesitating because you don’t think you can ever love me back…”

Pain closed his throat, choking off his words, and he had to look away. A tiny huff from Greta made him glance back at her, though, and the aggravation on her face jump-started his heart.

“You idiot,” she breathed, fury reddening her cheeks. “I’m already head over heels for you. What do you think I’m so afraid of?”

Miles whooped and grabbed her, picking her up and twirling her. “You love me?”

“Yes, idiot, now put me down,” Greta yelled, laughing.

He set her on the countertop by the cash register, a strategic move that allowed him to step between her spread thighs and keep her close. Resting her elbows on his shoulders, Greta sobered as she stared down at him.

“Of course I love you,” she said again. “You couldn’t have hurt me so badly if I didn’t.”

Miles buried his face in her lap, unable to bear the sharp pain lurking in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll never hurt you again.”

“You can’t promise that.” A light, tentative hand carded through the hair at the vulnerable nape of Miles’s neck. “No one could keep that promise.”

Shuddering, Miles straightened and met Greta’s worried stare. “You’re right. Life is long, and if we spend ours together, it’s a given that we’ll hurt each other at some point. But I can promise never to hurt you intentionally.”

Greta seemed to be holding her breath. “Are you … did you just say you want to spend the rest of your life with me?”

“Oh hey, hold on.” In a flash, Miles remembered the tiny box he’d retrieved from the wall safe before they left his penthouse that morning. Weird to think if he’d slipped it into his jacket instead of his pants pocket, they might have avoided a lot of heartache.

“Is that what I think it is?” Greta was close to hyperventilating now, Miles noted from the swift rise and fall of her rib cage.

He brushed a loving finger over the black velvet box, then handed it over. “If you think it’s my mother’s engagement ring, you’re right.”

Greta’s fingers trembled as they flipped open the box, and Miles drew in his breath at the sight of the slim platinum band and princess-cut diamond he’d last seen on his mother’s finger.

“It’s beautiful.” Greta touched the tip of one finger to the sparkling baguettes that flanked the central diamond. “But I can’t accept this. Miles, it’s too much, you don’t even know—”

Miles clamped his hands on her hips. “Yes, you can. I love you, and you love me. Marry me and we’ll spend the rest of our lives having adventures and living out your fairy tale.”

“The rest of our lives.” Greta blew out a breath, and when she met his gaze, the depth of terror in her eyes struck a blow at Miles’s heart. “What if I can’t promise you more than a few years? Will you still want to give me this ring?”

Miles struggled to control his rising fear. “What do you mean?”

Closing the jewelry box with a snap that made them both wince, Greta said, “Kidney transplants don’t last forever. I could get lucky, since my kidney is from a close, living relative—I might have a couple of decades. But it could be less, there’s no way to know for sure.”

Scrambling to make sense of this, Miles fell back on the problem-solving skills drilled into him as a CEO. “Okay. That sucks. But when it fails, you can get another kidney transplant, right?”

“Or go on dialysis.” The corners of her mouth turned down. “Either way, it’s going to be … pretty awful.”

Light dawned behind Miles’s eyes. “And you’ve been living with this sword hanging over your head since you were, what, seventeen?”

Greta nodded, biting her lip. “I couldn’t ask or expect you to sign up for that life, never knowing when to expect disaster to strike, but always knowing it’s around the corner, waiting for you.”

“But don’t you see,” Miles argued, “that’s every life. You think I don’t have nightmares about losing members of my family, after what happened to my parents? I do. And one day, unless by God’s good grace I die first, it will happen. Disaster will strike like lightning; it’s the only guarantee in life. All we can do is choose who we want at our sides when the storm breaks.”

“And you want me? A woman with a lemon of a body, who’s never done anything with her life and still lives with her mother?”

Miles hooked a hand behind her neck to drag her down for a kiss. “I want you, the woman who conquered her fears and stood on top of the world with me. I want the woman who reminded me that I owe my family more than protection. I want the woman who … God. The woman my mother would have absolutely adored. Greta, I want you.”

Greta sobbed against his mouth, kissing him back through the tears streaming down her cheeks.

When they came up for air a lifetime later, Miles rasped, “Is that a yes?”

In answer, Greta picked up the box she’d dropped on the counter beside them and opened it. “Put it on me,” she ordered in a tear-clogged voice. “Give me my fairy tale ending, damn it.”

The band slid smoothly onto the ring finger of her left hand and nestled there as if it had been made for Greta. Blinking away the hot sting behind his eyes, Miles said, “Our fairy tale is a little out of the ordinary.”

“How so?”

Kissing her hand, the one wearing his ring, gave Miles a primal thrill of possession. “In our story, the beautiful maiden is the one who rescues the prince. With this ring, you’re saving me from a life of nothing but cold, solitary duty and obligation. You and this island gave me back my brothers, my family—and now I get to live happily ever after with you.”

Humming happily, Greta locked her ankles together behind Miles’s back, curving down to whisper into his ear. “No matter where we go or what adventures we have, we’ll always find our way home … because, for me, home is wherever you are.”

A Q & A with Lily Everett

1. The Billionaire Brothers novellas take place on Sanctuary Island, a beautiful island preserve for wild horses. Is it based on a real place? And if not, what was the inspiration?

There are actually several islands off the east coast of the United States that are home to bands of wild horses. I grew up in Virginia, just a few hours from Assateague Island, a breathtakingly beautiful nature preserve. And I thought … what if there were a friendly little town full of interesting people who live side by side with the wild horses?

2. This trilogy follows three brothers with very different personalities. If you got to choose, which brother would
you
end up with? The bad boy, the sexy genius, or the high-powered alpha male?

I like to make fun of my husband for his firm belief that every single one of my characters (male and female!) is based on him. But this question makes me realize that the man I chose to spend my life with actually has a bit of all three Harrington brothers in him: he’s a super intelligent guy who runs his own business … and occasionally enjoys a walk on the wild side. I’m a lucky woman!

3. If you had to choose, which heroine would you say is most like you? And are there any ways you wish you were more like Penny, Jessica or Greta?

I identify with each of them in a different way, but what I love about all three of these women is how gutsy they are. Each of them faces a staggering challenge, the kind of roadblock to happiness that derails a lot of people—and each of my heroines rises to meet that challenge, with the help of the man she loves. That’s the kind of woman I want to be, and it’s the kind of woman I love to write about.

4. Are there any favorite moments you can share with us about writing this series?

Sanctuary Island is most closely based on Assateague, but I visited a second island to round out my research: Cumberland Island, one of the Golden Isles off the coast of Georgia. My sister and I took an afternoon boat cruise hosted by a chatty local historian, and her fascinating stories of how the island came into the possession of the wealthy Carnegie family in the late 1800’s and then transitioned into a protected national park gave me lots of ideas! But the best part of the day, by far, was standing at the railing of that boat with my sister and spotting wild horses grazing on marsh grass in the distance. It still gives me chills to think about it!

5. Family is such a strong theme in all the stories. Did you draw on any of your real life relationships when crafting the bond between Dylan, Logan, and Miles?

I’m extremely grateful that my family relationships aren’t quite as troubled as the ones I write about. I live fifteen minutes from my parents, and I’m so close to my sister that it’s very hard to imagine being as estranged from a sibling as Dylan, Logan, and Miles are from each other. But in a way, that closeness is what I drew on for the emotion in the stories—because I know exactly what those boys were missing out on by not being in each others’ lives. Heartbreaking! I couldn’t let them go on like that.

6. Are you currently working on anything else right now? Can you give readers an idea of what to look forward to next after reading The Billionaire Brothers series?

I wrote the Billionaire Brothers stories to welcome readers to Sanctuary Island! I’m hoping everyone wants to keep on coming back there, because I can’t get enough of that place. On July 30
th
, the very first full-length novel in the series will be available in both print and digital. So be on the lookout for
Sanctuary Island
! It’s about two sisters who come to the island for the first time to reconnect with their estranged mother … and discover the magic of new possibilities and life-changing love.

7. If I am a fan the series and want to help, what can I do?

If you’re a fan, thank you for reading and enjoying my books. That’s enough to make me love you already! But if you really want to get the word out about Sanctuary Island, you can always leave a review on Amazon, B&N, or Goodreads, to help point readers like you toward books they might enjoy. You can keep up to date on all my news and sign up for my newsletter on my website. (
http://www.lilyeverett.com
) And of course I’d love to connect with you on my Facebook page (
http://www.facebook.com/LilyEverettReaderPage
) or chat with you on Twitter! (
http://www.twitter.com/Lily_Everett
)

Happy reading!

Lily Everett

LILY EVERETT is the pseudonym of a bestselling romance novelist. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Don’t miss the other novellas in Lily Everett’s heart-tugging Billionaire Brothers trilogy!