Page 24 of The Billionaire's Bad News Baby

God, why was he seeking her approval like some little schoolkid trailing after their crush? The heat up the back of his neck seemed to grow warmer by a few degrees and he became even more determined to ignore it. Instead, he watched Kayla as they enjoyed the meal, both of them too busy eating to really talk much. And Kayla was too busy looking around her like she always seemed to do, as if she was trying to take a mental photograph of her surroundings down to the very last detail.

“I have a question,” she said eventually, the sun starting to get lower and lower in the sky, kissing the edge of the ocean.

“Should I be nervous?” Elio asked, even though she seemed to be making him nervous all afternoon for no discernible reason.

Kayla rolled her eyes at him. “What, are you scared of me or something?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Because it seems like you’re scared of me.”

“Just ask your question.”

Her mouth quirked as if she had to physically stop herself from continuing to tease him. Instead, she looked back out over the tail end of the vineyard. “How does someone even buy an island?”

“With… money?” Elio said, not entirely sure what she meant.

Kayla shook her head at him. “I mean, is there an actual retail listing for an island like there is for a house? But it’s only accessible to rich people, not to the rest of us mere mortals who live in crappy one-bedroom apartments?”

“I wouldn’t put it that harshly…”

“But basically, I’m right?”

“Basically, yes.”

She smiled, just happy to be right about anything, it seemed, and Elio found himself smiling along with her.

“So why this island?” she asked, taking a small sip from the wine bottle that was very nearly empty. “You saw photos and thought it looked real pretty?”

“No, I used to come here as a kid,” he said. “I loved it so much I ended up buying it.”

Kayla looked surprised.

“What?”

“Nothing, it just wasn’t the answer I was expecting. You don’t exactly seem like the sentimental sort.”

Elio shrugged. She wasn’t wrong.

“My parents would rent it for our vacations. It always felt more like home than home did, you know?”

That probably didn’t make any sense at all, but Kayla was sitting quietly, watching him, waiting for him to continue. So he did; inclined, for once in his life, to keep talking.

“It was the one place I could just go and explore. During the school year, I would study most of the time, or I would follow my dad around the office and have him teach me things. This stuff they don’t teach you in school, he’d say and have me listen in on business meetings and negotiations, but all it really taught me was that most people seem to be okay with lying through their teeth and you have to pretend that you don’t notice them doing it.

“Out here, though, there was none of that. Back then, there wasn’t an internet connection, not even a landline. You were cut off from everything unless you wanted to take a boat to the mainland. So there wasn’t anything for me to do except read books and go wandering around the island. And I always loved the vineyard. It felt like a forest and a maze combined, and I’d hide out in there for hours, eating all the grapes even though I wasn’t supposed to. I looked forward to it every year. Then college happened and my dad retired, and we were never that close in the first place, so we all just drifted apart… I took over the business and moved it specifically into wine, and honestly, I think I did that because I’d always loved these vineyards so much. Wine felt kind of magical to me because of all those memories. I missed this place so much that the first chance I got, I made it mine.”

“That’s how important it was to you?” Kayla asked, actually looking impressed for once. Elio shrugged.

“It was the only thing I ever really wanted. That wasn’t work related, that is.”

“I’m sorry,” Kayla said, her tone shifting on the turn of a dime.

Elio looked at her, confused, especially because she looked genuinely contrite. “What? Why?”

“Because you came here to get away. It’s this special place for you and I rolled on in with a lawsuit and a storm on my heels.”

Elio felt a tightening in his chest, not so much from the apology but from the fact that Kayla, in such a short space of time, seemed to understand how he felt about this place. That it wasn’t just a holiday house. It was a whole world.

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