Page 1 of Voyage with the Reclusive Billionaire

Prologue

Nola

Getting them to come to me was not an option this time.

There was too much distance to overcome, and too many obstacles in the way. She’s not the type of girl to disappear to a bed-and-breakfast in the middle of the woods—too much paranoia. And he has spent enough time secluded and amongst the woods. He wants something else. So instead we orchestrate something else—another controlled environment, another place for them to find themselves drawn together by invisible strings.

The girl is prone to flightiness—something she surely has in common with him, yes, though in a much different sense. I just have to ensure that there’s no place for her to go should she decide she needs to get away.

Being on a vessel surrounded by nothing but sky and ocean and each other is as good an option as any.

This could work. Of course, without the help of the house, it does leave more variables left unanswered. I’m not sure how easily I’ll be able to influence them once they’re both on the ship—and especially when the ship docks and they’re left to their own devices for those few hours before they get back on.

But I do enjoy a challenge—nearly as much as I hate to lose.

Chapter one

Eliza

The smell of salt wraps around me as I make my way up to the Mystic Cruises ship. With one hand, I pull my luggage along behind me. In the other I hold my ticket.

I need this. For so many reasons, I need this. This cruise-turned-expedition is the only chance I have to get away from my life for a little while. I’ll be back to work just about the second I return home—and back to avoiding my ex-fiance at every turn.

Literally. Unless, of course, he transfers to another lab while I’m away. But I doubt that. Adam has never run from me, not even after we broke up. I doubt he’ll suddenly start. Even if it would make my life just that much more pleasant.

That’s why I signed up for this cruise. Adam might not run from things, but I do.

But at least I ran to a luxury cruise ship.

Although I still can't figure out how I got such an amazing deal on it. It's not like I usually have the budget for champagne wishes and caviar dreams, but I'm not going to question it and just enjoy this opportunity.

On a day like this, with the sun shining brightly and the warmth of the breeze wrapping around me, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

At least that’s how I feel until I don’t quite clear the edge of the gangway as I finish the climb up to the deck, and then promptly stumble when I try to step aboard.

One minute I was in the air and the next I’m on the ground, slammed against the wood, cheeks flushed and knees throbbing along with the stubbed toe that led to this humiliating moment in time. I’m thankful I caught myself with my hands only a tiny fraction of an inch away from hitting my head on the deck too before I snapped it back up, but I’m sure I look ridiculous as I try to catch my breath.

Black shoes come into my field of vision, along with the smell of amber and mint. An odd combination, but… it works. A firm hand on my shoulder, and another juts out in front of me. “You need to get back up.” The voice is gravelly and masculine and maybe a little annoyed, but I take the hand anyway because I don’t trust that my knees, which shake with my mortification, could hold me up without something to stabilize me.

I mean to only glance at his face, but my eyes latch onto his and I can’t bring myself to look away as I absorb every detail of his features. The jet black hair that parts in the middle and brushes across his equally black brows. The perfectly straight nose, the full lips, the tanned complexion. Even his eyes, which are so brown they’re closer to black, draw me in.

He’s beautiful. The man, presumably in his early-to-mid-thirties, crooks an eyebrow, then bends down and grabs my suitcase for me. My eyes shift momentarily to the black ink I can see peeking out from the collar of his shirt. It’s not enough to tell what it is, but something is there.

Adam didn’t have tattoos. I didn’t think I liked them.

But the warm flush I feel no longer has anything to do with the temperature and everything to do with the man in front of me.

“Thank you,” I say, my voice weak and shaky.

His brows furrow. “Are you well?” he asks. “Did you hit your head? It looked like you might have.”

I’m about to tell him no, but I appreciate him humbling me by thinking I’m brain damaged, but he drags me over to the side and away from the throng of people I’d been blocking from getting on the boat, tugging my luggage and his own along beside us.

“I’m fine,” I tell him, trying to fight off yet another rush of embarrassment as he assesses every inch of my face, and not in the admiring way I’d been looking at him earlier, either.

“You hit the ground pretty hard,” he insists. “I was halfway across the boat and I heard it.”

“You’re not helping,” I snap at him.

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