Billionaire Novelist's Fiery Debutante Page 4

  Trotting beside him like a hobbit trying to keep up with a giant, she argued, “You have to admit you were being a dick. Though saving my life from those horrible spiders did much to make up for your behavior. You’ve redeemed yourself. A little. Just a little bit.”

  “Grmph,” he grumbled, eyes straight ahead, arms and legs pumping.

  She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Thank you, Josh, for saving my life. And I apologize for slapping you. All right? Better?”

  He turned to her, furious. “I can’t work like this, Chloe. I’m supposed to be writing and with all your… drama—” He threw up his hands. “—I just can’t focus!”

  “Look who’s talking,” she countered. “This was supposed to be a quiet getaway, and instead I’ve landed myself in some version of world war three!”

  He controlled a strong urge to grab her by the shoulders. “We have to find a way to get along. For both our sakes.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “So I suggest that from now on we stay as far away from each other as humanly possible.”

  “Fine!” She tilted her chin defiantly. “If that’s what you want.”

  “That’s exactly what I want.”

  She flapped her arms like a chicken trying to take flight. “Then that’s what we’ll do. From now on, you won’t see me. I’ll be a ghost to you. Each time you wonder, Where’s Chloe? you won’t find me. I’ll be invisible. I’ll be the shadow on the wall. I’ll be the whisper on the wind. I’ll be—”

  “Stop babbling!” he hollered, raising his face to the sky.

  She looked up, confused, then seemed to realize he was talking about her and gave him a defiant glare. “From now on, you’re dead to me.”

  He gritted his teeth in exasperation. “Great. That’s all I ever wanted.”

  And with those words, he strode off, leaving her to stew in her own juice.

  CHAPTER 10

  Chloe looked out across the pool. She’d been lounging on the deck chair for the better part of the morning, keeping well in the shade cast by a large parasol and furiously nibbling on her pencil as if somehow hoping to draw inspiration from it. On the side table next to her lay her notebook with the ideas she’d been scribbling for the past fortnight. It wasn’t that she didn’t have ideas for her next novel. She had plenty. It was that she didn’t know which ones to choose from. She really wanted to write the best novel she could ever write, and from reading over her notes, she just knew that the one brilliant idea that would shoot her to the top of her chosen profession simply wasn’t there.

  She needed a catchy set-up, a high concept idea that would explode her name onto the scene with a bang.

  She groaned and sucked harder on her pencil, pushing her sunglasses higher up her nose.

  She glanced over to Josh’s office, his window looking out onto the pool.

  For some reason, her mind kept slipping back to ‘that man’ and the way he’d saved her from the monster spiders.

  Perhaps she was simply trying too hard. Perhaps if she could just relax and let go, the perfect premise would jump out at her. Perhaps…

  Her eyes returned to Josh’s window.

  A rude and frankly intolerable man. A vulnerable young woman. Shipwrecked on an uninhabitable island. Forced to rely on each other. Growing closer with each impending threat.

  Yep. There was definitely something in that. The heroine, of course, would give as good as she took. The hero would eventually thaw out and fall madly, deeply in love with her. And when the proverbial smoke finally cleared up, they’d make passionate love on the beach. Preferably by the light of a crescent moon.

  A wide smile creased her face, and she wrinkled her nose in delight. Finally. A great idea for a story.

  She picked up a kiwi peel and hurled it in the direction of Josh’s studio. Take that, Mister Big Shot Writer Man. I’ll bet I can write a bestseller faster than you can. The kiwi peel described a perfect arc and zipped with amazing accuracy through the window, which had been left open to a crack.

  “Hrmph,” spoke a voice inside the room, and Chloe clasped a surprised hand before her mouth.

  She didn’t even have time to duck, for mere seconds later, a tousled, sleepy head appeared, the kiwi peel dangling from its nose.

  “What’s the big idea?” Josh grumbled before opening his mouth wide for a terrific yawn.

  “Wakey-wakey,” chirped Chloe. “Time and tide wait for no man.”

  Josh stared cross-eyed at the fruit item precariously perched on his nose and Chloe giggled. He then carefully picked the kiwi remnants from his nose and stared at them, confused.

  Chloe rolled her eyes and stretched. “Come out for a swim, sleepyhead. The water is fine.”

  Josh narrowed his eyes at her, apparently only now becoming aware of her presence. “Didn’t we agree not to speak to each other again?”

  She shrugged. “If all you’re going to do is sleep, you might as well go home and leave the island to me.”

  His face darkened, and she let out a squeal when he crawled through the window and came barreling in her direction.

  ***

  Josh had spent the entire morning trying to come up with the perfect plot vehicle for his next Frankie Knox/Jacqueline Spark novel. Nothing had come of it. Of course, the sound of Chloe scribbling away just outside his window hadn’t helped. And neither had her habit of muttering to herself or jumping into the pool for a refreshing swim every couple of minutes, or her slurping noises when she enjoyed yet another mango juice from the fridge.

  For a moment, he’d contemplated transferring to one of the other writing nooks, but had decided against it. He hated that small space next to the bedroom. It made him feel like a claustrophobic monk. Besides, he had to admit that spending his time glued to the window surreptitiously ogling Chloe was as fine a distraction as he could think of.

  She was wearing a polka dot bikini today. Pink with yellow dots, and the fact that she was wet all the time hadn’t exactly helped his concentration.

  He knew instinctively it was simply the fact that she was the only woman on this island and he the only man that had this deleterious effect on him. Even if she hadn’t been pretty—which she was—he’d still feel strangely attracted to her. And even if she wasn’t a pain in the butt—which she most assuredly was—he knew he’d still want to bed her.

  Bed her… The thought of their first night together brought back fleeting memories of her bottom squeezed against his. Or her arm draped across his back. Or her face so close to his, that when he abruptly awoke in the middle of the night, a tendril of her hair had wafted upon his brow. He’d carefully returned it to its rightful owner, but only after studying her face and memorizing every line until he thought he’d not be able to sleep without stirring those soft lips with his.

  She’d been wearing that silly tank top again, only this time she’d removed her bikini, and clearly visible beneath the flimsy material had been the outline of her bosom, gently rising and falling with her even breathing. He’d wantonly stared at the soft swell of her breasts for what felt like hours before finally falling asleep again.

  The effect she had on his manhood was devastating. He’d awakened with the hardest morning wood he’d ever experienced, and when he discovered that they’d involuntarily drifted into a spooning position, he’d had the hardest time not to roll her into his arms, and ravish that delectable body of hers.

  This time, however, watching her smile up at him from across the terrace, he simply couldn’t control himself any longer.

  She’d asked for this—correction: she’d been begging for this—and now she was going to get exactly what she deserved.

  CHAPTER 11

  When she saw that great, big brute coming her way, Chloe couldn’t deny experiencing a thrill of excitement. Nevertheless, she did what any sensible girl would do in a similar situation: she picked up the ice bucket she’d been using to keep her mango juice chilled and hurled it at the incoming Josh. The bucket hit his head
with a resounding clang, but not before pelting the harried writer with its contents, consisting of three gallons of ice water and half-melted cubes.

  Josh let out a surprised grunt when the twin effect of the ice and bucket hit him in the face.

  Chloe, meanwhile, who’d correctly assumed he wouldn’t take kindly to this treatment, had decided to look for safer ground, and had sprinted to the other side of the pool.

  “Chloe Thomson!” Josh boomed. “You come back here this instant!”

  She knew that sticking out her tongue at him was a childish thing to do, especially for a woman who was about to turn thirty, but she just couldn’t help herself. For some reason she couldn’t even begin to fathom, this man brought out the worst in her.

  “Catch me if you can!” she hollered for good measure.

  It had taken Josh three laps around the pool, a screeching and tittering Chloe easily keeping a safe distance before he finally sank into a deck chair and promptly gave up the chase.

  Shaking his head sadly, he grumbled, “You win. I’ll press the button and clear out. This isn’t working for me. At all.” And with his finger poised over the emergency button, he heaved a deep sigh and pressed.

  At least he would have pressed if Chloe hadn’t slapped his hand away at the very last moment.

  “Hey!” he yelled, annoyed.

  She flopped down on the chair next to him. “I’m sorry, Josh. I truly am. I’ve been acting like a brat.” She placed a tentative hand on his arm, and they both stared down at the panic buttons on their wrists, his a cerulean blue, hers a fluorescent pink. “Don’t go. I promise I’ll behave from now on.”

  He slumped a bit, and for a moment she thought he was going to reject her apology. Instead, he said, “I’m suffering from the worst case of writer’s block I’ve ever had, and frankly I’m more than a little terrified right now. If I don’t get a decent idea right speedily, my career is toast.”

  She looked up in surprise. “But I thought you said you were a bestselling writer?”

  He gave a curt snort. “So what? You’re on top one minute, gone the next. Have you never heard that age-old credo ‘You’re only as good as your last hit’? My sales have been dropping steadily over the last five years. Every book is performing worse than the one before. If I don’t come up with something major, my publisher will probably dump me.”

  “Then self-publish,” she heard herself say. “That’s what I do.”

  He eyed her strangely. “And how’s that working out for you?”

  “Not… great… so far,” she admitted, “but I’m working on it. You could, too. For one thing, you have your readership. I bet they’ll buy your books whether they’re traditionally published or not.”

  He nodded, and she was surprised when he didn’t dismiss her idea out of hand. “You might have a point,” he muttered. “In fact I’ve been contemplating such a move myself for a long time. One of my friends did just that. He took his next manuscript straight to market and made quite a packet. Higher royalties, the instant gratification of watching your work being published just the way you want it… It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  Her hand was still on his arm, and their shoulders touched. He drew his fingers through his short dark hair. “Christ. I shouldn’t be telling you this. I mean, I don’t even know you.”

  She remained silent, not wanting to discourage him when he was so clearly on the verge of unburdening his soul.

  “Look, writers like me, we live from the advance. This next book I’m writing?” He chuckled bitterly. “Or rather, not writing—the money is already in the bank. Millions of it. Half of it? Already spent. The other half? Has already been budgeted to be spent in the near future.”

  Millions? So this guy really was a bestselling writer? It now occurred to her that he still hadn’t told her what kind of books he wrote, or even his full name. Not that it mattered. She was pretty sure she’d never heard of him anyway. Unless he wrote in her genre, she was fairly oblivious to the current market leaders.

  “So if you don’t deliver—” she began, starting to see his predicament.

  “I won’t earn out. And they’ll dump my ass in a heartbeat.”

  “That’s why you have writer’s block,” she told him. “Too much pressure. It’s hard to perform under such stress.”

  “I guess you’re right. Which brings me back to this place.” He waved his hand at the villa. “I really need this retreat to work, Chloe. If I come back without the solid underpinnings of a great novel, I’m sunk.”

  She squeezed his arm, trying to figure out what to say. She wasn’t a bestselling writer. How could she possibly help? Then, suddenly, a crazy idea formed in her head. “You know,” she said slowly, “some of the best work out there is the result of a collaboration.”

  He gave her a puzzled look. “What are you saying? I should call up one of my writer buddies and ask for his help? They’ll shoot me down on sight, honey. It’s no secret that the Joshua Poole brand’s been slipping lately, and nobody wants to be associated with a loser.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Joshua Poole? You’re Joshua Poole?”

  He simply nodded, concern still etched on his handsome face.

  “My mother loves your books!” she squealed before she realized this was not the moment to go all fangirl on him.

  “That’s good to know,” he returned wryly.

  “Wait till I tell her I spent my vacation with the writer of Frankie Knox,” she blurted out.

  “The former writer of Frankie Knox,” Josh intoned somberly and slumped a little more. “I wouldn’t put it past the publisher to take away my characters and ask some other writer to continue the series.” He frowned. “I should probably ask my attorney.”

  She blinked a couple times, trying to get a grip on herself after this surprising revelation, and patted his arm. “Don’t worry, Josh. I’ve got the perfect solution for you.”

  A glimmer of hope dawned in his eyes. “You have?”

  “We’ll write the next Frankie Knox together.” When his jaw dropped, she gave him her brightest smile. “You and I will make the perfect writing team, just you wait and see.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Outside, the midday heat was starting to affect them, so they returned indoors, where the air conditioning hummed merrily, and temperatures were more inducive to the work of creating art.

  Josh had never actually collaborated with anyone before, always considering himself a lone ranger when it came to writing. But, frankly, he was at his wit’s end. If he didn’t come up with something—anything!—he’d go nuts.

  Chloe’s idea was pretty out there, but he was clutching at straws at this point, so he was willing to go along with her and see if it wouldn’t jolt his creativity back into gear.

  “What I would suggest is that I help you craft your story, and you help me craft mine. That way, we’re killing two birds with one stone.”

  “What’s your genre?” he asked.

  “Haven’t you guessed by now?” she returned, mock indignation in her voice.

  “Um… nope,” he had to admit. At home, he would have googled her within seconds of meeting, but out here on Eden, that particular possibility didn’t exist.

  “Romance, of course, dummy,” she supplied, punching him playfully on the shoulder.

  He chuckled. “Of course,” he echoed, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “What? Don’t you think I’m the epitome of the cool, sophisticated, romantic lady?” She craned her neck and lifted her chin, pretending to be European Royalty for a moment.

  “Um… no?” he ventured, which earned him another punch.

  “You’re right,” she admitted. “I was always more the tomboy. Mom even thought I was a boy when I was born, though the doctors managed to convince her otherwise.”

  “You don’t look like a boy to me,” was all he said, and held her gaze for a moment before looking away. She was really lovely, but he so wasn’t going to go there. Especially if th
ey were going to be collaborators. They needed to establish ground rules, and work their way through a system of sorts. He had no idea if this would work, but somehow just sitting here with her, talking about it, he felt better than he’d felt in days. Suddenly, it was as if the dark clouds consistently looming overhead had parted, and the sun was hesitantly peeping through.

  As it turned out, Chloe was an extremely easy person to work with. He couldn’t even remember ever having felt so much at ease with a woman before. She even managed to make him open up about his failed marriage. Not that this had any bearing on their projects, but as she pointed out, it was imperative that they got to know each other a little better. Get acquainted.

  “I’ve only told this to one person before,” he confessed, “but you kinda wheedled it out of me by being so nice.”

  “Who was that other person?” she came back, quick as a flash.

  He grinned widely. “My mom. She’s very nice, too.”

  Things went uphill from there. They decided they’d spend the mornings working on Josh’s project and the afternoons on Chloe’s.

  “So what do you suggest we do in the evenings?” Josh asked, trying to keep a casual tone.

  “The evenings? Why, we fraternize, of course,” she replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  The rest of the day, Josh couldn’t keep his mind from jumping to the topic of what it was exactly that these fraternization sessions would entail. He knew they shouldn’t go there, for it would jeopardize their newfound working relationship, but the more time he spent with Chloe, the more he felt attracted to her in ways that he hadn’t in a long time.

  He watched her as she carefully read through some of the outlines of his previous novels. She was sitting perched on his comfy chair, one leg tucked beneath her, the other dangling. From time to time, her mouth twitched into a smile, as if she just read something extremely amusing. He couldn’t imagine what. His novels weren’t exactly comedies. With the body count he kept up, they couldn’t be.