The Sweetest Kiss: A Billionaire Love Story (2 page)

A
week
after my sister’s funeral, I had received a phone call from her lawyer requesting a meeting. At first I had assumed that Emily had bills that needed to be paid off and the government was coming after me for them. I was completely wrong.

When I showed up that morning in the law offices of Williamson & Son, I had no idea that my sister had included me in her will. She had no husband, no children, and only one sister — me.

“Are you sure this is correct?” I asked the lawyer again.

“It’s all in there. She wanted you to have it.”

“But I don’t know the first thing about running a vacation spot. Do you know if I can sell it?”

“No. At least you can’t do that immediately. The instructions we have are the following,” he picked up the paper he had just read from. The same one that I couldn’t make sense of the first time he read it. It had washed over me with the same shock that had hit me when I got the call to say my sister had died from cancer. As her twin, I had felt something happen. I still remember the day. It’s hard to explain but I was sure the moment she left this planet, I felt as if a piece of me had been torn away.

“In the event of my death, I wish for my sister Hayley Fields to receive my entire estate. It’s my hope she will continue the business. If she wants to sell the property, then she is required to run it for a minimum of one year. If at the end of that year she still wishes to sell it she can do so. But if she refuses to take on the property for a period of one year, then I want it to be sold and the proceeds to be given to the charity I have mentioned in the following papers.”

And there it was, my sister, controlling me from the grave. That was just like her. I smiled, amused by her conditions. She had always wanted me to join her on the island and help her with the business. She had even offered to change the name of the business to include both of our names. I declined her offer because I had just started working for the
Enquirer
. Emily knew it was a step towards my dream job and so she didn’t continue to ask. But here she was, once again laying out the option before me. Why?

I didn’t sleep much that night. Had it not been for the numerous things that were going wrong in my life up to that point, I might have just told the lawyer to go ahead and have the property sold and the proceeds given to charity. But I didn’t. They gave me a week to think it over. I took every day. I spoke with friends who of course said I would be crazy to not snap it up.

“One year, Hayley, and you can sell the place. Seriously, you would be mad not to do it,” Hanna said.

“But you know me. I hate seeing even a tiny spider in my apartment. Those islands get those giant ones. Heck, they are so big, I swear they live on a diet of elephants and random tourists.”

“They don’t get elephants in the Caribbean.”

“Of course they don’t but that doesn’t mean a spider would pass up an elephant if one happened to get stuck in its giant net.”

No amount of excuses persuaded Hanna to side with me on this. And I can’t really say I was wanting a yes or a no. I was trying to process the news of my sister’s passing more than anything else. We had always been close. Talking on the phone a couple of times a week. Occasionally I would Facetime her and share what story I was working on, hoping to get her input. Emily really could have made one hell of a journalist. Not that the
Enquirer
needed real journalists. They just needed boots on the ground. People who would be willing to do the dirty work for them. The number of lawsuits they had from celebrities and the wealthy was absurd. But that’s what it was all about. Selling newspapers, and getting hits online. They didn’t care about ruining a person’s reputation. They thrived on exposing secrets but more importantly on trash talking. Sixty percent of all the stories were exaggerated, or false.

Just get me the juicy details. The dirtier the better,
my boss would say.

I
stepped
down off the boat onto a beautiful wooden dock that led up to the sandy beach. I pulled out my outfit, trying to get even a drop of air to flow down my top.

“Ms. Hayley, you might want to change into something a bit more comfortable if you are going to be living here. It gets pretty hot here.”

“Gets? Are you telling me it gets hotter than this?”

He nodded, grinning from ear to ear. I fanned my face with a book I had planned on reading but never got around to it. Once we got to the beach I took off my shoes to feel the sand between my toes. It was hot but beautiful. It had been a long time since I had taken a vacation, or gone anywhere nice. Markus had promised to take me to Hawaii but it never happened. The furthest his pocketbook went to was an ice cream sundae from Dairy Queen.

The soft ocean breeze brushed against my face and fluttered my clothes as I followed Jamaal and two other men up to a small parking area which was filled with scooters and two jeeps.

“How many cottages are on the island?” I asked

“Twenty-two if you include your three.”

“Are the other nineteen owned by the Waylands?”

“I believe so, but I might be wrong there. As I said it’s been quite a while since I have been over to the south end of the island. There are five cottages over there. Three are yours.”

“So the other two, who are they owned by?”

“Mrs. Arnet. She clung to hers for dear life as well.”

He started loading up the jeep with the luggage.

“What do you mean?”

He stopped for a second to wipe the sweat from his forehead before leaning against the jeep.

“Your sister refused to sell up her place. So did Mrs. Arnet. When the Waylands bought the island they wanted the entire place to be private. Unfortunately for them, or fortunately for your sister, the south end of the island was conditional upon the sale of all the cottages.”

“Emily’s and Mrs. Arnet’s?”

“You got it. And they wouldn’t sell. It pissed the Waylands off real good.”

“I bet it did.”

I chuckled to myself at the thought of my sister standing up to those money-hungry swine. I pulled out my phone and tried to get service but nothing was coming up. Before leaving my boss had tried to offer me a pay raise to stay. I guess I was one of his best dirt diggers. To be quite honest I had become jaded by it all. I had always envisioned myself as becoming a serious photographer and journalist. Someone who would snag the big story, the ones that mattered. I didn’t see myself spying on celebrities in bushes. It had begun to take its toll on me. My mind wandered as the jeep weaved its way down the sandy makeshift roads. I remembered the day I gave notice…

“James, I appreciate the offer of a raise but really I can’t stay.”

I looked out through the glass of his office to see Markus resting his ass on the edge of the table of my friend, or should I say now, ex-friend. He was gazing down her top.

“Well, I’m not accepting your resignation. I’m going to leave it open. If you change your mind, the raise and position are there.”

It was a nice thought to at least know that if the whole island business didn’t work out I could regain my position. Getting an apartment would be easy enough. My pervert landlord would have kicked someone out to have me back. I was sure he was spying on me. There wasn’t a day that would go by that I wouldn’t check my room for hidden cameras. Thankfully he wasn’t that stupid.

The island was idyllic in every way, except one.

“What do you mean there is no internet?”

“I didn’t say that. I said that you will need to travel to the north side and use the hot spot that the Waylands have set up in the main restaurant and office area.”

“Oh, like they are going to let me use that after what my sister put them through.”

He chuckled. “Really, Ms. Hayley, they aren’t as bad as you think. I mean, they gave me a decent wage and have always treated us good. I get three weeks of vacation a year, a bonus around Christmas. It’s hard to complain about them. Anyway, you’ll find your phone will work better on the Caribbean side than it does on the Atlantic side.”

“And what about Max?”

“He’s never around. I haven’t yet seen him here. One of his sons runs the island, and to be honest I haven’t even bumped into him, hell, I wouldn’t even know what he looks like. They hired all the staff that was previously here and so my boss is the same one. That’s who I’m accountable to. It’s just the previous owners of the island sold to the Waylands. So essentially it’s under their name. But business is as usual, except for the fact that they have done some massive renovations and brought this place out of the dark ages.”

“Really? I think having to go to the north side for internet is still the dark ages.”

He chuckled. “Ms. Hayley. No one complains. They come here to get away from the distractions of life.”

As we got closer to the south end of the island I could see cottages nestled in among the tropical trees. The road wound around until it ended in a circular cove. A wooden sign with the words Emily’s Resort stuck out of the sand. I immediately felt a twinge of sadness. As beautiful as it was, it was hard to comprehend that I hadn’t been here. Emily had invited me numerous times but I was always too busy. Too caught up in living life, as they say. Yet was I really living? I spent most months living hand to mouth. The cost of living in Brooklyn was brutal, if it hadn’t been for the fact that my landlord thought he would eventually get some ass, I doubt I would have been given a discount rate. I had been living day to day, never slowing down for a second. Heck, I didn’t know what to do if I had time to myself. I was either chasing down a new lead on a celebrity in the area, or poring over work that I had to submit to the editor. The workload was horrendous and the payoff, not so. If I had known what it was going to be like I’m not sure I would have moved to the city.

“Are those Mrs. Arnet’s?”

“Yeah, I believe so. As I say, I don’t get over here really.”

I gave him a hand taking out the luggage from the back of the jeep.

“I used to deliver groceries here, and help out with repairs around the place before the Waylands took over. Probably if they had sold their places I would still be doing that. But now we are all on the north side.”

A small path snaked its way beyond the trees to a fourth cottage that Emily lived in. I had seen photos of the place that she had sent years ago when she first got set up there. I just imagined the place would look the same. As I came around a corner of trees that brought me into a clearing, I nearly dropped the piece of luggage I was carrying on my foot.

It was a complete shambles. Rundown and in desperate need of repairs. Heck, I had seen shelters in the city look better than this. And that was just the outside. The other three cottages that she rented out looked the same.

“What on earth…?”

Jamaal looked at me and snorted. “Yep, that’s what Hurricane Fiona will do.”

“But, but…” I was at a loss for words. “The photos.”

I began rooting around in my handbag for them. I had brought them with me to remind me that it was going to all be worth it. I pulled them out and held them up. There had to have been a mistake. Maybe the cottages across the way belonged to Emily’s. She hadn’t said anything about them being rundown. Then again she hadn’t told me she had placed me in her will. None of us had expected her death. It was sudden and completely out of the blue.

Jamaal continued up the path that led up to the first cottage. The only things that looked sturdy were the walls, which were made out of stone. But the floors and roof looked like they had taken one hell of a beating. It would all need replacing or some serious repairs. The lounge chairs outside were turned over, the cushions covered in dirt. Several of the palm trees had been knocked to the ground and caused untold damage in the garden area. I picked up a lone wooden chair, wondering where the rest was. No table. Had they all been blown into the ocean? As I got close to the door I noticed the bug screen had a big tear in it. Oh great, that meant I was going to be up the entire night searching for Mr. and Mrs. Tarantula and their cousins.

I was just about to step inside when a sound of a scooter could be heard getting closer. I peered through the trees and saw a man pull up outside. He didn’t exactly look as if he was in the best mood either. After getting off the scooter he trudged over to the cottages that belonged to Mrs. Arnet. He cast a quick glance in my direction and then disappeared inside.

I breathed in deeply and entered.

Inside it wasn’t bad. Besides the puddle of water on the far side of the living room that had come in from a hole in the roof, it was cozy. Two sandy-colored couches with blue pillows, a footstool, and a beautiful blue painting that matched the pillows were all intact. Everything about the place reminded me of Emily. Her smell, taste in décor, and photos. There was one of me and her. It had been taken in Central Park when she had visited two years earlier. Another was of our parents. Above, a large pine fan spun around kicking up the dust from the furniture. At the far end of the living room was a sliding door that took you outside. I turned over two white lounge chairs and grimaced at the sight of the dirt. I was going to be cleaning until next year. Maybe that’s why she said a year. I stifled a chuckle and tried to remain optimistic.

“Guessing it’s windy around here?”

“The island is in the Windward Isles, so yeah. Expect it to be windy. Nail down anything you don’t want blown away.”

“I will remember that.”

He smiled. “Look, I shouldn’t do this but if you need anything, just give me a shout. Do you have your phone?”

I handed it to him. He tapped in his number.

He scuffed his feet and looked around. “Well, it’s good to have you here, Hayley. It’s going to take me a while to get used to seeing your face. I swear, it’s like looking at Emily.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Jamaal.”

I placed my hands on my hips and looked around.

“Well, Emmy, I hope you know what you’re doing. If you can hear me, I could really use your help.”