Wild: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Read online

  Wild

  A Mountain Man Billionaire Romance

  Lexi J Whitlow

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Deleted Scenes

  Winner Takes All

  Rancher Daddy

  Bad Boy’s Fake Wedding

  Royal Beast

  More By Lexi

  1

  Zelda

  The snow was supposed to come tomorrow, not today.

  It was a long drive up the mountain and an even longer hike. I thought I knew something about mountains, but Utah is different from Virginia. These are not the rolling, gentle Blue Ridge mountains. These are stark and cold.

  Cold.

  It was supposed to snow tomorrow, but the sky changed. I was half way up the trail, to the east of Fox Guthrie’s supposed estate. There weren’t even traces of a house, a cabin. Anything.

  And this man is supposed to have more money than God.

  But there’s nothing.

  Dr. Wu lied when he sent me to Utah. That’s the explanation. And then Derek Guthrie lied when I asked him about his brother?

  That doesn’t make sense.

  It took a long time to make it this far. And then.

  A bear trap. A pain, like lightning. My teeth chatter, and I think about trying to get to my pack again. To my phone. But the snow is piling high, quick. I can see one brown strap, and that will be buried soon.

  How many hours has it been?

  My head nods, heavy with sleep. I pull the emergency blanket around my shoulders and lean my back against the tree, trying not to move my ankle.

  It’s broken. Is it broken?

  The snow is red with blood. My blood.

  To the bone, I think. That’s what it felt like.

  My eyes close, and my head nods again. I can hear my pulse in the dark, quiet recess of my brain. Pounding, pounding, pounding.

  If it weren’t for pain in my head, I could fall asleep. Right here, in this blanket. My ankle and foot are starting to go blessedly numb, and the pain in my leg is subsiding as well.

  I drift off for an instant—maybe fifteen seconds—and I dream that I’m warm, inside my parents’ big, old house back in Richmond. My cousins are all there, gossiping. There’s a fire going. The TV is on, playing a football game. My dad is talking about his law firm to my uncle, and my mom is serving cookies. Fresh chocolate chip cookies.

  My head snaps back up, and I involuntarily jerk my leg.

  I let out a long, low moan. Like a wounded animal. The pain is like rage. Like nothingness.

  “Mom never once made cookies,” I laugh. “The nanny did.” I laugh again, louder this time.

  I want to go back there, to that warm, imaginary place.

  My teeth chatter.

  I close my eyes again. This time, I just listen. The snow is falling around me.

  I think of the sounds that have been in my life so far—the din of the press room at the Boston Globe, the sounds of my parents as they griped about my dyed hair, my major, my choice of friends. My everything. Everything was always wrong.

  The click-clack of keys on my computer as I searched for this man, for the ultimate story.

  Click click.

  The endless searching. Emails to his contacts. A flight to Japan to talk to the new head of his company, Akira Sakae. That was a particularly interesting adventure.

  The things I uncovered… illegal activity on the darknet markets, billions of dollars in currency unaccounted for, and every trace of Fox Guthrie, otherwise known as Digerati Faux Hon—eliminated.

  He’s a ghost, and I thought I’d finally found him after I talked to his brother, Derek, two days ago in Salt Lake City, Utah.

  “Oh yeah, he’s got property on that mountain. Now, I’ve never been there, and I haven’t seen him for six months. So I do think he’s there… but I can’t be sure…”

  It was as much of a clue as I’ve ever had to go on.

  But there’s nothing now. No sound except for the muffled sway of wind through the pine trees. If I stop breathing for a moment and the pounding in my head subsides, I can almost make out the gentle fall of snow on the ground.

  I didn’t find him. My target. The billionaire with the bag of gold coins, the ones worth billions upon billions of dollars. And growing every day. Digital gold coins.

  I laugh a little. The thought of it is funny even now. How did he disappear? Where’s he been? Not here.

  I’ve been hunting for a day. Days?

  There are empty cabins. Mazes of trails. No sprawling properties or huge houses, nothing like I’d been told would be here.

  My stomach turns, and my eyes open again.

  “Just hold on,” I mutter. “Don’t fall asleep.”

  That’s what they say in the survival books. Don’t fall asleep. Warm up your body. Stay warm.

  But my lips are numb now, and my teeth are no longer chattering. My foot couldn’t move even if I tried. I won’t try. I don’t have enough energy. I look up at the trees and over to the grove where my phone and my pack with the fire starter fell when I stepped into this thing.

  Hard, cold, scraping metal.

  A bitter memory. It seems distant.

  But it was an hour—maybe hours?—ago. Maybe it was yesterday. I can’t quite remember.

  I let my eyes slip closed and sleep.

  It’s been so long since everything has been this quiet.

  And finally, the wild tempest in my mind stills, and I listen to the snow as I drift off.

  Overhead the sky is heavy and gray with dense snow falling down. I feel the crystals on my face, piling against my nose, tangling in my lashes, settling into the turn of my jaw. It’s okay. I don’t need to move anymore. I’m fine. I’m quiet. I’m not even aware of the cold. The snow is silent and calming.

  I might be sleeping, or dreaming. Or waking. In a state between the two.

  The pulsing pounding in my head begins to slow, becoming fainter and fainter. The images in my mind become fainter. I retreat to the false memory, the one with my mother and father and the warm, lovely feeling of home. It all fades into nothingness as I begin to let myself go.

  Something moves off in the woods. I hear it, but I’m too numb to react. I hear its footfall, steady and fast.

  It’s near.

  “Sweet Jesus,” it says.

  I can’t open my eyes. They’re closed, frozen shut.

  “Oh, breathe. Breathe.”

  Warm lips press against my own cold ones, as a blast of hot, humid air is forced into my lungs.

  “C’mon. Breathe,” he insists. “That’s it. C’mon.”

  The lips touch mine again, and another puff of air enters my lungs. I feel myself coughing and my body again going limp.

  Warm fingers lift my frozen eyelids.

  Pale eyes, the color of glacial ice, with tiny green flecks dotting the irises, peer into my own.

  “You’re going to be okay,” he says. “I promise.”

  He’s beautiful. His eyes are beautiful. His voice is the sound of a bass guitar strummed against a tenor melody, poured over hot rocks.

  I hear the sound of metal gears turning, then feel myself vaulted into the air.

  He hauls me over his shoulder, ass up, head down, with all my cold blood rushing to my brain.

  “You’re gonna be okay,” he says again, marching forward. “Whoever the fuck you are.”

  Everything goes to black. And I wonder if it’s a dream or if I’m finally dead.

  2

  Fox

  I don’t know who she is, but she’s pale, with blue lips and fingers, breathing shallow, and badly wounded by a clamp trap I set to catch wolves.

  I check the elasticity of her skin. Her fingers. Her foot after I release the trap.

  It’s grim.

  “Just what I need. Someone fucking dying on my property.” I groan. “Shit.”

  Hypothermia has set in. That may be a good thing, given what I have to do. She needs to be unconscious for this.

  I lay her out on the bed, peeling her wet coat and gloves off, cutting away her snow pants and jeans, pulling off her boots.

  A massive tangle of red-brown curls spreads out over the pillow. Underneath one side of the curls is a streak of green. She looks helpless in a way that Niki never did. Beautiful, dangerous, helpless.

  This damn girl.

  It’s been months since I’ve seen anyone, and years since anyone has made it onto my property.

  “Don’t die,” I say, sighing.

  It’s warm in here. The wood stove is cranking. It’s almost too hot for me. Jacob, my cat, is curled up in his box in front of the stove, basking in the heat. Jimmy, my yellow Labra
dor, spins around in circles, tail wagging, trying to wrap his head around the idea that we have company.

  I roll back the torn cuff of her long underwear. Her skin is ripped clean through to bone by the teeth of that damn trap. The scary thing is that she isn’t bleeding. She’s too dehydrated to bleed. Her skin is cold and dry to the touch. I need to address that before I deal with anything else. I won’t know how bad the injury is until I can see if an artery is severed, or if it’s just torn up sinew and muscle.

  My corpsman bag has everything I should need.

  I work fast, cutting away the sleeve of her shirt to expose a vein so I can start a saline drip.

  She’s dead to the world.

  After everything else, if I’m responsible for killing this girl…

  What the fuck is she doing out here?

  I force the saline in as fast as I dare, then start another. In a few moments blood begins to flow from her wounds.

  No arteries have been severed. I don’t think any tendons are broken.

  I clean the wound, irrigating it with saline, then disinfect the skin with betadine. After trimming the ragged bits of flesh away so I have clean lines to work with, I douse the sutures and needle in boiling water, then dip them in honey for lubrication and antiseptic. Only then do I begin the tedious process of stitching the wounds at her ankle. She sleeps through the whole procedure without so much as a blink or a whimper.

  She may never wake up again.

  I may have killed her.

  What the fuck is this girl doing way out here in the middle of a snowstorm? Is she suicidal? Or is she just stupid?

  Or is she looking for me?

  The girl sleeps soundly while I keep watch over her, stoking the fire, keeping the cabin toasty warm. Jimmy jumped up on the bed with her. He’s laying beside her, his head resting at her hand, his eyes alert, watching. He’s as worried about her as I am.

  Jacob came over to have a sniff. He walked all the way around her, pausing to consider her small hands laid out on top of the blanket, her throat and her earlobes, the tangle of auburn and green curls framing her soft-featured, heart-shaped face. He pronounced her acceptable, taking his place opposite Jimmy to curl up an inch from her fingers. Then he settled in for a nap, purring softly.

  She’s been asleep for fourteen hours. The good news is that she’s breathing deeply, even snoring a little. Her color has come back. Her lips are full and pink instead of thin and blue, the way they were when I found her. She’s got tiny freckles dotting her peaches and cream complexion, and dark, auburn brows over deep set, almond shaped eyes. Even her eyelashes are the color of good Kentucky Bourbon; coppery and warm.

  It may be because I haven’t been this close to a woman in a long damn time, but she’s gorgeous, flawless. Asleep, she looks as if the weight of the world has never been on her. Like she’s never had to hide from anything.

  Unlike me.

  But why. Why is she here? In the absolute middle of nowhere, on my property?

  She had no identification on her. No cell phone in her coat. Nothing.

  As soon as it’s light I’m going to head out and see if I can find anything she may have dropped or lost on the trail. With the snow falling hard, I’m not optimistic.

  She’s a mystery.

  Who else knows she’s here?

  The sun will be up soon. I haven’t slept, but I’m too wired to feel the lack of it yet. I’ve been drinking coffee all night long and I don’t feel the need to stop yet. At first light I’ve got morning chores to do, and I’m not thrilled with the idea of leaving her alone while I’m out.

  She needs to wake up.

  I lift the blanket away from her ankle to inspect my work. The wounds are ragged and still draining, leaching pink fluid onto a towel beneath her foot. I have her leg elevated on a pillow to keep the swelling down. Her toes are pink, so I know the circulation is good. The pulse in her foot is strong and steady. She’s probably going to need antibiotics. I have a stash of them in the corpsman’s bag I bought before I moved out here, just for situations like this.

  I’m prepared for just about any eventuality, except strangers walking into my property uninvited, unwanted. As pretty as she is to look at, her presence here unsettles me and pisses me off. This is not how I planned to spend my night or my day.

  With some frivolous adventure-seeker, lost on the trail. Is that what she is?

  She sleeps, breathing in and out, not answering me.

  Who is she? And why is she here?

  I put a kettle on the stove to make another pot of coffee, then go to the kitchen and flip the switch to start the generator that powers the well-pump. The noise from the generator gets Jimmy’s attention. He lifts his head, looking at me, then glances back at the girl, before settling down again.

  Outside, I hear the announcement of impending dawn. My rooster, Al, lets loose with the first crow of the morning, letting everyone and everything within twenty miles of this mountain know that he’s awake, he’s aware of a new day, and he’s on patrol. The rest of the day will be punctuated by his pronouncements. Al is a loud fucker who insists on being heard.

  I’m banging around in the kitchen getting coffee ready when Jimmy calls my attention. He’s standing up on the bed, staring at the girl with a hopeful expression on his face. His tail wags excitedly.

  She’s stirring. Good. I don’t need a comatose woman malingering in my bed forever.

  When the coffee is ready, I pour two cups instead of just one, then make my way back to the bedside. She’s waking, slowly. It’s the scent of fresh coffee; it has that effect. My coffee especially could raise the dead from their eternal repose.

  Her eyes blink open; she stares straight at me, an expression of confused fright plowing her pretty, high forehead.

  “Who the fuck are you?” she blurts out, recoiling an inch or two.

  “I’m the guy who just saved your life. Who the fuck are you?”

  She looks around the room, then back at me, over at Jimmy, who is salivating for attention, wagging his tail like mad. She looks at Jacob, snuggled against her, and down at the heavy blankets wrapping her. Her eyes wander the room, seeking recognition, finding only strange surroundings and unanswered questions.

  “Jesus, where am I? What happened? How did I get here? Who are you?”

  Her left hand lifts to caress Jimmy’s giant head. She scratches his ears while she gazes at me. He settles down beside her, resting his head in her lap.

  That single, unconscious movement of her hand shows me one thing about who she is.

  At least she doesn’t mind animals.

  “I found you in the woods. Ankle deep in a bear trap. What were you doing out there? What do you remember?”

  “Jesus. Stop peppering me with questions.” She looks around the room again, confused. “A fucking bear trap?”

  “Yes, I thought you might remember stepping in it. Nearly cut your leg in half?” I don’t hide the impatience in my voice. I check her saline drip and put together a cocktail of painkillers that will get her through the night.

  Not entirely legal. But they are from a prescription my brother wrote for me last year. As are the antibiotics.

  Not the most illegal thing I’ve ever done.

  “No—I don’t remember—I was in… in Salt Lake City.”

  “That is decidedly not where you are anymore,” I say. “So you don’t remember getting onto this mountain? That’s a story I’m not willing to buy.”

  She moves and groans a bit as she does. Her black long underwear accentuates her curves, but I ignore that. Mostly.

  “Buy whatever you want. But just get me some water or something.”

  I get her a glass of water. When I turn back to her, she’s watching me.

  “Here’s water. Here’s three Advil. One Vicodin. Bite it in half. Take the other half if you wake up in pain. Okay?”