The Billionaire's Beautiful Intruder (Billionaire Knights Book 3) (2 page)

T
he helicopter pilot
wasn’t exactly the talkative kind, as he was too focused on flying the aircraft to engage her in conversation. Molly didn’t mind. She herself was deeply engrossed in her own thoughts. Working as hard as she had to get back on her feet and restore her health had only been possible through the support she’d received from the kind and capable hospital staff. At first she hadn’t even been interested in her own recovery, wishing she’d simply died alongside her family. But the will to live was an essential part of the healing process. Without that, she could never have made it, and it had been the way the amazing staff at Saint-Michael’s had treated her and motivated her that inspired her to do for others what they had done for her.

It had taken her three long months to fully recover, and by then she’d made up her mind about several things: first of all that she would dedicate the life that had been so miraculously spared to the service of others. She should have died that day, and the fact that she hadn’t was so extraordinary that she’d decided that the gift hadn’t merely been meant for her personal gratification but because she needed to stick around for a reason. She had a purpose to be here and that purpose was clearly that she needed to give something back to the world. So she now helped heal others who’d been struck by a similar tragedy as her own.

The other decision she’d made—after long deliberation—was that she would never have a family, never enter into a personal relationship. She would dedicate her life to the service of others and forego the desire to love and be loved by a man. It was a hard decision to make, but one she knew would spare her the pain and heartache of loving a man only to see his face contort in horror and shock at the sight of her. At discovering what she was and who she was and then leave her to suffer emotional pain, her heart broken beyond repair. She’d decided that she’d been through too much of an ordeal to be able to stand that. So it was simply better to leave her cards on the table and never get involved in the dating game at all than risk losing herself and possibly her motivation to help others as well, which was now more important to her than her own personal happiness.

Which was another reason she was so furious about this assignment. There were so many people relying on her, and they would be deprived of her presence at their bedside because one man thought he was so special, oh so important, that he deserved the care that would have otherwise served dozens and dozens.

The selfishness of him! she fumed. She was quite sure she knew the kind of man he was. Self-absorbed, arrogant, needy, and demanding to a degree. She just hoped she was professional enough to be able to stand his company!

“How much further to the island?” she asked over the noise of the chopper.

There was the clicking sound of the radio, and then the voice of the pilot crackled, “Another forty-five minutes, Miss Grayson. Sit tight.”

She leaned back, and watched the English coastline morph into the Scottish coastline. Finally the pilot announced, “Arriving at our destination in five minutes, Miss Grayson. Be advised, this might get a little rocky. Hold on.”

In the distance she could see the small island, and in fascination leaned forward to gaze out the window. Tyler Island was shaped like a boomerang and sported a heavily wooded area to the North, with the inhabitable part located on a large promontory in the South. A single structure had been erected on the plain, she saw, a small brick house that looked rather austere from the air. It was built on the edge of the promontory, a sheer drop into the Atlantic Ocean to its back. To the front the flat land stretched out, and as the helicopter circled the house she saw there was a small beach located on the other side. Great. Mister Billionaire had built himself his own private Club Med. She was surprised, however, at the modest size of the house. She’d expected some sprawling mansion with swimming pools, Jacuzzis and a hundred bathrooms. This looked more like the kind of house a mountain trapper would build.

And as the chopper swept down, she saw that a patch of land had been cleared and turned into a makeshift landing spot. It, too, looked pretty sparse.

It was her understanding that the chopper wasn’t merely delivering her to the island but also providing essential supplies to its single inhabitant. Probably a few cases of champagne and caviar, she reflected bitterly.

The pilot deftly landed the aircraft, and she waited patiently for the rotor blades to wind down and the engine to be switched off before removing her seatbelt.

The pilot kindly helped her down, and she was glad to have her feet on solid ground again. She’d never enjoyed flying, the lack of control something that added to her nervousness. She was a person with two feet firmly on the ground and in full control of her life and destiny, and she liked to keep it that way.

She looked in the direction of the house. It appeared even less imposing from where she stood. Simply a modest gray-brick construction, not befitting a billionaire in her estimation. And as she stared at it she saw the billionaire in question striding toward them, dressed in checked shirt and jeans. Even from this distance she could detect the scowl on his face. He was a tall man, and powerfully built, sporting a full beard and a head of black hair that descended to his shoulders. He must have allowed his close-cropped military cut to grow out since his arrival on the island. Which made sense, of course. Though she wouldn’t have put it past him to have his hair stylist flown in from London for a weekly grooming session.

When they were within earshot he growled loudly, “What the hell is this?!”

She braced herself, as if on a collision course with an inanimate object hurtling unequivocally in her direction. Like a meteor about to wipe out life on planet earth unless Bruce and Ben could stop it. But there was no Bruce or Ben to stop this man.

She thrust out a hand. “Hi. I’m Molly Grayson. I’m your private nurse.”

He scowled at her as if she’d addressed him in a foreign tongue. His eyes were dark and stormy, like the ocean crashing against the jagged cliffs surrounding the island, and his brows were drawn together in an expression as forbidding as the island itself, and just as unwelcoming. So much for the Club Med treatment.

Instead of responding, he turned to the pilot. “What the hell is this, Marco?”

Marco shrugged. ”Don’t look at me, Steve. I don’t order the packages. I just deliver them.”

So now she was a package, huh? Nice. Real nice.

“Well, you can take this particular package back to London,” Steve responded tersely. “No way is she staying on Tyler Island.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Molly interrupted, going for the second attempt. “I’m a trained nurse, hired by your brothers to take care of you.”

He glared at her. “I don’t need a nurse, lady. So get your perky little butt back into that chopper and tell Mike and Stu thanks but no thanks.”

She frowned. This was even worse than she thought. Not only was he arrogant to a degree, but the man was a downright Neanderthal! Her antipathy toward Steve Knight was reaching a new high, if that was even possible.

She planted her hands on her hips and stared him down. No billionaire he-man was going to get the better of her. “Look, Mr. Knight,” she said in a low voice, “whether you like it or not, I’ve been hired to do a job and you damn well better let me do it or else—”

“Or else what?” Suddenly he was in her face, his eyes boring into hers with an intensity that had the hairs on the back of her neck bristling. She noticed his eyes weren’t entirely gray but flecked with dangerously shimmering flecks of silver. A rare and lethal combination. His lips were tight, but she couldn’t help noticing that his bottom lip was more sensuously full than she would have expected. Not that it was any of her business, of course. He was her patient, nothing more, and a very ungrateful one at that! Not that she’d expected anything different.

“Look, I’ve left a lot of patients behind just so I could take care of you, so—”

“So you can go right back to those precious patients of yours and leave me in peace,” he bit.

“Your brothers have hired me, so you can’t fire me!” she snapped back.

“Whatever they’re paying you, I’m sure they won’t mind letting you keep it, if that’s what’s worrying you. I’m pretty sure they’re good for it,” he growled.

She bridled. “Money? You think I’m doing this for the money?”

“Of course you’re doing it for the money, lady,” he drawled. “Don’t we all?”

She pursed her lips disdainfully. Did he think she could be bought? How rude! “Well, not me. I’m here simply because—because…” The notion of that million pounds suddenly entered her mind and made her falter.

He nodded knowingly. “How much are they paying you?”

“Not a penny!” she declared haughtily, tilting her chin. “They’ve been so kind to offer Saint-Michael’s Hospital a generous donation, but I’m sure they would have done so regardless of my decision to accept their offer.”

“How much?” he insisted, his eyes glittering dangerously.

“One million pounds. But that’s neither here nor there.”

He barked a curt humorless laugh. “A million pounds? That’s both here
and
there, all right,” he snapped, then drew his fingers through his long hair. “Look, I’ll talk to Mike and Stu. I’ll make sure your hospital gets to keep the donation, whether you stick around or not. I’m sure it’s an entirely worthy cause.”

“It is a worthy cause,” she retorted, mentally adding, unlike you, bozo.

“So you won’t mind taking your very worthy behind back to your very worthy hospital to take care of those very worthy patients of yours, am I right?”

What was with this man’s obsession with her buttocks? “Wrong!” she returned. “I’m not the kind of woman who backs down so easily. Nor am I the kind of woman who accepts an assignment and doesn’t see it through!”

“But you are the kind of woman who’s willing to respect a man’s wish—a man who’s telling you unequivocally that he wants to be left in peace. I never asked for this,” he added for good measure, stabbing his finger in her direction.

That was too much, so she stabbed right back. “Well, neither did I!”

She’d revealed too much, she saw, for his lips curled up into a cruel grin. “So that’s how it is, huh? You didn’t want to come so they twisted your arm. They dangled this million pounds in front of you and added in a fat bonus, no doubt.”

“There was no bonus involved, fat or otherwise.” Perhaps there should have been, she now saw, for this was proving a lot harder than she’d anticipated!

“Save it, lady,” he said in his gravelly voice, slashing his hand in a decisive gesture. “You’re not staying on my island and that’s my final word.”

“Um, I’m sorry to intrude, Steve,” the pilot interjected, “but the weather isn’t getting any better and I’d like to get back before it takes a turn for the worse.”

“Of course,” said Steve agreeably, and instantly seemed to forget all about Molly or her infuriating presence on ‘his island’ and started helping Marco unload the chopper.

Molly would have pitched in herself, but the cases looked entirely too heavy for her to lift. And of course nobody was asking for her help, either, apparently considering her a
quantité négligeable
.

So she simply stood waiting for the men to finish and for Steve to return his attention to her so she could make it clear to him that she was here to stay, whether he liked it or not. She glanced around, and saw that the island was even less hospitable than she’d already surmised when surveying it from the sky. From where she stood vegetation was sparse and tough, befitting an island that was buffeted by the wind and lashed by frequent storms. As it was now autumn she just hoped the weather wouldn’t get too bad. She wondered what it must be like in the summer. She strolled away from the chopper and found herself glancing down a steep incline at the small beach she’d seen before. It suddenly looked a lot less enticing, and she wondered how one even got down there.

And as she watched she had an image of Steve Knight plunging into the ocean, doing morning laps. And suddenly she imagined the infuriating billionaire as he casually wandered down the beach and dove into the ocean. She stole a roving glance at him as he picked a box from the chopper with apparent ease. His muscular arms had no problem with the heavy load, his broad shoulders working as he positioned the heavy-duty box on the makeshift landing area.

He was actually quite handsome, she decided, when he wasn’t scowling at her. His face was angular, dark skin drawn taut over chiseled bone, and she found her gaze drawn to his tangled beard. She’d never thought bearded men attractive, but that was before she met Steve Knight. It made him look even more enticingly male, not to mention a little wild, and positively dangerous.

She’d Googled him the night before, and found a picture where he posed in uniform with his men, his face hewn as if from granite, his eyes hard and narrowed into slits as the sun mercilessly beat down on his close-cropped head. The smooth-shaven appearance of the Steve Knight he’d been had been replaced by the long-haired man with the facial hair he sported now, but he looked just as darkly sexy—or a lot more so now than before, if that was even possible.

She quickly gave herself a mental chiding. She had no business cataloging this man as sexy. He was her patient, and instead of judging his sex appeal she should be evaluating his mental state, and the state of his injuries. Though from where she stood he looked to be in excellent physical shape. Physical perfection was more like it, she thought as she felt a sudden flutter in her chest. She stomped on the flutter. She was here as the man’s nurse, not his cheer squad.

“Can we discuss this in a civilized manner, Mr. Knight?” she asked when he unloaded the final crate. “I was hired to do a job and I do intend to see it through.”

His eyes briefly flickered over her, then he held up his hand in farewell to the pilot, and grunted, “Thanks, Marco. See you next time, all right?”

“Sure thing, Steve,” responded Marco, and Molly watched the billionaire effortlessly hoist two crates onto his shoulders and start toward the house without another glance back at her.