Billionaires Dollar Series

Ethan chuckles. “Four-wheel drive is a beautiful thing.”

We park on a plateau, right next to an old, abandoned groundskeepers lodge. Nestled into a natural grove of trees, it’s all but hidden from the valley below. It’s a beautiful summer day, the sun peeking out behind clouds.

“We’ll start here,” Ethan says, pulling out water bottles for us both. The scent of pine and dew is heavy in the air, and for a moment I just close my eyes and take a deep, filling breath.

I open my eyes to find Ethan looking at me. I smile at him. “This is your form of escape, right? Away from work and responsibilities?”

He gives a slow nod. “Always has been.”

“Thanks for showing it to me,” I tell him.

He runs a hand over the back of his neck, but he’s smiling. “Come on,” he tells me. “I want to show you this view.”

The trail he’s chosen for us isn’t too hard. It loops up to a viewpoint, the stunning greens of the national park spreading out in front of us like an unbelievably idyllic desktop picture on a computer. The mountain itself crowns the picture in the far distance, complete with a snow-capped peak. It’s beyond gorgeous.

I sink down onto a log and take a deep sip from my water bottle. “We didn’t see anyone else on this track,” I comment. “How come this place isn’t packed?”

Ethan’s smile is crooked. “Technically speaking, it’s not an official track.”

“Technically?”

“It used to be, but they’ve closed it.” He reaches around for his backpack and opens it with a swift tug. He pulls out a packet for us both containing a delicious-looking sandwich.

“Courtesy of Maria,” he says.

“I’ll have to tell her thanks. This looks amazing.”

“She’s worth her weight in gold,” he agrees, sitting down next to me.

I take a bite and savor the taste, the fresh air, the beautiful view and the sunshine. It’s a gorgeous place, and perhaps… perhaps this would be the time to tell him about that little lie, the one I’d somehow fallen into telling over and over again.

“Ethan,” I begin, but I lose my nerve the second he turns to look at me. It’s too beautiful a place to sully. “Isn’t this kind of a simple pleasure for a man like you? The newspapers all want Greenwood Hills residents to be sports-car-owning jet-setters.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Perhaps I would have been, if I didn’t have children and responsibilities. Like your aunt and uncle, traveling all summer.”

I take a big bite from my sandwich and nod, feeling awful.

“But I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors, even as a kid. My brother and I grew up by the coast and we were constantly in the water. Besides…” He looks over at me, the furrow in his brow back. “I wasn’t sure if we wanted to go somewhere with people.”

“You’d be recognized?”

“I could be. It’s not super common, but it happens, yeah. I’m sometimes photographed too.”

And I’d be by his side when that happened, which would take our… whatever this is into something far more. “Makes perfect sense,” I say.

His shoulders relax. “I figured neither of us wanted that.”

“No, not at all.” I could think of little worse, to be honest, than public scrutiny of what was still so undecided. Ethan finishes his sandwich and reaches out to put his arm around my shoulders. I lean into his side, feeling ninety percent amazing and ten percent like a fraud.

“I’ll remember this tomorrow,” he says.

I can’t help needling him. “I should hope so,” I tease. “Or do you usually suffer from memory loss?”

“No, you comedian,” he says. “And perhaps I shouldn’t bring it up, but… what the hell. My ex-wife is planning on coming over tomorrow.”

“She’s the queen of changing plans last minute, so it’s not set in stone. But I’ve tried to prepare the girls for it.”

I swallow. “Where does she usually live?”NôvelDrama.Org owns all content.

“No idea. Last I heard, down in Portland, but she travels a lot. She’s a proud member of the sports-car-owning jet-setting club you mentioned earlier.”

“Right.”

He sighs again. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“No, of course you should’ve. I’m always here to listen if you need to talk.”

He squeezes my shoulder. “Too kind.”

I pull back and look at him, wiggling my eyebrows. “How do you know it’s kindness, huh? Perhaps I have ulterior motives.”

“Right. And what would they be?”

“I couldn’t possibly tell you, of course. But theoretically, hypothetically, it might involve you, and me, and a bed…”

A smile breaks across his face. “Oh, you don’t have to be kind to me to achieve that.”

“You’d sleep with just anyone, would you?”

“If that anyone were you, yeah.” He presses a kiss to my cheek, trailing down to my neck. “So be rude all you like. You won’t scare me away.”

“What a relief!” I trail my hand through his hair. “I can finally drop this good-girl act.”

He snorts again, pressing his lips to mine. “Sorry, Bella,” he says when he’s finished kissing me, “but it’s fairly obvious that it’s not an act.”

“Shoot.” I’m breathless from his lips. “You know my secret now, then.”

“That you’re good through and through? Yeah, I’m fairly certain of that.” He pulls me into standing. “Let’s head back down to the car before we do something we shouldn’t on this trail.”

We talk about everything and nothing on the drive back, and I discover small, banal things about him. That he only drinks his coffee black and that he hates carrots. His first kiss was at twelve, and it was with the neighbor girl-he winks at me when he says this and tells me it’s clearly a pattern-but his brother later confessed to having a crush on her. It complicated things for about a week.

I discover big things, too. He believes that his daughters saved him, in a way, from becoming one of those people who dedicate their lives to work, and that he’s grateful to them for that.

He asks me things too. About my brother and my parents, about my education, about where I’ve travelled. And I tell him things about my family and my studies and my dreams. I only speak this freely around Wilma and Trina, but in the car with him… well, the casual comfort is back.

We’re almost in Greenwood by the time Ethan looks over at me with a raised eyebrow. “Sooo,” he says, drawing out the vowel.

“So,” I echo, twisting around to look at him. His thick hair is pushed back and an easy, charming smile is in place.