16 Chapter 16

Beatrice

In the handbook of how to run away from a man after getting dumped, I'm sure that the number one rule is not to run out into the wilderness at night in high heels and a ballgown. I realize my mistake when I roll down a muddy hill and crash into a tree about halfway down.

"Sonofabitch!" I yell into the night. My ankle is badly sprained, and my shoes have flown off into the night.

All around me are trees and probably all kinds of bugs. I'm sure that Cole isn't going to send anyone out to find me, so it looks like I'm stuck here for the night.

"At least it's not raining," I say out loud.

Then, it starts to rain.

It's not a misty kind of rain. It's a torrential downpour kind of rain.

"I know. I know. I deserve this," I say. I don't know who I'm talking to, but I have a lot to get off my chest. I guess I'm talking to the whole universe. "I should never have gone along with Operation Billionaire. Who wants to marry a billionaire? I can't even count to a billion. Is it a thousand million or a million million? See, universe? I've no idea. I'm so bad at math. Rich men don't want to marry women who are bad at math. That wouldn't look right at all. 'Let me introduce you to my wife, Mrs. Billionaire. But don't ask her how much a billion is because she has no idea. She's bad at math.' Oh, that would just be perfect! All the rich people would be laughing, then. So, I don't deserve a billionaire, and I really don't deserve Cole. He's so handsome and smart and kind and funny and he has a very nice penis. Why would he want me? Well, he doesn't. There's the answer, universe. Cole doesn't want me. I'm nothing. I'm not smart or funny or pretty or anything special. I'm just Beatrice Hammersmith, leaning on a tree while I'm pummeled with some kind of inland hurricane and hoping that the gushing water doesn't wash me down this hill to my death. Or I could suffocate in a wave of mud. That would be perfect. She died from mud. Very glamorous. Very sophisticated. Very..."

"Who are you talking to?"

I scream. It's a long, protracted scream. I'm sure that a serial killer or a cave-dwelling hermit has found me and is going to do terrible things to me. I wipe my wet hair off my face and squint into the darkness.

"Cole? Is that you?"

"Who else would be looking for you during a storm in an Armani suit?"

"Is that a trick question?"

"No, it's not a trick question!" he yells.

"You looked for me, but you're angry at me. You said I'm a grifter. You told me you never wanted to see me again." I'm telling the truth. He said those things, and even through the rain, I can tell he's still angry at me.

"That doesn't mean I want you dead," he says, his voice gruff.

"Are you sure?"

"Come on, let me take you..." And then Cole screams. It's not an angry scream. It's an I'm-going-to-die scream, which is a fitting scream because a gush of water hits him and knocks him off his feet. He falls flat on his ass and then he's whisked away, past me and down the hill.

Uh oh.

Cole has good lungs. He screams one long note all the way down the hill and lands with an oomph that I can hear in the storm, up the hill.

"Cole!" I call. "Cole! Are you alive?"

I hear him say something, but I can't make it out.

"Just tell me you're alive!" I call, again, but I can't hear him.

The idea that Cole's hurt or worse grips me with the worst fear I've ever felt. Even if he doesn't love me, even if he never wants to see me again, I can't stomach the idea of him hurt or in danger. Even if we're broken up, I don't want to lose him this way. The forever way.

"I'm coming!" I announce and crawl away from the protection of the tree. The ground is thick with mud, rocks, and twigs-and probably lots of bugs-that scratch my hands and knees. But I'm bound and determined to save Cole. "I'm coming!" I yell again.

I'm coming, but I'm coming very slowly. My ballgown is not made for crawling, and it's ripped all the way up the back. Now, it's just a lot of fabric, dragging through the mud. It's hard to see because my hair is covering my face in wet strips.

"It's really raining!" I call to Cole. I'm from Southern California, and I've never seen rain like this. It's like God is squeezing out a cloud above me. It's a lot of water.

I slip and slide, as I go down the hill and decide to change direction and crawl down backward so that I don't fall on my face.

"I'm still coming, but I'm coming down backward!" I yell. I think I might hear his voice, but I can't make out what he's saying. "You're not dead, right?" I call out. "Geez, this is a really big hill!"

To be perfectly honest, if I wasn't trying to save Cole, I would be pretty freaked out right now. There's a good chance I'm never going to make it down this hill alive. The hillside is little more than mud, and it could come down any second and take me with it, burying me under tons of mud.

The hill is also very big, and it's taking me forever to get down it. In any normal circumstance, I would quit, but visions of Cole's perfect face and body flash through my mind, and I keep going.

"I'm not quitting!" I announce. "I will save you!"

"Help!" I hear. Finally, I'm close enough to actually hear what Cole is saying.

"Don't worry! I'm coming! Ouch!"

My hand hits a sharp rock, as I crawl, and I sit up to nurse it. But the movement messes up my balance, and I slide down the rest of the way on my back. It's still a long way down, and by the time I get to the bottom, I hit something and my body flies up into the air, and I land with a hard thud onto my belly.

Oomph! I hear.

I feel my body for broken bones, but miraculously, besides my sprained ankle and scrapes and bruises, I'm in one piece.

"I'm alive!" I shout into the storm.

"Off...Please...Can't breathe."

"Cole, is that you?" I feel around in the mud, and sure enough, there's a bunch of muscular limbs underneath me. I crawl off Cole. "Are you okay?"

Cole sits up and spits out a mouth full of mud. "Why didn't you get help?" he demands.

"What do you mean? I'm saving you. You cried help, and I'm helping you."

"No, I said, 'Go get help.' Go get help, not help. How on earth can you help? Are you going to carry me out of here? Are you going to climb up through the mud with me on your back?"

I cross my arms in front of me, and I pout. "I guess I didn't think that far."

"Surprise. Surprise."

"I resent your tone."

Cole slaps the mud next to him in frustration. "Now what are we going to do?"

"You can't walk?" I ask.

"I've broken my leg," he says.

I gasp. "Are you sure? Maybe it's just bruised."

"It's broken," he says between clenched teeth.

"But..."

"It's broken."

"Sometimes, a sprain hurts more than a break, and so you think it's a break, but it's really a sprain," I explain.

"It's broken."

"For instance, my ankle is sprained. I know because I've sprained it before, and this is exactly what a sprain feels like. It hurts real bad. Does your leg hurt real bad?"

Cole sighs. "Beatrice, yes, my broken leg hurts real bad."

"We should call for help."

"With what? With this?" he asks holding up his smashed cellphone. He's getting very testy with me.

"Don't get testy with me!" I yell. "I'm the hero in this scene, you know. I risked my life to save you. And that's after you dumped me. You dumped me!"

"You were after me for my money!" he yells. "You and your Operation Billionaire. You're a leech! A parasite! I should have known. I let my guard down for one second, and I let a parasite get in. Well, I'm not going to be used. There's plenty of rich guys out there for you, Beatrice. Take your pick. I can't believe I was so stupid. All for a piece of ass."

I point at him. "I knew it. I knew it! A piece of ass. You just wanted a quickie romance. A wham bam, thank you ma'am. That's what Hawaii was about. Admit it! Admit it!"

"I made love to you for three hours straight. Three hours is not a quickie!"

"I want three hours every night. For the rest of my life. I want...Oh, forget it."

Cole clutches my arm. "No. Tell me what you want," he says. His voice has lost some of the anger and it's been replaced with hope.

"I thought we had something. You fell asleep."

"I what?"

"In Hawaii," I explain. "You fell asleep on the couch in my lap. I thought that you...forget it."

"You're right. I did fall asleep. I felt comfortable last night. It felt so right with you. I wanted that forever, too, but you betrayed my trust, Beatrice. Ever since I made this money, people have been trying to use me. I can't accept that from the woman I love."

There's a flash of lightning and a loud crack of thunder.

"What did you say?" I ask.

"I said that people have been trying to use me since I became rich."

"No, not that part," I say. "The part after that. Repeat that last bit."

"I don't remember what I said."

"It was about the woman you... Come on, fill in the blank, Cole," I urge.

"I'm not going to say it," he says.

"Because you're scared of my feelings?" I ask.

As quickly as the storm began, it stops. There's only the sound of our breathing and then after a moment, nature itself begins to regroup, and I can hear the sound of creatures moving out of their hiding places. I wipe the hair from my eyes and give Cole a good look. Even in the night, I can make out the sharp lines of his face, and I know that he's clenching his jaw, holding onto emotion.

Fear. I know it too well. I've been hurt so many times that I don't want to risk being hurt again, but I've never experienced this, a man who's afraid that I'm going to break his heart.

"Your appliances are safe with me," I tell Cole, softly. "I'll never steal your panini press."

He puts his hand on my cheek and caresses it with his thumb. "My beautiful Beatrice. You came into my life like this storm and changed me. I don't want to go to back to my life before I met you. How can I make you love me?"

"Don't you understand anything? I don't care about your money. I don't ever need to buy another Nobel Prize winner. I just want you. I love you. Now that I really am in love, I realize I never was in love before. This thing between us is different. This is hot sex plus a new best friend. This is falling asleep while watching Sylvester Stallone."

"And falling into volcanoes," Cole says.

"And falling into volcanoes," I agree. I take a deep breath. "Cole Stevens, would you be my billionaire?"

"Beatrice Hammersmith, I'd love to be your billionaire. Until death us do part."

"You probably shouldn't say that, considering our luck."

"Come closer so I can kiss you," he says. I scoot closer, and he lays one on me so hot that my clothes begin to dry.

"What the hell are you two doing down there?" I hear Rock call from above, and a big light shines down on us.

"We're making out," Cole calls back, shielding his eyes with his hand.

"Are you injured?" Rock asks.

"My leg is broken, and Beatrice sprained her ankle."

"I'll get help," Rock calls down.

A few minutes later, he returns with emergency services, and Rock reaches us first, down a rope.

"Are you guys back together?" Rock asks when he reaches us. "Because your mom wants a grandchild, and she's eaten a lot of cheese in her life, you know."

"We're back together," Cole says, and I feel my heart swell, but in an in-love way, not a get-me-to-a-hospital way.

"That's good because Beatrice really loves you, Sprinkles," Rock says. "She's even thinking of getting a neck tattoo of your face."

"No, I'm not," I say.

"A little one," Rock says.

"Nope."

"A tasteful one," Rock says.

I turn to Cole. "Never," I say.

"That's okay," Cole says. "We'll have to figure out another way for you to express your love for me."

"I think he means a big fat ring," Rocks tells me in a stage whisper.

Boy, is Rosalind going to be proud of me.