Billionaire Unreachable

  Copyright © 2023 by J. S. Scott

  All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission.

  Cover Photo by Wander Aguiar Photography

  Proof Editing by Michele Ficht

  ISBN: 9798364357694 (Print)

  ISBN: 9781951102951 (E-Book)

  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

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Shelby

  “Are you really doing okay, Shelby?” my cousin, Kaleb, asked with a frown. “I know you always tell us that you’re doing fine, but you’ve been there in San Diego for over a year now, and I’m still not completely buying it. I don’t think any of us are.”

  I looked back at the beloved faces of my three male cousins and my Aunt Millie on my computer screen.

  Am I really fine?

  Maybe…not completely.

  Things were definitely getting easier here in California, but I couldn’t say that the events in my history still didn’t haunt me.

  There were parts of me that were still a little broken and might stay that way for the foreseeable future, but I was surviving better than I was a year ago.

  That was something, right?

  I tried hard not to worry my family with my bullshit.

  I was thirty-five years old, and my cousins and my aunt had been there for enough of my past drama.

  I was also normally an optimist, which had gotten me in trouble at times, and I really wanted to believe that I could stop thinking about my former life sometime soon.

  I looked at Kaleb’s image and nodded slowly, trying to convey to him that I was okay.

  While I was close to everyone on my computer screen, I’d developed a special bond with Kaleb over the last several years. He could read me a little better than his brothers and Aunt Millie because I’d opened up to him more than I had with the rest of my family.

  The five of us had been meeting via video conference every Saturday afternoon when we could all get free for a little over a year now, ever since I’d relocated from Montana to San Diego.

  I wasn’t sure whether it helped my loneliness or if it made it worse to see the people I loved on a computer screen. There were still times when I felt guilty every time I saw them because my mistakes had hurt them, too, but they had never judged me. It was more likely that I was the one who couldn’t get over it.

  They all wanted me to be okay after everything that had happened in Montana, so I tried to tell them what they needed to hear.

  My three cousins, Kaleb, Tanner, and Devon, were busy billionaires who ran a diversified multinational holding company.

  The three of them were like older brothers to me.

  Their mother, my Aunt Millie, was like a parent to me, too. She was now comfortably retired.

  None of them needed to hear about how lonely and lost I’d been since I’d moved to San Diego.

  Besides, things had gotten better for me recently. I was making new friends, and my head was on straighter now than it had been a year ago.

  I took in the four concerned faces on my laptop screen and plastered what I hoped was an upbeat smile on my face. “I’m good,” I insisted. “My food blog is still growing, and I do as many events here as possible. It’s nice to be able to work for myself.”

  “We aren’t just talking about your businesses,” Tanner scoffed. “We want to know if you’re really happy there in San Diego now.”

  Happy?

  I wasn’t entirely certain I even remembered what real happiness felt like anymore, but I was more…content.

  Realizing they were more interested in my personal life than my career, I said, “I’m going to a barbecue at Tori Montgomery’s house later. I have some friends here now. Things are getting better. I promise.”

  That much was true.

  Becoming friends with Tori Montgomery was probably the best thing that happened to me in San Diego.

  After a year of being alone in a city that wasn’t familiar to me with no real friends, I was grateful that I’d finally met someone as genuine as Tori.

  “You met her at Chase’s wedding, right?” Devon questioned.

  “Yes,” I confirmed.

  I owed Kaleb for that profitable catering job he’d gotten me by recommending my services to a friend here in San Diego a few months ago. Not only had it helped my dwindling bank account, but it had introduced me to several female friends I now valued.

  Being the caterer and chef for the wedding of a powerful billionaire here in California had been extremely good for business. I’d been offered several other profitable gigs I probably wouldn’t have gotten without that event on my resumé.

  “So you finally met Wyatt in person,” Kaleb mused. “Did you figure out that he isn’t really an asshole?”

  I had to force the smile to stay fixed in position after that question.

  My aunt’s face suddenly lit up as she questioned, “Did you like him, Shelby? He’s such a nice boy.”

  I tried not to visibly cringe as I thought about Tori’s oldest brother, Wyatt.

  Shit! That’s the last person I want to talk about right now.

  And only my Aunt Millie would refer to a man like Wyatt Durand as a nice boy.

  My brief encounter with Wyatt at his younger brother Chase’s wedding hadn’t exactly gone well, and it had done nothing to convince me that I was wrong in my previous assumptions about the guy.

  Wyatt Durand was an arrogant jerk, but that wasn’t something I was going to tell my cousins or my aunt.

  They all thought the man walked on water.

  Wyatt and Kaleb had been friends since college, and the two of them were still tight even though they lived in different states.

  “I didn’t exactly mingle. I wasn’t a guest,” I said jokingly. “I was the hired help at that wedding. I didn’t really talk much to the groom or his older brother.”

  That wasn’t exactly a lie. The groom, Chase Montgomery, had been the man who hired me and worked out the basic menu, but the women had gotten involved in most of the details. I’d talked to them more often than I’d spoken to Chase. And my one and only discussion with his older brother hadn’t lasted for more than a few minutes.

  “You got friendly with Tori, Savannah, and the rest of the Montgomery women,” Kaleb pointed out.

  “They were really nice,” I said honestly. “Everyone pitched in to help pull that wedding off quickly, and I talked with all of them fairly often. We all had the chance to get to know each other a little before the wedding.”

  Wyatt hadn’t helped with the wedding planning. He’d simply loaned out his extravagant waterfront mansion in Del Mar for his brother’s reception.

  Yes, I’d had a private encounter with Wyatt after all the guests at the reception had left, but it was nothing I wanted to discuss with my family.

  He was just as arrogant and snobby as I’d imagined he was a year ago, when he’d refused to meet me on a blind date that Kaleb had tried to set up.

  Hell, he was probably worse than I’d envisioned back then.

  It was truly a shame that a man that attractive could be such a total asshole.

  However, to be entirely fair, I hadn’t exactly been nice to him, either.

  “Well,” my aunt mused. “I think you should get to know Wyatt better. He’s a very eligible bachelor, and he’s been completely charming every time we’ve met. He’s also attractive, not to mention wealthy and accomplished.”

  I wanted to strangle my three cousins as they all grinned.

  They were probably happy and relieved that their mother was turning her matchmaking tendencies toward me instead of them for a change.

  “I think it’s very unlikely that we’ll run into each other again, Aunt Millie,” I said firmly.

  My aunt was a bulldog when she set her mind on something, and I didn’t want her to assume there was even a possibility that anything would ever happen between Wyatt Durand and me.

  Not onl
y did we not like each other, but he was also an outrageously wealthy billionaire who owned Durand Industries, the most successful luxury product and high fashion business in the world.

  I was a working-class chef.

  Under normal circumstances, our paths would never cross again. We didn’t exactly live or work in the same world.

  Thank God!

  “You might meet up again in the future,” Aunt Millie considered thoughtfully, obviously unwilling to give up hope. “You’re getting close to Tori Montgomery, and she’s his younger sister.”

  I rolled my eyes in frustration, and then sent a pleading look to each of my male cousins.

  Unfortunately, none of them wiped the grins off their faces or even tried to help me out.

  Traitors!

  Kaleb winked at me, and I got the sudden urge to smack the smile off his handsome face.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” I cautioned my aunt. “It’s unlikely we’ll bump into each other, and Wyatt Durand isn’t my type.”

  He was probably more into high-fashion models and the gorgeous women in his industry.

  Everything that I…wasn’t.

  I was a female who was as tall as some men at five foot nine, and even though I had the height of a model, I certainly didn’t have the willowy body of a model. I was a chef. I liked comfort food, and I had the curvy body of a woman who really liked to eat.

  I’d also inherited my father’s red hair, and it made me stand out, but not always in a good way because it was curly.

  My best feature was probably my green eyes, but they hardly made up for all of my other not-so-attractive traits.

  I was pretty content with who I was and my physical appearance most of the time, but being rejected by someone like Wyatt Durand had made me evaluate every flaw I had for months after he’d adamantly rejected the idea of us meeting up a year ago.

  Maybe that was one of the reasons I disliked him so damn much.

  I’d already been down on myself a year ago, and not even close to recovering my confidence.

  The last thing I’d needed back then was some arrogant asshole reminding me of everything I wasn’t by flatly refusing to meet me in person.

  Kaleb was the only one who knew that Wyatt had turned down a possible date with me over a year ago, and he’d apparently kept that knowledge to himself.

  If anyone else in my family knew, they wouldn’t be encouraging me to cozy up to a guy who had already rejected me.

  Well, except for Kaleb, who was really close to Wyatt, and still insisted that his good friend wasn’t a bad guy.

  “If you’re going to Tori’s barbecue, won’t you see Wyatt there?” Tanner asked.

  “Wyatt is apparently out of the country,” I informed my family.

  I definitely wouldn’t have agreed to go to Tori’s place this evening if there was even a chance I’d run into Wyatt Durand again.

  I’d deliberately avoided him since my friendship with Tori had developed, and I planned on doing so in the future.

  I could be friends with Tori without seeing her arrogant, unpleasant older brother.

  I felt a twinge of remorse when I saw the wistful look on my aunt’s face as she replied, “That’s too bad. Will there be anyone else who’s single there?”

  I snorted. “You’re not being very subtle, Aunt Millie. As far as I know, it’s just couples, and I’m not looking for single guys right now. Maybe you should work on your sons instead.”

  My cousins all shot me a disgruntled look, and I smiled sweetly back at them. I didn’t have a single bit of sympathy for any of them after they’d refused to rescue me from my aunt’s matchmaking attempts.

  Aunt Millie shook her head. “They’re hopeless. All three of them. Not one of my single sons are interested in settling down. But maybe they’ll meet someone nice at the annual picnic. Most of the town will be here. You will be here this year, won’t you, Shelby?”

  I sighed, even though I’d already known that subject would come up in this virtual conversation. We were already well into summer, and the event wasn’t that far away. It was always held in September, after the summer heat, but before the cold weather started.

  I hadn’t seen my aunt in person since the first of the year. Not since we’d gotten together here for the holidays.

  My cousins had brought Aunt Millie to San Diego for Christmas and New Year’s. They’d rented an enormous house here so we could spend the holidays together, but I hadn’t set foot in Montana since the day I’d left.

  I’d skipped the annual Remington picnic at my aunt’s ranch to avoid the gossip last year.

  God, I still missed Montana sometimes.

  It was still home because I’d grown up there with plenty of happy memories, despite the nightmare that occurred later.

  I missed my cousins and my Aunt Millie.

  I missed the ranch, and I really missed the small town of Crystal Fork.

  Unfortunately, I could never go back there for good.

  Things would never be the same.

  I couldn’t change what had happened there, and those fond childhood memories would probably forever be clouded by my more recent history in Montana.

  “It’s not news here anymore, Shelby,” Kaleb informed me in a gruff voice. “People have moved on, and your friends have been asking about you. Everyone who cares about you wants to see you. Especially the four of us.”

  I looked at the hopeful faces on my computer screen, my heart aching as I answered, “I’ll…think about it.”

  If the talk had died down, maybe there was really no reason to avoid going back to Montana now for a visit.

  Will it really be that painful anymore? I can’t avoid Montana forever.

  “Say the word,” Devon said earnestly. “One of us will come and get you. Maybe all of us will come and drag you back here for the party.”

  I shook off my negative thoughts and smiled at my family, knowing my cousins would happily fly to San Diego in one of their private jets to drag me back to Montana for Aunt Millie’s annual event. Considering their vast financial resources, it would be a pretty easy task for them.

  My cousins hadn’t grown up with private jets and helicopters at their disposal, but they’d been outrageously wealthy for years now. I should probably be used to their billionaire lifestyle, but I wasn’t.

  It was still hard to believe that the guys I’d always seen as annoying older brothers were worshipped like gods in the business world.

  “I said I’d think about it,” I reminded them firmly, not completely certain that I was ready to go back home, even for a visit.

  Tanner grinned. “You know that’s as good as a yes to us.”

  Kaleb, Devon, and my aunt nodded eagerly in agreement.

  God, they looked so hopeful that it made me want to cry.

  That was the moment I knew I was going to end up going to Montana for the annual picnic.

  The event was important to my Aunt Millie, and it was a tradition for many people in my hometown.

  There was no way I could disappoint the only family I had, and I had to rip the Band-Aid off those Montana wounds sooner or later.

  Everyone who mattered to me still lived there.

  “You’re all impossible to argue with,” I accused lightheartedly.

  “We’d never know that you feel that way,” Kaleb teased. “You’re stubborn enough to argue with us all the time. You just don’t win all that often.”

  “Because you all gang up on me,” I complained with a laugh. “Well, except for Aunt Millie. She always tries not to takes sides.”

  “That’s not why we always win,” Kaleb said drily. “It’s because you’re much too sweet to not forgive all of us before we really deserve it.”

  My aunt sent me a loving smile as she said, “We’ve all missed you so much, Shelby. It will be nice to have you here again. You have no idea how lovely it will be to see your face in person instead of on a screen.”

  I swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump in my throat.

  She had no idea how much I wanted to see their faces again in person, too, or how much I looked forward to a very big and familiar hug from all of them.

  Even though I was finally making some friends in San Diego, it had been way too long since I’d felt like I was home and surrounded by people who loved me.

  Shelby