Nora and her unexpected billionaire

As the rain began to drizzle, Nora rode her bike faster down the uneven terrain, claws nudging deep into her thighs. That was her cat, Lilly, who at this point was holding on for her dear life, unaccustomed to countryside roads. “Hold on, girl! You’re gonna be fine" Nora shouted over the rain. By the time she reached the cottage, the drizzle had turned into a steady, heavy rain. She yanked at the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She rattled the handle, pushed harder, looking around wildly. “Oh no… no, no,” she muttered, panic rising. The door was locked. Of course it was locked. How could she be so stupid? She had forgotten to read the manual. Those automatic locks that clicked themselves shut from the outside were clearly designed to punish first-time renters. It was unfortunate how today had gone awry. She had imagined this little cottage as a sanctuary, a quiet place where she could sit undisturbed, pore over the documents she had found in her grandmother’s room, and finally catch up on movies she had missed. But now her reliably terrible luck seemed to have followed her all the way to Thailand. She let out a long, weary sigh as she sank onto the doorstep, watching the rain pour down in relentless sheets. Thoughts she had been avoiding for months, memories of her grandmother, flooded back heavy and unrelenting. Her chest tightened, and for the first time all day, the immense urge to cry finally came. Sensing the rain would only get worse, she forced herself to stand. Back in LA, this wouldn’t have been such a big deal. There were always neighbours around, including the Arab shopkeeper who never let her leave without free cat food, and she could have telephoned her grandmother, who kept a spare key for exactly these situations. But this was not Los Angeles. And her grandmother was dead. She glanced about wildly, vitally aware she was clad in nothing but a sunflower yellow sundress with spaghetti shoulder straps, the soaked fabric clinging uncomfortably to her body. She looked at the locked windows, and mentally ran through her options. She could break a window, but according to the Airbnb listing, the damage deposit was eye-watering. She shook her head. “Think, Nora… think. There has to be a way in.” Then she remembered her phone, quickly patting the side of her dress until she felt the familiar shape in the pocket. “Yes! Okay, think… Somchai.” Somchai, the caretaker, whom she had met earlier when she arrived. He had seemed friendly enough, smiling politely as he showed her around the cottage and gave her his number in case she needed anything. “Please pick up,” she murmured, already dialing as the rain trickled down her arms. The call didn’t even start. She pulled the phone from her ear and stared at the screen. Where the signal bars should have been, there was nothing. She stepped off the porch and held the phone above her head, turning slowly on the spot, willing the little icon in the corner of the screen to stir. For one hopeful second it did, a single weak bar trembling into existence like a candle catching in the wind, and then it was gone. The sky above her was a solid ceiling of grey, the heavy clouds pressing low over the trees, indifferent to her situation entirely. “Great,” she muttered. “No signal.” With a frustrated sigh, she began walking slowly around the cottage, stretching her arm upward with the phone in hopes of catching a signal somewhere, muttering under her breath with every fruitless step. Then— “Ow!” Her foot slipped and she tumbled suddenly into a shallow trench beside the path. She landed hard, the shock rattling through her body, and sat down on something soft and squelchy that smelled utterly disgusting. For a moment, she didn’t move. Her eyes widened as the realization crept in, the stench hitting her nose like a physical blow. Her whole body froze in disbelief. “Oh… no,” she whispered slowly. The urge to scream bubbled up immediately, burning in her chest, but she forced herself to stay quiet. Instead, she sat there for a second longer, stunned, rain dripping off her hair and down her face. Then she scrambled for her phone, which had slipped from her hand during the fall, wiping mud off the screen. Thankfully, it lit up. A shaky sigh escaped her. Meanwhile, Lilly seemed completely unconcerned. The cat had jumped clear during the fall and now sat about four feet away, watching Nora calmly with an expression that almost looked like judgment. She didn’t even need to shine the phone’s flashlight to know what she had just fallen into. The smell alone made that very clear. The trench, she realized bitterly, had probably been filled with farm animal dung. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. “This trip just keeps getting better,” she sighed, brushing at her palms in vain. The smell clung stubbornly to her dress and skin. Shivering, she made her way back toward the cottage, Lilly trotting behind her as if nothing had happened. By the time she reached the front door again, night had finally settled over the countryside. The rain still fell steadily, though not as heavily as before, and the cold wind cut through her soaked dress. She stood there on the porch, trembling, staring at the locked door. “Well,” she muttered to herself weakly, “this is officially the worst evening of my life.” She sniffed quietly, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Nora lowered herself onto the ground near the gate and absently stroked the cat while tears slipped down her cheeks. It was while sitting there, hunched over with Lilly pressed against her ankles, that she noticed lights moving along the road beyond the gate. The shifting glow swept across the trees, stretching thin shadows over the wet ground. A vehicle was coming down the narrow lane.