Lessons in Mountain Climbing — Eliza Lloyd

Industrialist billionaire recluse Rane Kirk has all he wants -- his plants and his privacy. That doesn't mean the media is willing to leave the Titan of Telluride alone -- not when his past is shrouded in mystery and not when one particular journalist has something to prove.

As a young girl, Kinzey Vance first met Rane. She's never forgotten him. She's also never lived down her perceived failure as one of the Kirk Enterprise Grant's original scholarship recipients. She had planned to change the world, only life got in the way.

As an adopted orphan herself, she feels particularly responsible for her siblings, and gives up her dream, in order to care for them after the death of their mother. Years later and back in Colorado, Kinzey finally has something she must share with the elusive Rane Kirk.

Climbing the mountain to Kirk's compound, Kinzey is more determined than ever to tell her story. And to learn the truth of his. She doesn't know Kirk has never forgotten her and the moment she lands in his koi pond, their stars don't realign; they collide.