Hearts In Peril (Billionaire Romance) Read online

  “Good to know,” she told him. In the distance, she spotted some thick leaves clustered together. Hope rose. Could that be a spot for them to hide? Her back ached beneath Dean’s increasing weight. His eyes were becoming more glazed.

  “You’re stubborn, too.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but that’s not unique or a compliment.” They drew closer to the thicket.

  “Wrong. It’s both. Because I mean it as a compliment, which makes it unique.” His words were blending into one another, but it was good that he was still trying to speak. He’d gone for hours acting like he’d sustained nothing more than a scratch to his arm, and the shock of it all seemed to be hitting him. The responsibility of it landed on her shoulders, heavier than Dean’s weight.

  “Well, you’re stubborn, too. But I don’t mean it as a compliment,” she said, trying to pitch her voice lighter than she felt.

  This got a light chuckle out of him. “I’m not usually stubborn. You must bring it out in me.”

  “Another unique compliment?”

  “I don’t know.” She felt him looking at her. “Maybe.”

  They arrived at the thicket, and relief filled Riley. It wasn’t a perfect place to hide, but it was good enough. “Can you crawl in there?” She indicated the dark space between the huge banana leaves and bushes.

  “Yeah.”

  She helped him descend to his knees, and he paused before putting weight on his arm, but after a swift intake of breath, he crawled into the shadows. Riley followed him quickly, assessing their hideout. The leaves filtered the sunlight into dappled shadows, but there was about five feet of oblong space for the two of them. Dean collapsed onto his back and stared up at the leaves, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

  Riley took the pants from his bag and rolled them into a ball for a pillow. “Here,” she said, gently lifting Dean’s head and placing it on the pants.

  He glanced at her gratefully. “Thanks.”

  “I’m impressed you made it so far.”

  “Look at us, complimenting each other.”

  “Miracles do exist,” she said wryly. Her weary legs gave way, and she sat beside him, her hip pressed against his in the tight space. He seemed so different than he had earlier that day, when he’d been all assumption and arrogance.

  An uncomfortable twinge of guilt hit her stomach from how he’d reminded her of not only everyone she’d run from, but everything she used to be.

  You’re not that person anymore.

  “You need to drink something.” She rifled through his backpack, grateful to spot her granola bar in addition to the water bottles. It was tempting to go through the rest of his belongings—see what Dean Matthias considered important enough to carry with him—but she refrained. She helped him sit up and tipped a little water into his mouth. He gulped it down eagerly. After he drank half the bottle, she only took a few sips. They only had one more water bottle, and who knew how long they’d be out.

  She broke the granola bar into bits to share. The noises of the jungle grew louder as the sun began its descent—shrieks, rustling, and buzzing coming from unseen animals and insects. All unsettling in the spreading darkness.

  She’d never been afraid of the dark growing up in rural Montana. There, she could see the stars, and the air felt clearer than in the city. But here, surrounded by unfamiliar terrain, noises, and people trying to kidnap them … everything seemed more sinister.

  She moved an inch closer to Dean.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ◆◆◆

  Dean shifted on the hard ground, wanting nothing more than to get up and sprint to the plane. In college, he’d started running marathons, and as an adult had built a gym in his Boston house. He’d spent a lot of time in that gym over the last six months—especially after a long day in the courtroom—letting off steam on the treadmill or lifting weights. Sometimes his brother, Cole, would come over and work out with him, but most times he was alone, pushing himself until the only thing his mind could focus on was his own breathing. What he wouldn’t give for the distraction of a nice, long run. Especially if that run got him out of there.

  Maybe the whole last year was the universe’s way of saying, You know that guy you used to be—prideful, self-absorbed, vain? We’re going to grind that person to a pulp and reshape a new person from the remains.

  Yeah. He was ready to be done with that.

  He couldn’t dispute the results, though. It just seemed there could have been easier ways to learn these lessons than betrayal, social humiliation, and now getting shot and running from terrorists. But maybe the more hard-headed you were, the more intense the lesson needed to be.

  “Lesson learned,” he said to the sky.

  “What?” Riley asked. He heard her shifting beside him. It was strange to be in this kind of darkness, where fractured rays of the setting sun shone through the small cracks between the leaves, but they were mostly in a world of their own.

  “Do you think we’re given experiences to help us learn certain lessons?” Apparently getting shot was turning him philosophical, but he found himself truly interested in her answer. More so, he hoped she’d accept the olive branch he was offering. Their conversation had been brief while on the loud tricycle, but what little he knew about her, he liked and respected, and he wanted to bridge the rift he’d unintentionally caused.

  She took a moment before responding. “Sometimes I think we just make stupid choices and then have to live with the consequences.”

  “Hm.” That didn’t sound as metaphysical as he was going for out here in a place that felt so exotic, but she did have a point. “But maybe part of the lesson is figuring out how to deal with the consequences. Or in our case, how to get out of this situation.”

  “Yeah,” she said, but sounded dubious. “We should be quiet.”

  Or in other words: You should be quiet.

  She didn’t like him; that was clear. But there was one way to make it up to her—get them out of this.

  His limbs stirred with an odd combination of restlessness and exhaustion. He closed his eyes, but couldn’t sleep. Not until this problem was solved. He tried to picture himself in the boardroom at the Matthias Foundation’s main office. If he were given this problem to solve there, what solutions would he come up with?

  You have to keep moving.

  The thought of pushing himself up and hauling his weight farther into the deepening darkness was too much to accept.

  “What if we set off a flare?” he mused.

  Riley’s voice sounded muffled, like she’d turned her head away from him. “So the terrorists can know exactly where we are?”

  Good point.

  “And I’m guessing you don’t just happen to have a flare in your backpack,” she continued.

  “I could rig up a fire and send off a smoke signal.”

  “Really.” This time, her voice was clear and held a note of amusement. He cracked an eye open to catch her smile, but darkness had fallen, leaving behind only a hint of her outline. “You’ll just whip up a fire using only materials found in the jungle.”

  “I was a Boy Scout.” Only until he was fourteen, but the knowledge of how to do Scout stuff was buried somewhere in his brain.

  “I have a hard time picturing that.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess it doesn’t seem like a rich person thing to do.”

  “Rich people like wilderness survival and camping, too.” He eased onto his side to relieve the pressure on his bad arm.

  “I stand corrected.” But she didn’t sound convinced.

  “My dad didn’t grow up wealthy. Boy Scouts was something he did, and he felt like it made him a better person. So he wanted me and Cole to do it as well.”

  “Cole is your older brother, right?”

  “Yeah.” If Cole were here, what would he do? He’d stuck with Scouts longer than Dean had. He could probably rig up his own airplane using leaves and sticks and fly them out of here.

  “We should
rest,” Riley said.

  “Don’t you feel it?” Dean asked, wishing he could take her hand in his. It was disconcerting to talk into darkness and have no connection to the person you were with.

  “Feel what?” she sighed.

  “The urgency to keep moving.”

  She paused, and the noises of the jungle filled the silence. He closed his eyes, half hoping she’d agree and half hoping that she’d insist they stay. Resting had rejuvenated him, but it was like drinking water on a hot day—he needed more.

  “I don’t know where we’d go.” She sounded vulnerable for the first time since they’d met.

  “Do you have any friends in the area? Any contacts?”

  “Just Malaya. I have a ton of patients, but no one I would call a friend except for her.” Her words left behind a melancholic silence.

  “We have to make it to the plane.”

  “But which direction is that?” she asked, exasperation lacing her tone.

  “We landed near the ocean. Maybe we should head in that direction.”

  “It’s an island, Dean. All directions lead to the ocean eventually.”

  He ran his good hand through his hair. Fighting wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “I don’t know, Riley. I just know we need to get away from here. It’s harder to hit a moving target.”

  “But extremely easy to hit two fallen ones.” She sighed. “Dean, there are a lot of dangerous things out there we can’t see.”

  He knew that, but he also couldn’t ignore the itch he felt to get up and run.

  Riley’s hand slid over his. “We need to rest. This is a good hiding spot to get us through until morning.”

  She was right. But so was he. It was vital to keep moving, but without a clearer sense of where they were going—or at least some light—they might wander straight into trouble.

  “I might still have some battery left on my phone,” he said. “There’s no service out here, but there’s a flashlight.”

  “Give me your bag.”

  He lifted his head and slid the bag in her direction. He heard her rustle through it, and then the glow of his screen filled the darkness.

  The light glinted off wetness on her lashes, as if she’d been crying.

  “We’re going to be okay,” he told her as confidently as he could, knowing he meant the message for both of them. They’d find a way to get out of this.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ◆◆◆

  The soft beam of the flashlight bounced off of the leaves and tree trunks surrounding them. Riley smothered the light as much as she could to look at Dean’s arm, but then turned it off to preserve the battery—which was only at five percent. Claustrophobia clawed at her lungs as the thick canopy of foliage seemed to close in on her.

  Stop it, Riley. She wouldn’t give in to a panic attack. She hadn’t had one since coming to the Philippines, and they wouldn’t start back up now.

  She focused on the firm sound of Dean’s breathing. His confident presence was calming. Even with a gunshot wound and the terror of being on the run, he’d been able to keep a clear mind and search for solutions, rather than dissolving into a puddle of uselessness.

  Dean had surprised her, something she didn’t want to admit, even to herself. But she’d been on her guard ever since meeting Dean, as though he was looking for a reason to put her in her place, like so many of the older doctors, and even some of her patients, had tried to do. At every turn, though, he proved himself to be different than she’d assumed.

  His breathing had grown more labored over the last twenty minutes.

  “How’s it going?” she whispered to Dean.

  He didn’t answer right away, and when he managed to speak, his words were more breath than sound. “I’ve been better.”

  She felt for his pulse. It raced beneath her fingers.

  But even worry couldn’t keep her stomach from rumbling loudly in the silence.

  “There’s some candy in my bag,” Dean said.

  Something about that struck her as amusing. “You carry candy around with you?”

  “I have a sweet tooth.”

  She unzipped the bag and shined the light inside. He had his wallet, a dead tablet, the last water bottle, and toward the bottom was a zipped leather pouch. She pulled it out and slid the zipper, shocked to see that it was filled with a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills. She glanced back at Dean, but in the small spray of light from the cell flashlight, she saw that his eyes were closed. She ran her finger through the bills, some Filipino, some American. Do rich people carry around cash like this all the time?

  None of your business, Riley.

  She zipped the pouch guiltily and stuck it back onto the bottom of the bag. On the front of the pack was another zippered pocket. She opened this one slowly, like it might contain more surprises, but instead, she found it full of hard candies and chocolates. She grabbed a few pieces for each of them just as the cell phone battery died. She stuck it into the pocket and then scooted toward Dean.

  Riley tore the wrapper off and placed it between his open lips. “Don’t choke,” she warned him.

  “If I did, at least you’d be able to get away,” he said quietly.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny.”

  “I’m going to get you out of this,” she said vehemently. “So stop bringing us down with your bad attitude.”

  This got a small chuckle out of him. “You don’t pull punches, do you?”

  “Depends on the person.” She bit down on her candy, the crunching sound loud in her ears. “Besides, I need you to focus on all of your alleged scouting knowledge to get us out of here.”

  “Alleged? I made Life Scout.”

  She had no idea what that was but was relieved to hear a little energy back in his voice. She unwrapped a chocolate and held it close to his mouth so he could take a bite. Her fingers brushed the short whiskers on his cheek when she pulled away. She swiped her tingling fingers absently on her pants and took another candy for herself. “Well, Life Scouter, what if we found a way to hide in the trees?”

  “Brilliant,” he said. “We could rig up a pulley system for me. And we’ll live off of edible vegetation until we can return.”

  “Please tell me you did a study unit on edible vegetation.”

  “No, but I do know what poison ivy looks like, so at least we’ve got that.”

  “I’m starting to feel like you’re not as knowledgeable in wilderness survival as you’ve led me to believe.”

  “Never,” he said, his voice fading.

  She needed to let him sleep. And she needed to try to sleep herself. But she was so wound up that the thought of closing her eyes was impossible. Riley leaned back on her hands and stared upward, trying to pick out the constellations. She wanted Dean to help keep her mind off of things, but the doctor in her knew that the best thing was to let him rest. His breathing turned steady and even, although he moved restlessly while he slept.

  Movement in the bushes behind her caught her attention. She held her breath and tried to make herself as small as possible. The rustling moved to her right, and she heard the soft sound of someone talking in one of the island’s dialects.

  No! Had they not moved far enough away? Maybe she had taken them in a circle after all.

  Her spine stiffened, and she forced herself to take as shallow of breaths as possible. Slowly, she got up on her heels, crouched in an attack position. She couldn’t make out how many people there were, but it didn’t sound like many. Still, even one person with a gun was more than she could take on by herself.

  Dean let out a low moan. She clamped her hand over his mouth, but the damage was already done.

  “Hello!” a quiet voice called out, his English thick with a Filipino accent. “You there?”

  She leaned close to Dean, her mouth nearly touching his ear, her words more air than sound. “Be quiet. Don’t move.” She loosened her grip on his mouth, and rested her head on his chest for a qu
ick prayer that whoever was near would leave so they wouldn’t be found.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ◆◆◆

  Dean’s arm ached in a way that bordered on numbing. The pain nearly bubbled out of him into another groan, but he used all of his concentration to remain silent. Riley leaned over him, one hand near his head, the other on his chest. He felt her every movement—the tenseness of her body, the way her fingers curled into his chest, her breath on his face. Her cold hand flew to his mouth as if she intuited his need to moan in pain.

  Even through his muddied senses, with danger all around them, he took in the subtle scent of her skin—something tropical and light that fit her in ways he couldn’t quite put his finger on yet. Most women he knew were overt in everything: their personalities, their thick makeup, the expense of their clothes evident in every stitch, and in heavy fragrances that often left him with a headache by the end of the evening.

  In a situation like this, would those women have driven the getaway bike, bound Dean’s arm, and helped him into hiding?

  “Hello,” the man’s voice called again. “I help.” He coughed, then spit into the bushes near them. Fractured light from a weak flashlight shined through the leaves.

  His closeness sobered Dean’s wandering thoughts. Who cared about the women at home or how wonderful Riley smelled? If they didn’t get out of this alive, then none of that mattered.

  Without warning, the bushes parted and a familiar head of white hair popped into their vision. He frowned. “You here.”

  Riley shrieked before rushing toward the man like a linebacker.

  “Wait!” Dean said, wishing he wasn’t so weak. If he’d only dodged the bullet sooner, he’d have a graze instead of a hole in his arm. But it wasn’t like the movies, where everything happened in slow motion. In some ways, time had slowed, but he’d had a split second to make a decision that would either save a life, or lose it. He didn’t regret following his instincts.

  Still, a working body would be extremely helpful right about now.