She’d heard of people living out on their own, similar to how people in the States liked to live off the grid. She’d hoped for a car or a vehicle of some kind, but didn’t see any.
The front door sprang open, and a middle-aged woman in a floral dress stepped out, Rodel close behind her. She rushed toward them and took Riley’s place beside Dean. Riley hesitated to move, unsure of the small woman’s strength, but she seemed to have no problems taking Dean’s weight from her. Riley missed the comfort of Dean’s hand. She pushed away the unexpected sentiment and focused on making it to the house.
The inside was furnished sparsely and smelled like rice. The walls were covered in hand-stitched artwork, lending the room a welcoming appeal. Rodel and the woman spoke to each other in Tagalog before she led Dean down the hall to a bedroom. He collapsed onto the pallet used as a bed.
“Tea and rice,” the woman said slowly in Tagalog. “I’m Bria.”
Riley was relieved to recognize the words, and she nodded. When she first came to the Philippines, she thought she’d pick up the language quickly, since she was immersed in it all day long. But other than some basic foods and phrases that dealt with medical issues, it was more difficult than she’d anticipated, especially when she was busy from sun up to sun down with patients. There were several different dialects in the northern region, and it was impossible to keep up with them all. Bria left the room, shutting the door behind her and leaving Dean and Riley alone.
She perched at the edge of the bed. Dean needed a dry set of clothes, and the dressing on his bicep had to be changed soon.
“Are we safe?” he asked.
“For now,” Riley said. “I’m going to round up some supplies and look at your arm.”
“Stay.” His firm grip rested on her leg, sending her heart racing. “Please.”
She nodded, and after a moment her muscles relaxed. His eyes drifted shut, and she saw movement behind his translucent eyelids as though he was caught in a dream. The stubble on his face was dark and dusted with dirt, as was his hair. One lock of his brown hair had fallen forward and tangled with his eyelashes. She couldn’t resist brushing it off of his face, her fingers running a trail across his hairline. What was it about Dean that was drawing her to him? Was it that he needed her? Or was it more?
Her breath caught when his eyes opened and locked on to hers. The air in the room grew thick and charged with emotion. He slid his hand behind her head and splayed his gentle fingers through her hair. Riley drifted closer to him, lost in his mesmerizing stare.
The door burst open with a bang. Riley jumped from the bed, putting a good three feet between her and Dean. Bria bustled into the room with a bowl of steaming rice and two cups of tea. Rodel stood behind her, a knowing grin spread across his face.
Riley’s cheeks burned hot with embarrassment. “I’m going to find some medical supplies while you eat,” she said to the space above Dean’s head. “I’ll be back soon.”
She rushed from the room before Dean could protest. She went into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, putting her hands to her flushed cheeks. She’d almost kissed Dean Matthias. Mr. Billionaire of the Year. Essentially her boss. A man she was just starting to trust and had only met the day before. She never kissed anyone this quickly.
But she’d never been so drawn to someone before.
The two of them were a bad idea, especially when all of their focus needed to be on escaping. No more distractions. No more almost-kisses.
She busied herself with getting supplies, torn between relief and disappointment that this could never happen again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
◆◆◆
Dean wondered if his family had realized he was missing yet. Probably not. The flight alone had been almost eighteen hours, and he’d figured he might not have cell reception in some areas of his travel.
He rolled the dates back through his mind. On Wednesday, he’d boarded a plane. On Thursday, he’d arrived in the village. That meant today was Friday. The night of the banquet. Normally, he wasn’t a fan of stuffy affairs, but he was proud of his brother for his accomplishments and wished he could have been there to congratulate him. The media liked to play off an imagined sibling rivalry between him and Cole. And although they had a healthy competition going between them, there was no animosity. Even after everything happened with Veronica, Cole had been an unfailing advocate with their father on Dean’s behalf. Cole had convinced their father to give Dean the money for Worldwide Care. A second chance. That Dean was blowing.
How could he have avoided the terrorist attack or their desire to take him for ransom? Perhaps he should have brought bodyguards with him. But he had kept his itinerary a secret from everyone but those who needed to know: his pilot, his driver, and Riley.
Which meant he couldn’t trust one of them.
Out of the three, he’d spent several hours in the air with one. He hadn’t received any strange vibes from the pilot, who’d talked nonstop about his daughter, a nurse in the States.
And the third? Well, he’d just tried to kiss her. And if they hadn’t been interrupted, he would have succeeded. Even now, the thought of Riley so close made him forget some of his pain.
That left his driver. A man he’d never met, but who knew of his arrival several weeks in advance. Had he tipped off the terrorist? Dean couldn’t know for certain. What if he’d waited for the driver to come to the airport? Perhaps Dean would be in the clutches of the terrorists even now.
He ate the rest of his rice, with Rodel at his side, and sipped the last of his drink. It hadn’t been delicious by any stretch of the imagination, but his stomach was full, something he’d taken for granted his entire life. Already, he could feel his energy returning.
Riley walked into the room, her expression all business. She held a bundle of clothes in her arms. Bria stood behind her, holding a metal bucket.
“Did you eat your meal?” Riley asked.
“I did. Thank you,” he said to Bria, who waved at him like it was nothing.
“We need to move on soon,” Riley said brusquely. “Before we can go anywhere, you need to get cleaned up, and I want to redress your wound.”
A shower sounded like heaven. He eased his weight upward. Riley gave him a bracing hand. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and stood, glad when his legs held his weight. She led him to the bathroom, but he held out a hand when she tried to follow him in.
“I go on from here alone,” he told her, trying to make it sound like a joke, but he was dead serious.
“I need to get a good look at your arm.”
“Which you can do after I’m finished.”
She folded her arms, her familiar expression of annoyance crossing her face. “Dean, be reasonable. I see bodies all day long. And I have to make sure you’re okay.”
“You don’t see my body all day,” he countered. And she wouldn’t. Not until he wasn’t falling apart, weak. And especially not when she was only seeing him as a patient. He needed to draw a boundary between their patient/doctor relationship and the romantic one he was more and more tempted to pursue. If they got out of this.
“You are the most infuriating man I’ve ever met.” She stared at him for another moment, as if waiting for him to change his mind, before throwing her hands up in the air. “Whatever. Fall and break your head for all I care.”
“I’m fine,” he said with emphasis. But one step backward, and dizziness struck him.
“At least let me send Rodel in to help you,” she said, as he staggered into the wall.
He smiled. “I guess you don’t want me to fall and break my head after all.”
“It’d just be more work for me.” Her mouth tightened like she was trying to hold back a smile. She left him at the door and came back with Rodel. Somehow she must have communicated their need, because Rodel followed Dean into the bathroom and helped him remove his shirt, a task that proved more difficult than Dean had anticipated. He bit back a groan when the muscles in his arm
pulled. Rodel tossed the shirt aside and motioned him toward the curtain.
Dean paused and took in the “shower”—a knee-high spigot with a metal bucket beside it. Not quite what he’d expected, but at least he’d be clean. He stood over the drain while Rodel filled up the bucket with cool water from the spout and dumped it over Dean’s head.
Dean worked as quickly as he could to rinse the dirt and blood from his body and hair. He carefully peeled the dressing from his arm once it was wet enough not to stick. His stomach turned when he looked at the hole in his skin.
“Done?” Rodel dumped the last bucket over him and grabbed a large cloth for Dean to dry off. Dean was grateful for the stern old man who had become invaluable to them. Dean dressed himself in the fresh underclothing and cotton pants Riley had found, leaving the shirt off until she could look at his arm.
He stepped from the bathroom, feeling whole again. It was amazing what a full meal and a shower could do for the spirit. His optimism soared. They were going to get out of this. It couldn’t be too far to his plane from here. They’d rouse Dean’s pilot from the small airline suite and fly to Manila by that evening. He’d get treated in the hospital and somehow convince Riley to explore the spark he’d felt between them. But back in the States. He was done with the Philippines for a good, long while.
Riley met him at the door of the bedroom, and he caught the appreciative gleam in her eye before she became a blank slate once again. She led him to the bed and peered at his bicep. “It doesn’t look as bad as I thought it might.” He felt a strange sense of pride. “I don’t want to mess with it until I get cleaned up.” She held out her hands, showing him the dirt in the grooves of her palms and under her fingernails. “Will you be okay waiting a few more minutes?”
“Yes.”
Her eyebrows drew downward with concern, and then she left. Not exactly the kind of look he craved from her, but at least her anger had taken a back seat for now.
He relaxed into the bed. The buckets of water from the bathroom made splash after splash on the ground, and he tried not to picture Riley in there. A task that required major distraction.
Bria was nowhere to be seen, and Rodel had made himself scarce as well, but every now and then, he heard their voices coming from outside of his cracked-open window. The humid air hung thick in the room, making it impossible to get all the way dry. More clattering from the bathroom sounded, and a few minutes later, Riley arrived back in his room. She wore an oversized lime-green T-shirt and a pair of shorts several sizes too big for her. She kept grabbing them to pull them up higher on her waist. They must have been Bria’s, who had to weigh at least fifty pounds more than Riley.
“Get the belt from my pants,” he told her, motioning toward the pile of wet clothes.
She looked at him gratefully before unwinding it from the dry-clean-only dress pants he was never going to wear again. She curved it around her waist, but the holes didn’t go as far as she needed them to. “Do you mind if I punch a hole in your belt?”
He shook his head.
She left the room and came back a few minutes later with a nail. She’d probably die if she knew she was punching a hole in a fifteen-hundred-dollar belt with a rusty nail, but he wasn’t going to tell her. She got it through the leather and wound the belt around her waist, holding her shorts up.
“Thank you.” She combed her fingers through her long, wet hair while she moved around the room, gathering the things she needed. She perched on the bed beside him. “Bria had some medical supplies on hand. I guess you have to when you live in the middle of nowhere.”
“Why do you think she lives out here?” he asked, while her cool fingers examined his arm. He sucked in air through his teeth when she pressed on the edge of his wound.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “Who knows. Could be family land. Or maybe she just likes the solitude.”
Maybe. He imagined himself living in the wild by himself. It didn’t make for a happy picture. He loved being around people, thrived on the energy and noise of groups. Being alone like this woman would be torture for him. Although he could understand wanting to run away. He’d craved solitude last year after dealing with endless media speculation. That kind of attention tended to drain his energy rather than refill it. And all while he was trying to heal from a broken heart—something he’d never admit out loud because of how maudlin it sounded. But he’d loved Veronica, and she’d only been using him. It was a tough pill to swallow.
Riley pressed again on the edge of his wound, and black spots sparked in his vision. He pushed his back against the bed to relieve the pain.
Had he been thinking Riley was irresistible? Now, not so much.
“I’m trying to see how deep the bullet is.” She grabbed the penlight and shined it in. “I thought if it was right on the surface, I’d pull it out, but I don’t want to attempt it without some sort of sedative for you.”
“Will it be fine a little longer?” he asked through gritted teeth. “Because if you have to pull it out, just do it.”
She shook her head, frowning. “So far your body seems to be fighting off the infection. You have a low fever, but your energy is up, and it’s only red and inflamed around the wound, not streaking outward on your skin.”
“I feel a ‘but’ in there …”
“If we don’t get you help soon, infection will spread, and then something that shouldn’t be a huge deal will turn deadly.”
“Nice to know you don’t think me getting shot with a gun is a huge deal,” he teased her.
She blinked, and Dr. Rogers was gone, leaving Riley behind. She smiled. “Getting shot is always a big deal. I’m glad they didn’t hit any major organs or arteries, or this adventure would have ended very differently.”
“This has been an adventure,” Dean mused. His mom was going to love this. And Cole too, although his concern might outweigh his enjoyment in the story. His dad was the wild card. He’d be relieved Dean was okay, but when this hit the media, as it was sure to do, his dad might take out his frustration on Dean for causing it all in the first place.
“Lie still,” Riley told him. “This is going to sting.”
He clenched his jaw while she splashed disinfectant over his skin, leaving behind a lingering burn. She grabbed some fresh gauze and taped it over the wound. A huge part of him was relieved once it was covered. She then took a long roll of gauze and looped it around his arm. Her hand lingered longer than it needed to on his chest.
Their eyes met. His heart lurched.
He reached up and intertwined their fingers. “What is this between us?”
“I don’t know,” she said, breathless.
Energy zinged between them. Dean had never felt anything like it before.
She tugged at her hand, and Dean let her go. He cleared his throat. “Thank you, Riley. I’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for you.”
“No probably about it.” She cleaned up after herself, careful not to look at him. He watched her knowledgeable movements, finding them comforting. If he had to be in such a vulnerable position, he was glad he had someone like Riley here: calm, intelligent, capable. Attractive.
Not that she appreciated him noticing that last quality, but he’d have to be blind not to.
“Bria has some narcotics she’ll let us use.” She turned to Dean, her eyebrows drawn low. “Don’t ask.”
“I wasn’t going to say a word.”
“Would you like something stronger than what was in the first aid kit?”
More than anything. He tried to tone down his relief. “Yes.”
She grabbed a few of the pills, and he sat up to swallow them. Then she helped him thread his arms through the sleeves of the cream-colored cotton shirt. He wished he could be the one rushing around saving the day. It would certainly soothe his pride, especially in the retelling of this experience to the media. Maybe he’d leave out the helpless and weak part in his interviews.
Riley rolled up the extra gauze and then leaned over him once ag
ain to make sure everything looked right. No. He wouldn’t leave out the parts where Riley helped him, because they showed what an amazing, selfless person she was. He loved watching her move around the room, leave and then come back with more cleaning supplies, and leave once again with all of their clothes. The time ticked on, and his eyelids grew heavier the longer she was gone. To his relief, she finally came back, holding two cups of tea. When she was near, the world was a better place. A lovely place, even.
“I like you,” he told her.
She grinned. “Well, the pain meds really like you.”
He shook his head, and the room spun. It wasn’t the pain meds talking, although these were definitely stronger than the medicine she’d given him from the car.
“I think I love you,” he declared, his voice a little slurred. Uh. Okay. So that could have been the pain meds. But he didn’t want to take it back.
Riley laughed. The sound tinkled through the room like bells at Christmas, his favorite time of year. What he wouldn’t give for the coolness of snow and carols playing in the streets. Presents under the tree and his mom’s famous Yule Log that may or may not have been actually made by her favorite bakery.
Riley’s hair brushed against his hand. Wait. He refocused. He did love Riley. He just needed to convince her. “I love that you’re gorgeous. And pretty. Pretty face.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, lover boy. Sit up and drink Bria’s tea.”
No. He wasn’t getting through to her. He was saying all the wrong things again. He tried a different track. One with substance. Riley was a substance kind of woman. “I love how you take care of me. And how you didn’t leave me behind. And you made sure I didn’t die. I didn’t die because of you. That’s important. To me. You’re a lifesaver.”
She stilled, her fingers drawing circles on her cup. “I’m not a lifesaver.”
“My aliveness proves you wrong.”
She shook her head, giving him a small smile. “Aliveness isn’t a word.”
“What? It should be. I’m rich enough to make it so. Someone get me Webster’s number.”
Hearts In Peril (Billionaire Romance) Page 7
