Page 53 of Baby Daddy Billionaire SEAL

He wasn’t really dumb enough to think it had been a reliable plan. He liked it better because it washisplan, that was all. If he’d been the one to come up with lighting a big fire using the fuel from the plane, he’d be crowing about what a genius move it had been right now.

I sat on the sand and let Patrick bandage my arm. He used burn pads, which immediately cooled my damaged skin and made me feel a lot more relaxed than I had been a moment ago.

“That better?” Patrick asked.

“Yeah. Loads.”

“I have some drugs I can give you. Nothing very powerful, but it’ll be enough to reduce the pain a little.”

“It’s not going to make me loopy, is it?”

“Nope. I don’t carry anything strong enough to do that.”

“Okay, then.”

He handed me a couple of pills and a bottle of water. What struck me right away about the water was that it wascold, and after I’d swallowed my pills, I drank about half the bottle, enjoying the way it felt to drink a cold beverage.”

Patrick smiled, though I’m sure, based on my behavior, he had to be worrying about dehydration. “There’s more where that came from on the chopper,” he said. “Can you walk? Or I can carry you.”

“I can walk.” No way was I going to let Jake watch me get carried to the plane like I was helpless. If he saw that, he would probably take it as further evidence that I’d been wrong to mess with the plane. That I’d gotten hurt because I was too stupid to know how to handle myself instead of as an unfortunate but necessary side effect of getting us rescued. I got to my feet.

Patrick and I walked down the beach to the helicopter together. Jake was already sitting in one of the seats, harnessed in. I consented to let Patrick help me with my harness since one of my arms was useless. If Jake had something to say about me getting help with something like that while I was injured, he could fuck off.

But he didn’t. Apparently, he had nothing to say to me at all. He stared out the window, not even acknowledging the fact that I had boarded the chopper.

Well, that was fine. I didn’t want to talk to him either. I sank low in my seat and stared straight ahead, pretending I didn’t know he was behind me at all.

“You two were smart to set that fire,” the pilot said, glancing over his shoulder. “We’ve been canvassing this area for you for days now.”

I knew it, I thought triumphantly. I wished I could turn around and look at Jake, so he could see the pride on my face. But I’d have to trust that he knew I had been right and he had been wrong.

He probably didn’t. He was incapable of understanding that he was ever wrong about anything.

I felt sick when I thought about the apologies he’d given me that night in our little makeshift shelter. I had really bought into the things he was saying. I’d let myself believe that he didn’t understand how his behavior had always affected me and that he regretted it.

It had been an act he was putting on. He’d probably said those things to get me to sleep with him. That was stupid of me because I couldn’t resist him. I would have given it up to him even if he’d sat there and told me he stood by everything that had happened between us when we were younger.

And that was also completely idiotic.

“We’ll have you back on the mainland in a few hours,” the pilot said.

“Wait, no,” I spoke up. “We’re not going to the mainland.”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “We’re going to Maui.”

Now I did turn to look at him. I hadn’t expected him to agree with me. But I wasn’t going to reject the fact that he was on my side; if that was where he wanted to be. I wasn’t too good to accept the support.

“Orders are to take you back to the mainland,” the pilot said dubiously.

“Well, fuck that. You’re not taking us anywhere against our will,” Jake said. “We were trying to get to Maui when the plane went down, and that’s where we want to be taken now.”

“She needs a hospital.”

“You don’t need to talk about me like I’m not here,” I objected. “And they have hospitals on Maui. I can be seen at one of them.”

The pilot shrugged. “Your choice, I guess.”

There was no question in my mind as to what we should do. We’d been away from the movie shoot for too long and needed to get there and check in with Michael. I needed to know that I still had my job. It was the thing that was probably going to make or break my whole career, and I couldn’t stand to lose it now.

---