Ensnared (The Accidental Billionaires #1)(44)

I was back in her room ten minutes later, determined to camp out there until I was finally convinced that Jade was going to be okay.





CHAPTER 17

JADE



I woke up abruptly, panicked because I didn’t know where I was or why I didn’t recognize my surroundings.

“Where am I?” I called out in the dim light of what appeared to be a hospital room.

I gulped in deep breaths, trying to calm myself down, suddenly realizing that my whole body hurt.

“You’re okay,” Eli’s steady voice said as he came to the side of the bed. “You had an accident, sweetheart.”

Just his presence made my heart rate return to normal, and my fear dissolved when he reached out and grabbed my hand.

I remember. I was awake a few times. After I answered some questions for the nurse, I went right back to sleep.

Images of my fall from the rappel cliff flashed through my mind, followed by memories of excruciating pain. And then there was nothing. “I fell. All I remember is the pain,” I told him softly. My throat and my mouth were dry. “Can I have some water?”

“You can have any damn thing you want now that you’re talking to me,” he said in a low, raspy voice.

He held the water glass, and I drank my fill from the straw before I asked, “Are we in Montana?”

“No. We’re back in San Diego. You were flown to Billings first, and once you were stabilized, you were cleared to fly back here. You’ve been here for two days now. It’s been almost five days since the accident. They’re slowly cutting down your pain medication, so you’ll probably be more awake now.”

His face was close to mine after he sat down, and I squinted to see him. “You look awful,” I said.

Eli’s eyes were red, and his face looked ravaged with exhaustion.

He grinned at me. “You haven’t seen yourself. I think you look a hell of a lot more beat up than I do.”

“What did I injure?”

My whole body hurt, so I couldn’t really pin down my real injuries.

“You bruised just about everything,” he said grimly. “But the major stuff is a dislocated shoulder and you fractured your skull.”

“And I thought that rappel was pretty tame,” I muttered.

“It should have been. I’m so fucking sorry, Jade. I made you fall because I yelled at you. You would have been fine if I hadn’t startled you.”

A flash of memory revealed the moment when Eli had called out so loud that I’d faltered. “It wasn’t your fault,” I denied. “I was way too close to the edge. I saw a bald eagle, and I wanted a picture. I was already in an awkward position because I was trying to get my camera out. Being that unstable on the edge of a steep drop was my stupidity.”

“That’s why I yelled up to you. It was instinct. A bad one. You would have been okay if I hadn’t made you completely lose your balance,” he said stiffly.

I could hear the remorse in his voice, and I hated it. I reached out my hand to stroke his tight, whiskered jaw. “Don’t blame yourself because I was dumb. It was an accident. I assume I’m going to live?”

He nodded. “It’s going to take a couple of months for you to recover, but thank fuck you didn’t do any lasting damage. But you’re going to hurt.”

“It’s tolerable,” I told him. Now that I was over the initial shock of waking up in pain, it didn’t seem quite so bad anymore.

“Your head will heal. It was an uncomplicated linear fracture, so it will just take time. We were lucky.”

I sighed and leaned back against the pillows. Honestly, I knew I’d gotten a break. An uncontrolled fall from that height could have done a lot more damage if I’d fallen on my head. “I’ll live,” I joked. “It’s not the first time I’ve banged myself up.”

“It’s going to be the last,” he grumbled.

“I’m sorry you were worried,” I said. “Have you slept at all?”

“Yeah. Some. I had to fight your brothers and sister to sleep in the other bed, but I did sleep until you woke up.”

“My family was here?”

“Did you really doubt it?” he teased. “The whole damn clan has been here, including your sister, Brooke.”

“Brooke’s here?” I asked excitedly.

“I doubt there was much that would keep her away when she heard you’d gotten hurt. She and Liam have been here since you got to San Diego. They only go home to sleep. I think your half-siblings and cousins would be here, too, but Noah talked them out of coming since you were stable. He said the room was full enough already.”

I smiled. “That sounds like him,” I acknowledged. “I feel bad that they’ve had to stop their lives to be here with me.”

“Are you kidding? You know you would have done the same.”

Eli was right. If any of my siblings were in the hospital, I would have camped out with them. “I guess I would.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure we can get them to leave. My mom has been feeding them every single day. I have no idea what’s on the menu for tomorrow, but I guarantee your brothers will be there when it gets here.”

“Your mom was here?” I said, feeling slightly embarrassed that even Eli’s mother had been hanging out in the hospital. “She probably hates me for making you so sleep deprived. You really don’t look good.”