Filed to story: Watch Out, I’m The Lady Boss (Eleanor & Sebastian) Book PDF Free
My legs began to ache, and I rubbed them absently. Ahead stretched only more endless beach.
Frustration rose inside me. This island was far too big for just the two of us to finish searching, yet it was too small to be spotted easily by the rescue teams, if there were any.
I kept the thought to myself. The more I dwelt on it, the more I wished I could travel back in time and slap myself for rushing into a diving trip, and for dragging Sebastian into this mess with me.
Then I noticed that Sebastian had veered off the beach He was heading straight into the forest.
I stopped.
Daylight made it safer, but I still felt uneasy. The thick trees pressed close, heavy with shade. I had always feared that kind of suffocating place.
Are we really going in there?” I called.
Sebastian glanced back. He paused mid+step, then turned fully to face me.
He reached out and caught my hand.
The heat of his palm startled me.
Then he spoke in a voice gentler than I had ever heard.
“Don’t be afraid. I’ll be with you. Every step along the way.”I stared at our interlaced fingers, dazed.
How had Sebastian and I suddenly become so close?
I blinked, still stunned, and missed the moment to pull away. By the time I came to my senses, Sebastian had already been leading me for a while.
The warmth in my palm felt almost scalding, Yet when I glanced at him, I saw no flicker in his calm gaze.
Was I overthinking? When he said he’d be with me, it didn’t imply what I thought it did. Perhaps he was simply being kind, helping me.
Sebastian turned his head and glanced at me. I felt the faintest tightening of his fingers between mine.
Further in, I realised the forest was not s not as terrifying as I had imagined.
Maybe it was because many of the trees along our path had been blown down by the tsunami. What should have been a dense, suffocating forest now seemed strangely open.
Without the oppressive weight of thick woodland, I wanted to pull away from Sebastian’s hand, which shifted and rubbed against mine with every step.
Skin against skin made it too easy for the body to release dopamine, the very chemical that unsettles judgment and blurs reason.
But…
I blinked and touched the leaf still tangled in my hair. In the end, I did not let go.
We walked on until we reached a stream.
The water was clear and fast-flowing, yet it was no shallow brook I could step across in one stride. The stream was easily three or four metres wide, and by rough estimate, deep enough to reach my chest.
I frowned and looked at Sebastian.
“Swim across?”Sebastian shook his head.
“No. We can’t risk hypothermia. If we go in now, our clothes will be soaked. The island’s temperature drops sharply at night, and losing heat is dangerous. With only this one fish for food, we won’t have enough calories to keep ourselves warm. It isn’t worth the risk.”Almost without thinking, I tightened my grip on his hand, clinging to the reassurance.
“Then how do we cross?”Sebastian looked around, his gaze pausing a short distance to the right. Then he released my hand and walked towards it.
I hurried after him. Being alone in a dense forest did not feel wise.
He vaulted cleanly over a fallen tree ahead. His movement was fluid and precise, the kind that only came with training. Watching him, I felt a pang of envy as I clambered clumsily around the trunk instead.
When I finally caught up, I found him standing with his arms folded, waiting by the tree.
His brows drew together as he saw me.
“Why didn’t you follow directly behind me?”I muttered inwardly: Not everyone has legs like yours, capable of vaulting over half the forest.
He started to speak, then stopped.
“That was careless of me. From now on, I’ll…”
“Hm?” I looked up when he didn’t finish his sentence.
Sebastian held my gaze for a long moment, then changed the subject.
“Nothing. I’ve found a way across.”
“How?”He lifted his chin towards the stream.
“There are boulders in the water. If they’re rooted firmly in the riverbed, we can use them as stepping stones.”I followed his gaze. Indeed, a cluster of large rocks stood unmoving against the rushing current.
A flicker of relief spread through me, a fragile happiness seeping into my chest.
“Then let’s go.”We made our way there.
Sebastian asked me to wait while he leapt across first, testing each rock’s stability. Only when he had reached the far bank did he turn back and signal an “OK”.
It meant the path was safe.
Yet I did not move.
Standing on the near side, I looked from Sebastian to my own feet as the water lapped against them. My head dipped as I clutched the edge of my makeshift leaf dress.
I had realised the problem earlier, when I tried to climb over that fallen tree.
This so-called dress, woven from leaves, was good for covering me, but useless for movement. A single large step sent the hem riding dangerously high. It was only the bikini underneath that kept me decent. Even so, one sharp pull and the fragile weave would likely tear.
As I hesitated, a shadow fell over me.
Sebastian had crossed back.
The next instant, the ground vanished from under me. The world spun, and when it settled, I found myself cradled in his arms.
I stared up at the hard line of his jaw.
“What are you doing?”I struggled, trying to slip free. His palm pressed firmly against my thigh, and my body betrayed me with a shiver.
The more I tried to escape, the tighter his hold became.
His gaze dropped to me, his jaw taut, his voice clipped.
“Don’t move.”The sharp tone made me freeze.
“Hold onto my neck. Unless you want to fall.”I hesitated, then frowned up at him.
“Do you think I can’t cross on my own?”But Sebastian only shook his head and looked straight at me. His voice w mistake twice.” was steady, almost solemn.
“I don’t want to make the same Even with me in his arms, he crossed the stream without effort. In less tha minute, we were on the far bank.
He set me down gently. My feet touched the cool ground, and the heat of my frustration ebbed.
Then Sebastian took my hand again. We walked in silence. The only sounds were the rustle of leaves in the wind, the occasional chirp of birds, and the crunch of our steps on the forest floor.
Suddenly, we both stopped.
I saw the yacht.
To be precise, the wreck of the yacht.
Before us lay broken pieces, twisted and scattered, half buried under a tangle of branches.
For the first time since reaching the shore, excitement surged through me. I was so overwhelmed I froze, not daring to blink in case the sight before me dissolved into a mirage.
Sebastian walked towards the wreckage.
I snapped out of it and hurried after him, almost running in my eagerness, overtaking him in my haste.
The yacht was incomplete, but a good portion of it remained. That meant there was a high chance of finding the luggage.
My eyes lit up.
“How did you know the yacht was this way?”Sebastian was already shifting aside a thick plank of wood.
“When you came into the forest, you didn’t notice how many of the trees here were snapped compared to elsewhere?”I shook my head. My spirits had been too low earlier to notice anything, and even if I had, I doubt I would have spotted what he did.
“If it had only been the tsunami, the trees would have snapped once near the base, or been uprooted entirely and carried off. But these ones are broken in three or four places. That means they were struck by something heavy in addition to the waves. Apart from our yacht, there was nothing nearby large enough to cause that kind of damage.”I stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Were you some kind of scout before?”Sebastian shook his head.
“No. I just learnt a little, once.”I had a hundred more questions; why did he learn such things, and when?
Then I thought of his parents, who had shipped him abroad when he was a boy, not out of care but to wash their hands of him.
Maybe his life had been harder than I realised.
Lea’s words at the ball came back to me. She had said she and Sebastian had known each other a long time, that they were the same kind of people.
Did he learn these skills with her? Had they survived something like this together before?
Tclosed my eyes, inhaled deeply, and forced the thoughts away. Right now, survival mattered more than digging into the past. Something glinted on the ground. I dropped to one knee, brushing soil aside with one hand and probing with the other.
Sebastian came over to see. Beneath the dirt, a white surface emerged, smooth already on the handle.
I looked up at him, eyes bright d rectangular. A cabin door. My fingers were hope.
“You still have the key, til carrying the key.
Yesterday, before we dived, I’d locked the cabin door. Sebastian had been I could have smacked myself for that bit of brilliance.
What had I been thinking, locking the cabin door on a deserted stretch of seat stranger?
The cabin itself was oddly positioned, half its bulk sunk deep into the soil so this door. where you hardly even saw an animal, let alone a it could not be shifted. The only way in was through Through the glass in the frame, I had glimpsed two familiar wheels. My suitcase. My very own little suitcase. All I had to do was get this door open.