I wake to a burning throat, a pounding headache, and an incredible smell wafting through the hotel suite. My eyes feel too heavy to open just yet. Do I smell…chicken soup? I open one eye, noting the twilight city skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Why am I asleep on the couch, and how long have I been out? Foggy memories come slowly into focus. Olivia. I answered the door, and she was here. With cookies. She looked worried and told me to rest. I try to hold on to the feeling that comes over me, something warm and hazy, but it’s just beyond my grasp.
I tilt my head enough to see that Olivia’s still here, curled up in a chair next to the couch, a throw blanket over her, reading one of my books. With her hair up in a haphazard bun and wearing her glasses, she looks beautiful in a natural, girl-next-door way.
I clear my throat, wincing at how raw it feels. She looks up.
“Oh! You’re awake.”
“You’re still here,” I croak out, ferociously thirsty all of a sudden. I sit up slowly, careful of the dizziness that slams into me and then recedes. I reach for the glass on the coffee table and take a cautious sip, remembering how just last night, a sip would start painful cramping and nausea. But my stomach thankfully accepts the cool liquid without protest. I try my voice again. “What time is it?”
She brushes her bangs out of her eyes, a gesture I’m coming to recognize as something she does when she feels nervous. “It’s about midnight. You’ve been asleep all day. I hope you don’t mind that I stayed. You were so sick. I didn’t think it was right to leave you alone.”
She unfolds herself from the chair. “Are you hungry?” she asks as she walks to the open-plan kitchen. “Do you think you can try eating? I made you chicken soup.”
After a few minutes, she returns with a tray and bowl and sets them on the coffee table.
“You made me soup?” I ask, a lump forming, which I swallow away. It’s being sick; that’s what this feeling is from.
But I know the melting weakness is beyond fever and body aches. It has to do with this lovely girl who cared enough to spend the afternoon cooking for me. She took the time to make me a tray with soup, crackers, and a small bud vase with yellow daisies. Where had she gotten the flowers? Hell, where had she gotten the ingredients to make soup? She said she made it, not ordered it.
She shrugs and smiles shyly. “It’s no big deal.”
Has anyone ever made me homemade soup? I think my mother might have, before she died, but my memories of her are hazy. She was a single mom who worked every minute she could to help us survive. She probably didn’t have much time for cooking.
So many people in my life take care of me—managers, assistants, drivers, bodyguards. But I pay them. Olivia did this because she wanted to, not because it’s in her job description. And somehow, that makes all the difference to me.
“You didn’t need to do that,” I grind out, not knowing what to do with this tightness in my chest. I hate being dependent on others. I learned long ago that it’s dangerous to be vulnerable. Dangerous to need.
Olivia’s face falls. “I overstepped, didn’t I? If you’re not hungry or it doesn’t sound good, you don’t have to eat it. I won’t be offended.”
She’s done something kind for me, and here I am being an ass.
She nervously runs her fingers over her bracelet. With a start, I realize it’s the charm bracelet I sent to her the first Christmas we exchanged letters. She’d mentioned in a letter that she loved the idea of having a charm bracelet, with each charm representing her life, so I gave her one. The next Christmas, I had a miniature typewriter crafted for it, a Remington, but I never sent it. By then, we’d moved on from sending letters to texts, and it felt like breaking the rules to mail her another gift.
But every Christmas, I still buy her a new charm. I like imagining what she would like, which delicate trinket would mean something to her. I keep them in a box in my office and try not to think about why.
I lean over her now and touch her wrist, reveling in the spark that ignites. Her charm bracelet is empty. It’s selfish of me, but I’m glad she’s left it empty. I want to fill it myself. I vow to send her the charms I’ve bought. Someday.
“Don’t you like chicken soup?” she asks, a line forming between her brow at my continued silence and my touch.
I shake my head. “No, sorry. It smells delicious, and I’m starved.” My stomach growls.
I turn her hand over and trace the delicate lines of it, reveling in her warmth. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It’s just that I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time, and I’m not used to letting someone help. But I’m thankful,” I admit.
I move my finger back to the bracelet. “This is pretty,” I say lightly, my heart in my throat, wondering what she will say. Will she mention me—Remington?
“A friend gave it to me.”
“Just a friend?”
Her smile seems wistful. “It’s all he’d let us be.”
I don’t know what to do with all these feelings that I can’t name.
The night descending around us creates an intimacy that feels dangerous in a different way now. Or it would be dangerous if I weren’t weak and in desperate need of a shower.
She kneels down next to me and takes the spoon, dipping it into the bowl of broth. She holds it up and offers it to me.
“Are you going to feed me like a child now?” I ask, with a wry smile.
“You’re sick,” she says simply.
I want to balk at that. But something in her eyes, at her focus on my mouth, has me transfixed. So I open my lips, my eyes on hers, and sip the broth she’s made me.
It should be awkward. Instead, it’s intimate.
After a half dozen spoonfuls, she stops. “We better go easy,” she says, her voice breathless, her cheeks as heated as mine. “We don’t want to overdo it and risk having you sick again.”
I want to argue, but a sudden wave of tiredness hits me.
“Lie down,” she says, pushing me gently against the soft cushions. “You need to recover your strength.”
I’ll figure this all out after a short rest. When I wake, I’ll tell her to go, for her own good.
Later, I think, before sleep overtakes me.
CHAPTER 15
Olivia
That night, I fall asleep in an overstuffed side chair next to the sofa, where Chase sleeps fitfully.
When I wake throughout the night, I check his fever. While checking, it’s possible I stare at him a little too long, my hand brushing the soft strands of his hair out of his face.
It’s no wonder, when I sleep, my dreams are full of Chase.
In the morning, consciousness comes slowly. I open my eyes, disoriented, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, hovering on that precipice between sleep and reality. My lips tingle, my body is on fire, and am I panting? Trying to catch the thread of my dream, I lie still until I remember.
Oh, I remember.
Chase came to me in my sleep. His kiss was carnal and roamed everywhere on my body. I couldn’t get enough of him or his wicked mouth.
For a fraction of a second, I wonder if it could have been real because I suspect my panties are wet. With eyes still closed, I pat my hands over the blanket covering me, and I assure myself that my jeans and shirt are still on. I’m fully clothed, still reclining in the chair where I fell asleep. My breath rushes out in relief—or is it disappointment?
I will my eyes to open. And stare straight into Chase’s eyes.
“Ah!” I gasp in surprise to find him awake and looking at me with a mix of curiosity, amusement, and heat. That’s when I recall something else about my dream. Chase’s hands and mouth had me moaning. A lot. And not just generic moaning. I recall moaning his name over and over like a prayer, and—oh my God. Had I been having a sex dream, saying Chase’s name out loud?
“I didn’t—you didn’t hear—um.” My breath whooshes out.