Page 127 of Say It Isn't So

Knox

I looked at my watch and knew how late I was, but I’d been nailed with a few things in the office that I’d had to take care of. Sometimes deadlines loomed large with the blog and I couldn’t ignore them. This had been one of those times. But at least I’d been able to pick up dinner for Bianca and I. Frankly, with the last-minute decision to have her join me in Europe for the next few weeks, I didn’t feel like going out to eat or even trying to cook and clean up.

As I opened the door and walked in, I called out, “Sweetness, I brought dinner.” Making a beeline straight for the kitchen, I set the bags down on the counter and went in search of Bianca.

“Sweetness?” I called again as I went into the living room and was met with a strange site. “Are you trying a new decorating style?” I asked, picking up a tissue that was strewn off a lamp in the corner.

Bianca was balled up on the couch with her eyes closed. Something was definitely not right. I hadn’t left her like this. My stomach fell.

I walked to her and knelt on the floor in front of her. “Sweetness?” I laid a hand to her warm forehead and her eyes opened, looking like glass. “Are you sick?”

When she saw me, she was quick to sit up, all the while, more tissues were falling from her body. Where was she hiding them all?

“No!” she was quick to answer. “I just have a sinus thing.”

It seemed like more than just a sinus thing. “I think you’re sick.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m not. I’m all good.” She stood up abruptly, coughing and choking like she’d smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for the past decade.

I backed up and considered running to wash my hands. What the hell did she have? She had been fine this morning. “You’re definitely sick,” I said, knowing there were no two ways about it.

“We leave for London tomorrow night. I can’t be sick. It’s just a sinus thing,” she said again and wiped her nose with another tissue she pulled out of her shirt sleeve. She was like a magician and her trick was making tissues appear out of thin air. “I already started packing.”

I didn’t know where to touch on her, so I patted her head. “That’s good. Listen, though, why don’t we get you to bed, and I’ll bring you dinner.”

She leaned forward and her hot breath hit me square in the jaw. “I’d rather start with dessert,” she said and fluffed her hair. Her hair, I should note, that looked like a pile of wet strings sitting atop her head.

Never had I ever seen Bianca look like this, and I didn’t like it. For a few reasons. First, I never wanted to see her suffer and sick was suffering, in my opinion. Second, and I was just going to be honest here, it was gross. She looked like an ad for one of those medications with the walking mucus ball. So it went without saying that there’d be no dessert tonight. Or any night until she was feeling better. “I don’t think so,” I said, sidestepping her, but slipping my arms around her waist just the same, leading her to my bed where I’d be able to take care of her.

She hadn’t been in my bed yet, and this was not the way I pictured the first time, but I wanted to take care of her—grossness and all.

She turned and tried to kiss my ear and I gently pushed her head back. “Let’s save that for later.”

“But I’m not sick!” she whined. “I know you think I am, but you don’t know everything, Knox Rhodes.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I think I know this. Come on, you just need some rest.” I helped her on the bed, but she refused to lay down.

Instead, she sat up and arched her back, those breasts of hers I loved pressing up against the cutup cropped sweatshirt she was wearing. Too bad in this exact moment it did nothing for me. “Baby, I just want to be with you.”

“AndIjust want you to get better. You’re warm, you need rest,” I said, the back of my hand on her forehead again to confirm what I already knew from before.

She coughed again and choked out, “I’m just hot with desire for you!” Her voice was deeper than usual, which by itself would’ve been sexy, but coupled with everything else she had going on, I just wasn’t feeling it.

“Um, let’s save that desire for later. I’ll be back. You lay down,” I said again and slipped from the room before this little back and forth we had going on could continue any further.

I couldn’t understand how she could insist she wasn’t sick. I was quickly learning Bianca was definitely not a good patient.

As I walked through the apartment, I started collecting tissues she had strewn everywhere. Definitely not a decorating style I liked. Another thing I didn’t like, as it turned out, women who were sick. So if you were keeping score, now that was crying women and sick women.

I took a few minutes to clean up and tried to sanitize the surfaces I could before I made my way back to the kitchen to get her food, water, and something to help with her symptoms.

By the time I walked back into my room, she had another half a dozen tissues balled up all over the bed—my poor bed—and was out. Like out cold. I turned around and left the way I came, hoping that she’d wake up feeling better and we could keep our plans for London. If not, I knew I had a decision to make.

I couldn’t very well leave her like this, and as much as I didn’t like sick women (see above), I also didn’t like seeing her this way. I wanted to stay with her and help her any way I could.

But if I didn’t go to London, I could kiss my promotion and the big salary raise it came with goodbye. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that farewell yet, though.

So let’s just say she had to get better—fast. For both our sakes.

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