Page 49 of Preferential Treatment

I was trying to sleep. Why are you blowing up my phone?

If you’re still sick, you need to go to the doctor.

No I don’t.

Mikhail fought the impulse to chuck his phone across the office. He had no way of making her go to the doctor. He couldn’t stop envisioning her weak and helpless, falling into a feverish coma and slipping away on a breath. He’d seen it happen. Two different boys he’d known in the orphanage had died from fevers.

Are you running a fever?

A mild one. Seriously, I’m fine.

Kate had slipped back into a fitful nap, stretched out on the couch while Wheel of Fortune played, an array of cups and tissues and packets of cold medicine scattered across the coffee table. Suddenly, a jarring buzz filled the apartment, and she nearly leapt out of her skin. Heart pounding, she stared at the source of the noise with wide-eyed alarm, still trying to gather her fever-addled thoughts.

It was the intercom, she realized after a foggy beat. Groaning, she hauled herself upright, keeping the blanket clutched around her like a cloak. She lurched over to the intercom, moving like she’d just been hit by a truck. All of her joints ached. It hurt to breathe.

“Hello?” she rasped against the speaker.

“Katya? Let me in.”

Kate blinked. That deep voice sounded like…

“Mikhail?”

“Yes. Let me in. I have food for you. And medicine.”

She didn’t bother pointing out that she already had food and medicine. She was too confused by his presence in the first place and too tired to argue. She pressed the button to let him in, then slumped against the wall while she waited for him to reach her door. She might have dozed off because, quite suddenly, she was startled by the sound of a heavy fist pounding on her door.

She pulled it open and found herself face to face with Mikhail. He was still dressed for work in a perfectly tailored charcoal-gray suit, but his arms were loaded down with shopping bags.

“Ah, Katya.” He frowned, cupping her cheek, then feeling her forehead. “You look like death.”

“Thank you,” she said dryly, turning away from him and slumping her way back to the couch to sprawl gracelessly across it.

Mikhail shut the door and locked it before following her, sitting restlessly on the edge of the cushion next to her hip. He settled his bags on the coffee table and began digging through them.

“It’s very difficult to find mustard compresses in American pharmacies.”

“Yeah, I’ve always thought so too.”

“But there is a Ukrainian shop near here that sells them.”

“Oh, thank goodness.”

“Here.” He pulled out a box of something labeled with Cyrillic letters. “Let me put one on your chest.”

Kate sighed, a crackling, ragged sound. “I already took some cold medicine.”

Mikhail picked up the box. “This?” he asked dubiously.

“Yeah.”

“Hm.” He set it back down, then resumed opening the mustard compress. “Lift your shirt.”

Bemused, exhausted, Kate gave in. She pulled the hem of her shirt up to her collarbones. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and she’d expected Mikhail to make some kind of comment about her bare breasts, but his gaze only traveled clinically over her exposed flesh, focusing on the portion of her chest where he carefully applied the compress. Then, very gently, he pulled her shirt back down and her blanket back up.

“Rest,” he commanded, getting up from the couch. “I will make you tea. When did you last eat?”

“I don’t like tea. And I don’t know.”

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