Page 221 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

‘I’m fine,’ Victoria whispered, holding a palm out to stop Marcello’s blurry figure getting any closer. ‘Just got a bit dizzy.’

She blinked rapidly to clear her vision but each blink hurt her eyes and hurtled sharp pins into her burning brain. In the deep recesses of her mind was the knowledge that she’d caught one of the viruses debilitating New York, likely the one that had incapacitated Patrick and Christina overnight. She needed to lie down. Needed to get warm.

All she could allow herself to focus on was the long sofa. It was four steps away at the most.

Aware—much too aware—of Marcello standing to her side watching her, aware of his apparent concern, she took the first step, silently begging her legs to keep the rest of her upright. Of all the people in all the world to fall ill in front of, Marcello was the absolute worst.

Fighting through the swimming sensation that had now added itself to the burn in her brain, using legs that seemed to have become detached from the rest of her body, she took the next step...

The room began to spin.

‘Victoria?’

She swayed.

The spinning sped up.

His next call of her name came like a distant echo in her ear as the whole world spun around her and then turned to grey.

Marcello caught her mid-fall. Hooking an arm around her waist, he tried to help her stand but Victoria’s legs weren’t cooperating. With his only other option being dragging her to the sofa, he lifted her into his arms like an injured child and cradled her to his chest.

Her eyes flew open. ‘What you doing?’ she mumbled.

‘Getting you to a bed,’ he decided firmly. That was where she needed to be. In bed. He knew because that was what the doctor had said when he’d called him out after Christina and Patrick had been struck down. Christina had deteriorated as quickly as Victoria. Sleep, the doctor had decreed, was the best medicine.

‘No,’ she protested weakly even as her cheek flopped against his neck.Dio, he could feel the elevated heat of her skin. She was burning up.

‘Do not argue,’ he scolded, heading for the stairs. ‘You are not well.’

‘Too heavy.’

Tuning out that her breath was hot against his skin and that her breasts were pressed against his chest, he lightly said, ‘What did I just say about not arguing?’

Perfectly buxom though Victoria was, she was by no means too heavy for him to carry up the open stairs like a superhero. Through his office he took her and into his sleeping quarters, where he made a split-second decision and carried her into the closest room, which just happened to be his own. It had the most comfortable mattress and, unlike the guest rooms, had a sofa long enough for his six-foot-two body to sprawl out on while watching over her.

The curtains were still drawn, the duvet still thrown back from when he’d got up that morning, his incapacitated staff being unable to open the curtains or provide him with the freshly laundered bedding he enjoyed daily. She made hardly any movement as he carefully laid her down, her only word, ‘Cold.’

‘You are cold?’ he clarified, gingerly resting his hand on her burning forehead. Now that she was lying down, there was no need for further physical contact.

‘Cold,’ she repeated, barely audible, slowly drawing her legs to her chest. Her eyes were closed.

He scratched the back of his head, unsure what to do. Did you put a duvet around someone with a fever? Reasoning she could always throw it off if she overheated, he covered her before stepping back to congratulate himself on a job well done. Superhero that he was, he’d saved his assistant from hurting herself in a faint and selflessly carried her into his own bed. He would remind her of this the next time she implied he was selfish.

‘I will get you painkillers,’ he said, keen to add more gold stars to his name on the off chance that she really was considering leaving him...quitting her job.

Her, ‘’K...’ came out like a sigh.

This, though, posed its own challenge as, for all his talk about painkillers, Marcello didn’t actually possess any. Not wanting to disturb his stricken housekeeper and butler, who must surely have a stash of the stuff, he put a call through to the concierge. It took ten whole minutes for a small tub of ordinary painkillers to be sent up to him in his elevator.

Armed with a glass of water and the means to ease Victoria’s temperature and pains, he returned to his bedroom.

She was huddled in the sheets on her side, only the top of her head poking through.

To wake her or not to wake her? That was the question. Crouching down, he lightly pressed his fingers to the inch of exposed forehead. He squeezed his eyes tight and breathed hard. Too hot. Much too hot.

‘Victoria?’ he whispered loudly. ‘You need to wake up and take some painkillers.’

Her eyes didn’t open. ‘Head hurts,’ she mumbled.

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