Page 103 of Bet On Me, Daddy

But she really couldn’t afford an entire week off, no matter what Beckett and Dr. Winters had to say about it. It was easy tosaythat when you weren’t one medical disaster or car breakdown away from not being able to afford to eat.

So she forced herself into the shower, no matter how her head protested every single movement. The steam helped, a lot, and she gave herself an extra five minutes to simply stand there and breathe it in.

“Ruby?”

Shit. Caught.

“In the shower,” she called back through the closed bathroom door, praying he’d at least let her finish and get dressed before interrogating her.

No such luck.

The door creaked open, and she watched his shadow moving on the other side of her shower curtain. “Why, exactly, are you in the shower instead of in bed?”

“Because I need to go to work.”

“Ruby, we talked about this yesterday. You need?—”

“No.” Yanking the curtain aside, she glared at him through the steam. “We didn’ttalkabout anything. You just declared I wasn’t going to work, and I was too tired to fight with you about it.”

One dark eyebrow rose as he leaned back against her sink, folding his arms across his chest. “Am I to assume you aren’t too tired now?”

She was. She was fucking exhausted. But if she told him that, he’d just use it as a reason to force her to stay home. “I need to work, Beckett. Are you really telling me you’d take a whole week off from conquering the finance world for some measly little cold?”

“First of all, it isn’t a measly little cold. You have the flu, Ruby. And yes, if I had the flu and my doctor told me to take time to heal, I would.”

“Bullshit. Men like you don’t know what sick days are.”

“Men like me?”

There was a dangerous edge to his voice that told her she was walking on thin ice. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“One of these days, you’re going to realize I’m not him.”

Now there was hurt riding along that’s knife edge of anger in his tone. Reaching for the faucet, she turned the shower off and grabbed her towel from its hook, wrapping it around her as she stepped out onto the teal bathmat. At least now she wasn’t completely naked. “I know you’re not him. I’m working on separating you two in my head. But I need you to understand that I really, really can’t afford to miss another day at this new job, Beckett. I don’t get paid sick leave until I’ve been there ninety days, and if I’m already going to be in a bind without the coffee shop and the club.”

Something flickered in his eyes. The same something she thought she’d seen yesterday, but again it was there and gone toofast for her to really pin it down. “I’ll cover whatever you need while you get better.”

“No. You can consider that a hard limit.”

Beckett’s eyes narrowed. “Taking care of you is a hard limit?”

The metaphorical ice beneath her feet cracked. “Making me rely on you is a hard limit.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I need you to get out of my way so I can go to work.”

“Absolutely not. The only place you’re going is back to bed, little girl.”

Dammit. This was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid. “I can’t do that.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“Oh my god!” Shouldering her way past him, she stomped back to her bedroom. Head pounding, throat burning, she yanked open her underwear drawer. “Fine. You’re right. Iwon’tgo back to bed. Because Ineedto go to work. You do whatever you need to do to be okay with that.”

“I’m never going to be okay with you putting your health at risk, Ruby.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Beckett. It’s not like I’m dying. Get a fucking gri?—”

---