Page 45 of Her Billionaire Boss
“Oh.Oh no, babe.”Laughing, even grim chuckles, made my overworked abdomen scream.I could hear the pain in my ears like the rope of a tire swing creaking.
“What?”When I didn’t immediately answer, he demanded again, “What?”
“If they don’t open, they’re bad ones.You’re supposed to throw them out.Did the recipe not say that?”
“It...might have,” he admitted quietly.“When I got to that part, you’d already gotten back from the airport and everything else was done.I kind of rushed through the rest and maybe I skimmed over that section.”
Part of me wanted to smack him.Another part of me, one that must have missed out on the last four hours of living hell, remembered that he wouldn’t have any reason to know that, or to even suspect that missing a crucial step might poison us.The extent of his culinary prowess was that basic stuff I’d taught him, and the borderline prison commissary fare he’d survived off of in the dorms almost twenty years ago.
“Maybe mussels were a little ambitious,” I said gently.“But hey.I do appreciate the effort.”
“Yeah?”It wasn’t often that Matt sounded so uncertain.
I paused before I answered so as not to raise my voice over a page going out on the overhead intercom.When it was over, I said, “You could have had the chef make a big, elaborate feast.You could have tried to dazzle my parents with a big display of wealth and luxury, but you didn’t.”
“Not to sound like a complete asshole here, but it’s not like my apartment screams humble and frugal,” he pointed out.“I wanted to do something normal.Not for them, but for you.”
“For me?”I asked, turning on my side.
He did the same, to face me across the gap between our carts.“I know you’re not comfortable yet with the places we go out to eat or having people serving our food and cleaning up after us.And having your parents visit was already stressing you out.”
“Stressing both of us out,” I corrected him.
“Okay, you got me.It was stressing me out, too.But all the quote-unquote ‘normal’ stuff is important to you.I pay attention to that because I don’t want to steamroll over you and squish you into my life.”He exhaled through his nose, a frustrated, sad sound.“I want us to build our life.I thought that doing this might make you feel like I’m willing to fit into your life, too.”
The squeezing ache in my chest might have been a cracked rib from all the projectile vomiting, but at the moment, I diagnosed it as too much love for my heart to take.My words failed me.That could have also been a symptom of the food poisoning.
“You can tell me it was stupid of me,” he went on with a self-deprecating chuckle.“And that I should have gone with something easier.”
“Hamburgers, maybe,” I suggested with a smile.
“I bet those are harder to make than they look.If they were easy, why would fast food places send them out pre-shaped and frozen?”His IV pump alarmed, and he rolled onto his back again, reaching out for it to hit a button.
“Are you supposed to do that?”I asked doubtfully.
“I’m a pro at these things,” he assured me.
Oh.Right.He’d already spent a huge chunk of this year in the hospital.
“You know what sucks the most about this?I mean, aside from shitting myself in the ER in front of my future in-laws?”Matt asked, scrubbing his hand over his face.“Your brother is never, ever going to let this go.He will mention this in my eulogy.”
There was that crushing love pain again.“Your future in-laws?”
He looked sharply over at me, eyes wide.“Shit.”
“Chill out.I’m not going to run again.”A month ago, maybe.But I’d done a lot of important work with Dr.Meyer, and throwing Matt away would mean throwing all of that growth away, too.“I like the person I am when I’m with you.And if this is something you want, in the future, to make permanent and legal and...set in stone, till death do us—”
“You look like you’re going to need that emesis basin again,” he chided.
“Knock knock.”
We both jumped guiltily at Dad’s voice behind the curtain.And we didn’t sound any less guilty when we both said, “come in!”in cheerful, panicked unison.
The curtain rings rattled in the track as he pushed them aside and slipped through.
“How’s mom?”I asked, pushing myself up higher on the angled head of the cart.
“Good news on that front.”Dad gestured with his thumb over his shoulder.“They’re not going to admit her, after all.No available beds, and they think the home health aide service Matt’s doctor suggested will be able to monitor her just as well at home.”
