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“A glass of water, please. And maybe I need to take a cool shower.”

I lift her immediately into my arms to carry her to the bathroom.

While I turn the shower on, she ties her hair up into a messy bun on top of her head. I love it when she does that. She looks disheveled and cute as hell.

After the shower, she is still feeling horrible, so I put her straight to bed. My bed. I want to keep her close to me.

“Stay here, little one. I’ll make you something to eat. Maybe the dizziness is because you haven’t eaten yet.”

“Mm,” she says, closing her eyes and leaning back against the pillow. I watch her for a second, worried.

I go downstairs to make her a cup of tea and some toast. When I come back up, there is a bit more color in her cheeks, and she’s sitting up.

“What if I have the flu? It seems that the wave of weakness comes right after exerting myself,” she says.

I chuckle, remembering how good it felt to move inside her.

“Then we need to keep your heart from racing.” I touch her face again as I sit down on the bed. “But try and eat something. It will be good for you.”

Lara sits quietly while I watch her take small bites of her toast.

She glances at me, and I get the feeling she wants to say something.

Except I’m the one who should say something. The fight we had earlier—I was harsh because I was so worried.

“Little one, I didn’t mean to be cruel earlier. I was angry because of what might’ve happened to you. It scared me,” I say.

Her brows furrow as she looks at me.

“I wanted to help, Nestor. You’ve been so stressed the last few days, and you’ve hardly even spoken to me. I know you’re going through a lot, and I only wanted to help.”

I tuck a stray curl behind her ear.

“I realize that. But please don’t do something like that again. I could have put one of my men on it if you thought it was important.”

She nods.

Then her bright, beautiful blue eyes lift to watch my face. “Nestor, we can’t—um—sex doesn’t just fix everything. We can’t just have sex and expect all of our problems to go away.”

Her words sting me and take me by surprise. I didn’t realize that she thought that was all it was. I thought she felt what I felt. It was so intense for me. So deep and meaningful, whether that terrifies me or not is irrelevant. It is what it is, and I felt it.

But apparently, she didn’t.

She sees it as a quick fix for an argument.

I clench my jaw, straightening my back.

“I understand. Don’t worry, sex is just an outlet. A way to blow off steam. You’re right. It’s better if we keep this as a professional partnership for the time being. We can worktogether to solve the issue with Miron.” I say what I think she wants to hear.

She nods.

Shit. It is what she wanted to hear.

I was ready to pour my heart out to her just a second before she said she wasn’t feeling well. How embarrassing would it have been if I put that pressure on her when she didn’t want the same thing?

I clear my throat loudly and nod.

“Well, I can leave you to rest if you like.”