Page 60 of Culinary Chaos

“Here. I brought you a drink, too.”

Prying her eyes open, Angelica looked to find Hope holding her hand out with a couple of pills in it and a small glass of water. She hated this. She wasn’t used to anyone taking care of her, but to have Hope do it? That was embarrassment ten times over. Usually Lyric would be around, but Angelica had given her the week off for her sister’s wedding. Lyric would do just about anything that Angelica asked her to.

Taking the medication with a small sip of water, Angelica rested back into the pillows.

“I brought the thermometer.”

“You have a thermometer?” Angelica furrowed her brow as Hope put the device against her forehead.

“Of course I do. I have a six-year-old.”

That would generally be enough of an explanation, but Angelica was damn sure that even if she had a kid living with hershe wouldn’t have remembered to bring any of that. The device beeped, and Hope stared at it curiously.

“It says you don’t have a fever.”

“Really?” Angelica frowned. “It might just be from the nausea. Happens sometimes.”

“Are you nauseous a lot?”

“Enough.” Angelica closed her eyes again. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

Hope still didn’t leave right away. She put her hands in her lap and stayed still. Angelica wanted her to leave now. She was embarrassed enough at having to have someone care for her, and she really didn’t need Hope to stay there any longer.

“I’ll talk to Rex and Kyle about rearranging some of the filming schedule if you’re not feeling better in a couple of days.”

“No need to worry about any of that now.” Though Angelica had already started to rework the schedule in her head. Then again, any kind of that work she did now would probably have to be redone later, because it was definitely a struggle to think. “I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“You might think that,” Hope said, touching Angelica’s shoulder again, “but take tomorrow to rest if you need to.”

“I will.” But she knew she wouldn’t. Angelica had way too much work to take a full day off, even if she was sick. She just wanted Hope to leave at this point. She wanted to be alone and hiding where no one had to see her like this.

“Good.” Hope sighed. “Text me if you need something else. Please.”

“Just tell Josef that I had a work problem,” Angelica said, locking their gazes together.

Hope paused, confusion swimming in her eyes. “You really don’t want him to know you’re sick.”

“No.” It was a matter of pride, and whether or not Hope could understand that wasn’t Angelica’s problem. She justneeded Hope to follow through with what she said she would do. Then she could deal with the consequences of the small white lie later.

“I’ll tell him that for now. But tomorrow…you’ll have to come up with a better excuse.”

Angelica swallowed hard. She fully intended to not be in this bed tomorrow—as comfortable as it was. She would be back to work and back on her feet without consequences. If she believed it, then it would happen, right?

“I’m serious about texting me. I’ll check in on you in a bit.”

“I’m not an invalid,” Angelica mumbled.

“No, you’re not. But you’re sick, and the least I can do is help you get through it. Right?” Hope didn’t wait for an answer. She stood up and left the room without another word.

Angelica shuddered, but this time it definitely wasn’t from the chills. It was from the powerful and confident way that Hope had taken control of the situation and made everything happen like it should. Or like she wanted it to, whether or not Angelica wanted it to end up this way.

She stayed in bed for another thirty minutes before she became too antsy. Dragging herself from the bed, Angelica stripped out of her work clothes and slid into her loose pajama bottoms and tank top so she could at least be a little more comfortable. She doubted that Hope would actually be coming back to check on her, and even then, Angelica could just text her and tell her that she was fine.

She snagged her laptop and brought it back to the bed. Within a minute, she was in her emails, sorting through some of the extra things she had to do that week, and approving the budgets that she hadn’t gotten to on their flights yesterday.

But it was so damn hard to focus.

Angelica plowed through it as much as she could, but she wasn’t able to get as much work done as she would have liked.She was just about to put the computer up when the door to her room opened. Freezing, Angelica waited to see who it was.