Page 66 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

So I went on more seriously, “A bunch of stuff is going to have to change. But some won’t. And you’re still you.”

“I guess.”

I unleashed a melodramatic sigh. “It’s a shame, really, that there’s never been a single scientist ever with any sort of disability.”

He glowered at me. “Stop trying to make me laugh, it hurts.”

“Sorry.”

In the following silence, I did some hospitally things. Topped up Nik’s water. Smoothed his sheets and made sure the light from the window wasn’t in his eyes.

“Anyway,” he went on. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, about what I should do and stuff. And”—he fell quiet a moment, fiddling with a crease in his sheets—“I think you should probably…I dunno how to say this…like, leave.”

I stared at him, stricken. “I’ve been that rubbish?”

“What? No. You’ve been great. Ten out ten Nightingales. But, it’s not about you. I mean, it is about you. It’s just mainly about me.”

“How do you mean?”

“You heard Dr Sharma.” He huffed out a slightly aggrieved sigh “This is going to take forever. I have to have more surgery, and then there’ll be physical therapy and all the rest of the rehabilitation crap.”

“Yes, but you should have someone with you.”

“Not you, though.”

I blinked, not sure whether I was insulted or relieved. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Well, for starters, you’re my friend, not my caregiver. And that’s how I’d like to keep you.”

“I am a pretty awesome friend,” I conceded.

Which made him laugh and scruffle my hair. “Which is handy because I need one more favor.”

“Anything.” I thought about it for a moment. “Well, except give you another hand job. I’m taken now.”

“Sorry, mate. I’m not that desperate. Do you think you could get in touch with my sister?”

“Hang on, you have a sister? Sheesh, I’ve only known you for nearly four years. Is she anything like you? Is she single?”

“I thought you were supposed to be taken.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t have my head turned. Although”—I gave the matter due consideration—“when I try imagining what your sister would be like, I just end up picturing you in a dress.” I gave it further consideration. “Actually, that’s quite hot.”

“Look, Arden. My sister’s. Well. She’s Poppy Carrie.”

My mouth fell open in such an excessive way that a tram could probably have taken a shortcut through it. “What? The Poppy Carrie? The model.”

“She’s doing more acting now. But yeah. And stop sleazing on her. She’s my sister, dude.”

“I’m not sleazing. I’m…I’m disorientated, okay?” It wasn’t that I expected—or thought I had a right—to know everything about Nik. But this was something at once so incidental and fundamental that it felt weird suddenly discovering it. “Why haven’t you ever mentioned her?”

His ears had gone pinkish. “It’s complicated. She’s why I don’t speak to my parents.”

I’d wondered what was going on there, but it had never really come up and it wasn’t the sort of question you just dropped on someone. “They have issues with her?”