Page 18 of My Ex’s Dad (Scandalous Billionaires #1)

Chapter nine

Amalphia

W hen Warrick stumbles home a few days later in the middle of the afternoon, I know something is off as soon as he walks into the house.

I’m in the living room, doing my usual dusting of non-existent dust. I have my phone linked to the house’s surround sound, and currently, my latest audiobook is playing at full blast.

It just happens to be monster smut.

What? Don’t judge me. I like to take myself out of reality once in a while, and regular sci-fi just isn’t my jam.

It’s so loud, and Warrick is so unexpected that I don’t hear the door over the book. It’s right in the middle of some very descriptive spice when I look up, and suddenly, there he is in all his boss slash ex’s dad glory.

“Arp!” I yelp, scrambling for my phone, which thankfully is sitting right on the coffee table. I nearly send myself sprawling over the furniture when my knees connect, and I’ll likely be hobbling around the rest of the day, trying to shake off the ache, but at least I’m able to pause the audiobook.

The tension is so thick that I could melt on the spot. I’m the most hellacious shade of scarlet before I notice that Warrick is…off. He doesn’t even seem to have heard what he just blatantly heard . He’s grey and clammy, with sweat dotted on his forehead.

“Oh!” I clap my hand over my mouth. “Oh, that doesn’t look good at all.” I don’t use you . I try to have some tact. That would be incorrect, anyway. Warrick is always above safe levels of attractiveness.

“It feels miserable. I haven’t puked in ten years, or maybe it’s more, but I beat that record today. Once in the bathroom at work in a toilet that was dubious at best, and the second time in a trash can in the cleaning closet when I went to find spray to sanitize everything.”

I snap my fingers, springing into action the same way my mom or granny would back when I was a kid and got a stomach bug.

“Straight to bed. I’ll bring you a bucket, some water, and some soup crackers if you feel like eating them.

I’ll search the medicine cabinet and see if there are any anti-nausea pills. ”

Of all the things I hate getting sick with, stomach bugs are nasty. They might be over relatively fast, but he’s one hundred million percent correct when he used the word miserable.

“How do you get sick in the summer?” I ask tentatively as I follow Warrick to the kitchen. He’s ignoring my directive to go to bed, but then again, he probably doesn’t want me taking care of him. I would hate it, too, if it were the other way around.

“George’s kids went to summer camp, and apparently, the whole place just got obliterated with a virus.”

“How nice of him to share. But that seriously sucks. Those poor kids. What a horrible experience. That’s enough to scar you for life.”

“The whole workplace will probably be down soon.”

He gets a glass from the cupboard and goes to the tap to pour himself water, even though I know he keeps bottles in the fridge.

I sweep past him and go straight to the cupboard where all the medicine and most of the herbal teas are stored.

I have my back to him when I hear him gag, and then he’s bent over the sink, being sick loudly .

My whole body breaks out into a clammy sweat. I’m not sure I have a weak stomach, but having a sympathy tummy is definitely a thing, and right now, I want to hurl a little bit too.

I swallow it back, walk over, and put my clammy palm on his back. His black button-up shirt is soaked through, and his body heat radiates into my palm. He’s clearly running a fever.

“Whoa. Are you okay?”

He grasps the counter, panting. “Other than being completely humiliated, I’m all good.” He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

I pass him the towel off the stove since I just replaced it, and it’s fresh. Then, I get a bottle of water out of the fridge, find a box of medication specifically for fevers in the cupboard, and add it to the pile.

“I’ll clean this up,” he mutters weakly.

He reaches for the tap, but I dodge past him.

“No way. You need to get into bed.” I crank the water on and reach for his forehead with my other hand.

“You definitely have a fever, and it needs to come down before you do anything. I’ll be right up with all of this and—” I glance at the sink, cringing at the cleaning job that I can hopefully do while squeezing my eyes shut tightly.

Except, they don’t screw shut. They open wide.

I get closer and really take a look. My heart does a shiver thing in my chest the same way it did when I realized what Reginald had done with those men who were coming for me.

It’s pure fear that causes my cold sweat this time. “Fuck, Warrick, there’s blood .”

He does a double take. “Hmm, I’m not a gentle puker. It’s probably just from the strain.”

“We aren’t taking chances with that.” I turn the tap on again and wash away the mess, then get a bottle from below the sink and spray the whole thing down with disinfectant. “I’m taking you straight to the hospital.”

“I’m fine .”

“Fine is the most unfine word in the whole English language.”

“I can think of a few worse ones.”

I have my phone in my pocket, and the monster smut is still on the screen. I quicky swipe it away, hoping Warrick didn’t read the title, and do a search on vomiting blood. Then, I hold up my phone so he can read it for himself.

“Throwing up blood is always a trip to the ER. Always .”

He sighs. “I’ll go to a private clinic. I have one I can call into on the way.”

“Rich people doctors.” For the love of monster literary gems, could I be any less tactful?

He nods, too sick to even notice how flustered I am that I just blurted that out. “I’ll go right now, and I’ll call if they’re keeping me overnight.”

I gape at him. That’s the hardest of hard freaking passes that ever existed.

“No way! You’re not driving yourself. What are you going to do if you have to be sick?

Just open the door on the fly? You look like you could keel over.

” I set my hand on his arm as I move past him, already gathering the stuff we’ll need.

“I’ll get you a bucket, a few trash bags, and some water, and we’ll go.

If you need to call ahead, you can do that in the car.

I don’t know how a private clinic works. ”

Warrick hangs his head. “This is beyond mortifying.”

That brings me up short. As in, full stop.

I know it’s not my place or my right to touch him, but everyone needs comfort when they feel like this. All I do is set my hand back on his lower arm, but the air becomes thick around us. I can feel it, but I doubt Warrick is experiencing anything but ten rings of hell at the moment.

I grasp his arm, letting him feel my grip through his shirt before I let go.

I hope my touch communicates everything.

I don’t find him gross, and it’s not embarrassing.

People get sick. It gets messy. That’s life.

He’s clearly not used to having anyone here to look out for him.

It makes my chest get tight, which is a good cue for me to get all the shit together so we can go.

I don’t even think for a minute about how we’re getting there until we get into the garage, and I’m faced with slipping into the driver’s seat of a luxury car.

It’s not the flashy sports car or the old collector muscles that are on the other side of the garage.

It’s just a regular sedan, but I use the word regular in relation to things that cost millions of dollars.

This car is expensive too. That’s what I’m worried about.

I get behind the wheel, practically shaking.

I glance at Warrick, but his face is this terrible cross between super sick and horribly surly at being in this position at all. He has the bathroom trashcan with a bag in it on his lap, because things like used ice cream pails don’t exist in the houses of billionaires.

“Okay…” I blow out a breath and start the car, wishing I was driving my beater.

My mind does the old hop-skip straight to the fact that Warrick has never mentioned me putting a car cover over it. He’s never seemed embarrassed to have it parked on his driveway.

“If I crash this thing, it’s insured, right?”

He turns his face to me, and he has to practically pry his eyes open. “I’m fine. I’ll drive.”

“No! You just sit there and focus on…um…well, I don’t know. Focus on feeling better. I’ll get us there.”

I go to put the address into my phone, but he beats me to it with the fancy screen.

The whole car is leather on leather, and it smells like it’s straight out of the factory.

I adjust the mirrors, even though it takes me so freaking long because the switches are so complicated, and then carefully back out.

I creep down the road at a crawl until I figure that’s unsafe, too, so I make sure I go at the speed of traffic. Thankfully, the clinic isn’t that far from Warrick’s house. We make it without incident, and he makes it without needing the trashcan.

I don’t know what to do with myself now. Should I peace out and leave him here? It would be weird to go in there with him, wouldn’t it? I’m his housekeeper.

But knowing Warrick, he’ll downplay the severity of this. He could be bleeding internally and say he’s fine, and they might just let him walk out.

This might not be in my job description, but I take a deep breath, lock the car twice to ensure it’s really going to be okay, and head in.

This place is fancy . There’s a tiny waiting room, and it’s clear people don’t come here to sit in it. The front desk is all glass and metal, and the whole place is white, but not the cold, clinical, horribleness that hospitals usually are.

Warrick is already getting led to a room by a man in a white coat who has suit pants sticking out underneath. No scrubs here.