Page 20 of My Ex’s Dad (Scandalous Billionaires #1)

Chapter ten

Amalphia

I t’s been five days, and I’m fine. The dreaded virus hasn’t reached me yet. I’m not one of those people who can’t stand getting sick or is so paranoid about it that I wash my hands endlessly, but I really hope I don’t get this.

It’s nasty.

I expected Warrick would be good to go within a couple of days, but this is day five, and he still hasn’t gone back to work.

He spent most of the first few days sleeping.

On day one, I expected it, but when I checked on him on day two, he was so lethargic that I almost called the clinic.

He insisted he was just exhausted while I argued that I had to keep checking on him because who else was going to, and I sure as hecking hell wasn’t going to leave him for dead. Or, like, for sick.

On days three and four, he got himself out of bed, showered, and went downstairs at least. He sat on the couch with a book he didn’t read, and he put on movies he didn’t watch. He looked like a zombie.

I forced him to eat a banana and drink some water. I tried to entice him with toast, but it took him hours to force it down.

You know it’s bad when toast doesn’t cut it.

Now we’re on day five, and it’s late morning. Warrick still hasn’t made an appearance, and my finger is itching and getting trigger-happy to call the clinic.

I go out for the ingredients to make chicken soup instead.

I don’t know if I can do my mom’s or Granny’s soup justice, but judging from the fact that it seems like Warrick’s parents were more like a pack of wolves than a homey mom and dad, I don’t think he’ll know the difference between good mom soup and a housekeeper’s bad attempt.

Warrick still isn’t up when I get back to the house. I throw myself into chopping potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions. I cheated and bought a rotisserie chicken. I’ve never made chicken soup from scratch. A bad case of food poisoning is the last thing anyone needs right now. Or ever.

I take the chicken apart, boil it down for broth, strain that, and then add potatoes, the veg, and the ripped-up pieces of chicken.

The cheater chicken soup smells so good that even my mouth starts to water.

I don’t know if it’s the smell that does it or if it’s just finally late enough, but Warrick appears in the kitchen.

The sight of him gives me a secondary mental breakdown.

He’s usually dressed on the mouthwatering side of office casual.

He doesn’t seem to do regular people’s clothes, but all this time, he’s been wearing sweats and T-shirts.

I didn’t realize he even owned clothes like that, but of course he would.

He doesn’t go to the gym in ten-thousand-dollar suits.

Okay, not that he wears those either.

It’s just…the sweatpants are less charcoal and lighter grey.

The kind that everyone online is going on and on about right now.

At least he doesn’t have the backward baseball hat going on.

His white T-shirt looks soft and thin. So thin that I can practically see the outline of his nipples and his abs.

Between the shirt and the sweats, he’s slaying.

Slaying my ovaries.

My hormones.

My lady cave.

My nipples.

I quickly turn to check the bubbling pot on the stove. My face is still scarlet, my skin is two degrees off of sizzling, and my innards are drenched in sweat. Is that even physically possible? Today, it is.

I now have a perma-image burned in my brain. I never understood the sweatpants thing. I mean, sure, the guys online wear them because it outlines their dong. Not much mystery there, but I was always more turned off by that than anything. It’s just so…in your face.

On Warrick, it’s also in my face, minus the outline of a big hard schlong, because that definitely isn’t a thing. His sweatpants were grade-A vanilla. It’s the way they fit him, and combined with that T-shirt, it’s pretty much a—

“You don’t have to cook for me,” Warrick insists for what is probably the eight hundredth and forty-second time since I started this job.

“You need to eat something. I know you’re not feeling well, but half the fatigue is probably from the lack of calories.”

“It’s not even my stomach anymore,” he grunts, sounding truly awful.

I still can’t turn and look at him yet. Not when my face probably resembles a paint swatch in various shades of pink extending from pale all the way to fuchsia.

“It’s this headache. It has lovingly morphed itself into a migraine this morning.”

I turn the soup down to a simmer. Then, I pour him a glass of water and point at the couch, face be damned, I guess.

“Sit down, please. I just saw this video last night while I was doom scrolling, explaining how soaking your feet in as hot of water as you can possibly take can help with migraine pain.”

He’s already frowning, probably because his eyes are so sensitive that they can barely deal with the light, but it only deepens. “What on earth is doom scrolling?”

“When you fall down into the rabbit hole of watching endless short videos when you should be sleeping or doing something productive.”

He grunts. “That doesn’t sound like a real thing.”

“I can assure you, it’s a problem—”

“I meant the hot water.” He heads out of the kitchen and walks through the open expanse of the house to drop down on the couch when I stubbornly fist my hands on my hips, indicating that I’m not going to take no for an answer.

“I don’t know if it is or not, but it’ll probably feel nice. Have you taken any medication yet?”

He shudders.

Right. I’m talking to a man here.

I get him two ibuprofen from the bottle in the cupboard and a glass of water. Then, I walk them over to the couch. “Take these, and I’ll get you some hot water. It’s worth a try. But if things don’t start improving soon, I think I should take you to the clinic again.”

“It’s a virus. There’s nothing they can do.”

“They could make you comfortable,” I say.

He gives an exaggerated humph, which tells me everything there is to know about what he thinks about that. It also gives me hope that he’s feeling better than I think he is.

I find a giant roaster in one of the cupboards.

I have to stretch the tap over to fill it because it’s not even close to fitting in the sink.

I’m extra careful carrying it across the house so that I don’t slop the steaming water over the side.

It tries its best, becoming a violent roaster sea, but I manage to set it down in front of Warrick without incident.

He eyes it. Then he eyes me and scowls into his scowl lines that have scowl lines with scowl lines of their own.

I don’t even think. I drop down to my knees, take one foot, and slip it into the pan.

I tested the water right before I brought it in here to make sure it wasn’t too hot.

I don’t need any skeleton feet or burns on my watch.

The shower incident, followed by the meatball crisping death, was bad enough, thank you very much.

I reach for his other foot, pausing when I realize what I’m doing.

I’ve got my boss’ foot in my hands, and far from it being gross or weird, it’s strangely vulnerable.

He has nice feet. They’re not all rough, and the nails aren’t doing weird things.

Not even the one on the baby toe, which is usually notoriously out of control.

Believe me, I’m speaking from experience.

I definitely don’t have a foot fetish, but the room seems to shrink around me, and my chest gets tight with sudden tension. A foot isn’t a weapon. Okay, I suppose, in some circumstances, it could be. But it doesn’t have to be. It just feels dangerous without being deadly.

I should just get the darned foot in the water and rush away like a scalded bunny, but instead, my hands do something of their own accord. My brain isn’t on board with this. My brain checked out the second my ovaries threatened to explode.

My thumb moves over his heel, tracing bones and muscles to the sensitive middle. I press in lightly. He tenses but then emits a small groan that hits me straight between the legs, and not in a non-sexual way. Right. Not sure how anything could hit between the legs and not be a turn on.

It doesn’t stop my fingers from trying to work magic along his arch, up to the ball of his foot, and back down to the heel.

I knead gently, then get bold enough to look up at him.

His eyes are closed, and his head is resting on the back of the couch.

The frown lines aren’t gone, but some of them have been erased.

Something warm and completely non-sexual flutters around in my belly. It feels good to do this for him.

I lower his foot slowly into the water and lift up the other one.

I must have been massaging for longer than I thought because this one has started to prune up.

It’s almost adorable. I want to trace those little lines before I knead into the arch and rub the ball and heel.

My index finger brushes over the soft, soaked skin, hot from the water.

“Mmmm,” Warrick murmurs.

I close my eyes too. I tell myself on repeat that this is okay.

He’s not himself right now. And I’m not me either.

This is in no way sexual. It’s in no way going to cause a boss and employee nightmare.

HR? Do you have HR when you’re a housekeeper, employed solely by one person, or is it worse because he’s the HR too?

Except, he makes that noise under his breath again, and it hits me right in the lady bits. My va-jay practically lets out a cheer of excitement and runs around the room, threatening to burn her bra and not follow any further rules. Also? I’m probably wetter than that roasting pan at the moment.

Does that cause me to stop?

No. No, it does not.

I run my thumb along the wall of his foot, moving down to the arch. I’m careful since the skin feels tender like this.

The doorbell rings, the sound bouncing off my ribs like someone just pressed it inside me.