Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
BECKETT
G roaning, Beckett pushed himself up on Ruby’s very lumpy, very uncomfortable couch, pressing the heels of his hands to his aching eyes. He hadn’t slept worth shit, mostly because Ruby hadn’t slept worth shit. She’d been up half the night coughing, until he’d been able to bribe Sonja to bring him some cough syrup. Thank god for twenty-four-hour pharmacies.
After that, Ruby had slept better, but he’d been up every half hour to check her temperature with the thermometer Sonja had also brought him. He’d also checked her breathing, which sounded a little wheezy to him, but maybe he was just overreacting. After all, he wasn’t a doctor.
But the second his doctor’s office opened, he was dragging Ruby there and demanding they figure out what the fuck was wrong with her, whether she wanted to go or not.
Grabbing his phone from the coffee table, he ignored the messages from work and placed an order for breakfast. Coffee for him, tea with honey for his babygirl, and a variety of pastries that would have given Candace a heart attack just to look at them.
With breakfast taken care of, he slipped into Ruby’s bedroom to check her temperature again.
She was still below three figures, which seemed promising. But as he was tucking the thermometer back into its case, she started coughing again. Deeper, rougher than the night before.
Worry threatened to spin out into panic as he sat rubbing her back, listening to her cough. Whatever was wrong with her, he was pretty sure it was more than just a cold.
Not again. Please, God. If you’re listening. Don’t make me do this again.
Memories, ones he’d tried his damnedest to keep locked away, flooded his mind. The cold hospital room, the figure in the bed, looking so small and lifeless despite the dozens of machines hooked up to her for the sole purpose of keeping her alive.
The doctors, pity in their eyes as they told him they’d done everything they could possibly do for the woman he loved.
Watching, helpless, as she slipped away from him.
A soft whimper yanked him out of the blackness of his grief and back to the present. Ruby shifted restlessly under the blankets, her face scrunching up as another dry, hacking cough wracked her body.
“Shh, baby. You’re okay,” he murmured, running a hand over her hair. “Daddy’s here. I’m right here. I’ve got you, Ruby Red.”
To his relief, she settled down, snuggling into her blankets with a contented sigh.
Almost as soon as she did, however, her phone buzzed against her nightstand. Not wanting to risk it waking her, Beckett snatched it up and hurried from the bedroom as he hit the button to answer the call.
“Hello?”
“Hello?” the voice on the other end answered shrilly. “Who is this? I’m calling for Ruby Matthews.”
“This is her…” Her Daddy . “Friend. I’m afraid Ruby’s ill and unable to come to the phone. Can I take a message?”
“You can tell her to get her ass into the office as soon as possible. She hasn’t even been here a week and she’s already proving how unreliable she is.”
Fury sparked in his chest at the woman’s callous tone. “Ruby is sick. She won’t be in today. Or the rest of the week, most likely. I’ll be sure to have the doctor send you a note if?—”
“Absolutely not. You tell Miss I’m-Too-Good-For-This-Job that if she doesn’t come in today, she doesn’t need to bother coming back at all.”
Well, that was an easy call. Even if she wasn’t sick, Ruby didn’t need this bullshit in her life. “What’s your name, so I can pass the message along?”
“Nancy. Nancy Garrison.”
“Thank you. Now I know who to fire first when I buy your pathetic excuse for a company.” He didn’t actually know if the company was pathetic or not. He hadn’t done any research on them when Ruby had first started there.
A mistake he wouldn’t make again.
“What? You can’t do that! Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m the man who is about to make your life a living hell. You can tell whoever needs to know that Ruby won’t be in today, or ever again. And feel free to give them a heads-up that you’ve likely cost them all their jobs, as well. Goodbye, Nancy.”
Hanging up on Nancy’s sputtering was intensely satisfying, and he only regretted that Ruby hadn’t been the one to tell her to go fuck herself. Ah, well, he’d make it up to her somehow.
He shoved Ruby’s phone in his pocket with his and headed back to her bedroom. She’d settled back down after her coughing fit, and she was looking much more peaceful than she had all night.
Maybe she was getting better. Maybe he was being a big ole worrywart for nothing.
Maybe.
Ruby
“I don’t wanna go to the doctor.”
She’d been making the same whining protest for the past fifteen minutes, not that it seemed to matter to Beckett. He’d simply steamrolled over every protest, every complaint, every whine. Even when she’d refused to brush her teeth, he’d simply plopped her down on her toilet seat and held her mouth open while he scrubbed her teeth clean.
Which he’d only been able to do because her muscles felt like someone had poured lead into them. Everything from her head to her arms to her legs seemed to weigh a thousand pounds each and moving them took more energy than she currently had. That was the only reason she wasn’t giving Beckett more of a fight.
It had nothing to do with how nice it felt to be taken care of. To just let him completely take over and handle everything. She didn’t want him stepping in and taking over.
She didn’t.
Yeah. Apparently, she still sucked at lying to herself.
“I know you don’t, baby.” Beckett’s voice was surprisingly gentle, considering she’d done nothing but argue with him from the moment he’d told her he was taking her to the doctor. “But you’ll feel so much better after we do, I promise.”
“I can’t afford a doctor’s visit for a cold, Beckett.”
Glancing over at her, he cocked a brow. “Have you forgotten who I am, Ruby Red?”
“No. You’re Daddy. And you’re fucking loaded. Sorta hate that about you.”
“I know. I don’t know why, but you can tell me all about it when you’re feeling better. Isn’t that a good incentive to go to the doctor? So you can get better and tell me what a rich, entitled asshole I am?”
“Maybe. Don’t wanna.”
“Baby.” Cupping her face in his blessedly cool hands, he locked his gaze with hers. And even through the haze of whatever virus currently had her in its grip, she could see the worry, verging on panic, in his eyes. “Please don’t fight me on this. When you feel better, you can be a brat all you want. You can fight, you can break rules, you can do whatever you need to do. But right now, I need you to be a good girl. For me. Please?”
It was the worry, and the edge of panic that finally cut through her own concerns and general feeling-shittiness. “Okay, Daddy.”
Some of the panic faded from his eyes as his lips curled upward. “We’re not at the club, or in my bed.”
She hadn’t meant to. But at that moment, there was no denying he was Daddy. “Sorry. Just slipped out.”
“I don’t mind.”
Was that another tick in the ‘Beckett’s in love with you’ column? “Don’t get used to it, Bex.”
“Even sick, you’re a brat. But don’t worry. Daddy will be keeping track for when you’re feeling better.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“You love it when I’m not very nice.”
Well, she couldn’t argue that point. So she simply kept her mouth shut as he finished helping her into a pair of clean pajamas—despite her insistence that she should wear real clothes out in public—and bundled her out the door and down to his car.
She’d thought she’d experienced all the luxuries the one percent had to offer. But as she was carried through the front door of the most pristine, cozy-looking doctor’s office she’d ever seen and straight to the back, where they immediately checked her vitals and swabbed her throat—ugh—without even stopping in the waiting room, she found herself wondering how many other hidden luxuries the rich had that she’d missed out on.
They’d barely been in the exam room for five minutes before the door opened again and a stunning woman stepped inside, a warm smile on her face. She looked to Ruby more like an actress who’d been hired to play a doctor on some tv drama than an actual doctor, with her sleek chestnut hair pulled up in a ponytail that only helped to highlight her incredible bone structure.
“Doctors aren’t supposed to be that pretty.”
She didn’t even realize she’d said it out loud until the woman tossed her head back and laughed. “Well, thank you for the compliment, Miss Ruby.”
“Sorry.” Embarrassment heated Ruby’s cheeks and she wished she could just crawl under the exam table and die. “I didn’t mean to actually say that.”
“No apologies necessary.” With a saucy wink, she looked down at the tablet in her hand and pressed a few buttons. “I’m Dr. Winters and I’ll be your physician today. Let’s see. Mr. Stone says you’re congested, fatigued, and you’ve got yourself a pretty nasty cough. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Beckett answered, cutting Ruby off before she could even open her mouth. “She was wheezing all night and she’s been coughing constantly.”
“Would you like to give her a rundown of when my last period was, too?”
Ruby’s sarcastic response earned her a glare from Beckett, but an approving smile from Dr. Winters. “You tell him, Ruby.”
“Need I remind you who pays your salary, Dr. Winters?”
To Ruby’s surprise and utter delight, the doctor simply met his stony gaze with a cool, level stare of her own. “I spent Christmas Eve setting a broken leg for a mafia enforcer for one of the city’s most dangerous families. Do you really think you scare me, Mr. Stone?”
Silence fell, filling up the room until Ruby wondered how anyone could breathe.
But then again, maybe that was just because her nose felt like it had been stuffed with cotton.
“Sorry.” Beckett flashed a smile that managed to be both sheepish and charming. “I’m being an asshole because I’m worried about my girl.”
“Apology accepted. Now, let’s see what we can do about getting Miss Ruby fixed up so she can continue giving you hell.”
After a brief exam where Dr. Winters checked her throat and listened to her lungs, the doctor stepped back and met Ruby’s gaze with another of those bright smiles. “Well, it sounds like you’ve got yourself a case of the flu, Miss Ruby. Plenty of rest and fluids should do the trick. Do you need a doctor’s note for work?”
“Oh god!” Panic had her sitting up straighter, patting her pockets for her phone. “I totally forgot to call out! They’re going to fire me!”
“It’s been taken care of, Ruby Red. They called this morning and I let them know you’d probably be out for a few days.”
“Oh, thank god.” Placing a hand on her chest, she flashed him a grateful smile. “I cannot afford to lose this job.”
Something flickered across Beckett’s face, but it was gone again too quickly for her to really pin it down. “Don’t worry about that right now. Worry about resting and getting better. Dr. Winters will get you that note and I’ll let Braden know you’re out of commission for at least a week.”
“A week ? I can’t miss a week of work! I have bills to pay!”
Dr. Winters cleared her throat. “If you can swing it somehow, I would highly recommend the full week. This is one of the worst cold and flu seasons I’ve seen in a while, and I’d hate to see you back here with walking pneumonia, Miss Ruby.”
“We’ll figure it out, baby.” Brushing the hair back from her face, Beckett leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. “Daddy’s got you,” he murmured, dropping his voice low for only her to hear.
It was meant to be reassuring. And to anyone else, it probably would have been.
But to Ruby, all she could hear were the sounds of another cage closing around her.