Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tristan
I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so eager to get home from a trip to New York.
The wedding was a week away. Parker had her dress, the venues were booked, and I still hadn’t tried on my suit.
I didn’t have to get a new suit for Saturday—it wasn’t like I was going to be showing my grandchildren the wedding photos—but I wanted Parker to know I was making an effort.
If she’d had the strain of picking a dress for our weird wedding day, I shouldn’t escape unscathed.
My phone buzzed. It was a text from Parker saying yes to my question about whether she’d left the deadbolt off the front door.
Hey, you’re awake early, I replied.
Still in bed.
I chuckled. Parker spent a lot of time in her bed. She said she could do everything she needed to in pajamas and under a duvet. I couldn’t argue with that.
Back in a min. Cab around corner.
I’m at my flat, she replied.
Really? I typed out, slightly concerned. Thought you were only spending one night there?
I waited as the phone showed she was typing and then she stopped.
Is everything okay?
My mind began to wander to worst-case scenario. Had there been a break-in at her place? Had her ex turned up at her work and dragged her back to her flat? Had he broken into her place as soon as she got back and wasn’t letting her leave? I was being ridiculous but I needed her to tell me that.
I pressed call on the phone but she didn’t answer.
I leaned forward to speak to the driver.
“Change of plan. You need to get to Maida Vale. There’s a big tip if you can get there in less than five minutes.
” She’d probably just gone to the loo or run out of battery or something, but it could be more serious.
I still hadn’t discovered who had been taking the payments from the charity bank account, and although I set up a permanent hack into her building’s security cameras, nothing had come up.
Maybe whoever had been targeting her had been waiting for me to be out of the country.
I rang her again but it kept going straight to voicemail. Fuck. I checked the time. Six thirty in the morning. Her phone should be fully charged. Why hadn’t she called me back? My paranoia grew, crawling into my chest and circling its hands around my heart.
At least there was no traffic. I pulled some cash out of my wallet, ready to press into the driver’s hand as soon as we arrived.
The minutes seemed to extend into hours.
I kept trying her phone over and over until we pulled up outside her building.
I thrust the money at the driver and opened the door before we’d come to a stop.
If she didn’t answer the buzzer, I was going to have to break down the front door. I didn’t have the fob with me.
As luck would have it, someone was just exiting the main doors dressed in running gear as I sprinted up the path to meet him.
I caught the door just before it shut, thankful and furious at the same time that he hadn’t waited until the door closed. People just weren’t focused on security.
I didn’t bother with the lifts, opting instead to take the stairs two at a time to the third floor. I pounded on Parker’s front door. There were no signs of a break-in. That was something at least. “Parker, it’s Tristan. Let me in.”
Just as I was about to shout again, I heard the turn of locks and the door opened. A red-eyed, pajama-clad Parker saw me and promptly collapsed.
Shit.
I barged through the door and crouched down beside her, feeling for her pulse. Her heartbeat was strong, and as I glanced up and down her body, wondering what to do next, her eyelids fluttered open.
“Parker,” I said. She gave me a weak smile.
“I think I’m sick.”
I scooped her up off the floor and headed to her bedroom. “What kind of sick?” I asked. Was it serious? Why hadn’t she said anything? We’d texted every day that I’d been in New York.
“I’m so cold. Can you put the heating on?”
She was in the middle of some kind of delusion or something. The place was stifling. “Parker, it feels like the fucking Sahara in here.” I set her on the bed and placed my hand on her forehead. It was like touching a pan that had just come out of the oven.
“You have a temperature.”
“I just need another blanket,” she said.
I pulled off my coat and went to get her a glass of water.
When I came back, her eyes were closed. Her shiny black hair was splayed across the pillow, and despite having just collapsed and having the temperature to end all temperatures, she still managed to look beautiful? “Do you have a thermometer?”
“Lips,” she said, her eyes still closed. “I have lips.”
She certainly did have lips. She might be gaga, but she was also adorable.
I took a seat next to her bed and felt her forehead again. She was still scorching hot.
“And so do you. Such great lips.” She made an mmm sound, the sort I’d make after a spoonful of crème brulee.
I chuckled to myself. Was she dreaming? She’d been awake thirty seconds ago.
“I need you to have a drink. Can you sit up a little?”
“What are you doing here? You’re in America. Is this a dream? Am I dreaming? If I’m dreaming, can you kiss me again?”
“I’m back from New York,” I said.
She pushed herself up from the mattress so she was sitting, opened one eye and then fell back to the mattress. “It’s so hot. Can you open a window? It’s so hot.” She moved to strip off her cow-print pajama top, but I pulled it back down.
“Wait. Let me get some fresh air in here and then we need to get some fluids into you.”
“No,” she yelped. “I’ll vomit.”
I stood and opened her window a little, just to let a little fresh air in, then reached around her and pulled her to a sitting position.
“You smell so, so, so good. Not me. I smell of vomit. You. Do. Not.”
One-handed, I grabbed pillows from where they were scattered across her bed and propped her up.
I sat opposite her and leaned forward. “Parker, I’m serious, I need you to take a small sip of water. Do you understand me?”
Both eyes open, she nodded. “As long as you understand I will vomit.”
I wasn’t sure if she was serious or whether she’d lost all mental capacity. Either way, I had to try to get some fluids into her.
I helped put a glass to her lips and she took two sips before I put the glass down. “Tastes so good.” She lay her head back on the pillow and then began to clutch at her stomach. “I’m—”
She sprinted out of the bed like she’d been set on fire and skidded into the bathroom. The clunk of the toilet seat was followed by the sound of Parker fulfilling her promise, retching the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl.
Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her to drink. But she needed hydrating. I texted Gabriel. He’d know the number of a doctor who would make house calls. Maybe she needed an IV.
I hovered outside the bathroom door while I called the doctor Gabriel recommended.
“Parker, I’m coming in,” I said as I opened the bathroom door.
She moaned an incomprehensible response from where she was on all fours on the bathroom floor. I scooped her up and took her back to bed, then returned to the bathroom for a couple of face cloths, which I wet with cool water.
“Tristan,” Parker moaned when I approached her bedside. “You need to get out of here.”
I chuckled. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m probably contagious,” she said as I began to wipe her face with one cloth and then the next.
“Well, unless it’s Ebola, you can return the favor when I’m rolling on the floor, covered in vomit.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I should feel humiliated, but I’m too exhausted to care. I’m glad you’re here.”
She had no reason to feel humiliated. She was ill. It happened to all of us. And she was still cute—with or without the vomit.
“I’ve called the doctor. He should be here soon. Just rest.” I stroked her forehead and she closed her eyes in a lazy blink.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked.
“Is a new body on offer?”
“You don’t need a new body. We’ll get this one fixed up and it will be as good as new.”
She offered me a small smile before she started to shake and turned translucent white. Christ on a bike, I hoped the doctor got here soon.
“Let me get the window.” I shut the window in her bedroom, turned the heating thermostat down in her hallway, and then opened a couple of other windows in the flat to get some air circulating. How long had she been like this?
“Have you had some paracetamol?” I asked.
“Can’t keep anything down.”
I took her hand between mine as she lay against the pillows. “Sushi,” she said.
I was pretty sure a snack of raw fish was the last thing she needed. “Maybe later.”
“No.” She moaned and hitched up her legs, like I was a bucket of slime she was trying to avoid.
“Let’s wait and see if the doctor thinks sushi is a good idea.”
Before she could make any more sushi demands, the buzzer went. I let the doctor up.
“She’s in here,” I said, and led him into the bedroom. “I got here an hour or so ago and she fainted. I got her to sip some water but she threw it up.”
“You’re her boyfriend?” he asked.
“Fiancé,” I replied without thinking.
He set about taking her temperature, pulse, and blood pressure. “How long have you been feeling like this?” he asked.
“Hours,” she replied. “After the sushi.”
“You ate sushi?” he asked and she nodded. “Last night?”
Ohh, she’d been trying to tell me it was food poisoning.
“Late. Delivered about eleven.”
“Bad sushi is more common that you think,” the doctor said.
“If it were up to me, no one should be allowed to serve takeaway raw fish. It’s too easy for it to go wrong.
” He pulled out a telescopic drip stand from his bag and set up an IV.
“You’re dehydrated. I’m going to give you some antibiotics as well.
If you’re still vomiting in twelve hours, or you see blood in your stools, you’re going to need to go to hospital.
” The doctor glanced at me and I nodded.