Star-Crossed Letters (Falling for Famous #1)(37)

So I get busy—clearing the dirty dishes, straightening books and magazines. It surprises me how many books he has in the hotel room for this short trip. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he loved reading. Why that makes me happy, I’m not going to analyze.

His hotel room, the penthouse suite, is unlike any I’ve ever been in. It’s luxurious, spacious, and equipped with a stocked gourmet kitchen.

First things first. I need to get him some ginger ale and other foods he might be able to keep down. There’s a small market half a block away. I look around and find a key card in a sleeve on the counter. I feel guilty taking it but justify that it’s for his own good. Thirty minutes later, I’m back with a bag of provisions.

Chase is still sleeping deeply when I return. I put a ginger ale by his side, debating whether I should wake him to drink some, but he looks so peaceful, I decide against it. I get to work making chicken soup, Nanna’s cure-all for whatever ails.

When the soup is simmering on low and the kitchen cleaned, I check on him again. His sleep is more restless now, and his skin is heated, so I take his temperature with the forehead thermometer I bought. It’s high, but not alarmingly so, and I don’t want to risk medicine upsetting his stomach. I wake him up long enough to get him to take more sips of ginger ale.

He falls back asleep immediately.

I kneel next to him and can’t help watching as he sleeps. Shirtless, he’s a revelation. All those bronzed muscles. His stubble softens his face, making him more approachable.

I sigh and lay a cool cloth on his forehead, my fingers running through his hair in a rhythmic, hopefully soothing, gesture. I’m not sure how long I stay like that with the cool cloth, my fingers stroking across his hair and face, but it’s long enough for the light and shadows to shift across the slowly darkening suite.

Chase makes a soft sound, and I pull back my hand, afraid of being caught like a thief, stealing things that aren’t mine to take.

I go back to the kitchen, looking for something else to do. Keeping my hands occupied will help me keep them off the sick man on the couch.





CHAPTER 14





Chase



I wake to a burning throat, a pounding headache, and an incredible smell wafting through the hotel suite. My eyes feel too heavy to open just yet. Do I smell…chicken soup? I open one eye, noting the twilight city skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Why am I asleep on the couch, and how long have I been out? Foggy memories come slowly into focus. Olivia. I answered the door, and she was here. With cookies. She looked worried and told me to rest. I try to hold on to the feeling that comes over me, something warm and hazy, but it’s just beyond my grasp.

I tilt my head enough to see that Olivia’s still here, curled up in a chair next to the couch, a throw blanket over her, reading one of my books. With her hair up in a haphazard bun and wearing her glasses, she looks beautiful in a natural, girl-next-door way.

I clear my throat, wincing at how raw it feels. She looks up.

“Oh! You’re awake.”

“You’re still here,” I croak out, ferociously thirsty all of a sudden. I sit up slowly, careful of the dizziness that slams into me and then recedes. I reach for the glass on the coffee table and take a cautious sip, remembering how just last night, a sip would start painful cramping and nausea. But my stomach thankfully accepts the cool liquid without protest. I try my voice again. “What time is it?”

She brushes her bangs out of her eyes, a gesture I’m coming to recognize as something she does when she feels nervous. “It’s about midnight. You’ve been asleep all day. I hope you don’t mind that I stayed. You were so sick. I didn’t think it was right to leave you alone.”

She unfolds herself from the chair. “Are you hungry?” she asks as she walks to the open-plan kitchen. “Do you think you can try eating? I made you chicken soup.”

After a few minutes, she returns with a tray and bowl and sets them on the coffee table.

“You made me soup?” I ask, a lump forming, which I swallow away. It’s being sick; that’s what this feeling is from.

But I know the melting weakness is beyond fever and body aches. It has to do with this lovely girl who cared enough to spend the afternoon cooking for me. She took the time to make me a tray with soup, crackers, and a small bud vase with yellow daisies. Where had she gotten the flowers? Hell, where had she gotten the ingredients to make soup? She said she made it, not ordered it.

She shrugs and smiles shyly. “It’s no big deal.”

Has anyone ever made me homemade soup? I think my mother might have, before she died, but my memories of her are hazy. She was a single mom who worked every minute she could to help us survive. She probably didn’t have much time for cooking.

So many people in my life take care of me—managers, assistants, drivers, bodyguards. But I pay them. Olivia did this because she wanted to, not because it’s in her job description. And somehow, that makes all the difference to me.

“You didn’t need to do that,” I grind out, not knowing what to do with this tightness in my chest. I hate being dependent on others. I learned long ago that it’s dangerous to be vulnerable. Dangerous to need.

Olivia’s face falls. “I overstepped, didn’t I? If you’re not hungry or it doesn’t sound good, you don’t have to eat it. I won’t be offended.”