Yours Truly (Billionaires and Brides #2) (12 page)

“Of course, sir,” Kat replied. He tried not to smile at what her calling him “sir” did to him. “Do you have any other questions? I’m happy to wait for you to finish signing those if you do.”

“I do have more questions,” AJ said, smiling. He’d sign those documents and the two of them could get back to having Kat on the desk. He’d be sure to lock the door this time.

“I’m afraid your three o’clock appointment is already here, sir,” Karen informed him.

“Can we shift it to later?” AJ asked. It was a risky question, but AJ wanted this.

“No,” Karen replied, shaking her head. “This is the meeting with the senator. ”

AJ’s stomach fell. “I thought that wasn’t until later.”

“The senator requested an early time and you said to do anything he needed.” Karen frowned at AJ. “It was in your email this morning.”

“Of course.” AJ decided he was changing his mind about voting for the man. He wanted Kat, not a stuffy meeting.

“A senator?” Kat repeated. She glanced over at AJ and then back to Karen. “I should let you take that meeting. I’m sure my explanations can wait.”

AJ tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. “Of course.”

Kat smiled at Karen and gave her a friendly nod before heading to the door. “If you have any more questions, Mr. Jacobson, you know where to find me.”

Then Kat left, closing the door behind her. AJ sat across from Karen in his usual chair and signed the documents she put in front of him, but he wasn’t paying attention to any of them. All he could think about was Kat and how badly he wanted to finish what they had started. He couldn’t wait to get her alone again.

He signed another document, his hands thinking of how soft Kat’s hair had felt rather than how to sign his name. Her ass had been right where this document was. He greatly preferred her ass to the paper. He would have given his left arm to skip the meeting with the senator so he could be with Kat.

But he also couldn’t believe that the secretary had almost caught them. He shuddered to think of the fallout that would have caused. If he thought the business was in trouble now, he could only imagine the press’s response to the “good” CEO caught sleeping with an employee. They’d have to make sure they were more careful next time…

K
at

M
onday morning was destroying Kat
. She felt like she’d had a bottle of tequila chased by a bottle of whiskey, even though all she’d had was a cup of mint tea after a quiet weekend alone. She was exhausted and queasy beyond belief. She had tried a cup of coffee before leaving the house, but the first sip had her running for the toilet. Currently, she was sitting at her desk devoting all of her energy to not puking up the tea and saltines she’d forced down.

“You doing okay?” Renee asked, putting her hand on Kat’s shoulder. Kat hadn’t even heard her come up.

“What?” Kat asked, startling out of her daze. She realized that she was still on the same screen she had been on thirty minutes ago.

“Are you okay?” Renee repeated. “You look pretty awful.”

“Gee, thanks,” Kat replied, putting her hand to her head to find it was the normal temperature, but the small movement made her stomach churn. “I don’t feel so good, though.”

It was then that the contents of Kat’s stomach decided to stage a revolt. There wasn’t much in there, but the tea and crackers were not going to stay down. The last thirty minutes focusing on keeping everything down were in vain.

“That’s disgusting,” Renee commented as Kat hugged her waste basket a little bit closer.

Kat had no comment, but she definitely agreed.

“You need to go home,” Renee said after a moment. “I think you caught the flu or something. There’s one going around the office.”

“I can work,” Kat protested weakly, setting down the trashcan. Her stomach was still unhappy, but she was sure it would settle now that it was empty. “We have so much to do. I can’t go home.”

Renee shifted back on one foot and raised her eyebrows. “No. I don’t want what you have. Blech.”

“But...”

“Don’t make me call Cass on you,” Renee threatened. “If she finds out you stayed at work sick, she’ll kick your butt.”

Kat thought for a moment. There was so much work to be done to get the project started. The board had given preliminary approval and things were just starting to gain momentum.

A new wave of nausea washed over Kat. She closed her eyes, telling her stomach that there wasn’t anything left in there to come up. With her eyes closed, she realized just how tired she was. Bone tired. She hadn’t felt this tired in her entire life. It had to be the flu.

“Okay,” Kat agreed. “I’ll go home and work from there.”

“Good,” Renee said. She covered her mouth with her hand and took a step back. “Take your trash with you. It’s gross.”

Kat opened her eyes and stared at the trash can. She knew she should do something about it, but the little energy she had was quickly disappearing. It was as if someone were siphoning it all off.

“Seriously?” Renee scoffed as Kat just stared at the trash. “It’s a good thing that I’m such a good friend.”

She picked up the edges of the bag, keeping her face turned as far away as possible and tied the small plastic bag up. With a disgusted look, Renee handed the bag to Kat.

“Thanks,” Kat responded automatically. She swallowed hard to keep what was left of her stomach down where it belonged. She’d toss the bag out on her way out.

Moving slowly to avoid jarring her delicate stomach, Kat gathered her things while Renee watched.

“Be sure to put that in the big dumpster, and not the one just by the elevator,” Renee told her as Kat shouldered her computer bag to leave. “I don’t want to get sick.”

“Sure, Renee.” Kat didn’t even bother to moderate her tone. She didn’t feel good and walking wasn’t making it any better.

“You don’t have to be snippy,” Renee complained. “And send me those reports when you’re done. Just because you’re going home doesn’t mean I should be late with my stuff.”

Kat didn’t even bother answering. She was too busy focusing on getting her exhausted feet to the car.

K
at

K
at’s stomach
turned as she kicked her feet up onto the couch and laid her head back. Her hands were clammy as she opened her laptop to once again view the project that she was
supposed
to be working on.

She wanted to work on it. She was so proud that the board was even looking at her Shoesy Rentables idea that it was the only thing, other than AJ, that she wanted to do.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to work on it at all, and it didn’t seem like that was going to change any time soon. Every time she tried to focus, the nausea would come back and she couldn’t seem to string two coherent thoughts together. Whatever kind of flu she had only allowed her to concentrate on one thing: keeping breakfast down.

The TV was on at a low volume. She had started a show in an attempt to distract her from how awful she felt, but it wasn’t doing her any good. She could hardly pay attention to it. She felt like death warmed over, and beyond the nausea, she was so physically exhausted that it was difficult to keep her eyes open.

There is no possible way that I’m going to get any work done today,
Kat thought.
Tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow.

A knocking on her front door alerted her senses, but only slightly.

Who could that be?
She wondered.

The last thing in the world she wanted right then was to have to interact with someone. She closed her eyes, hoping that whoever it was would just go away. But the knocking came again, this time a little louder.

“Just come in,” she called out, though her voice was weak and raspy.

Whoever was outside didn’t hear her, because a second later they knocked again. Kat took a deep breath and slowly began to sit up, when she heard her front door open.

Normally the sound of an unknown person opening her door would have concerned her. But she didn’t even care. She was just utterly grateful that she could stay on the couch and not have to force herself to get up and answer it.

If it’s a robber, he can just take everything I own. As long as he doesn’t make me get off the couch. I think that’s a fair deal,
she thought.

“Kat, are you home?” a familiar voice called out.

Kat managed a smile for the first time that morning. It was AJ.
So much better than a robber,
Kat thought to herself.

“I’m in the living room,” she attempted to shout back. It came out as more of a loud whisper.

AJ popped around the corner. He was wearing his black business suit with his red tie. There was worry in his eyes as he walked toward Kat, juggling a 6-pack of Gatorade, a container of soup and a beautiful bouquet of red, pink and orange flowers.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to sit up and then changing her mind. Laying down was a much better idea.

“I heard you were sick, so I wanted to come and check on you,” he explained.

Kat grinned, wishing she could get up and throw her arms around him for a hug. She was positive that no man had ever done something so sweet for her before.

“Thank you, AJ,” she said. “But you didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes I did,” he said, affirmatively. “Nobody likes to be alone when they’re sick.”

AJ set everything onto the coffee table in front of Kat.

“Do you have a vase? I’ll put these in water,” he said, motioning to the flowers.

“Under the sink,” she told him.

He went to the kitchen and promptly came back with the vase full of water.

“I got you flowers that are already dead,” he told her, putting the colorful stems into the vase. “You can’t kill these ones.”

She smiled weakly. She couldn’t believe that he had remembered their conversation in the limo about her killing houseplants.

“Now to get you feeling better,” he said, cracking open one of the Gatorades. He handed it to Kat and she immediately took a swig. She hadn’t had anything to drink since the night before and needed this cottonmouth cure immediately.

After she took a big sip, she looked over to AJ. “You shouldn’t be here. What if I get you sick?”

AJ simply shrugged as he took a seat next to her on the couch. Then he leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. “Then I get sick. So what?”

“But what if someone puts two and two together, AJ? Your employee gets sick and then a day later, you get sick? Most of the people who work at the company are very intelligent and I don’t think it will be that tough for them to figure out that we’ve been spending time together outside of the office.”

AJ tucked Kat’s blanket underneath her legs. Then he placed a hand over her knee, leaning his body against hers. His touch made Kat feel a little better.

“Well, you’re not exactly Patient Zero here. If the other employees suspect that the only reason I got sick is because I’m sleeping with the sick, then they’d also end up coming to the conclusion that I’m sleeping with Carl the janitor, Mildred the account secretary, Joanne in administration, four members of the marketing team, the new kid in the mail-room…”

Kat cut him short. “Okay, I get it. There’s something going around.”

“Yes, exactly,” AJ said. “The only thing that you need to be worrying about is getting better. Nobody at the office is going to attempt to track the spread of this illness. No one will be able to figure out who got me sick.”

Kat playfully slapped him on the shoulder. “Fine. I just hope you didn’t bring them Gatorade and soup, too.”

“Actually, I have to admit that Joanne in admin really appreciated the soup and flowers I brought her. She said it made her feel a million times better.” AJ smiled and shamefully shook his head. “Her husband, though, now
that
was a different story. Somehow he wasn’t quite as appreciative as she was.”

He flashed a wink at Kat and she managed to giggle at his attempt at humor. She found herself feeling better just having AJ there with her. Nothing changed in her actual physical discomfort, but his presence allowed her to relax, if only a little bit.

The sip of Gatorade that she had enjoyed just moments before began to make its rebellion against her. Her stomach turned. She feared that the grape-flavored concoction that had tasted so good going down would
not
taste as great coming up. So she closed her eyes and breathed slowly, focusing on keeping it in.

Smaller sips next time,
she thought.

With her eyes still closed, she leaned over and brought her head to AJ’s lap, curling her legs back up onto the couch. He caressed her hair, gently pulling his fingers through it. The tension in her shoulders began to melt and it wasn’t more than a minute or so before her stomach finally settled back down. She couldn’t believe how much nicer it was having someone there to take care of her. It was making all the difference.

She relaxed into that position, letting AJ stroke her hair. Every once in a while, he would bring his fingers to her shoulders to caress her skin. She felt her eyelids getting a little heavy, but did her best to stay awake.

“So, what are we watching?” AJ asked as a bloodcurdling scream came from the television as a splatter of blood covered the screen. “It looks very soothing.”

Kat brought her attention to the TV and laughed. “It’s one of my favorite shows. It’s about these two crazy hillbilly brothers who hunt supernatural monsters. It’s better than you’d think. I’m kind of addicted to it.”

“I don’t usually watch stuff like this, but it actually sounds kind of interesting,” he responded. More blood splashed onto the scene as some sort of monster ate an innocent victim.

“We don’t have to watch it, AJ,” Kat said. “As long as you don’t stop petting my head, you can watch whatever channel you want.”

AJ smiled as he looked down at her. “You’re the sick one, Kat. We can watch whatever you want. Besides, I wasn’t joking. It really
does
look interesting.”

“You sure?” she asked. The last thing she wanted was for him to leave because he didn’t like the show she was watching. To keep him here, she was willing to watch anything.

AJ just nodded in response. A moment passed, then he spoke up again. “You must not feel well, Kat.”

“Why do you say that?” Kat asked.

“You are being
way
too nice to me,” he responded. “You haven’t teased me about my tie or anything. And you’re letting me pick the TV show.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so miserable in my life.” Kat snuggled further into his lap. “But having you here is helping. A lot. Thank you.”

“You deserve it,” he told her.

She didn’t necessarily agree, but she didn’t say anything. He just continued rubbing her head, gently and smoothly stroking her hair and forehead. It was such a simple act, but the effect it was having on Kat was tremendous. His touch was so loving and comforting. There was absolutely nothing sexual about it. It was just sweet. It was exactly what she needed. Her eyes finally closed and before she knew it, she had drifted off to sleep. Knowing that she was safe and taken care of, she could finally fully relax.