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Grace blinked at him and sniffled. “I’m just, you know…around.” She shifted to the side, the crinkling emergency blanket fluttering around her.
“Around?” Anton shook his head, eyes tracking the silver blanket’s movements. “I think you mean sick.”
Her brown eyes widened. “No. I’m not sick. That’s crazy. I have way too much work to be sick.” She scrambled around, fingers reaching for papers she then thrust at Anton. He bit back a sigh when he saw they were nothing more than a few half hearted equations scribbled across manila folders. A tissue hung from one of them.
Anton sighed. “You’re sick.”
“That’s propaganda.”
“You’re wearing an emergency blanket like a cape.”
“Kiss me, hot stuff.” She puckered her lips at him, to which Anton jerked back and made a cross symbol at her.
“Get your germs out of here,” he ordered with a stern look.
Giving up her femme fatale angle, Grace sighed. “How’d you find me anyway?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m not sick. Who put you up to this? Elisha?”
“Last I saw of her, she was running for the veritable hills.”
Grace took a deep inhale of steam from her soup. “The hills? Good riddance, I say. That traitor.”
“Come out from under there, Grace. We need to get you home.”
Grace shied away from him with a frown. “This is my home. Everyone knows that.”
“When was the last time you slept?”
“Sleep is for the weak of will.”
Anton scrubbed a hand over his face and made a grab for her, but Grace only scuttled further away from him until her back hit the rear of her desk.
“Hands off, pretty boy,” she said, shoving her pink hair out of her face with a frown.
“That’s it.” Anton reached out a hand and caught Grace around the ankle. “You’re coming out of there one way...” He tugged and Grace yelped when she slid forward. “Or another.”
“Unhand me, you cad,” Grace yelled, throwing a handful of sharpies his way. “You absolute beast.”
“Yeah, uh huh, heard it all before,” Anton grunted, dodging a manila folder as he hooked his other hand around Grace’s thighs and yanked her toward him. In Anton’s opinion, women were unruly as a whole, and he had no idea how to handle them when they were healthy, much less when they were sick. Grace, fighting to stay under her desk when all he wanted to do was get her home and to a doctor, was a prime piece of evidence that the fairer sex could be, at times, completely unreasonable.
That didn’t stop him from wanting to take care of the pink-haired woman, no matter how many sharpies she hurled at him. He had it bad. Shaking his head at himself, Anton hauled Grace out from under the desk. Only when he stood, arms holding Grace against him, did she go dramatically limp in his hold.
“You’re like Rhett Butler,” she murmured, head lolling against his shoulder. Her glazed eyes fixed on his face, and she gave him a dreamy smile.
“Are you swooning?” Anton shifted her to the desk in front of them and held a hand against her forehead. Her skin was hot to the touch, and he shook his head. “You’ve definitely got a fever, so it’s either you’re swooning or you’re delirious and in danger of fainting.”
“Aren’t they both kind of the same?” she asked, still cradling her soup mug against her chest.
Anton pursed his lips. “You know what? They are. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re sick.” He scooped her back up into his arms and tried to ignore the happy little sigh that escaped Grace’s lips as he carried her through the labs.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a medical office here. I’m getting you meds and then taking you home and putting you to bed.”
“How scandalous.” Grace waved her soup mug. “I approve.”
“Not that kind of bed, you little monster.”
“Me? I’m an angel-an angel that isn’t sick!” She kicked her feet and glared at him. “I have a lab to manage. Not one, but two teams, to keep an eye on. You can’t just take me from my work, okay?”
