“I’m not even hungry.”
On cue, my stomach lets out a treacherous, audible growl.
“What the fuck,” I mutter.
He’s already heading back to the kitchen.
“Beckett! What are you doing?”
“Cooking,” he calls over his shoulder. “Relax.”
“That feels like a threat.”
I hear him raiding my fridge, muttering to himself.
I drop my head back against the cushion. “This is deeply inappropriate,” I yell.
“You’re injured. It’s dinner. Let it go.”
“I hope you’re not expecting sex after this.”
There’s a pause, followed by a dark chuckle. “Madison, you can barely sit upright.”
“You must be very adventurous if your sex involves being upright, Doc.”
Silence follows, and then the sound of a pan hitting the stove.
I am never taking the elevator again. And I am absolutely going to kill my neighbor.
Eventually.
Right after I finish whatever he’s making for dinner.
Twenty-Four
Beckett
“Sit up a bit,” I say, the weight of the pasta bowl in my hand feeling like an olive branch.
Madison rolls her eyes, but she shifts. No biting commentary, no sharp-edged sarcasm about my bedside manner. It’s a first.
Once she’s propped up against the cushions, she takes a mouthful. A beat of silence passes. “This is so good.”
“Your standards are low,” I counter.
She snorts, her focus returning to the bowl. I retreat to the kitchen counter, leaning back with my arms crossed. I keep one eye on her, monitoring for anysudden winces, and the other on the TV she’d flicked on for background noise.
The screen is currently dominated by a breaking news banner. The senator is issuing a public apology. The usual “I’ve failed my family” script. His wife stands beside him, her expression a masterclass in frozen dignity, eyes fixed on a point beyond the camera.
I nod toward the screen. “Are you responsible for that?”
She pauses mid-bite, her gaze drifting to the TV. “Yes. It’ll be the last thing I do for him. I don’t work with cheats.”
I study the sharp line of her profile instead of the politician. “That must limit your client list in this city.”
“It does,” she agrees. “But I sleep better, or I used to, before a particularly loud upstairs neighbor moved in and started treating his floor like a track meet.”
From here, I can see the slightest, treacherous curve of her lips.
