Sultry in Stilettos (19 page)

Her boss examined her. "Are you
feeling okay?"

"Yeah, just a little tired. And
thirsty, the dry air is messing with me, I guess."

Serena was shifting her
weight again.
What the hell is up with her
today?
Maybe she was nervous about the
fantasy. Things had gone so wrong on the first one. It was
understandable that Serena would be nervous. Hell, Ricca was
nervous. But today was going to go off without a hitch. Ricca
scratched her hair and took another drink.

"Hey, Serena, can you hand me one of
those water bottles over there? This juice isn't hitting the
spot.”

Serena eyed her. "Mmm, okay," she said
as she handed Ricca a bottle of water. "I'm going to send Beckett
in to observe with you, and I’ll watch from the
trailers."

Ricca was preoccupied watching the
monitors. She wanted to make sure that Lila got her juice and had
her blood tested. When that went fine, she watched as the dates
were passed around and started to breathe a sigh of
relief.

"What’s up? Serena said you needed me
in here?"

Beckett's voice startled Ricca, and
she whirled around. "Oh, um, not really. She just said she wanted
to watch from the trailer. I’d rather she not be looking over my
shoulder."

"I feel you."

Ricca scratched her arm again before
wiping the sweat off her brow with the back of her hand. It was
like someone had turned the heat on or something. "Shit, when did
it get so hot? We've got the standing A/C units on, but I’m
suffering in here."

Beckett frowned at her. "It’s barely
seventy in here. You okay?"

"Yeah. Why is everyone asking me
that?"

She scratched again
absently, before taking a good look at her arm. Under her brown
skin, she noticed the angry red welts. Her throat tingled, and she
coughed.
Oh shit
.

"Ricca, you don't look so good. You’re
turning red. What’s going on?"

Anxiously, Ricca looked around,
desperately looking for her purse. Fuck, she'd left it in the
trailer. "Beck—" She tried to speak, but her throat wouldn't
cooperate. She tried to suck in a breath, but the air wouldn't
come.

Beckett's eyes, wide and frantically
searching her gaze, settled on her lips. "Ricca, your lips, they're
swollen. I love the full lip look honey, but why do you look like
you injected a round of collagen?"

Fear coursing through her veins, she
eyed the glass of juice. Shit. Had there been strawberries in that?
With the only gasp of air she could muster, she grabbed Beckett’s
arm. "Epi Pen. T-t-trailer." It was the only thought she had,
before darkness edged her vision, and she collapsed.

****

Beckett had never run so fast in his
entire life. After checking Ricca’s breathing and pulse, he
immediately left her where she was and sprinted to the trailer. He
shouted directions as he went for someone to call an
ambulance.

To one of the veterinarians, he
shouted, “Allergy, anaphylaxis, secondary tent.”

The guy was a vet, but maybe he knew
something that would make Ricca feel better while they waited for
the ambulance. Beckett’s legs pumped, and his heart thudded, nearly
exploding behind his ribs. He'd never been out for track and field
in high school or college. Swimming had always been his thing, but
man did he fly.

As soon as he reached the trailer,
Serena tossed Ricca's purse at him, looking distraught. "One of the
interns called me. Beckett, hurry." He snapped up the purse, turned
on a dime, then sprinted back to Ricca. From the corner of his eye,
he got a glance at the fantasy tent. Despite all the commotion,
Lila and Roberto could still continue their fantasy. His job
depended on this one fantasy going right. First he’d make sure
Ricca was okay, then he’d run the rest of this thing and leave the
client none the wiser.

When he reached the secondary tent, he
pushed the vet aside. He dumped the contents of her purse and
snatched up her EPI Pen. Not even thinking twice, he rolled her on
her side and yanked her linen pants down from her hip, exposing
bare cinnamon colored skin. He then yanked the cap off the EPI Pen,
grabbed the alcohol swab the vet handed him, and drove the pen
home, pushing the meds into Ricca's system.

In front of his eyes, he watched as
almost immediately, the quality of her skin changed. The angry red
stains were soon vanishing. The swelling of her lips reduced from
pillowy and resembling a busted lip, to looking like she'd been
thoroughly kissed.

Her eyes fluttered, and he lowered his
head to hers. “C’mon, please be okay. Please be okay. I need you to
be okay.” He said silent prayers, but no one answered.

When he didn’t immediately feel her
breath, he rolled her back on her back, tilted her head back, and
prepared to begin CPR. It was when he lowered his lips to hers that
he felt her warm breath come out in a whoosh.

He was so relieved he
didn't even care that his eyes stung with impeding tears. Holy
shit. He’d almost lost her.
Shit
. What would have happened if he
hadn’t been here to witness the allergy attack? What would have
happened if he hadn’t found her medication?

Icicles formed in his belly. His
stomach muscles convulsed as he tried to avoid vomiting.

The EMTs they had on standby came over
and checked her out, commending him on his quick
thinking.

He watched them work as they checked
her vitals.

It wasn't until several hours later
that Beckett finally breathed a sigh of relief. The med team had
looked Ricca over and said she was okay to head home. Most of the
fantasy was over, and he'd left Carter and Emily in charge of
getting the happy couple back on the camels and into
civilization.

After they returned to San Diego,
Beckett watched Ricca as she slept. She'd been in and out for
several hours, and he didn't trust the EMTs when they said she
didn't need to go to the hospital. Her breathing was fine, the ugly
red patches of skin were gone, and her lips had returned to normal.
But he refused to leave.

How the hell had this happened? The
EMT had said she had a nasty allergic reaction but it could have
been worse. How the hell could that have been worse? Ricca was so
anal about ingesting anything with strawberries in it. Even when
she made someone a strawberry shortcake cake for their birthday,
she wore gloves. Her fingers would swell up if she didn't. She
wouldn't take that kind of risk by eating one.

He'd also checked with the planning
team. No matter how romantic it would be to have them, there were
no strawberries, chocolate-covered or otherwise, anywhere on
location. Mainly to protect Lila. But this never should have
happened.

Emily had said the only thing Ricca
had to eat or drink was the juice previously meant for Lila and
some water. Had their vendor they used for all the food screwed up?
If so, that was a pretty big fuck up.

He scrubbed his face as he watched
Ricca from the chair in her bedroom. He’d deal with the vendor
later. The first incident had been an accident. This was a
coincidence...maybe. He’d do a full debrief with the team in the
morning. If Lila had ingested this, not only would they fail on a
mission of this magnitude, but sure as hell they’d be sued. He and
Rica fired for sure.

An errant thought planted
in his brain and took hold. Who would stand to gain from him and
Ricca getting fired?
Angel
. He didn't have any proof, but
he sure as hell was going to put Caleb on the case. If these
weren’t just accidents, they had to know. And if Angel was behind
them, then she needed to picture herself in prison
orange.

Ricca stirred on the bed, and Beckett
moved in to kneel beside her. When her wide brown eyes blinked at
him, he smiled. "Hey, beautiful. Nice to see those eyes again. Have
to tell you the swollen look is not a good look for you. Good
thing, I love you just as you are." His brain stuttered. Fuck, had
he just used the L-word? Damn it. No, this was Ricca, she would
know what he meant.

Ricca blinked again, then muttered
something that sounded an awful lot like jackass. He grinned. She
was going to be fine.

When she tried to push herself up into
a sitting position, he immediately rose to his feet and helped her
upright. "Whoa, maybe you should lie down. You had a rough
day."

"Beckett, I'm fine. Just a little
thirsty. "

“Do me a favor and just lie back down,
would you?"

"You know, you don’t have to
hover."

"Well, I was worried about you. So
yes, I do have to hover." She looked fine, but he couldn’t be sure.
Seeing her collapse like that—his heart would probably never
recover. "You have to promise not to pull some shit like that ever
again. Unless, of course, I concede that neither LeBron nor Kobe
can ever match Jordan’s success."

She scoffed. "As if you would ever say
that. You’re stubborn, even when you’re wrong. Not a good trait to
have." She swiped her hair out of her eyes. Looking down at her
tank top and pajama bottoms, she frowned. "I'm famished. Can you
help me out of bed? I've got some stuff in the fridge. Are you
hungry, I could make you—"

“No. Stay there. The doctor said you
needed to take it easy. I'll get you what you need."

"I'm pretty sure the doctor also
intended for me to eat actual food, not the cardboard you normally
whip up."

"Frankly, Ricca, I’m concerned that
you think I would even go near your carefully organized kitchen. I
already called for takeout from that Pho place on fifth. It'll be
here soon."

Her face lit up, “Oh, did you get the
one with—"

“Pork and spring rolls? Yes. You think
I don’t know your order by now? It's only been how many
years?"

She nodded but stayed silent. Here it
was. Apology time, and he had no grand gesture or anything under
his belt to offer. "Ricca, look. I'm really sorry about the other
day with Braedon. The whole thing actually. I should have told you
about the women. I honestly didn’t see the purpose in hurting you
anymore. If I’d even thought you were considering going back to
him, I would have told you."

She shook her head. "I’m sorry too. I
guess I overreacted. Braedon is firmly in my past, and I won’t go
there again. I shouldn’t have been so angry. But just the idea that
you knew and didn’t tell me…that this was some secret you were
keeping for him. It didn’t feel so hot."

“I swear, if I’d known when the two of
you were together, I would have made him tell you.”

“Have you talked to him since the
rumble?”

“No.” He shook his head.
“I’m
persona non grata
right now. He hasn’t even shown up to do any work on the gym.
He’s pretty pissed about the two of us.”

She chewed her bottom lip for a
moment. A move that made him want to take over the task for her.
Then finally, she shrugged. “I could give a good goddamn about how
he feels about us sleeping together. It falls into the realm of
none of his business. Though, I’m sorry that you guys aren’t
talking right now.”

“He’ll come around.”

She peered at him. “So, I was
thinking, maybe you and I could go on a date.”

His eyebrows shot up. “A
date?”

“Yeah. You and I have sort of jumped
into this thing without actually doing the get–to-know-you phase. I
don’t know what we’re doing, but maybe we can fill in some of the
missed steps.”

He smiled. “I think that’s a good
idea. We can maybe start to figure out what we’re doing
here.”

She nodded and tugged on the hem of
her tank top. “I was thinking that maybe we take this a little more
casually. The most important thing to me is our friendship, and
clearly we have a problem keeping our hands off each other. So what
if we did more of a friends with benefits thing?”

A stab of pain wormed through his
body. “Friends with benefits?”

“Yeah, that way we can have the fun
without any of the complicated stuff.”

In a million years, he’d never thought
Ricca would go for something like this. It should make him happy.
Yet somehow it took the wind out of his sails. But he’d take her
any way he could get her right now. Maybe they’d figure it all out.
“We can try. We’ll see what happens.”

As if sensing his hesitation, she
changed the topic. “Well, think about it. How’s the
eye?”

“It’s fine. A little tender, but okay.
Braedon hits like a drunken sorority girl.” He cleared his throat.
"So we’re okay?" A small part of his subconscious wondered how this
thing that was supposed to be light and carefree felt an awful lot
like a relationship.

"We’re good. So maybe now I can eat
something?"

"Is your stomach all you ever think
about?"

"No, but I'm starving. I didn't eat
all day, then me and the strawberries did the tango, and I'm
starving now."

"Well, food will be here soon. But I
wanted to ask you something first. You think it was your strawberry
allergy?"