Page 116 of Ghost Ribbon

He picked up the papers from the bed again and held them out between us.

“I already called.”

“You what?”

“The doctor you’ve been seeing has been missing things for months. Or dismissing them. Either possibility makes him useless to me.” His voice remained calm. “I found someone better. You have an appointment tomorrow.”

My heart gave a small, panicked stutter. “Alexei—”

“Tomorrow,” he repeated. “And before you say no, understand that I’m not asking.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “You made me a doctor’s appointment without asking me?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t get how impossible you are.”

“I do. I simply don’t care.”

A small, involuntary laugh escaped me.

“There,” he murmured. “That’s better.”

“It’s not better,” I said, dropping my hands. “You’re terrifying.”

“You like that about me.”

I stared at him. Then I groaned softly and let myself fall sideways into his shoulder because arguing was useless. His arm came around me immediately.

“I mean it,” I muttered into his shirt. “I can’t afford some elite doctor.”

“You can’t,” he agreed, “but I can.”

My fingers curled into the fabric of his sleeve. “This is too much,” I whispered.

His hand smoothed slowly over my hair. “No,” he said. “This is the bare minimum.”

Alexei gave me a few minutes first.

Just enough that I could wash my face properly, brush my teeth, and stand in front of the bathroom mirror.

I looked wrecked, honestly. My lashes were clumped from crying, my curls were flattened on one side from sleep and damp at the edges from where I had splashed cold water onto my face.

By the time I came out, he was waiting for me just outside the bathroom door.

He looked me over immediately, not in the way he sometimes did that made heat crawl up my neck, but clinically, almost anxiously, as if checking to make sure I hadn’t dissolved in the last five minutes.

“You took longer than necessary.”

I blinked at him.

“Your face is less pale.”

“That is a terrifyingly specific thing to say before breakfast.”

He shook his head, then guided me downstairs with one hand at the small of my back.

The kitchen smelled like strawberries. Alexei pulled out a chair for me.