Mine, page 20
Cathy remained silent for a moment. “What can you tell me about him?”
Not that she expected Rhobes to say—
“We have had no problems with his employment—”
“What’s his name?”
Now it was the man’s turn for a pause. “I am sorry, all employees in that sector are kept confidential.”
“And yet you’re supposedly sharing HR details with one of your competitors.”
“These circumstances are rather unusual, do you not agree.”
Drumming her fingers on her desk, she found herself nodding. “Actually, I do agree.” Then again, they were both running underground research labs. Their version of business-as-usual was anything but, just to begin with. “Any chance the guard went by the name of Kurtis Joel?”
Daniel had brought up the name when she’d had him witness the Vita-12b documents. And if there was any possibility that—
“How do you know that name?” Rhobes blurted.
“Is that your employee?”
“No comment. Now answer me. How do you—”
“No comment.”
There was yet another long moment of quiet. And then Rhobes said in a low voice, “Be careful, Phalen. And I mean that not as a threat, but as a recommendation for self-protection. You know what happened to my lab in Pennsylvania. If that were to happen beneath that house you live in? No one would survive.”
“You’re something, Rhobes. I’m not sure what surprises me more—the fact that you honestly sound like you mean that or the sadness in your voice. Are you saying you’d miss me?”
“No comment.”
“Look at you, going soft.” She found herself smiling again. “You might not be so bad after all, Rhobes.”
“The truth is, Phalen, I rather like having a competitor like you around. You keep me on my toes. May I ask you something?”
“Sure.” At this point, what did she care. “And I think I know what it is.”
“Oh?”
“I gave Vita-12b to Gus because it’s really his. That compound is his work. I just provided him with a safe place and the resources to develop it. I’m the catalyst, but I’m not the creator, and I guess… I want to go out knowing that it is where it belongs.”
“Out? Phalen, are you retiring, then?” The surprise was not hidden in the slightest. “I realize that I may have been a bit aggressive with the talk of your financial difficulties, but surely you know that bankruptcy is just the first stage in fiscal recovery. With your contacts and reputation, you can turn all this around. I myself have had my difficulties, from time to time. It happens.”
Cathy took a deep breath. Funny, she was almost tempted to tell the truth. But in the end, she knew that was not wise. No one outside of Gus, Lydia, and Daniel knew about her illness. Well, those three and her medical team.
She cleared her throat. “I just think I’m going to pack up my dolls and dishes, as my mom used to say, and move on to something new.”
“Well, good for you, I suppose. Although imagining you doing anything but what you are now seems like a waste. In any event, I shall keep you posted concerning any developments with Dr. St. Claire, and I expect you to do the same for me.”
“Roger that, Rhobes.” When the man did not immediately hang up, she said, “Something else?”
After a moment, the man murmured, “There was one strange thing about that bodyguard.”
“What was that?”
“He only worked at night.” A dismissive sound percolated over the connection. “But I suppose that was just a personal preference.”
TWENTY-FIVE
AS GUS GOT into the lab’s main elevator, he wasn’t sure where he was headed.
Nah, that’s a lie, he thought as the doors shut and he hit a button on the panel. He knew exactly where he was going, he just didn’t want to think about it too much.
When nothing moved, he punched the button again. And then many times—
Things finally got rolling, and the ride up out of the earth to the house level was a slow one, slower than he remembered. To pass the time, his brain toyed with his last ascent in this Otis box. When he’d headed home that night, he’d known he wasn’t coming back to work here anymore, and that had struck him as kind of shocking. Little had he known what would be waiting for him at his condo.
And now here he was, the prodigal researcher returned—
A muscle spasm gripped the hamstring on his left leg, and he cursed as he switched his weight to his other foot. When that got him no relief whatsoever, he tried shaking things out—and that just caused him to lose his balance and bang his sore shoulder into the brushed steel wall. Fucking hell, talk about your deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic situation. It was probably way too soon for him to be up and around, especially without a crutch or a cane. If he’d been just any patient he was treating? He’d have slapped every available wrist and ankle with slip-and-fall risk bands.
But that was the beauty of being your own doctor: You could suck at your trade and not have to worry about malpractice. If he passed out or went into a vertigo spiral and cracked his head open on this slick, hard floor? Who the hell was going to sue him—
Bump. Bing.
There was another pause. Like he was being vetted in some new way by the security types. And what do you know, the shame that washed over him made him want to vomit—
Whrrrrrrrr.
As the doors opened, he looked up and wanted to apologize to all the guards who were staring back at him from the camera that was mounted in the upper left-hand corner. But that was stupid…
Before memories he couldn’t bear to go back to threatened to derail him, he stepped out and breathed in deep. It had been a lifetime since he’d been in C.P. Phalen’s black-and-white house. Or at least it felt that way. But as he walked forward into the foyer, the stupid modern art sculptures still looked like a waste of money to him.
The judgey conviction was a bit of a relief because it was familiar, and right now, everything about him, except for the most basic timeline of his existence, was veiled by an amnesic fog. Sure, he could recall the born-here, schooled-there, lost-his-sister-when, soldiered-on-how stuff, but even those big tentpole things, even the childhood loss that had shaped his entire career in oncology, were all stereo instructions, no emotion tied to anyone or anything.
An autobiography that hadn’t been written well—so the reader just didn’t give a shit.
Maybe that was why he was up here in this stone fortress decorated by Magnus Carlsen. He was seeking the only thing that made him feel… anything… when he thought about it.
Heading to the left, he told himself to turn around, go back to his hospital bed, etc. etc. etc. But all that good advice was just a frontal lobe reflex, nothing that he took seriously and certainly nothing that caused him to pivot back around.
And then he was standing before a closed door, and remembering when he’d opened it without knocking before—and what he’d seen on the other side: C.P. Phalen and the blond guard. Well, first C.P. Then the guard in the private bathroom, looking like he’d had an orgasm—or three—that he’d really enjoyed on his goddamn lunch break.
Fuck.
Curling up a fist, Gus felt like a total fool as he—
The doors opened automatically, triggered by some switch in that weird modern desk C.P. used, and as the study was revealed, his eyes shot to where the woman of his dreams was sitting.
“Areyouokay?”
Three words, four syllables, the lot of it spoken on a oner as the lady of the house bolted upright from her chair.
As Gus stared across the formal room, he stalled out—not because he couldn’t remember why he had come or what he wanted to say. On the contrary, everything became too vivid.
Especially because she was wearing his fleece. Still.
Gus’s heart rate quickened. Although that was probably not good news, for so many reasons. “Ah… you got any Coke still?”
C.P. blinked, like she was translating something that wasn’t making any sense. And then she nodded. “Ah… yes. But are you sure you need to be—”
“I’ll help myself. Thanks.”
Crossing the study, a buttery soft blanket registered under his feet and he paused to look down. Sure enough, he wasn’t wearing shoes, and for a split second, he was concerned that he hadn’t noticed until now. Then again, hey, at least he wasn’t flashing her his ass because he was in a hospital johnnie. Scrubs were almost real clothes, FFS.
Over at the bar, he opened the mini-fridge that was kitted out to look like the rest of the glossy black cabinetry, and as he palmed up one of the red cans, he wondered idly what was in the rest of the compartments.
The crack of the opening was loud, and as he turned around, C.P. Phalen was back sitting down, her hand resting on a black office phone that seemed as though it might have extra powers: Landing the space shuttle if NASA ran into problems of the Houston variety. Solving pi to twelve billion digits.
Bringing back The Office for a reunion season with the full cast.
“Gunnar called just now,” she blurted as she fiddled with something under the lip of the desk; abruptly the phone disappeared, as if it were sinking under the surface of a liquid abyss. “I didn’t tell him you were… you know. I mean, he’s your new boss, so I figured you’d probably want to call him yourself.”
Or not, Gus thought as he took a sip.
“Damn, this stuff is good.”
“I keep it in there for you. In the house—and the lab, too.” She looked down and seemed not to know what to do with her hands. “What are you thinking as you stare at me like that.”
“You look like hell.”
She laughed shortly, but not at all in a ha-ha- that’s-funny kind of way. “Go figure. And you’re not exactly ready to run a marathon yourself—how are you even out of bed? Does Lipsitz know you’re up here?”
“Yeah, he does.” And that had been a fun conversation. “I’m going to leave in the morning.”
Those eyebrows crashed down as she shot a glance at him. “You’re not well enough to go anywhere.”
She was right, of course. He was on the verge of a collapse standing here on this nice rug—which he imagined, if he did go down, would offer a good cushion and wasn’t that fortunate. But the Coke was helping.
He told himself it was helping.
Okay, fine, he couldn’t feel his legs, and his entire body was not seventy percent water, but seventy percent pain impulses. His anger and his panic were like gasoline in his veins, however, and though the engine of his will was battered, it couldn’t help but turn over.
“You don’t need to worry about me from a malpractice liability standpoint,” he said. Because, hey, he’d already compromised her location to an enemy of hers. How could any lawsuit compete with that? “I advised myself it was okay to come up here—and I don’t work for you anymore, so no workers’ comp risk, either.”
She mostly hid a wince. Mostly. “It’s not safe for you outside here.”
Taking a deep breath, he heard himself reply, “It’s not safe for anyone inside here. I told them everything—” As his breath caught, he took another sip, but there was no getting anything through his tight throat. “I am so sorry—”
“No,” she cut in sharply. “You do not blame yourself. Am I clear? No matter what you said, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been a target for most of the last decade by all kinds of bad actors, and that was before you even came along. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
His eyes blurred with tears and he looked away. “I tried not to tell them. I couldn’t fight—”
“Stop. Right now.”
When she didn’t say anything else, he glanced back over. Her stare was totally direct, and for a moment, he was reminded of who she really was. Yeah, sure, the hair was no longer sculpted, and that crappy fleece of his was standing in for one of her power suits, but the inner steel was still there.
Hell, he almost felt sorry for whoever was taking her on.
“I’ve taken care of us here,” she said. “Nothing short of a nuclear bomb is going to breach this facility. Heal yourself by letting go of the guilt, okay?”
Gus blinked. A couple of times.
Well, jeez. Put like that? If she wasn’t… the most perfect woman he’d ever met, he didn’t know who else lived up to that standard. Too bad she was pregnant with a dead man’s baby, and prepared to die bringing that other man’s infant into this world. Assuming she lived even that long. Her disease was really advanced, not being treated, and very soon, the symptoms she was no doubt fighting off by sheer willpower were going to take over: The body always won over the mind at the finish line. No matter what a person told themselves as they rounded their final lap.
“Look, I just wanted to tell you something before I left.” He took a drink of the Coke like it was whiskey and might give him some courage. “I’m going to rip up those papers you sent over to me. About Vita.”
Her eyebrows bolted up. “Why in the hell would you do that?”
“I don’t want something for nothing.”
“Nothing? You made her. She’s yours.”
Gus thought back to as recently as a week ago. When he’d thought Vita was theirs. “You need that drug more than I do. Take it, sell it to Gunnar if you want—or someone else. I’ll be fine. There are other things I can work on for him. Besides, he hired me without knowing what you did—”
“I’m not going to let you do that.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“So you give her away. Do whatever you want.”
Did C.P.’s voice just crack and she tried to hide it? He wasn’t sure.
“No,” he said. “You put the money in all along, and you’re bearing all the debt. Sort your finances out with it and, you know, leave something… to your baby. They’re going to need it in this world.”
Especially if you’re gone, he thought.
“Anyway, that’s all I came to say.” Well, that and the apology she refused to accept, for being tortured and blabbing like the wuss he was. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
With a jerky swing, he turned around and headed back for the door as fast as he could. Which wasn’t that fast. When he finally got to the black panels, and he reached for the knob, he had to look back. Even though it was a bad idea.
She was still sitting behind that desk, her face a mask, her eyes unblinking as she stared over at him.
He focused on what she was wearing. “You look good in navy blue, you know that. Not as severe as all that black.” He opened things and told himself he needed to get gone before he said something stupid. “Anyway, Lipsitz is going to give me a ride—”
She bolted to her feet. “Gus.”
Looking across the distance that separated them, he thought—not for the first time—that he was willing to die for her.
And if things went the way he was going to make them go? He probably was going to, and he was okay with that. Over the past three years, he’d thought he was living for the work he was doing on Vita.
Not true. He had been living for C.P. Phalen.
“I understand you want to go,” she said, “and I don’t want to be harsh about this—but for fuck’s sake, they almost killed you. You think they’re not going to want to finish the job?”
Yup, he sure as hell had done that math. And as she confronted him, he couldn’t tell her what his real plan was. But he had to protect her.
There was only one way to do that.
“I lied,” he told her. “You don’t look like shit. You never could. Then again, the inside of you was what I’ve always loved best about you.”
With that, he left her… taking the last Coke he’d ever have with him.
TWENTY-SIX
AFTER DANIEL KICKED their bedroom door shut, he kissed his wolven so hard, she stumbled backwards—but she was nothing if not light on her feet. And as she caught her balance and wrapped her arms around him, that was exactly what he needed more of.
Melding their mouths once again, he took them all the way over to their bed, and as she fell back against the mattress, he covered her with his body, pushing his way between her legs, shoving an arm under her so he could hold her even closer. Goddamn, this was good. His tongue was in her mouth, and his free hand was going for her breast, and his hips were rocking against her—
It was hard to say when… things got hard.
And not as in difficult.
He was so busy just swallowing her moans, and feeling her undulate under him, that he didn’t even notice when the softness of her core started to cushion something at his pelvis. A ridge. A length—
Daniel slowed down. Pulled back. Pulled off.
And looked to the front of his pants.
Well. This was… “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong—are you—what…”
As her words drifted off into stunned silence, he was pretty sure she saw what had captured his own attention.
“You know,” he said, “all things considered, it shouldn’t be that surprising.”
At that, he looked at his beautiful wolven, with her lips so red from his hard treatment, and her hair tumbling over the pillow, and her ribs pumping in a way that jogged her breasts, the tight nipples bouncing.
She was, after all, the hottest female anything he had ever seen.
“Fuck, we gotta move,” he heard himself say.
Like there was an expiration on the erection? But shit, in case there was, he wasn’t missing this chance to—
“Oh, my God, yes,” she blurted. “Fast!”
The scrambling that followed was about as romantic as tearing the clothes off someone who needed urgent medical treatment. As Lydia started yanking off her pants, Daniel’s own hands shook as he attacked the button on his fly and frantically wrenched down his zipper. Then he shoved everything down as far as he could.
He had to touch it.
Reaching for his pelvis, he had a thought that this better not be a dream. This better not fucking be a dream—
“Ohhhhhhh, yeeeah…”
Nope, this was real. And shit was stiff enough to do the job. And he even had feeling in the damn thing—the friction registered and so did the lightning strike in his balls that came afterward.
Not that she expected Rhobes to say—
“We have had no problems with his employment—”
“What’s his name?”
Now it was the man’s turn for a pause. “I am sorry, all employees in that sector are kept confidential.”
“And yet you’re supposedly sharing HR details with one of your competitors.”
“These circumstances are rather unusual, do you not agree.”
Drumming her fingers on her desk, she found herself nodding. “Actually, I do agree.” Then again, they were both running underground research labs. Their version of business-as-usual was anything but, just to begin with. “Any chance the guard went by the name of Kurtis Joel?”
Daniel had brought up the name when she’d had him witness the Vita-12b documents. And if there was any possibility that—
“How do you know that name?” Rhobes blurted.
“Is that your employee?”
“No comment. Now answer me. How do you—”
“No comment.”
There was yet another long moment of quiet. And then Rhobes said in a low voice, “Be careful, Phalen. And I mean that not as a threat, but as a recommendation for self-protection. You know what happened to my lab in Pennsylvania. If that were to happen beneath that house you live in? No one would survive.”
“You’re something, Rhobes. I’m not sure what surprises me more—the fact that you honestly sound like you mean that or the sadness in your voice. Are you saying you’d miss me?”
“No comment.”
“Look at you, going soft.” She found herself smiling again. “You might not be so bad after all, Rhobes.”
“The truth is, Phalen, I rather like having a competitor like you around. You keep me on my toes. May I ask you something?”
“Sure.” At this point, what did she care. “And I think I know what it is.”
“Oh?”
“I gave Vita-12b to Gus because it’s really his. That compound is his work. I just provided him with a safe place and the resources to develop it. I’m the catalyst, but I’m not the creator, and I guess… I want to go out knowing that it is where it belongs.”
“Out? Phalen, are you retiring, then?” The surprise was not hidden in the slightest. “I realize that I may have been a bit aggressive with the talk of your financial difficulties, but surely you know that bankruptcy is just the first stage in fiscal recovery. With your contacts and reputation, you can turn all this around. I myself have had my difficulties, from time to time. It happens.”
Cathy took a deep breath. Funny, she was almost tempted to tell the truth. But in the end, she knew that was not wise. No one outside of Gus, Lydia, and Daniel knew about her illness. Well, those three and her medical team.
She cleared her throat. “I just think I’m going to pack up my dolls and dishes, as my mom used to say, and move on to something new.”
“Well, good for you, I suppose. Although imagining you doing anything but what you are now seems like a waste. In any event, I shall keep you posted concerning any developments with Dr. St. Claire, and I expect you to do the same for me.”
“Roger that, Rhobes.” When the man did not immediately hang up, she said, “Something else?”
After a moment, the man murmured, “There was one strange thing about that bodyguard.”
“What was that?”
“He only worked at night.” A dismissive sound percolated over the connection. “But I suppose that was just a personal preference.”
TWENTY-FIVE
AS GUS GOT into the lab’s main elevator, he wasn’t sure where he was headed.
Nah, that’s a lie, he thought as the doors shut and he hit a button on the panel. He knew exactly where he was going, he just didn’t want to think about it too much.
When nothing moved, he punched the button again. And then many times—
Things finally got rolling, and the ride up out of the earth to the house level was a slow one, slower than he remembered. To pass the time, his brain toyed with his last ascent in this Otis box. When he’d headed home that night, he’d known he wasn’t coming back to work here anymore, and that had struck him as kind of shocking. Little had he known what would be waiting for him at his condo.
And now here he was, the prodigal researcher returned—
A muscle spasm gripped the hamstring on his left leg, and he cursed as he switched his weight to his other foot. When that got him no relief whatsoever, he tried shaking things out—and that just caused him to lose his balance and bang his sore shoulder into the brushed steel wall. Fucking hell, talk about your deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic situation. It was probably way too soon for him to be up and around, especially without a crutch or a cane. If he’d been just any patient he was treating? He’d have slapped every available wrist and ankle with slip-and-fall risk bands.
But that was the beauty of being your own doctor: You could suck at your trade and not have to worry about malpractice. If he passed out or went into a vertigo spiral and cracked his head open on this slick, hard floor? Who the hell was going to sue him—
Bump. Bing.
There was another pause. Like he was being vetted in some new way by the security types. And what do you know, the shame that washed over him made him want to vomit—
Whrrrrrrrr.
As the doors opened, he looked up and wanted to apologize to all the guards who were staring back at him from the camera that was mounted in the upper left-hand corner. But that was stupid…
Before memories he couldn’t bear to go back to threatened to derail him, he stepped out and breathed in deep. It had been a lifetime since he’d been in C.P. Phalen’s black-and-white house. Or at least it felt that way. But as he walked forward into the foyer, the stupid modern art sculptures still looked like a waste of money to him.
The judgey conviction was a bit of a relief because it was familiar, and right now, everything about him, except for the most basic timeline of his existence, was veiled by an amnesic fog. Sure, he could recall the born-here, schooled-there, lost-his-sister-when, soldiered-on-how stuff, but even those big tentpole things, even the childhood loss that had shaped his entire career in oncology, were all stereo instructions, no emotion tied to anyone or anything.
An autobiography that hadn’t been written well—so the reader just didn’t give a shit.
Maybe that was why he was up here in this stone fortress decorated by Magnus Carlsen. He was seeking the only thing that made him feel… anything… when he thought about it.
Heading to the left, he told himself to turn around, go back to his hospital bed, etc. etc. etc. But all that good advice was just a frontal lobe reflex, nothing that he took seriously and certainly nothing that caused him to pivot back around.
And then he was standing before a closed door, and remembering when he’d opened it without knocking before—and what he’d seen on the other side: C.P. Phalen and the blond guard. Well, first C.P. Then the guard in the private bathroom, looking like he’d had an orgasm—or three—that he’d really enjoyed on his goddamn lunch break.
Fuck.
Curling up a fist, Gus felt like a total fool as he—
The doors opened automatically, triggered by some switch in that weird modern desk C.P. used, and as the study was revealed, his eyes shot to where the woman of his dreams was sitting.
“Areyouokay?”
Three words, four syllables, the lot of it spoken on a oner as the lady of the house bolted upright from her chair.
As Gus stared across the formal room, he stalled out—not because he couldn’t remember why he had come or what he wanted to say. On the contrary, everything became too vivid.
Especially because she was wearing his fleece. Still.
Gus’s heart rate quickened. Although that was probably not good news, for so many reasons. “Ah… you got any Coke still?”
C.P. blinked, like she was translating something that wasn’t making any sense. And then she nodded. “Ah… yes. But are you sure you need to be—”
“I’ll help myself. Thanks.”
Crossing the study, a buttery soft blanket registered under his feet and he paused to look down. Sure enough, he wasn’t wearing shoes, and for a split second, he was concerned that he hadn’t noticed until now. Then again, hey, at least he wasn’t flashing her his ass because he was in a hospital johnnie. Scrubs were almost real clothes, FFS.
Over at the bar, he opened the mini-fridge that was kitted out to look like the rest of the glossy black cabinetry, and as he palmed up one of the red cans, he wondered idly what was in the rest of the compartments.
The crack of the opening was loud, and as he turned around, C.P. Phalen was back sitting down, her hand resting on a black office phone that seemed as though it might have extra powers: Landing the space shuttle if NASA ran into problems of the Houston variety. Solving pi to twelve billion digits.
Bringing back The Office for a reunion season with the full cast.
“Gunnar called just now,” she blurted as she fiddled with something under the lip of the desk; abruptly the phone disappeared, as if it were sinking under the surface of a liquid abyss. “I didn’t tell him you were… you know. I mean, he’s your new boss, so I figured you’d probably want to call him yourself.”
Or not, Gus thought as he took a sip.
“Damn, this stuff is good.”
“I keep it in there for you. In the house—and the lab, too.” She looked down and seemed not to know what to do with her hands. “What are you thinking as you stare at me like that.”
“You look like hell.”
She laughed shortly, but not at all in a ha-ha- that’s-funny kind of way. “Go figure. And you’re not exactly ready to run a marathon yourself—how are you even out of bed? Does Lipsitz know you’re up here?”
“Yeah, he does.” And that had been a fun conversation. “I’m going to leave in the morning.”
Those eyebrows crashed down as she shot a glance at him. “You’re not well enough to go anywhere.”
She was right, of course. He was on the verge of a collapse standing here on this nice rug—which he imagined, if he did go down, would offer a good cushion and wasn’t that fortunate. But the Coke was helping.
He told himself it was helping.
Okay, fine, he couldn’t feel his legs, and his entire body was not seventy percent water, but seventy percent pain impulses. His anger and his panic were like gasoline in his veins, however, and though the engine of his will was battered, it couldn’t help but turn over.
“You don’t need to worry about me from a malpractice liability standpoint,” he said. Because, hey, he’d already compromised her location to an enemy of hers. How could any lawsuit compete with that? “I advised myself it was okay to come up here—and I don’t work for you anymore, so no workers’ comp risk, either.”
She mostly hid a wince. Mostly. “It’s not safe for you outside here.”
Taking a deep breath, he heard himself reply, “It’s not safe for anyone inside here. I told them everything—” As his breath caught, he took another sip, but there was no getting anything through his tight throat. “I am so sorry—”
“No,” she cut in sharply. “You do not blame yourself. Am I clear? No matter what you said, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been a target for most of the last decade by all kinds of bad actors, and that was before you even came along. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
His eyes blurred with tears and he looked away. “I tried not to tell them. I couldn’t fight—”
“Stop. Right now.”
When she didn’t say anything else, he glanced back over. Her stare was totally direct, and for a moment, he was reminded of who she really was. Yeah, sure, the hair was no longer sculpted, and that crappy fleece of his was standing in for one of her power suits, but the inner steel was still there.
Hell, he almost felt sorry for whoever was taking her on.
“I’ve taken care of us here,” she said. “Nothing short of a nuclear bomb is going to breach this facility. Heal yourself by letting go of the guilt, okay?”
Gus blinked. A couple of times.
Well, jeez. Put like that? If she wasn’t… the most perfect woman he’d ever met, he didn’t know who else lived up to that standard. Too bad she was pregnant with a dead man’s baby, and prepared to die bringing that other man’s infant into this world. Assuming she lived even that long. Her disease was really advanced, not being treated, and very soon, the symptoms she was no doubt fighting off by sheer willpower were going to take over: The body always won over the mind at the finish line. No matter what a person told themselves as they rounded their final lap.
“Look, I just wanted to tell you something before I left.” He took a drink of the Coke like it was whiskey and might give him some courage. “I’m going to rip up those papers you sent over to me. About Vita.”
Her eyebrows bolted up. “Why in the hell would you do that?”
“I don’t want something for nothing.”
“Nothing? You made her. She’s yours.”
Gus thought back to as recently as a week ago. When he’d thought Vita was theirs. “You need that drug more than I do. Take it, sell it to Gunnar if you want—or someone else. I’ll be fine. There are other things I can work on for him. Besides, he hired me without knowing what you did—”
“I’m not going to let you do that.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“So you give her away. Do whatever you want.”
Did C.P.’s voice just crack and she tried to hide it? He wasn’t sure.
“No,” he said. “You put the money in all along, and you’re bearing all the debt. Sort your finances out with it and, you know, leave something… to your baby. They’re going to need it in this world.”
Especially if you’re gone, he thought.
“Anyway, that’s all I came to say.” Well, that and the apology she refused to accept, for being tortured and blabbing like the wuss he was. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
With a jerky swing, he turned around and headed back for the door as fast as he could. Which wasn’t that fast. When he finally got to the black panels, and he reached for the knob, he had to look back. Even though it was a bad idea.
She was still sitting behind that desk, her face a mask, her eyes unblinking as she stared over at him.
He focused on what she was wearing. “You look good in navy blue, you know that. Not as severe as all that black.” He opened things and told himself he needed to get gone before he said something stupid. “Anyway, Lipsitz is going to give me a ride—”
She bolted to her feet. “Gus.”
Looking across the distance that separated them, he thought—not for the first time—that he was willing to die for her.
And if things went the way he was going to make them go? He probably was going to, and he was okay with that. Over the past three years, he’d thought he was living for the work he was doing on Vita.
Not true. He had been living for C.P. Phalen.
“I understand you want to go,” she said, “and I don’t want to be harsh about this—but for fuck’s sake, they almost killed you. You think they’re not going to want to finish the job?”
Yup, he sure as hell had done that math. And as she confronted him, he couldn’t tell her what his real plan was. But he had to protect her.
There was only one way to do that.
“I lied,” he told her. “You don’t look like shit. You never could. Then again, the inside of you was what I’ve always loved best about you.”
With that, he left her… taking the last Coke he’d ever have with him.
TWENTY-SIX
AFTER DANIEL KICKED their bedroom door shut, he kissed his wolven so hard, she stumbled backwards—but she was nothing if not light on her feet. And as she caught her balance and wrapped her arms around him, that was exactly what he needed more of.
Melding their mouths once again, he took them all the way over to their bed, and as she fell back against the mattress, he covered her with his body, pushing his way between her legs, shoving an arm under her so he could hold her even closer. Goddamn, this was good. His tongue was in her mouth, and his free hand was going for her breast, and his hips were rocking against her—
It was hard to say when… things got hard.
And not as in difficult.
He was so busy just swallowing her moans, and feeling her undulate under him, that he didn’t even notice when the softness of her core started to cushion something at his pelvis. A ridge. A length—
Daniel slowed down. Pulled back. Pulled off.
And looked to the front of his pants.
Well. This was… “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong—are you—what…”
As her words drifted off into stunned silence, he was pretty sure she saw what had captured his own attention.
“You know,” he said, “all things considered, it shouldn’t be that surprising.”
At that, he looked at his beautiful wolven, with her lips so red from his hard treatment, and her hair tumbling over the pillow, and her ribs pumping in a way that jogged her breasts, the tight nipples bouncing.
She was, after all, the hottest female anything he had ever seen.
“Fuck, we gotta move,” he heard himself say.
Like there was an expiration on the erection? But shit, in case there was, he wasn’t missing this chance to—
“Oh, my God, yes,” she blurted. “Fast!”
The scrambling that followed was about as romantic as tearing the clothes off someone who needed urgent medical treatment. As Lydia started yanking off her pants, Daniel’s own hands shook as he attacked the button on his fly and frantically wrenched down his zipper. Then he shoved everything down as far as he could.
He had to touch it.
Reaching for his pelvis, he had a thought that this better not be a dream. This better not fucking be a dream—
“Ohhhhhhh, yeeeah…”
Nope, this was real. And shit was stiff enough to do the job. And he even had feeling in the damn thing—the friction registered and so did the lightning strike in his balls that came afterward.
