by Lexi Blake
That was interesting. He wouldn’t mind looking through a few of those, but she would probably not like him making a grab for her bag.
He watched as she unscrewed the top of the bottle of wine. “Not really.”
She tipped the bottle his way. “I am. A little. Don’t worry. I won’t flip my shit on you or anything, but I’m going to start on this bad boy before it gets warm.” She looked at the green bottle in her hands. “Thank you, New Zealand, for your grapes and your rejection of pretentious corks in your wines. I would be seriously fucked if I drank red.”
She tipped that sucker up and drank a surprising amount of Sauvignon Blanc.
She was not what he’d expected.
He glanced down at her. What had he expected? Certainly not a woman who looked like a sweet librarian and talked like a bloody sailor. Who had an MD and drank like a fish and talked about male strippers like she knew a couple or wanted to know a couple.
She was a walking contradiction. Well, a sitting one.
He put his back to the opposite wall from her and let his body slide down. He pulled the strap of the messenger bag over his head and settled it into the corner before reaching into his jacket. She was speaking his language now. He pulled out his flask and opened it, holding it up because a Scotsman knew how to toast even a clusterfuck of a situation. “Cheers, lass.”
Robert wouldn’t be able to drink with her. The man was far too in control. He didn’t carry around his whiskey. He was all proper like and drank in bars out of posh glasses and not a flask.
Was Robert the right man to get close to this woman? He was starting to think they’d read her wrong. She might not need a serious, intellectual friend.
She might need a bad boy.
Her lips tugged up and she held up her bottle. “I bet you get a lot of women with that accent alone. Cheers.”
They clinked beverage containers. “Less than you would expect.” A lie, but he didn’t want her to think he was a complete manwhore. There were bad boys and then there were walking venereal diseases. He certainly wasn’t going to tell her about the women he’d gone through during his recent stay in Dallas. He’d run through the single subs at Sanctum in quick order. “So you live here?”
Small talk. They needed some small talk. Maybe he could find out a thing or two, prove he wasn’t a complete moron.
She wasn’t some file or a picture on the wall. She wasn’t a bunch of degrees or the sum of her education and her job. She was a woman.
They forgot that at their own peril.
She nodded, taking another drink. “Yep. I’ve been living here for about two years and this stupid elevator is broken more than it works. Apparently it’s an antique and the historical society doesn’t want it to change. The historical society doesn’t have to hoof it up seven flights of stairs.” She frowned. “There’s a more modern elevator at the back of the building, but I’m too lazy to walk to it. My laziness foils me again. I could be watching Doctor Who right now.”
And she was a geek, though he shouldn’t be so surprised since he knew about her secondary job. He had to pretend like he didn’t, of course. “Is that why you wear spandex? You like science fiction and comic books?”
He took a swig of his whiskey and felt the familiar burn down his throat. Normally it would relax him, make him look forward to the next drink, but this time, he was focused on her.
“I love them,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “When I was growing up, all I read were comic books and medical texts. I’m still a Marvel girl. I suppose you could say I didn’t have a ton of friends. I was always the youngest person in my class. And the oddest. I was the weird kid who fell madly in love with viruses at a young age.”
He could feel his brows rise. “Viruses?”
She nodded. “They’re the true supervillains of the world. Snakes only kill fifty thousand people a year. Influenza? Over six hundred thousand in the world every year. We’re scared of sharks and shit? They got nothing on a good VHF.”
He was getting his flu shot. Tucker had been pestering him about it and he’d viewed the kid as a mother hen, but perhaps he knew what he was talking about. “VHF?”
“Sorry, uhm viral hemorrhagic fever,” she explained, pushing her glasses up her nose. “VHFs come from one of six virus families, all nasty. I’m a particular fan of filoviridae. Filovirus virions are pleomorphic. That means they can come in different shapes. Some are like a six or a U. They have these long filaments. I remember the first time I saw one under a microscope. Zaire ebolavirus. I stared at it. So small and so destructive. We still aren’t certain exactly how the fuckers replicate.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. “And you were a child studying this?”
“Yep. My dad was a doctor. My mom was a college professor. I got a bunch of brains,” she admitted. “I used to follow my dad around on rounds. The patients thought it was sweet at first, and then they would get disconcerted when I would offer a second opinion. Having a kid in pigtails arguing diagnoses is apparently scary. I was hell on teachers. Now I kind of wish I’d studied engineering and mechanics. I don’t suppose you know how to fix an elevator.”
“I could shoot it if I had my guns,” he admitted, not bothered at all with his slight lie. She wouldn’t be as comfortable with him if she knew how well armed he was. “I’m quite good at close combat, but it doesn’t have a throat I can go for or balls I can kick.”
She winced. “I thought balls were sacred to men.”
“Not in a fight they aren’t.” He was comfortable around her. Way more than he would normally be. There was a reason he didn’t date. He seemed to have lost most of his charm when he’d lost his memory. “In a fight all that matters is winning. I’m not talking about some posh MMA fight. I’m talking down and dirty, someone’s dying fight.”
She chuckled. “I don’t know how many people would call a cage fight posh. You sound like you were in the military.”
He rather thought he still was. Oh, they didn’t call themselves that and they served no country, but they ran like a unit most of the time. “I was SAS for years. That’s British military. I might not know how to fix a lift, but I can fly a helicopter. I can use almost any weapon known to man and I’m skilled at martial arts. Best thing I do now is step in front of bullets. I’m a bodyguard. I’m working for a firm here, providing security for celebrities and politicians, and rich people who need to feel like they’re celebrities.”
This was the part where he explained that his husband, Robert, had taken a job with a bank here in Toronto and they’d moved from DC. Robert had worked for the bank for years and when he’d had the opportunity to transfer, they’d taken it. He should explain that they’d been together for a couple of years and recently married in an intimate but lovely ceremony.
The words stuck in his throat and wouldn’t come out. He took another drag off the flask.
Friendly wasn’t the way to play this woman. She wanted to flirt. She was attracted to him and from what he understood, she didn’t have a lover.
Then there was the fact that he was attracted to her, too. He didn’t want to cut off that possibility. Not if he didn’t have to, not if he thought this was the better way to go. He was alone in here. He needed to follow his instincts.
Or you could follow the bloody plan, take a step back, and if it all fails, it’s not your fault because you followed the bloody plan.
“I’m a doctor.”
“No shite.” He chuckled. “You’re either a doctor or some kind of evil genius who’s going to set a virus on the world.”
“Well, if I was an evil genius, that’s exactly what I would do,” she admitted. “But I’m not. I work research. Neuro.”
He sighed and decided to play it the way a bodyguard who didn’t work intelligence would. “You’re going to have to use layman’s terms. Remember? I take bullets, not classes.”
“I research the brain, more specifically degenerative brain diseases. I’m hoping to find new therapies,
even a cure for dementia and Alzheimer’s.”
For the first time she spoke softly, almost shyly.
He’d found something to poke and prod. “The way you talk I would think you would have studied viruses.”
“I thought I would when I was a kid,” she admitted. “Things changed as I got older.”
Because of her mother? He didn’t like how that thought made him soften toward her. That was the funny thing about getting to know the target. It often made them human. “What sent you into…neuro?”
She was quiet for a moment. “My mom died of Alzheimer’s, well, complications from it. I started studying the brain so I could understand what was happening to her. And then I kind of wanted to beat it, you know. It took her from me. I wanted to destroy it. I still do.”
“I lost my mum.” He wasn’t sure why he’d said that but she had a hollow look on her face that made him want to connect to her. It felt right to talk to her. Hell, he’d never talked about this with anyone but Ariel, and only because she wouldn’t clear him for play in The Garden or Sanctum until she felt like he’d faced it. He’d never faced it. How did a man face the loss of someone he couldn’t remember?
“Did she get sick?”
They hadn’t covered this in his briefing. Probably because he wasn’t supposed to go this deep with the target. He wasn’t supposed to be stuck in a lift with her. “She was killed in a break-in.” He swallowed hard, the emotion welling up hard and fast. “She and my sister. The men who…well, they were caught.”
Her eyes had widened. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry to hear that.” She was silent for a moment and they both took long drinks. “Now you protect people.”
“And you try to save them,” he acknowledged. “Maybe it’s tragedy that sets us on a path. Maybe it’s the way we get fucked up that leads us to where we’re supposed to be.”
She held up her bottle again. “To fucked-up lives.”
He could drink to that.
She set her bottle down. “I’ve got a sandwich. You want half? I’ve got some chips, too. Now I wished I’d given in and gotten those cookies I wanted.”
Damn but she was pretty. “I’ve got a chocolate bar in my bag and a couple of protein bars, but they taste like shite. We should ration them. I’ll share it all with you if you’ll tell me why you wear spandex and just how tight it is.”
A glorious grin transformed her face. There was the glowy girl he’d seen, the one who utterly fascinated him. “Deal. Let me tell you all about the magnificent Captain Neuro.”
She passed him half the sandwich as she began to talk, and Owen got the idea that he was in trouble.
Chapter Four
Hour One
“This is pretty good, but it needs apples. Chicken salad needs some fruit in it,” Owen said.
“Who hurt you?” Becca clutched her half of the sandwich and wondered what kind of a crazy person she’d been stuck with.
Hour Two
“No one says Sassenach,” he insisted. “And you know I don’t eat haggis with every bloody meal. Nor do I play the bagpipes.”
“What kind of Scot are you?” She’d moved closer to him sometime after Colin had called to let them know it would be at least another three hours. The amount of times the kid had said the word sorry should be made into a drinking game.
Not that he needed one. He was out and he’d taken to helping her finish off the bottle of wine. She’d passed it back and forth, seeming not to mind that she was sharing germs with a stranger.
It made him wonder what else she might like to share with him.
Fuck, but she was sexy.
“A modern one,” he replied.
She wrinkled her nose sweetly. “How about a kilt?”
“Don’t even own one.” There was a reason for that. He’d seen pictures of himself in a kilt, but he’d left everything behind. His house in Edinburgh had been closed up and he hadn’t been back. “And yes, I wear underwear.”
“Such a disappointment,” she said with a shake of her head.
How disappointed would she be if she knew that while she’d closed her eyes and tried to find her calm a few moments before, he’d slipped one of the folders out of her bag and into his?
He suddenly didn’t want to be the one who disappointed her.
Hour Three
“Sometimes when the towel dispenser in the bathroom, you know the motion activated ones…when they don’t give me a towel, I wonder if I died and I don’t know it and this is how I find out. Same thing with the soap dispenser.”
She was bloody insane. It kind of did something for him. “I can see that public loos are difficult for you. Have you considered you might have watched too many movies?”
“Never,” she swore. “Not even once.”
Hour Four
She paced the length of the elevator. Two steps to the left, pivot and turn. Two steps to the right.
Fucking elevator. Meditation wasn’t working and she was pretty sure her superhot elevator co-hostage thought she was a weirdo for sitting there and trying to breathe. He’d been polite about it, but he probably was questioning whether or not she would lose her shit.
Did they even have enough oxygen left?
“Tell me about your ex.” Owen Shaw didn’t look like he was ready to come out of his skin. He wasn’t worried about the amount of oxygen left in the tiny box they were currently stuck in. He was cool and calm and it rankled.
How much longer? She’d kept it at bay for a while, but after Colin had explained they were waiting on a part someone had to drive in from freaking Burlington, she’d nearly lost her shit.
They were trapped and their cell phones didn’t work. The only contact they had with the outside world was freaking Colin. This was a nightmare.
And her partner in the cage didn’t look like it bothered him at all. She should have bought more wine. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to distract her. “He was an asshole.”
“Obviously,” he shot back. “Since you divorced him.”
God, that man was far too gorgeous. She should concentrate on him. If she was staring at his glorious eyes and thinking about running her hands through his thick red and gold hair, she might not remember that they were suspended in a steel box six and a half floors up from the ground.
She took a deep breath. “He liked to cheat. The grass is always greener for some men. I think he thought when we got married that I would settle down and be his good wife or something.”
“You were a doctor, too,” Owen pointed out. “Did the bugger expect you to give up your career to make his dinner?”
“Not exactly, though there was a part of that in there. I think he expected me to help him shine more than I was willing to do,” she admitted. “I was pretty smart and good at writing research papers.”
“Ah, he wanted you to coauthor with him.”
“Mostly he wanted to put his name on my stuff.” The worst fight they’d ever had was over a paper for the New England Journal of Medicine. He’d claimed he should be in the byline because he’d supported her while she’d written it. “Anyway, he found someone who made him feel more like a man and I divorced his ass. The trouble with a guy like that is he’s never going to feel like a ‘real’ man in a marriage. Marriage is about compromise, and there will always be fighting and nagging and struggle, and in the end what he really wants is that first glow of attraction. You can get addicted to it, think it’s love. It’s not. It’s lust and it serves a purpose.”
“That’s not an incredibly romantic view.”
“I’m not an incredibly romantic woman.” Though she’d grown up around a couple who loved each other, they’d also been pragmatic and practical. “I think things through. After I got divorced, I decided to take a sabbatical.”
His brows rose. Damn, he even looked sexy when he was surprised. “A sabbatical? It couldn’t have lasted long. You said you started at the research center around the same time you divorced.”
“Not from
work. From…relationships.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Relationships?”
“Yep. I realized I needed some time to think about what I want. I fell into the relationship with Gary, but I think what I was honestly looking for was stress relief.”
“You married a man for stress relief?”
Put like that it sounded dumb, but it was the conclusion she’d come to. “We also had a lot in common. It kind of made sense. We spent a lot of time together. We seemed to like each other. It saved us some money to live together. I should have left it there, but he asked and it seemed rude to tell him no. I don’t know. I was chasing something.”
“Chasing?”
“Something my mom wanted for me. Before she died, in one of her lucid moments, she said the only thing she wanted was for me to be happy. I thought part of that was getting married. You go to school, have a career, get married, have two point five kids and live the American dream. I didn’t consider the fact that not only was my American dream maybe different than other’s, but that it would lead me to Canada.”
“You needed two years and no boyfriends to figure that out?”
She shrugged. The walls were starting to close in again. “I’m slow on the uptake, but I know what I want now. I have a plan. I’m going to start dating. Or hire a male escort who also dog walks and picks up my dry cleaning. It’s one of the two.”
When she turned again, he was on his feet. For a big man, he moved quickly and quietly. She’d thought she could feel every movement of this damn elevator that really was held six and a half floors above the ground by a bunch of wires that were probably antiques, too.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay, Rebecca.” He was close to her, staring down at her with soulful eyes.
“Becca,” she corrected, not thinking about the elevator now. She was too busy staring at his perfectly straight jawline. There was a hint of scruff coming in and she wondered how often he had to shave. Did he get all smooth every morning and by evening, his raw masculinity was reasserting itself? “My friends call me Becca.”