~ ~ ~
Kate toured the lab, impressed with the work they were doing there. She wasn’t happy about Morgan’s employment, but the woman was clearly not on Ian’s good side with her name-calling, so there was that. Of course, Kate had called her an instigator, but that was behind her back, so really shouldn’t count.
She toured the second floor, where a lot of PhD students worked under Ian’s supervision on a variety of social robots. There were robots of varying appearances, some cuddly, some like funny fuzzy aliens, some more people-like (but without hair) for such varied applications as teaching foreign languages, companionship for terminally ill children, and the one that really got to her was the trust robot. It was used as an intermediary so children who might not be comfortable confiding in a therapist could confide in the robot programmed with questions with a therapist nearby. Kate could’ve used a trust robot like that to confide in as a kid. Not that she had a lot of dark secrets. She’d just wanted a friend to talk to during the long lonely afternoons before her parents got home. The first floor had offices and computer stations as well as an open floor area used to test robotic pets made of projected lights, digital painting made by dancing feet, and some mobile talking robots.
Ian stopped at the stairs leading to the lower level. “This is where Morgan works. Are you sure you want to see her?”
“Of course. If she’s going to be working here, I’m sure I’ll see her regularly.” Kate was not about to let Morgan’s presence deter her from touring the entire facility. Besides, she wanted to show Morgan that Kate and Ian were a united chimp front. Never mind that the two chimps hadn’t yet successfully completed the experiment and had issues.
“You don’t have to,” Ian said.
“Please, Ian, stop coddling me. I can handle it.”
“All right.”
She followed him down to a large open space. Half the space was for a car, where Shawn, the huge guy she’d run into earlier, worked with a couple of other guys. The other half had a large squat pile of metal with multiple extended arms that she assumed was for the space program because the lying bitch was working over there with three other people.
She headed for Morgan first to show Ian that it was no problem whatsoever for the mature woman he was going to marry.
“Hi, guys,” Ian said. “This is my fiancée, Kate. I’m just showing her around.”
The two men and one woman that worked with Morgan said hi. Morgan gave her a small smile that was downright chilling.
“We meet again,” Morgan said. And she might as well have added bwa-ha-ha for the evil vibe she was giving off.
Ian explained how this was the most sophisticated robot used to date in the space program, designed to take a human’s place on space walks. He pointed out the various features as Kate tried to listen and not notice Morgan’s scrutiny of Kate’s clothes. Kate wore a simple purple cotton T-shirt and black cotton shorts. She hadn’t thought twice about her outfit and hadn’t noticed Morgan’s either, but now she was noticing. Morgan wore a navy blazer over a white silk shirt with a pale pink rose, and skinny navy blue pants that tapered at the ankles. She wore gold metallic heels. No wonder the woman towered over Kate in her sneakers.
Morgan moved to a laptop in the corner of the room, and Kate let out a breath of relief.
“C’mon, Kate,” Ian said, tugging her over to the car.
“There she is!” Shawn exclaimed. “Ready to check her out? Hop in.”
Kate flushed. Shawn opened the passenger-side door for her and gestured for her to get in. She slipped inside, and he got in the driver’s side. Ian peered in through the window on her side.
“So this is Ike,” Shawn said, pointing to a small robot face on the dashboard with a cell phone connected to the base. “He’s plugged into both the phone and the car. He can do navigation, check the vehicle’s systems, and check your messages.” He grinned. “I’m working on some conversational abilities too. A relaxed driver is a good driver.”
“I thought this was a driverless car,” Kate said.
“This one can go either way. You can program it to do the drive, or you can use it as a driver assistant.”
“Cool!” she exclaimed.
“How’s the traffic avoidance working?” Ian asked.
“Yeah, I wanted to have you take a look at that.” Shawn got out of the car. Kate looked around the car for a bit, it mostly looked like a regular car, and then she got out too. Ian was bent over a computer, looking at something with Shawn.
Kate wandered over to the other side of the room, thinking about the importance of Ian’s work—useful applications that could make people’s lives better. Was that more important than understanding the universe? Her work didn’t have immediate life-changing effects. What was an objective way of determining career precedence? Given two equally important jobs in two very different fields, did it really just come down to money?
“So what’s your secret?” a woman’s voice asked.
Kate jumped and whirled to find Morgan standing behind her. “Secret?”
Morgan slid a look over to Ian, whose back was to them, and back to her. “How’d you get him to commit? You’ve been together how long? A year and a half? Since me and Ian broke up, I bet.”
“Five months,” Kate corrected automatically. She couldn’t tolerate inaccuracies in numbers.
Morgan raised a brow. “I’m surprised he waited at all. So five months and you’re engaged. I was with him three years, and the moment I mentioned marriage, he cut me loose. So what’s your secret?” Her gaze dropped to Kate’s flat stomach. Like a pregnancy was the only reason Ian would marry her!
Kate raised her chin. “Well, I didn’t give him an ultimatum.”
Morgan’s lip curled. “So he just proposed all on his own?”
“I asked him, and he said yes.”
Morgan barked out a laugh. “You asked him?” She lowered her voice. “Idiot. He didn’t want to say no. I bet he’s hemming and hawing, trying to get out of it. Did he tell you he has cold feet?”
Kate pressed her lips together. Ian was still bent over a computer screen. She would not bolt. She had to stand her ground. “This is none of your concern.”
“Oh my God, he did! Well, guess what? That’s step one. Step two is out the door.” She walked her fingers in the air.
“You’re wrong,” Kate said firmly. Though she felt a small niggle of worry.
“Unless he doesn’t have the balls. Then he’ll just leave you at the altar.”
Kate’s stomach dropped. The idea of planning her dream fairy-tale wedding only to be left standing in her beautiful poufy dress and tiara was horrifying.
“I must be going now,” Kate replied stiffly and headed toward Ian.
“Good luck,” Morgan called. “I sure don’t envy you.”
She arrived at Ian’s side, nearly vibrating with tension. She knew Morgan was jealous, knew she was a liar, yet she was shaken up. Ian did have cold feet. Their experiment was not at all positively conclusive. Oh God. What if he did leave her at the altar? How could she be sure of him?
“Hey,” Ian said, turning to her. “Almost done here.”
“No need to hurry,” she said. She could feel her formal tone taking over, but she was too worked up to fight it. “I’ll be heading out now. Thank you for the informative tour of the facility. Enjoy your ranch chicken sandwich in its decorative gift bag.”
Ian’s head swiveled back to her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. I’ve intruded long enough, and I have work of my own to attend to.” She kissed his cheek so he’d be sure to know she really could handle seeing his ex-girlfriend and was a mature well-balanced partner. “I’ll see you this evening.”
She turned to go, and he snagged her around the waist, hauling her back. “Hold up. Five minutes, and I’ll have lunch with you.”
She tried to move away, and he snagged the elastic waistband at the back of her shorts. “I’m not hungry,” she said in as d
ignified a voice as she could muster, given the gap from his hand to her exposed back was giving everyone a peep at her purple panties. She eased a step closer to him, hoping to close the gap. “But thank you for the kind invitation.”
She tried to twist sideways out of his grip, and Ian’s arm banded around her waist, hauling her in front of him. She pushed at his arm, and he tightened his hold. Her cheeks burned as Shawn smiled at the exchange. She stared at the screen that had Ian’s attention, pretending this was all perfectly normal. But she saw nothing. Lines of code that blurred in front of her watery eyes. Ian’s voice rumbled at her back for a few minutes while she told herself Morgan was just messing with her and she couldn’t let her get in her head. But the hard truth was that Ian did have cold feet. And that was enough to give credibility to Ian walking out on her at any moment, even the last possible moment, and, if she was honest with herself, that was the whole reason she’d come up with an experiment in the first place.
And they were doing terribly! Every time a disagreement came up, Ian used her short circuit to shut her up. They had sex entirely too much of the time when they should’ve been establishing good communication systems and negotiating domestic life. They hadn’t talked about anything important at all! They lived on take-out food, the laundry was piling up, and while Kate wasn’t Miss Neat by any measure, his apartment was a disaster area! There were always whiskers in the sink, toothpaste gobs on the counter, he drank very unhygienically straight from the milk carton, and half his dirty socks were on the floor next to the hamper because, for some strange reason, he liked to toss them in from a distance like a basketball player. And if he missed, there they stayed. Total dirty gross disaster area, and she refused to clean up after him just because she was the female.
Ian’s grip on her loosened and his voice rumbled in her ear, sending hot tingling vibrations through her despite her agitation. “All right,” he said all sexy-like. “Let’s go have lunch.”
That was the problem with Ian. Sexing everything up all the time when they had important issues to work through. She pulled him away from the group and said as quietly as possible, “Sex doesn’t solve everything!”
Ian cocked his head. “I have a feeling you want to talk.” He pulled her quickly toward the stairs.
She walked stiffly. “Yes, we have a lot to talk about.”
“Can it wait until tonight?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied cordially because she was a mature well-balanced partner. “Enjoy your ranch chicken sandwich in its decorative gift bag. I’ll see you tonight in the living room, where we will have our conversation.”
She pulled her hand free, rushed up the stairs, and saw her escape. Through the hallway, out the front door. She didn’t want Ian to see how much Morgan got to her. She was dimly aware that Morgan probably saw her fleeing, but her need for escape trumped everything. By tonight she’d be calmed down enough for a rational conversation. Maybe she’d make a list of topics they needed to address. Communication topped the list.
She reached the door, grabbed the handle, and flew backwards into hard male chest.
“Not so fast, Dr. Lewis,” Ian growled, his arms wrapping around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides.
Ian’s formal tone told her two things—he was mad, and he was onto her.
She still tried to make a break for it, wriggling against his hold before she finally gave up. He was bigger and stronger, so she must use her wits. Her own tone would tell him everything he needed to know. “Dr. Furnukle, this is neither the time nor the place. Please release your hold and we will have our important conversation this evening.”
“Talk.”
“Not here,” she said through her teeth.
“I’m going to let you go to open the door, but if you bolt on me, I will catch you, toss you over my shoulder, and we’ll have this conversation outside on the MIT campus, where everyone can see my monkey girlfriend hanging upside down to talk. You’ll be the monkey, Kate. Not me.”
“Ian!”
“And my hand will be on your ass the entire time.”
“Ian!” Dammit. He was turning her on. “Stop being a bonobo.”
“Don’t push me, Kate. I swear I’ll do it.”
“Okay, okay.”
He let go of her and pulled open the door. She bolted.
Chapter Twelve
Kate ran like a crazed squirrel, veering left and right, hoping to outmaneuver him even if she couldn’t outrun him. She was in a crazy mental place between exhilaration at the chase and pure mortification over her inability to deal with his ex. His legs were much longer, giving him an unfair advantage. She ran diagonally across campus; luckily she knew the place from her graduate studies. She was starting to get winded, peeked over her shoulder, saw he was nearly on her, and tripped on a tree root. She flailed; then she was falling, about to kiss the ground when he grabbed her and hauled her upright. His arms wrapped around her, her back pressed against his chest. She could tell he was winded too from the way his chest heaved against her.
“Seriously,” he huffed. “This is how you want to play this?”
She decided the unexpected was her best strategy to avoid the humiliation of an upside-down hand-on-her-ass talk. “Yes. I greatly enjoy your hand on my ass, so I would like you to haul me over your shoulder, spread your hand as wide as possible on my ass, maybe a light spanking while you’re at it, and talk to me about our issues.”
His chest shook with laughter. “Geez, Kate, you slay me.” He leaned down and kissed her temple. “Why’re you so upset?” he asked gently. “Did Morgan say something to you?”
She swallowed. “Nothing I didn’t know already.”
He turned her in his arms. “Which is?”
“That cold feet lead to being left.”
“Exactly how does that work?”
She spoke to his chest. “You know.”
“I don’t know. I never said I was leaving you. Maybe that’s what Morgan wants, but it’s not what I want.”
“We’re not doing so well.” She pointed out the obvious. Sometimes the male missed those obvious cues.
“How so?”
“We’re only on day nine and our communication sucks, we have entirely too much sex, which you use to shut me up, don’t deny it!” She warmed to her topic. “Neither one of us has stepped up in domestic life. No one has cooked, the laundry is piling up, and your apartment is a disaster area!”
He put his hands on his hips. “You’re the one who made the apartment a disaster area! Shaving cream all over the walls!”
“Whiskers in the sink!”
“Lipstick all over the mirror!”
“Toothpaste gobs on the counter!”
He jabbed a finger at her. “Equations everywhere! Even on food.” He narrowed his eyes. “I found sigma carved into the butter.”
“That was a derivative function!” She scowled. “You drink from the carton.”
“At least I buy groceries. You just wander around the city, forget what you’re supposed to get, and come home.”
“It’s called thinking, you ape!”
“What is with all the monkey stuff?”
“Nothing.”
He slowly shook his head and then grabbed her.
“Ah!” she screamed as he tossed her over his shoulder, his hand landing on her ass with a smack. “Ian!” The blood rushed to her head. People were starting to stare.
She smacked his ass a bunch of times. He ignored her.
“You’re the monkey now,” he said. “Tell me why you’re obsessed with monkeys, my little bonobo.”
“I just like animals.”
His fingers spread wide on her ass. “Wrong answer.”
Dammit. This getting-turned-on-in-public thing was not how she pictured their lunch together today. “Your ranch chicken sandwich should probably be refrigerated.”
“Ba-diddy-dum,” he sang in time to the rhythm he played on her bottom with his palm.
“Ian,” she
moaned.
“Oh, what’s that? My little bonobo turned on? Great. Let’s talk about our issues.”
She clamped her mouth shut.
He played some mysterious rhythm on her ass while he walked, carrying her behind a building to a parking lot. He didn’t set her down. Instead he spoke casually, his hand still firmly on her ass, holding her like a sack of rice. Honestly, if she knew this was what being engaged would be like, she wasn’t so sure she would’ve signed up for it. Ian just wouldn’t fall in line the way he was supposed to. He was supposed to be playing the part of devoted, besotted fiancé. Not an angry chimp with pseudo-bonobo tones. This would all be going in her report.
“Kate!”
“Huh?”
“Did you hear a word I said?”
“Yes.”
“Repeat it back to me.”
“You would like to sincerely apologize for the upside-down hand-on-my-ass talk, and furthermore you will do your best not to be a slob, will learn to cook for both of us, will go to a couples therapist to establish better communications systems, and will fire Morgan so I never have to see her again.” All the couples in the marriage literature had couples therapists with very positive outcomes.
“Ba-dum-bum,” he said, playing a comic drumroll on her ass. “Good one, Kate. What did I really say?”
“You appreciate all my quirks and understand that equations happen anywhere and everywhere and that’s part of my process.”
He set her back on her feet and gazed at her for a long moment. She was quiet, waiting for the blood to settle back in her body. Unfortunately, she was still turned on. But that couldn’t be helped. Ian had an animal appeal that her body responded to whether or not her brain was on board.
“Kate, you’re not easy to live with,” he finally said.
She scowled. “Neither are you.”
“But I do appreciate your quirks.” He cupped her jaw, his fingers warm on her cheek. “I fell in love with you because you’re unique. You fascinate me, excite me, surprise me. I always want to know what you’re thinking. I always want to talk to you and touch you and, yes, fuck you. A lot.”
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