Sometimes It Is Rocket Science

by Thorpe, Kara

  Two and a half hours later, she had made absolutely zero progress on any of her projects. She stared blindly at the prototype prosthetic leg on her worktable. No matter how hard she tried to concentrate on her work, her mind constantly looped back to Robert, to what would have happened if her brother had not interrupted them last night.

  What was his motivation, though? Why was he so insistent that they get married? Was it because of his father and his board? How much of the affection in his eyes was friendship and how much of it was more?

  Shaking her head, hoping to dislodge memories how right it had felt in Robert’s arms, she reached for the soldering iron. The connections near the joint weren’t as neat as she liked. It was a minor issue that would have passed a quality inspection, but she preached perfection for all prototypes. Sloppy prototypes inevitably led to sloppy final assemblies.

  If she agreed to marry Robert, would it be realistic to expect fidelity? Monogamy was not, as far as she knew, in his lexicon. She refused to be like the typical society wife who politely looked the other way when her husband’s eye wandered. In addition to a closet romantic she was, apparently, possessive. If she asked, he’d agree. Comply for a few years until he grew bored with her. He’d stick to his vow, but he’d resent her. Hate her. Their marriage and their friendship would crumble and she’d be left with nothing.

  A ball of white-hot fire burned the knuckles of her left hand. “Shit!” Tears welled in her eyes as pain radiated across her hand. With another curse, she switched off the soldering iron and surveyed the damage. The skin on two knuckles had already started to blister. She blew on the burns, hoping the cool air would ease some of the pain, and reluctantly made her way to the in-building clinic.

  Burns coated with aloe and hand wrapped in gauze, Georgiana toured the Research & Development department. Nothing there could hold her attention, either. There was no point in fighting it any longer. Disgusted with herself, she grabbed her purse and left a note with the receptionist. The tunnels were packed with the pre-lunch crowd. She could hear the faint sounds of traffic and rain as she hurried to the Norwood Systems entrance. She pressed her thumb to the scanner and waited for the door to open.

  Robert glanced up from his laptop screen when the heavy, wooden door that separated his office from Mrs. Randolph’s squeaked open. An obviously disgruntled Georgiana stomped into the office and plopped onto the plush visitor’s chair in front of his desk. His eyes fell to the white bandage covering her left hand.

  “What happened?”

  “An object lesson in why one should never operate a soldering iron when one is distracted.”

  Robert’s lips twitched. “Would you like me to kiss it and make it better?”

  “No!” Georgiana cradled her hand against her chest. “This is what happens when we kiss. Keep your lips on that side of the desk. Keep everything else over there, for that matter. We don’t want to risk me accidentally setting the building on fire.”

  “I appreciate the enthusiasm for our lunch date, Gigi. I hadn’t expected you to be nearly two hours early.”

  “I couldn’t concentrate,” she bit out, teeth bared as if the admission caused physical pain. “You wanted to discuss our relationship. Let’s get it over with. Where do you see this going?”

  “You, me, four hundred of our closest friends, a church, a dress, cake, and a couple of rings.”

  She blinked. “You’re serious.”

  “As I have stated on several occasions.”

  “Can you even spell monogamy, Bobby?”

  “A lifetime of you? Not as big a sacrifice as you’re making it out to be, doll.” He planted his hands on the desk and leaned forward. His steady gaze snared her wary eyes. “I have only proposed to one woman in my life, Georgiana Collier.”

  “You didn’t actually.” She swallowed when his eyes narrowed. “Propose that is. I mean, technically, you could say that it was a proposition, but…”

  “Georgiana, will you -.”

  “No!” Georgiana flew out of her chair to cover his lips with a finger. “No. I believe that you want to marry me, but I don’t believe it’s for the right reasons. Not the ones that a marriage should be built on.”

  He nipped the pad of her finger. She withdrew her hand. “I would make you happy.”

  “I know.” She sank back onto the chair. “I’m not saying no, Bobby. I just need time. To think.”

  He thought of the project he’d started the day before and of the plans he and Tab had made during their lunch. If it was time she needed, he could give it to her. He wouldn’t promise not to do all he could to influence her decision. Her absence at breakfast and the peacefulness that had filled him after their interlude in the lobby had cemented his decision. He was going to marry Georgiana Collier.

  With a smile that sent most business rivals hiding under conference room tables, he leaned back in his chair. “Take all the time you need, Gigi. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six:

  “Mrs. Randolph adored the flowers, though the arrangement was as large as her desk. Maintenance had to bring in a small table for them,” Robert said. He shifted on the upholstered chair beside his father’s hospital bed. The fingers of his left hand drummed an irregular beat on the sharp angle of Georgiana’s elbow.

  Dan’s lips twitched. “Every year I try to outdo the previous arrangement. It drives Mrs. Randolph batty. Next year I may have to upgrade to a fichus.”

  “She wanted the afternoon off to spend time with her grandchildren. I wasn’t aware of any pressing matters so I let her go.”

  Dan cleared his throat, ran a hand along the back of his neck. “I usually let her have the afternoon of her birthday off. I thought I’d mentioned that in my earlier phone call.”

  Thick, uncomfortable silence stretched for a beat. Two. Robert’s fingers sped up. “We need to discuss the Ramsey RadTech purchase.”

  “I glanced through the email you sent. Very thorough notes. Solid research. You did a good job, Robert. Make the deal,” Dan said.

  “Simply agreeing with me doesn’t constitute a discussion, Dad.”

  Dan blew out a frustrated sigh. The eyes he fixed on Robert were cool. “We agreed, when you chose to move the headquarters to New York, that you would have control over the day-to-day operations of the business.”

  “My recollection of that meeting also includes a conversation regarding acquisitions and how you would be involved in all major domestic decisions until you formally retired.” Robert’s fingers stilled. He released Georgiana’s elbow and rocked his chair back on two legs. His posture was relaxed but his face was a stern, stone mask. “I had hoped that relocating to Houston would make it easier to work with you.”

  “You sent me the details. I read them. I gave you the okay. What more do you need from me?”

  Robert’s sigh was an echo of his father’s earlier frustration. “Nothing.” He eyes flicked up to the ticking clock behind the bed before returning to his father’s face. “Your office suite needs to be repainted. The color in the bathroom is atrocious. I never realized you were color blind.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Cedric is picking up samples of several coordinated color palettes. We can make a decision after dinner tonight.”

  “I’m considering letting you have the entire suite,” Dan said. “There is an unused office in the R&D department attached to an empty lab. It would save me the hassle of trudging up and down the stairs.”

  “You have used the elevator for years, Dad,” Robert remarked, voice dripping with disdain. “I don’t think you even remember where the staircase is, which Doctor Flores was quick to point out during his lengthy lecture on maintaining your health.”

  “My knees aren’t what they used to be.”

  “Neither is your heart. Perhaps you could join Tab while he fulfills his kinesiology requirement. I am sure he would be glad to have the company.”

  Dan snorted. “You mean he’d be glad to run circles around an old
man. It’s not going to happen, son.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Dan harrumphed. Robert grumbled about stubborn fathers and mules. The rhythmic tick, tick of the clock was the only other sound in the well-insulated hospital room.

  Discomfort clung to Georgiana’s skin like a film. Seated on the foot of Dan’s hospital bed, she pulled her knees to her chest and regarded the two men curiously. She had no problem chatting with Dan for hours about any number of potential engineering projects or theories. She’d spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon with Robert debating the pros and cons of various operating systems, followed by a discussion their favorite dessert-and-liqueur pairings. Why, then, was it so difficult for Robert and Dan to have an actual conversation with each other?

  “I was looking over Tab’s project again this afternoon,” she said, giving in to the urge to dispel the awkwardness. “I think I need to speak with his teacher. It’s not that Tab doesn’t get the concepts. There’s some confusion, but he has the fundamentals down. Most of them. His teacher is trying to cover a broad range of topics, and I think that’s where he’s losing Tab.”

  “From what I overheard of your conversation over the weekend, it seems that his class is rather advanced for a high school course.” Robert paused for a moment before hastily adding, “Not that Tab isn’t exceptionally bright.”

  Georgiana flashed a quick grin. “But science, hard science, isn’t his forte. I can accept that. I don’t want him to give up on it completely, though, so I was considering changing the focus of the course to astrophysics. Stellar astronomy.” Her smile dimmed for a moment. “Astronomy’s still cool, isn’t it?”

  “Astronomy is cooler than general classic physics, in my opinion,” Robert said. He trailed his fingers across her forearm before squeezing her hand reassuringly.

  “There is a telescope in the storage room in the workshop,” Dan said. “There is too much light pollution at the house, but Andrea and I used to drive out to the house outside of Huntsville. The seeing is better up there.”

  “I haven’t been stargazing out there in years.” Robert’s tone was wistful but the gleam in his eyes sent a jolt of awareness down Georgiana’s spine. “You and I should take a quick trip to make sure everything’s in order, Gigi.”

  “Last time you were there, I doubt stargazing was anywhere on the agenda,” Dan huffed.

  “I haven’t been up there since just before Dad died.” Bringing up her father was as painful as talking about Tab’s accident, but it was better than listening to Dan and Robert argue. If only an hour in close quarters produced awkward pauses and bickering, she didn’t want to contemplate what the house would be like after a few days.

  She could have kissed Doctor Flores when he finally released Dan from the hospital. She drove Robert home in her Aston Martin while Allan drove Dan in the Maybach.

  Dinner was simple: rotisserie chicken, steamed vegetables, and baked potatoes. It was the most enjoyable meal Georgiana had eaten in months. They gathered around Dan’s table for holiday meals, but there was something different about an “everyday” meal. They weren’t eating on Andrea Norwood’s wedding china; there was no need to be formal or excessively polite.

  It was relaxed. Comfortable. Tab updated everyone on his schoolwork progress, and Robert shared an amusing story about how maintenance had managed to secure the floral arrangement in the backseat of Mrs. Randolph’s sedan. When they asked about her gauze-wrapped hand, she ignored Robert’s knowing smirk and quickly changed the subject to astronomy.

  “We don’t have to be limited to stars,” she said once she’d outlined her proposal. “We can cover quasars and supermassive black holes.”

  Tab screwed his face up as he tried to pluck a distant memory from his brain. “Wait, wait, I know this. Quasars have something to do with active galaxies, right?”

  “Yeah.” Pleased by Tab’s response, Georgiana dropped her fork and leaned forward. “And supermassive black holes can have a mass ten million times the sun’s and only be a fifth of the Earth’s orbit. So you know the magnetic pull of something like that has got to be incredible. Even SBHs have to conserve angular momentum so the matter that gets sucked in forms an accretion disk. Using Kepler’s third and the rotation velocity of an accretion disk you can determine the mass of the SBH.”

  Tab looked slightly dazed, but he didn’t have that ‘my brain is dribbling out my ears’ expression he usually wore after physics lectures. “And SBHs rip apart stars.”

  “If something disrupts the star’s orbit. It’ll drift too close to the SBH, and get drawn in.” She risked a glance at Robert. His keen stare made her twitchy. “No matter how hard you try, it’s pretty damn hard to resist magnetism on that level.”

  “It pulls the star in to the accretion disk,” Robert picked up the conversation. Under the table, he settled a hand on Georgiana’s knee. His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Accretion disks are hot. Charged. Fast. Bright. Matter flows in and triggers a massive explosion of all that churning, burning pent up energy.”

  Georgiana shifted so that his hand fell off her leg. She pursed her lips primly. “Actually, tidal forces rip the star apart and fling the matter out into space. Only a small percentage of the star actually falls into the black hole.” She narrowed her eyes at Robert. “The poor star gets torn to pieces and the big, bad SBH gets another notch in its accretion disk.”

  Tab glanced back and forth between his sister and Robert. He cleared his throat nervously. “Maybe my current physics project isn’t too bad, after all.”

  “No.” Georgiana shook her head. “You’ll enjoy this, I think. Dan, tell him about the telescope.”

  Grinning widely, Dan complied with her request. Georgiana didn’t speak for the remainder of the meal. A silent conspiracy between Dan and Tab left her alone in the kitchen with Robert and the dirty dishes.

  Georgiana rinsed the dishes, latex glove covering her gauzed hand, while Robert loaded them in the dishwasher. The air between them was ripe with tension. She kept her lips clamped shut to keep from saying something she’d regret.

  Robert broke first. He pushed the dishwasher door shut with his knee and dried his hands on a poppy red dishtowel. “It’s not always about putting another notch on the accretion disk, Gigi.”

  She accepted the dishtowel from him, wiped her hands, and hung the towel over a hook near the sink. She pulled off her glove and tossed it in the sink. “Look, I’m not blaming the SBH. It’s what they do. They attract and consume. Rip apart. It’s their nature. Some can be dormant for a while, but eventually something’ll fall in and bring it back to life.”

  “This is ridiculous, Gigi. We need to actually talk and not hide behind science metaphors.”

  She nodded slowly. Her shoulders curved in as if weighed down with an anvil. “I know. I know. But you promised to give me time.”

  “That was before you started attacking me at the dinner table.”

  Guilt washed over her. He was right; she had needled him. It was unfair of her to request time and then snipe at him. He had every right to be angry with her.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to run hot and cold.”

  He curled an arm around her waist and drew her closer. With the pad of his thumb, he traced the shadows under her eyes. He wanted to kiss her but feared it would send her running. “Go upstairs, take a hot shower, and go to sleep. You look like a character in one of Tab’s zombie games.”

  Panic flared in her eyes. She stiffened, but didn’t pull away. Her gaze dropped to the counter. “I need to work downstairs. I haven’t made as much progress as I’d hoped. Goodnight.”

  Before he could stop her, Georgiana slipped out of his grasp and disappeared into the workshop. Resigned to a night of paperwork and no kisses, he headed for the living room. Tab and Dan were ensconced on the couch watching one of the ghost hunting shows they both enjoyed. NORA had recorded the series while Dan had been in the hospital.

  “Are you okay, Dad?” Robert asked.

 
; Dan fumbled for the remote to pause the television. “Yes. I’m going to watch TV with Tab for an hour or so and then head upstairs.”

  “If you need me, call me,” Robert instructed. He turned his attention to Tab. “Don’t forget you still need to study for your history quiz.”

  He fell asleep in the office. His dreamt of chasing a bikini-clad Georgiana around the house, and splashing in the fountain. He had just caught her when his mother called him from the front porch. “Robert!” Her voice was strident. A little off. “Robert!”

  “Robert!” The light over his head flashed.

  He snapped to awareness. The last quarterly revenue report for the Modesto office was plastered to his forehead. The light flashed again. He scrubbed a hand across his face. “What, NORA?”

  “Three minutes ago, I detected a rapid change in Georgiana’s heart rate. She began screaming thirty seconds later. She has not stopped. Her heart rate continues to increase.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Workshop 1-A.”

  Robert scrambled to his feet. Heart in his throat and lungs frozen, he raced through the house to the workshop. It was like his dream only there wouldn’t be a laughing, half-dressed prize waiting for him at the finish line.

  The walls were soundproofed so he couldn’t hear Georgiana screaming until NORA opened the door to Workshop 1-A. His heart broke at the mournful wailing pouring out of Georgiana’s throat. She was curled into a tight ball next to the partially reconstructed Mercedes. Rivulets of tears streamed down her red cheeks and her fists were balled at her sides.

  He dropped to his knees beside her and clamped a hand on her shoulder. He gave her a rough shake. “Gigi!” She continued to scream. “Gigi! Wake up.”

  No change. He turned so that his back was against the wall and sat with his legs sprawled in front of him. He hauled Georgiana’s slight weight onto his lap. As if instinctively seeking comfort, she burrowed her face into the curve of his shoulder.