He’d thought he’d been in love with Lucille, but after a year of failing to figure out what exactly she wanted when she complained, he’d decided that he made just as poor a husband as the Senator in his own less violent way. And when she’d left and the only emotion he’d felt was a sort of tired relief, Nick had called his mother, hoping she could help him understand.
But she’d been at the hairdresser’s, and then several fund-raisers, and then Hawaii, and hadn’t called him back for almost three weeks. By that time, Nick had decided he didn’t care after all.
If that was love, he could do without it.
After arranging the soup and sandwiches on the butcher block table in the kitchen—he’d only used the dining room once since he moved in—Nick started coffee brewing and tried to decide whether white or red wine went better with tomato soup and grilled cheese.
While his body went through the motion of uncorking the selected vintage, his mind floated upstairs to the shower. The lyrics echoed in his brain just as Genie’s remembered flavor taunted him, making the first swallow of hundred-dollar-a-bottle Chardonnay taste flat and lifeless.
“She’ll be gone soon and we can get back to our real lives,” he said to the ugly white cat, trying to make it sound appealing.
Q flicked his tail and walked away.
THE BRASS-ACCENTED bathroom smelled like Nick, masculine and commanding, and the shower was ten times better than hers. With a groan, Genie set the nozzle on high and let the powerful jets beat the fatigue from her shoulders and neck while she kept her stitches dry. She sang a snatch or two of the song that had been playing in the car, more because it was running through her head than because she felt like singing.
Until she’d moved into the condo she hadn’t even known she liked singing in the shower. She suspected from the complete absence of songbirds at her bathroom window that she was pretty awful, but she didn’t care. At least she usually didn’t, but as Genie emerged from the steaming bathroom and found the sweatpants and shirt he’d left, she fervently hoped Nick hadn’t heard her.
She glanced around as she pulled on the sweats and tried not to wonder who they belonged to.
The bedroom looked like Nick, with an unmade wrought-iron bed and random horizontal storage of clothing and accessories strewn across a simple woven rug in geometric patterns of blue and green. Like the bathroom, it smelled like him, and she inhaled and resisted the urge to crawl into his bed to sleep for a day or two.
“Not yet,” she told herself sternly as she shook out the folded shirt. “We have things to do before bed.” She glanced at the rumpled covers and felt her face heat and was grateful that he wasn’t there to see, and amended, “We have work to do.”
And a killer to catch.
He’d left her a soft dress shirt, one that had seen many washings and rippled from her fingers in a flow of ivory cotton. She shrugged into it and buttoned it up the front, wallowing in the feel of the cloth next to her bare skin and the smell of the man that tickled her nostrils.
Nick. She’d always thought it foolish when the girls in the dorm would crow over wearing their boyfriends’ jackets, their letter sweaters or even T-shirts. Now she understood.
The cotton caressed her, brushed against her peaked nipples and touched her stomach slyly, sensuously, and she wrapped her arms around herself and breathed him in, imagined that her arms were his. This is what they had been talking about. This sense of rightness, of comfort.
Of belonging to someone, if only temporarily. And in extremely extenuating circumstances.
She hugged herself tighter and glanced at her reflection in the big mirror on the back of an open closet door. Nick’s clothes hung in the closet, familiar yet not, and the image of a young woman looked back at her from the glass. Her hair was a rumpled, wet mass. Her face was a conglomeration of sickly bruises and stitches framing big, scared eyes. The dress shirt swallowed her whole, and the sweatpants that puffed down over her feet were too long, expensive, and belonged to someone else.
Genie might not know much about relationships, but she figured that a woman didn’t leave clothes like that at a man’s house unless she was very, very comfortable with him. She scowled and the woman in the mirror who was not Dr. Eugenie Watson frowned back.
“Temporary,” she reminded herself. “This is only temporary, until the lab is safe again. Then it’ll be back to Genius Watson and Beef Wellington and all this will be over.”
She hugged herself tighter, damning the compulsion that had her turning her nose into the collar of the shirt and breathing deeply until the essence of Nick blotted out the faceless shadow that chuckled at the edge of her mind, hiding behind the locked door that contained her memories of the attack. “Time to work,” she muttered, opening the bedroom door and stepping out into the hall.
If the bathroom and the bedroom were the Nick she knew, then the hallway and presumably the rest of the monstrous house belonged to the Nicholas Wellington the Third that she did not.
The hallway—approximately a quarter mile of burnished hardwood floor covered in an exquisite woven silk runner—fed into no fewer than twelve doors along its length before hooking a right-angle turn and disappearing into who knew where. It was lit by a series of glass sconces and hanging lights that recalled the enormous chandelier hanging in the football-field-size foyer.
Genie felt very scruffy, very small, and very, very out of place.
This was not the home of Beef Wellington, the drop-dead gorgeous Ph.D. who shared—or didn’t as the case might be—her lab space and had come to her rescue once at the hospital, once in a Chinatown parking lot and once again in a room of screaming, empty freezers.
No, this was the home of Dr. Nicholas Wellington the Third, son of the gentleman from California and his rich wife.
Genie was just beginning to know Nick the researcher. She was coming to lean on Nick the protector. But this other Nick, the one he hid at home, flat out terrified her. Who was she to think that a man with all these opportunities might be interested in a geek like her?
It was laughable.
“Genie? Everything okay up there? I’ve got dinner on the table when you’re ready.” His voice floated up from below with an echo that reminded her of just how big the house was.
Just how far apart they were.
Since her feet were cold, Genie returned to Nick’s bedroom and rummaged around until she found a clean pair of socks. It was odd that she felt no reservations searching his room for socks, but she could barely walk on the hallway runner. Once again fighting a deep desire to curl up on the bed and never come out ever again, she padded downstairs, keeping to the edge of the carpet so as not to mark it.
The foyer was just as big as she remembered it, but the cardboard boxes had been moved. She could see a little trail of rainwater spotting the tile and she followed it down the hall to the kitchen, which was done in marble and granite, a sinuous flow of stone countertop and natural wood accented in brass and copper.
It suited the Nick Wellington who moved easily between the built-in grill and the sturdy butcher-block table, arranging stoneware plates on square woven mats. This Nick wore casual tan pants and an expensive-looking white shirt open at the throat. She could just see the shape of the bandage on his shoulder where he’d been hurt. Was it just the day before? His hair was a dark wet slick across his forehead, making Genie wonder why he’d wanted her to use his personal shower when there was obviously at least one other.
Dull silver glinted at his wrist and Genie suddenly realized that the fake Rolex she had hooted over during one of their labware battles probably wasn’t fake at all.
The room and the clothes suited the man. But who was he? Certainly not Beef Wellington, bane of her existence, nor Nick Wellington, the man who’d pushed her into a stinking gutter and shielded her with his own body.
This was Nicholas Wellington III, senator’s son, heir to a fortune. And if Nick Wellington had been out of her league before, then there was no measuring t
he gulf that existed between plain little Genius Watson and the man who now stood before her.
Noticed her.
“Genie!” He appeared pleased to see her, but it was probably just good manners. “There you are. I see you found the clothes.” His eyes traveled up and down her body and she refused to squirm, even when something bright and dangerous seemed to flare in the backs of his cool blue eyes. Something that only existed in her imagination, darkroom kisses aside.
“Yes, I found them. I—” Love the shirt, hate the pants. Whose are they? Who is she? Do you care for her? She shrugged helplessly. “Thanks.”
Teeth gleamed quickly behind perfect lips. “The sweats belong to my sister, Shelly. She left them here the last time she visited.”
Relief bubbled quickly, followed by a faint blush. “I didn’t ask, did I?”
“Of course not.” He gestured to the table. “Sit. Eat. I made comfort food—we deserve it.” He held out a sturdy, surprisingly comfortable wooden chair and slid her into place once she was seated.
“Comfort food?” The scents of warm, buttery cheese sandwiches and tomato soup rose up and Genie almost hummed in appreciation. “Is that what this is?”
“Sure. At least it is for me. Mrs. Greta, our cook, would make it for me when I was sick. This or macaroni with hot dogs. Notice the warm cheese component? I think that’s a requirement for comfort food. Hot cheese or chocolate or both.” He sat down and his stockinged feet bumped against hers under the table. Rather than apologizing and moving his feet away, he pressed his toes to hers and left them there, as though they were holding hands. Holding feet. Whatever. “What about you?”
Caught up in the feel of his big toe making little circles on top of her left foot, Genie was slow to respond. “Huh?”
Oh, yeah, real genius at work. Stand back everyone, she might be getting ready to drool. In self-defense Genie jammed a spoonful of tomato soup into her mouth and almost yelped when it burned its way across her tongue and down her throat.
“I told you it was hot,” he observed mildly, and Genie tried to remember when he’d said that. Probably right about the time she was debating whether he was playing footsie or scratching an itch on what he assumed was the table leg.
“I like it hot.” She had meant the answer to be flip and to put them back on somewhat more stable ground, but in the wake of thousand-degree tomato soup, her voice was low, husky. Suggestive. His eyes flashed hard and bright and she took another hit of soup, hoping the pain would shock her back to her senses before she said or did something really, really stupid.
He muttered something unintelligible and she frowned and bit into the sandwich, closing her eyes in bliss as the taste of buttery toast and American cheese flooded her mouth. Fatty calories swooped across her tongue and she could practically feel them flooding her bloodstream with plump, happy lipids.
Maybe there was something to this comfort-food idea, after all. She smiled and hummed in pleasure at the next bite.
Nick made a muffled noise that sounded as though he might be in pain, but when she glanced at him in inquiry, his face was shuttered. “So what are we looking for in those boxes? The name of our bad guy lit up in neon letters? A scarlet M next to his name for Murderer?”
Genie shrugged. “No. I just want to go over the labs and the families in the Fenton’s project to see if anything clicks. Not very logical, but I have to do something or I’ll go crazy.”
Nick brought a pair of coffee mugs to the table and added cream to hers, no sugar. Just the way she liked it. “Why not look at the other scientists first? He’s got to have at least a little training in order to hit your lab where it hurts. And don’t forget that he seems to be able to waltz in and out of the building at his convenience. That says ‘researcher’ to me, or at least ‘radiation safety.’”
Genie was startled. She hadn’t thought of that, which just went to show that she wasn’t herself these days. “Well, I don’t know about rad safety, but you might have a point about this person knowing more than a bit about the lab. Otherwise, how would he know that wrecking the developer and the DNA stocks would shut us down?”
Nick chewed thoughtfully and Genie realized he’d stolen half a sandwich from her plate. “But what’s the goal? The motivation? Do you really think there’s anything in those files that’ll help?”
She shook her head and stood. “I don’t know, but I’ve got to do something other than wait for Sturgeon and Peters. They seem competent, but they don’t know the first thing about science.”
“I think Peters is smarter than you give him credit for,” Nick said. “But I agree that we should work at it from our side, too. Otherwise who knows what will happen next?”
Though neither said it out loud, they both knew that with the lab at a standstill, the only remaining targets would be the people who worked at the labs.
Or, more likely, Genie herself.
The fear and anger that had simmered most of the day erupted again and Genie kicked the soggy box with her sock-covered foot. “I hate this. I hate him.” She kicked the box again, leaving a squishy indent on the side and jostling the piles of brightly colored folders.
Nick’s fingers touched her shoulder, urged her to lean back against him, but she shook the desire away and knelt down next to the box while Q jumped in to investigate.
“Mreep prowr mreow!” The scruffy white tom bumped his head against her chin and she sighed.
“He’s in here. I know he’s in here. I can feel it— I just have to figure out who he is. I can do it.” She wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince the white cat, Nick or herself. “I’m a genius, haven’t you heard? If anyone can figure it out, it should be me.”
Nick didn’t leave her alone as she’d expected him to do. He squatted down beside her on the floor. “It’ll be us, Genius.” And this time the nickname didn’t sound as horrible as it usually did. “I’d say you’ve been on your own for way too long. This time you’re going to have help whether you like it or not.” He grabbed a handful of blue folders.
She grabbed them back.
“It’s not like I don’t appreciate the help,” she began when he spluttered and tried to retrieve the files. She was not going to play tug-of-war with confidential information, so she hid them behind her back.
“Then let me help.”
“I can’t.” She yanked them away from his seeking hands, reminded again of just how much bigger he was. Just how easily he could subdue her.
Bend her to his ways.
Whoa, not going there. Genie reined in her wayward thoughts and glared at Nick without much venom. “I can’t let you go through these files. It’s an ethics thing. Some of this family and genetic data is confidential. That’s why I wouldn’t give them to Sturgeon when he asked for them. Don’t you remember that argument?”
“Well, yeah. But I’m a scientist. I didn’t figure the rules applied.”
“Nice try, but that only counts if you’re a collaborator on the project, and even then the rules on what you can and can’t share are pretty strict.”
He perked up. “Well, I had planned on saving this for later…” He let the words trail off seductively and Genie felt a sliver of heat pierce her belly.
“…But I’ve been wanting to talk to you about collaborating with my lab on some candidate gene screens. We’re finishing up a pair of big projects—the manuscripts are already written and submitted—and I was thinking…”
She tried not to feel the disappointment. He was talking about work. “Yes?” she prompted listlessly. “You were thinking?”
“That we should work together.” His voice dropped a notch and he leaned closer until they were almost huddled on top of each other between a pair of disintegrating cardboard boxes on the polished tiled floor of his amazing kitchen. “Collaborate.” His voice grew rougher. “Work side-by-side. Shoulder to shoulder.” She could swear he bumped her body with his. “Hip to hip.”
“You—” Her voice shook for no good reason exce
pt that Nick Wellington, the M-A-N man of every woman’s dreams, seemed to be coming on to her.
Or else he was only talking about work. The last thing she wanted to do was to find out which one it was by making a complete fool of herself.
She tried again. “You want to collaborate? You want to be—uh, work together after this is all over?”
He grinned, and that hot glint was back in his eyes. “Oh, yeah.”
In self defense—because if they stayed on the floor nose-to-nose much longer she was going to kiss him. Genie stood and tucked her arms under each other, praying that he wouldn’t notice how perky her nipples had suddenly become under the soft cotton of her borrowed shirt. “Well, okay. I guess we could do it. Uh, collaborate, that is.”
Always the gentleman, Nick stood when she did, but he didn’t give her any more space than before. He held out his hand as though daring her to take it.
“Well then, Dr. Watson. I guess that makes us partners, doesn’t it?”
She stared at the hand—blunt and capable, with a dark smudge of blue nuclear stain on the thumb. Her own hand—pale and small in comparison—crept up to take his and the shock when they touched was almost palpable, as if she had just stuck her finger in the buffer well of one of the big gel boxes.
He closed his fingers over hers, tightening his grip when she would have pulled away. “Partners?” he asked again and she nodded, wondering why she felt as if she was agreeing to so much more than an association between neighboring labs.
“Yes, Dr. Wellington. Partners.”
Chapter Eleven
“Remind me what we’re looking for again?” Nick rubbed a hand across his burning eyes and rolled his neck for the hundredth time, trying to ease the kinks.
Genie took a sip of coffee and grimaced, either because it was stone cold or because her taste buds were as sick of coffee as his. “I don’t even know anymore. I thought I did when we started, but that was three hours and two pots of coffee ago. Now I haven’t a clue.” She tossed two more blue folders on the slippery pile that had built up.
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