you don’t want me dead, just incapacitated.”
She fidgeted, her tote getting heavier by the second. “Ideally, long enough to remove you from my path. I want you gone from my world, not the one at large.”
“That’s big of you.”
Nerves jangling at the outright teasing she could no longer mistake, she sighed. “When it doesn’t come to my lab—yours now—I do recognize that, even if it’s to your humongous advantage, you are a formidable force for good.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Considering your views of me back there it’s unexpected to hear you admit that.”
“I’m a surprise a second. To myself most of all today. I sure didn’t mean to say any of the things I said back there.”
“So you didn’t mean them?”
“I said I didn’t mean to say them.”
“So you did mean them.”
“Can’t mean anything more, in the context of my own concerns.” She shot him a defiant glance, this man who’d detained her because he could do anything he wanted and have the world bend over backward to accommodate him. “You’re sadly misguided if you think you’ll get an apology or a retraction.”
“You’ve given me both when you deigned to recognize my worth to the world.”
“Still doesn’t change the fact that I wish I had the power to make you disappear.”
He shook his head, his grin widening, wreaking more havoc with her already compromised nerves.
“What do you find so funny now?” she mumbled sullenly.
“Not funny, delightful. You’re definitely not the first person to wish to eliminate me, but you’re the first to tell me so to my face.”
“Hey, watch your terminology. You go around using words like poison-laced and eliminate, and if something ever befalls you, I’m a prime suspect. I only wish to be rid of your disruption. All I want is to go back to work tomorrow to the news that you’ve withdrawn your bid and let us be.”
“And if a way presented itself for you to make this happen?”
“I wouldn’t hesitate.”
He gave another chuckle. “It doesn’t seem you were handed discretion at the cosmic assembly line. Are you this blunt with everyone?”
Noticing the watchfulness that entered his gaze at this question, getting the feeling that he somehow didn’t relish the idea, she shrugged a shoulder. “Not since I was a kid. Or at least I thought so, until just before you arrived and Brian told me I’m transparent. I thought it was only my expressions that everyone could read, that I wasn’t as incontinent verbally, then you started your hypnotic session and I felt my colleagues being assimilated into your hive mind, and I...well, any tact I thought I cultivated evaporated.”
“You don’t like this about yourself.” It was a statement, not a question. “You should. In fact, you should continue being as outspoken about the grievance you have with me. I have a feeling it goes beyond objecting to the change in course I’m proposing.”
She almost snorted. “Proposing? You mean dictating. And you think that’s not enough for me to consider you and your takeover the worst thing that could happen to this place?”
“I didn’t get the impression anyone else shared that unfavorable opinion.”
This time, she did snort. “Of course, you didn’t. You must be surprised there was even one dissenting voice.” Her blood frothed again at how her colleagues had succumbed to him without even a fight. “You know very well the effect you have on people.”
“I only noticed the inflammatory one I had on you.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m the mad scientist type.”
“Aren’t you all supposed to be that?”
She exhaled. “I thought so. But the promise of open-ended coddling proved irresistible to my colleagues.”
“But not to you.”
Her shoulders hunched with futility. “Yeah.”
The blue of his eyes seemed to intensify. “Why? What makes you so resistant? Why is the promise of everything you’ve ever dreamed of at your fingertips not as alluring to you?”
“I told you why in agonizing detail and you already know I hate redundancy. Especially after you took such pleasure in deconstructing my argument and having the last word.”
“I don’t remember I had the last word.”
“You didn’t bother to have it. You just ignored mine.”
“I chose not to engage you again in front of everyone, decided to do so in private. As I am doing now.”
“You shouldn’t have. I have nothing more to say.”
“So do you only take exception to leaving your own project behind?”
“I take exception to being forced to.”
“Your results won’t evaporate if you shelve them for a while.”
“I see no reason to while I’m making progress.”
“There are many reasons, scientific and financial. You’ll also gain expertise working on my projects, your own work would eventually benefit.”
“If you think I need expertise you shouldn’t want me working on your projects.”
“I meant added expertise. I wouldn’t have paid all that money if I thought you were anything but the best.”
She waved his placating response away. “You didn’t pay anything for me. That hundred million—”
“Two hundred million. Half of which is funding for phase one of all the projects I have planned for you.”
She forced her open mouth closed. “What’s a hundred million dollars more, huh? But whatever you paid was for our collective services and obedience, probably for the rest of our lives. Now that you’ve found one troublemaking apple in your bushel, you can always toss it out.”
“I have no intention of tossing you out.”
“Well, I intend to jump out of the cart myself.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re contemplating quitting?”
“I’m done contemplating.”
His expression went blank. But though there was nothing to read in it anymore, she felt she was getting the first real glimpse of what he hid beneath the polished exterior of the genius surgeon and suave businessman. Something lurked below his placid surface, something more sharp-edged than his state-of-the-art scalpels. Someone utterly ruthless. No, more. Someone lethal.
Which
