“I don’t need help.” I don’t turn around to face her. I turn only so I can sit on the bench to change into my clean room shoes.
The frown on her face stabs at my conscience. I don’t need help and I sure as hell don’t need to feel guilty. She came here. She butted into my business.
“You need my help. You need this.”
I stand up, shoes forgotten. “No,youneed this. Well, you can run back to your husband and tell him you tried.”
“My—my husband?” she stammers, blinking in obvious surprise.
“Yes. You think I don’t know who you’re married to? You think I don’t know you’re Mrs. Thorndyke?”
Her gaze snaps defiantly at the name. Her jaw tightens as her chin bumps up again.
“Dr. Thorndyke and I have not been married for four years,” she says in clipped words. “My name is Holly Dolinsky. When you address me, you may call me either Holly or Ms. Dolinsky. Not. Mrs. Thorndyke.”
“Whatever,” I snap. Because once I get her out of my lab, I won’t ever be addressing her again.
“Not whatever. It’s—”
“Did he send you or not?”
“As Dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences, he thought—”
“Whatever.” I stalk past her to the keypad beside the clean room door. “Go back to your ex and tell him you begged. You can tell him you blew me, if you think that will help.”
Fuck. I can’t believe I just said that aloud. She’ll probably slap me with a sexual harassment lawsuit. And I’d have it coming. I’ll deal with that later if I have to. But now … Now I just need to get this woman out of my lab. “Tell him whatever the hell will get him to back off. Because there is nothing in the world that will convince me to prance around on a stage in front of a camera like some sort of second-rate cable talk show host. Nothing. Not five million dollars. Not some beautiful woman wiggling her ass on my desk.”
She actually stumbles back a step in surprise.
Yeah. That should do it.
Before today I may never have scared a woman on purpose, but I do know that the idea of me finding them sexually attractive is enough to terrify most women.
I turn my back to her and swipe my badge to unlock the clean room.
I get two digits in when she wraps her tiny hand around my arm and tugs. Like she’s actually trying to turn me around to face her. As if she could so much as budge me.
I take pity on her and turn toward her.
Her arms are crossed over her chest, her eyes blazing. “I didn’t wiggle my ass on your desk.”
Once again, she’s mad, not scared. What the hell is up with this woman?
“Then what was that”—I point to the spot by my computer where she’d sat—“if not an ass-wiggling?”
“I was trying to get your attention.”
I snort in disbelief.
“Not like that!” Her voice rises in indignation. “Because you freaked out about my purse being on the desk. I thought my ass would bother you even more.”
Yeah. That does make more sense. Because no woman—ever—has wiggled her ass to get my attention.
“This is a lab,” I say in a low, but steely tone. “Keep your ass, keep your bag, keep your opinions out of it.”
She opens her mouth, but then snaps it shut.
Before she can say anything else, I type in the rest of the code. The door swings open and I stomp in.
