AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You forgot womanizer, not just a party monster playboy,” Grace said, as if Lou hadn’t spoken, and sipped her wine with a smile when her friend grunted in frustration. If she smiled she could pretend she hadn’t been on the receiving end of said womanizing. She bet he’d at least taken those women out to a fancy dinner before the womanizing and disappointment part had really kicked in. She hadn’t even gotten that. Her chest squeezed and she hated how she was disappointed that she hadn’t been out to dinner with him.
Why did she want to go out with him after today? Why was there still a part of her that hoped he was good? Wanted him to be sweet and kind? She was such a dumdum sometimes.
“So I did, but when’s the last time you saw him in the papers about that? The man is practically a celibate monk now,” Lou informed her primly.
Grace rolled her eyes heavenward. “Yeah, uh huh. I don’t know why you’re pressing the issue. You know I have abysmal taste in men.”
“Except that Anton is a good man, which is exactly why I’m pushing the issue. There’s your proof right there. I wouldn’t be coming to the table with this if he was a shit head.”
“I don’t know about this ‘good man’ business,” Grace said, holding up a hand. “And he’s definitely a shit head.”
“He is. I’ve known him for a good amount of time, and he is.” Lou pulled a face and then added, “I mean on the good man thing. Not the shit head thing.”
“Yes, bu-”
“Would it help if I told you why he was awful today?”
Grace couldn’t think of a reason that would make his bad behavior okay, but curiosity killed the cat and all that.
“I’m game. Lay it on me, boss lady.”
“Anton’s been working on some pretty revolutionary stuff. I’m talking obsessive work hours for at least a couple of years. All of that work was stolen two weeks ago.”
Grace’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
That could only mean one thing: that RED had been stolen. She knew about the research, he’d told her about it in one of their phone calls, but loose lips sink ships and Grace hadn’t thought to tell Lou that she knew about RED.
“There’s…a situation, I think.”
“Can’t explain now. It’s still evolving but I’ll handle it.
Oh no.Oh no no no no no no.
That had been the situation that had evolved. “Wait, when did you say this happened?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Grace felt woozy. That was why Mindy had taken over their logistics. That was why the move to Geneva for their team had come quick, fast, and in a hurry. Yeah, they’d talked about it on one of their calls and she’d been all for it. But that had just been talk. When it really happened she should have been the first to know it was going down, but she hadn’t, because of reasons. Those reasons being the tech he’d devoted most of his career to had been stolen.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
Anton had spent so much time on the infrared tech, telling her about developments over the past few months, waxing poetic until she started humming the wedding march whenever it came up in conversation. He’d laughed it off, but there was no denying RED was his world.
“That’s why he’s here so randomly. I invited him to get out of the media storm in New York. I got approval to add him and his team to ours. CERN was frothing at the mouth over the chance to have him here, so it wasn’t a hard sell. But Anton wasn’t in the best headspace when you two collided for the first time.” Lou shook her head. “He wasn’t all that sober either.”
Grace looked down at the table with a frown. Still trying to process what Lou had disclosed about RED, she cleared her throat. “That much was apparent.”
“Does what I told you change anything?”
She gave a quiet sigh before she said, “Yes.”
“Good.”
“What’s he going to do about RED?”
Lou shrugged. “I don’t know yet. The plan is for him to lay low here and get his head on straight while he helps me finish Beta’s retrofitting.”
“Betsy,” Grace corrected without missing a beat. “Fine. I accept his presence with stoic indifference, but don’t expect me to be buddy-buddy with him, okay? I understand that he was under a lot of pressure, but I’m not going to just act like our first face-to-face trainwreck didn’t happen.” The hurt was still fresh and she felt raw when it came to Anton. This was going to take some fortitude, but she could do it.
