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“I’m so, so sorry, sir,” I squeak. Wait, sir? Why did I say that? It just came out. Fuck, now he’s going to think I’m being sassy.
His eyebrows rise.
“Shit, I don’t know why I said that,” I add hastily.
He looks across at Elizabeth, who has sat up and is watching our exchange. She’s still pale, but her lips curve up.
“You two are going to be the death of me,” he says. He looks back at me. My eyes fill with tears, and I press my fingers to my lips.
He sighs, pulls me toward him, and kisses my forehead. “He’s a nasty piece of work, and it’s not your fault.”
“You’re not angry with me?” I ask in a small voice.
He slides a finger under my chin and lifts it so he can look into my eyes. “Well, I can’t promise there won’t be punishment when we get home.”
“Jesus,” Elizabeth says, “I’m dying over here and you two are getting it on.”
He gives a short laugh and moves back. “You stay here,” he tells me firmly as I try to gather my wits. “I’ve got a score to settle.” He strides out of the room.
I let out a shaky breath and sink onto the nearest chair. “Should I go after him?”
“I’ll sort it.” She’s already on her phone, and she holds it to her ear. “Hux? Mack’s on the warpath, looking for David Clarke. It turns out he’s been trying to steal Mack’s work at Koru Tech, and he tried to rope Sidnie into his scheme.” She listens for a moment. “Seriously, the most I’ve ever seen him. Can you and Titus find them? Text me when you know something. All right.” She hangs up.
“Thank God.” I cover my face with my hands for a moment. “I really thought it was all over then.” My throat tightens. I’d come so close to losing him—again. “He was so mad. I can’t believe you yelled at him.”
“His bark is worse than his bite,” she says. “I’ve known him since I was eighteen, and we’ve argued a few times over the years. Besides, he can’t ditch me, I know where the bodies are buried.” She smiles. “You know they were all in a band, right—Mack, Hux, and Titus?”
I give a shaky laugh. “No.”
“They were terrible. They thought they were Nickelback. Mack dyed his hair blond, and it was all sticking up.” She illustrates it with a gesture from her head upward.
“I wish I’d seen that.”
“Give me your phone number. If I can find a photo, I’ll text it to you.”
I do, and take hers, too, pleased to be involved with his friends.
She sighs then, tips her head back, and runs her hands through her hair. “Jesus, David. I can’t believe it. I trusted that bastard. I’m so sorry, Sidnie. I feel responsible.”
“Of course not, it wasn’t your fault. I’m just shocked he’d do something so underhanded for some research.”
“Well it’s not just any research,” she says, lowering her hands.
“What do you mean?”
She tips her head to the side. “You know what Mack’s been working on?”
“No. He sort of sidestepped the question when I asked.”
She smiles. “It’s a cure for cancer. Specifically, prostate cancer.”
I stare at her as my mind grinds to a halt. “What?”
“Well, not a cure. He gets cross when I say that. He’s been working with MediTech to develop a mathematical model to represent the interactions between some tumors and common immunotherapies. This can’t be done by hand—we need a powerful computer to crunch the enormous amount of raw data. Marise can do millions of simulations to predict tumor responses to treatments, drastically reducing the amount of time it takes to carry out the research. He’s just given us the report. Starting Monday, I’ll set the wheels in motion to put it into practice.”
My head is spinning. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
She takes a pen out of her top pocket and plays with it. “Probably because of your father. He wouldn’t want to give you false hope in case the research didn’t produce the expected results. But it has. We’ll be running drug trials very shortly. I suspect he’s going to ask to get your father on them.”
