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CHAPTER8
Allegra reachedthe top of the stairs and blew out the breath she’d been holding. She glanced into the room on the right and shivered.Freaking par for the course.He might have mentioned a tree had crashed through the roof. Seriously. Was he going to keep shit from her because he thought she’d freak out again? It was one moment. One. Given the circumstances, she was allowed one moment of being overwhelmed. A plane crash, a blinding snowstorm, men with machine guns chasing them. What had Xavier called them? Hit squad? She suppressed a shudder. Certainly, the most stalwart of individuals would understandably freak the hell out.
It didn’t help that she knew,knew, Simon had been there to kill her. That was enough stress to do her in on its own.
How the hell had everything gone so friggin’ wrong? So many questions, and not an answer to be had. Who knew that she had discovered the bad data? How did they find out that she’d accessed it? It didn’t really matter who had orchestrated the plane crash unless it led to learning who was behind the whole thing. She shivered under her blanket as she went into the other bedroom and plopped onto the bed. It was all so surreal. She’d looked down her nose at certain companies in the industry because they didn’t have as strict experiment protocols and policies as NoVoGlobal. And now she would be at the bottom of the heap or, at least, the company would be once everything came out. Somehow deadly errors always made the news, didn’t they?
She stood and went into the tiny bathroom. Reaching in, she absently turned on the water. Waiting for it to heat up, she tossed the unanswerable question around her brain. Who had the high-level access needed to make those data changes, and who knew enough about things to create the fake data? That was the hard part. She could do it but only because she’d started at the bottom of the corporate ladder. She’d joined NoVo as a lab tech and then worked her way up to leading a small, twenty-subject study for a cancer drug. Her career progressed and she’d moved up to lead larger studies. She had been promoted to director and then Junior VP.
Oh, how she’d celebrated when she earned Senior VP. Her mentor, Dr. Haywood Adanne, named her his successor as Chief Medical Officer when he retired two years earlier. He and Damon had been friends, but it seemed they’d parted on a sour note. Rumors had flown when Haywood left. Something had happened, but details were quickly swept under the rug.
Allegra had always thought that Haywood must have been the fall guy for something so Damon made her his successor as some form of payment. It made her work all the harder to prove that she deserved her spot at the table.
Graham was an asshole. As head of mergers and acquisitions, he made all the deals for the company. He had engineered the purchase of ApexMed in the first place. She’d just taken over as Chief Medical Officer two years ago when the sale went through. She’d voted against buying it. Haywood had said it was a good buy, but she hadn’t been so sure. There were some iffy things in ApexMed’s practices and she’d suspected the Cytoxine data wasn’t the Holy Grail Graham had hyped. Turns out she’d been right. But Graham had no qualms about rubbing in her face that their drug Cytoxine promised to bethenew lung cancer treatment drug. Did he know the truth about the data and was pushing ahead anyway? Did he have the skill to doctor the numbers?
The water was finally warm enough to brave it. She dropped her blanket and moved into the spray. It stung at first since she was so cold but it was glorious. She made sure to keep her hair out of the spray. Wet hair would only make her colder and the chances of finding a hair dryer seemed slim. She stood under the spray and let the hot water work its magic. She’d been even colder than she’d thought and this was doing wonders for her. Now if only her clothes were dry. Also, food would be good.
The sound of someone coming jolted her out of her reverie. She whirled around, heart hammering, but it was only Xavier. He kept his gaze on her face. “Here’s something to dry yourself.” He placed it on the toilet seat lid. Then turned and walked out again.
She stood still and stared after him. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or insulted. She was standing naked and he never even tried to look. She should be happy that he was showing her that level of respect but somehow she felt …disappointed. Xavier was drop-dead gorgeous as far as she was concerned. Those gray eyes of his held all kinds of emotions in check. Who could blame her for wanting him to show just a wee bit of interest?
How could she be thinking of sex at a time like this? The mind was a crazy thing, she reminded herself. Not to mention people who had a brush with death often wanted to do something life-affirming like eat or have sex. And he had kissed her. He’d only done that to shock her out of her hysteria, but still. And then there was that moment on the plane when she was pretty sure he’d had an erection when her ass had been pressed against his junk. Either way, it didn’t matter. She needed to finish her shower and get dressed again. Survival came first.
Sex would have to wait.
Allegra got out of the shower and shivered. She grabbed the towel and went back into the stall closing the door. It was warmer than outside but not by much. She took the dishcloth-sized towel and dried herself. Then she stepped back out of the stall and stared at the green sweater. It was scratchy and belonged to a stranger. She didn’t want it touching her skin. Her nipples already ached with the thought of how the rough fabric would chafe. With that justification in mind, she ignored the sweater and wrapped herself in the blanket once again.
She moved into the bedroom and sat back down on the bed, taking in her surroundings. Another cozy room. The full-size four-poster log frame bed was tucked into the corner, with an embroidered quilt and thick layers of blankets.More blankets. Yes!
Across from it was a wooden dresser that looked distressed but somehow added to the charm of the room. A round, multicolored rug covered the hardwood floor. Glancing out the window the snow was visible, piling up against the glass. Under any other circumstances, she’d be thrilled to spend the night in a room like this with a man as attractive as Xavier, but she was dreading the conversation they were about to have. She had to tell him the truth.
“You decent?” he asked as his footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“Yeah,” she replied.
He entered the bedroom with a tray containing what looked like a short rib dinner and a steaming mug of some other liquid. “I ate mine while you were showering. I’m assuming you want to get under the blankets and try and stay warm. Eat up here and I’ll bring your clothes up when they’re dry. I have them on the water heater. It might take a while.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t know what else to say. How do you tell a person that you’re responsible for someone trying to kill them? She shivered as he put the tray down on the dresser. “Um, I guess we should talk about…everything.”
He turned and met her gaze. “Eat first and then we’ll talk.” With that, he left the room.
She got up slowly from the bed, mostly because in the last hour her ribs had started hurting and her body was protesting each movement. She’d noticed the blooming bruises on her torso while in the shower. Xavier kept moving his left arm as if to loosen it, so she was pretty sure she wasn’t the only one feeling the effects of the accident.
She caught her reflection in the mirror above the dresser. Large dark circles marred the skin underneath her eyes, and the normally fine lines around the corners weren’t so fine anymore.I guess crashing in a plane and thugs with AR-15s will do that to a girl.
She carried the tray back to the bed and got settled under the thick blankets. The short ribs tasted amazing. She hadn’t realized how hungry she’d been. The steaming mug turned out to be tea. She drank that as well and then put the tray back on the dresser. She couldn’t carry it and the blanket down the stairs. It had been hard enough to do it the few steps across the room.
Turning, she reached over to pull the quilt off the bed and swore. Her ribs were definitely bruised. Moving gingerly, she gathered the quilt in her arms along with the flashlight and headed down the stairs.
“You okay?” Xavier asked. He was sitting in the chair by the window glancing at her as he spoke but then turned back to check the view. “I heard you swear.”
“Warmer at least. My ribs hurt. Just bruised,” she assured him.
He glanced back at her, and she once again noticed how damn fine he was. He would be even better looking if he wasn’t shooting her daggers with his eyes.Fair enough.“I supposed another cup of tea is out of the question?”
He nodded to the stove. “There’s more in the kettle.”
“Thank you,” she managed before her throat closed off. She tried to swallow the massive lump but it was going to take a minute. Even pissed at her, he was taking care of her. It wasn’t his job and yet he’d done it anyway from the moment the plane crashed. She dumped the quilt on the sofa and shuffled toward the kitchen. Steam wafted from the spout as she poured herself another cup and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “Do you want one?”
