Legal Trouble (Texas Hearts Book 1)

Chapter 3

Those hips could drivea man insane.

Noah stood in Emma’s doorway and drank her in. Classical piano wafted from a speaker in the corner. Her back to him, she swayed to the slow, spellbinding tune as she arranged something on the long table behind her desk. What he wouldn’t give to draw her into a slow dance and finally feel her against him.

She’d changed from her beach attire, but the wide-legged pants and flowing top flattered her curvy figure in all the right ways. Having her dominate his fantasies since the gala was nothing compared to what she’d done to him today—when he’d known exactly who she was and where to find her.

She’d knocked him entirely off his game when he needed to be at his best. A strategic retreat would probably be his best option. He could go work at the NYC office until he wrangled his need for her into submission. That would certainly be a workable plan of action, or he could, as Papá had said when teaching Noah to drive, turn into the skid, embrace this need, and see what happened.

He’d nearly kissed Emma in his office. He’d only held back because he’d needed to speak with Bridget first. After a misunderstanding in his teens had turned tragic, he’d made a promise to himself: be brutally upfront about his feelings and intentions with anyone he dated. From the beginning, Bridget had known where she’d stood with him; they were having fun and nothing more, which made ending their relationship—what little there was of it—simple and effortless.

A relationship with Emma would be tricky, though. He was already on Phillip’s hit list. If things with Emma turned south or their relationship somehow made the situation with Lone-Star Tech worse, there would be hell to pay. His uncle would see to it, so he’d need to tread carefully.

“If someone had told me the view from your office was this gorgeous, I’d have visited sooner.” Despite his casual tone, Emma spun around, and her hands flew to her heart as if she’d come face-to-face with an ax murderer.

“Mr. Whitlow! You scared the bejesus out of me.”

“My apologies.” He pushed from the doorframe and stepped into her office. “I’m here to take you on that tour, if this is a good time for you.”

“Yes, this is a perfect time, Mr. Whitlow. I was about to take a quick break.”

“Great. And please, call me Noah.”

Her expression indicated she’d rather walk across broken glass barefoot than utter his given name.

Her office didn’t have the expansive space his did, but he liked its openness. No curtains framed the long window dominating the left side of the room, leaving the view of the Houston skyline unobstructed. Her college degree hung on the back wall, her law degree next to it, both taking positions of prestige. The furnishings weren’t overly ornate, but they were modern and stylish, like the woman herself.

She tucked a curl behind her left ear. “I’m about three-fourths of the way through the complete Lone-Star Tech file, including David’s notes on each lawsuit, and I’m getting a good handle on his way of thinking and how he went after each case.”

“I appreciate the thoroughness, especially after I hijacked your vacation. Will you be able to recoup the hotel and plane fares?”

“I don’t know. I think I can with the plane, but the resort manager was less forgiving. I may be out there. But life, ya know?”

Yes, he did know. Although he’d been born into wealth, he didn’t devalue money. He may not have firsthand knowledge of what it was like to go without, but his mother’s family did. And she’d made sure he understood those struggles.

“Well, if you end up not being able to recoup the money,” he said, “put it in as an expense on your bill, and I’ll see that you get reimbursed.”

“You don’t have to do that. I don’t expect Whitlow Group to—”

“I know I don’t have to, but it’s the right thing to do, especially considering you swooped in and saved my bacon.”

A smile lit her face, sudden, genuine, and heart-stopping. “Oh, I’m sure you’d have muddled along just fine without me. Reynolds, Clark Morgan would have risen to the occasion, but yeah, without me, the transition would have been a complete mess.”

God, he adored her quick wit!

Somewhere during their conversation, she’d stepped to him. Or he’d stepped to her. They stood so close that her floral scent teased and tempted his already misfiring brain. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep from touching her, from burying his fingers in her mass of auburn hair and tipping her mouth up to his.

Would her pink lips taste like cotton candy? They did in his dreams.

But if he gave in, he doubted he’d be able to keep himself from gorging on her, so he forced himself to look away. His gaze landed on the two framed photos sitting on the corner of her desk. One showed Emma hugging a snaggletooth boy he guessed was four or five. A red-headed man in military dress smiled out from the other, his arms wrapped around a smiling Emma, and jealousy burned through Noah, scorching and unwanted. He couldn’t tell what branch of the military the uniform signified, but the affection between the two was undeniable.

Was she involved with this man?

Before the more primitive parts of his brain took over, he noted something about their smiles. They had the same one. They were related. The age difference didn’t seem right for a father-daughter connection. Could be a young uncle or a cousin, but Noah’s gut said brother.

The photo wasn’t recent, he noted. Emma’s college years, maybe? She was so fresh-faced and vibrant, and a disturbing thought struck him. What if this picture was old because it was the last one they’d taken together before he’d died in combat?

When the lighton the door turned green, Noah placed a hand at the small of Emma’s back and ushered her into the anteroom off Whitlow Group’s Research and Development wing. Emma did her best not to stiffen at the feel of his hand pressed against her. She couldn’t get a handle on this man. In his office, she’d have sworn he’d been about to kiss her. A similar thing happened in her office. If he were any other man, she’d think he was hitting on her, but Noah Whitlow III did not hit on plain Jane women like her.

So what gave?

Not the time, she scolded. She was his attorney, not a lovesick tween swooning over the latest music heartthrob, and she’d do well to remember that.

If she had to choose one word to describe the anteroom, it would be utilitarian. Long, stainless steel counters spanned the walls on the left and the right, leaving little more than a walkway between the door leading back to Whitlow Group and the door leading to the RD lab proper. Whitlow Group had dozens of RD labs worldwide, something she’d learned today while digging into the Lone-Star Tech files. While getting a tour of the lab in Honolulu or the one in Barcelona would have been nice, especially with her vacay being nixed, she wasn’t complaining. How many people received a personal tour from Noah Whitlow III himself?

Noah motioned to a series of cubbies on the counter to their left. “For security reasons, you’ll need to leave your cellphone, watch, et cetera in this room. No electronics are allowed in or out of the lab without prior authorization.”

She nodded in understanding and placed her smartwatch and cell phone in the cubby where he also set his cell and watch.

“I’m going to introduce you to Doctor Braydon Plummer,” Noah continued. “He’s the head of RD at all Whitlow Group facilities, and he knows details on every ongoing project. He also put Lone-Star Tech on my radar after he learned the nature of their research.”

“And what type of research would that be exactly?”

“The kind that can save lives on a massive scale.”

His answer brought her up short. “Saving lives how?”

“I’m gonna let Doctor Plummer explain. He’ll do the topic far more justice than I will.”

With a swipe of the keycard he pulled from his inside suit pocket, Noah unlocked the second anteroom door. When it slid open, a short beanpole of a man in a white lab coat and jeans greeted them. His salt and pepper hair stuck out as if he’d just finished an experiment with static electricity. She pegged him as late forties, but the excitement in his piercing green eyes spoke of a wonderment usually only seen in children. Emma liked him on the spot.

Noah extended a hand to the other man. “Braydon, I appreciate you working this tour in on such short notice.”

Braydon returned the handshake even as he waved off the comment. “I’m glad to do it, especially if it means getting my hands on that sexy little chip sooner rather than later.”

She’d spent most of her morning reading about this miraculous chip, but the details were so technical that she felt as if she were reading a foreign language. She might be fluent in three languages, but none were “technical jargon.”

“If you’ll follow me...” Braydon motioned them toward the hallway behind him. “The chip is this way.”

As they walked, Emma took in her surroundings. To the left, a blonde woman swung her ponytail to what Emma imagined was music only she heard. On the right, two men sat on opposite sides of a table as they assembled a puzzle with—

“No way.” Emma stopped and did a double-take. “Are they assembling that puzzle with robotic arms?”

Braydon chuckled. “Technically, they’re checking the functionality of a pair of robotic arms by assembling a puzzle, but yeah.”

“Wild,” Emma said.

“When perfected,” Braydon continued, “people can use them for things like underwater excavation work that needs a delicate touch or on archaeological sites too precarious for human technicians. I mean, it’s still early stages yet, but everything looks promising. If the prototype passes this stage, and it looks like it will, then we will start underwater testing next.”

“I’m curious how the water will affect the feel of the mechanism on the operator,” Emma mused, thinking of the difference between moving her arm in the air as opposed to underwater. “And what kind of distortion the water might have on technician visibility.”

Braydon smiled as if she were his prize pupil. “All excellent questions, Ms. Morgan, and they’re ones we must address as the project moves forward.” When they reached the end of the hallway, Dr. Braydon typed an eight-digit code into a keypad embedded in the wall. “May I present… well, it doesn’t actually have a name yet. I’ll need to work on that.”

Humor and reverence weaved through Braydon’s words as a panel eased open, and a clear display case slid out. Two cylindrical platforms stretched up from the bottom of the case. Two smaller display cases sat atop each platform. The microchip in question, she presumed, sat on the left while the right was empty.

“Tell me what you see,” Braydon said to her. “And remember, there are no wrong answers, since the question is purely subjective.”

“Okay.” Emma leaned forward and did her best. “Well, without sounding like a complete tech idiot, I see what I assume is a microchip on the left and an empty container on the right.”

“You’re partially correct. The chip on the left is a standard microchip, but the one on the right isn’t a microchip at all. It’s a cutting-edge nanochip, the smallest ever designed, and it was created with the intention of controlling a nanobot.”

“A nanobot?” She stepped closer to the platforms. “I still see nothing.”

“And for good reason. This is the smallest chip ever designed. It can fit inside a bot the size of a lymphocyte—that’s the human body’s main type of immunity cell.”

“Immunity cells?” Emma’s gaze snapped to Braydon’s. “Are you telling me someone designed this to bolster human immunity?”

“No, but I’m saying it can be. Just picture it! One day, we can give a heart attack patient an injection of nanobots to find and eliminate artery blockages and repair damaged tissue. If someone has a brain aneurysm, give ’em an injection of nanobots to find and fix the damage, all without the risk of cutting into the brain. Heck, we could essentially create a cancer vaccine that eradicates abnormal cells before they can proliferate. This obviously won’t happen tomorrow or even next year, but this baby right here takes us one step closer to the next great jump in technology and medicine.”

Something wasn’t right.

Noah cast a sideways glance at Emma as they stepped into her office. She hadn’t said a word since leaving RD. What was going through that incredible brain of hers?

Did she see the full width of the nanobot’s potential like he did? As often happened when he pondered the chip, his thoughts drifted to his grandfather. Would he still be alive if a technology like this had been available when he’d received his cancer diagnosis? Abuelo had only been sixty when cancer had taken him, and a bright light had faded from the world.

“I can’t lose that chip,” Noah said after closing Emma’s office door. “Bishop doesn’t have the resources to handle something like this, and neither does his daughter. If they kept it and managed not to have it stolen out from under them, they’d still have to get a backer if they hoped to do anything substantial with it. And if that backer’s not me, I’m afraid it might end up in the hands of someone who’d exploit the technology. Someone who’d price it so high that, in essence, treatment would be contingent on a patient’s ability to pay.”

“Agreed, which is why I won’t fail in securing it.” Despite the heat of her words, her voice turned arctic.

He took one step toward her. “Emma?”

As she sank into her chair, she picked up one of the photos from her desk. As if she were touching something immensely precious, she drew her thumb over the soldier’s face. “If scientists and doctors can come together to do anything near what Braydon hopes, the impact to families devastated by trauma could be incalculable.”

Noah’s heart stumbled. He already suspected her brother had been killed in action, and her question confirmed it.

“And I want to be part of the team that makes that kind of miracle possible,” she continued, “even if all I do is make sure the chip stays in your hands.”

“And when that happens, I’ll stop at nothing to see that miracle comes to fruition.” Even if it comes too late to help your family.

“If this kind of technology could actually—” Her voice cracked.

Without thinking, he knelt beside her. “Emma,” he whispered, but he didn’t know what to say. Despite his parents’ best efforts, he was an only child, so he had no clue what it was like to have a sibling, let alone lose one. Well, almost no clue. As a teen, he had lost someone who’d been like a sister, and her death had nearly destroyed him.

A single tear slipped down Emma’s cheek, but she didn’t seem to notice. “What do you think an army of those tiny bots could do to bullet injuries in the brain?”

Oh, God.

Overcome with the need to offer her comfort, he ran a hand along her spine. If he could somehow siphon off some of her pain and take it upon himself, he would have.

She stiffened at his touch and lurched to her feet. “Thank you for the tour, Mr. Whitlow, but I need to get back to work. I should have a solid game plan on how to proceed with this case by Wednesday. Would you like to read my response to plaintiff? Or would you simply like an abbreviated memo to approve before I send it? David never specified how hands on you were.”

As dismissals went, her reaction said it all. Get out of my office and leave me the hell alone. But leaving her was the last thing he wanted.

“Emma, look at me.”

But she didn’t. “I need to get to work. If I don’t, I’ll—”

Her voice cracked again, and she swiped a hand over her cheek, which put him in a difficult position. He should leave her alone to battle her tears, just as she’d asked. But why did leaving feel so wrong?

Placing a hand on her shoulder, he turned her to face him. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s got you so suddenly torn up.”

“Mr. Whitlow, I—”

“Noah,” he reminded her.

She shook her head. “I just need to—” Her voice fractured into a million shards. “I just need to get back to work. I’ll find my footing.” I always do. She didn’t speak the last three words, but they resonated loud and clear.

“Okay.” He took a single step back, but it wasn’t easy with her pain clawing at his heart. Gazing into blue eyes shining with unshed tears, he did something he so rarely did. “I’m leaving you my personal cell number. If you need to talk, anytime day or night, just call me.”

When she nodded, he forced himself to take another step back. Emma Morgan had darkness and pain in her past, and if she’d let him, he’d help her ease that pain. Because, unfortunately, he had darkness and pain in his past, too.