On The Beach (Modern Vintage)

20. Bottoms Be Crazy

CHAPTER 20

bottoms be crazy

BELLE

I walked into the office feeling like I was carrying a hundred pounds on my back. After the endless flights, the missed connections, and the cold that bit through my coat the second I stepped off the plane at Logan International, I felt like a stranger in my own life. Everything looked grayer, flatter, unfamiliar .

The fluorescent lights in the lab buzzed, and the faint smell of chemicals hit my nose as I made my way to my office, pulling off my coat with a heavy sigh.

Out in the lab, my team was waiting; my colleagues were filled with quiet expectation.

I tried to muster a smile, but it must've come out as something else entirely because they all exchanged glances, already knowing what I was about to say.

"I couldn't find him," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "There's no way forward without his signature."

I forced myself to hold it together as I looked at their faces, disappointment, and sadness settling into every expression. We'd all worked so hard and invested so much of ourselves in this project. I hated to be the one bringing it all crashing down.

One by one, they murmured their sympathies, patting my shoulder and giving me a sad smile as they trickled back to their desks. I was gathering the last shreds of my dignity when my phone buzzed with a message from my boss: Can you come to my office as soon as possible?

I took a deep breath, dreading the conversation but knowing I couldn't avoid it. I'd sent my boss an email on the flight back, outlining the situation and explaining that the clinical trials couldn't proceed. I could already picture the disappointment on his face. He'd pinned so much on this project. We all had. But I knew this wouldn't be the hardest conversation of the day. In a while, I'd head to Mass Gen to meet the parents of the patients who had placed their faith in Helaxion's experimental gene therapy trial. I should never have gone down this path without securing the sign-offs on the patents—but I'd had no choice. And I'd been so confident that once Dr. Augustus saw how far we'd come, he would give us his blessing.

Well, Dr. Augustus turned out to be someone I could never imagine. Captain Mick was so far from how I perceived a scientist. So, the joke was ultimately on me. I'd had my heart broken, and my clinical trial fucked up all in the span of a few days. It sucked to be me.

When I walked into my boss's office, bracing myself for the worst, I was taken aback. Dr. Salim Kher had a huge grin on his face and was practically bouncing on his heels.

"Belle!" he exclaimed, coming around his desk with open arms. "Congratulations!"

"For what?" I was completely thrown, but I accepted his hug. "Dr. Kher, I…I couldn't find Dr. Augustus. I thought I made that clear in my email. We can't proceed with the trial. "

He waved off my words like they were meaningless. "Oh, no, no, I got your email. But this morning—oh, Belle, this morning, we got the best news. Dr. Augustus sent over the signed documents for patent release to the Helaxion legal team. Clinical trials are a go."

I blinked at him, processing his words, my heart speeding up even as my brain struggled to catch up. "I don't understand."

He just grinned wider, his eyes twinkling with an excitement I didn't quite understand. Dr. Salim Kher, a sharp, quick-witted man in his early sixties, was one of the few people who could make a stern lab coat look relaxed. He had a knack for combining warmth with intensity, which was expressed predominantly in his booming laugh, his insistence on cutting-edge science, and his devotion to his favorite Bollywood star.

"But you know what's even better than that?" he said, eyes lighting up with the kind of enthusiasm he usually reserved for his fondness of Indian cinema.

"Ah, Priyanka Chopra asked you out for a date?" Dr. Kher was a huge fan of the actress, and he frequently brought her up with exaggerated, delighted sighs.

"Even better," he replied, eyes twinkling. "Come with me."

Heart pounding, I followed him down the hallway. My boss pushed open the door to a conference room, and standing in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets was Mick.

I stopped dead in my tracks, staring at him as my heart hammered against my ribs.

He was in a pair of jeans and a sweater. His blonde hair was disheveled. He didn't look like a beach bum, just another regular Bostonian. He was wearing the Rolex watch that had given him away .

"Hey," he said softly, his eyes holding mine with an intensity that made me want to cry.

For a moment, I couldn't breathe.

No! No! No! He didn't get to hurt me the way he had and show up and say, ‘hey.' What the fuck?

The questions, the disbelief—they were all swirling around inside me, but the only thing that came out was a breathless, "What are you doing here?"

He took a step closer, his smile softening. "You left in a hurry." He pulled out a bikini top from his jeans. "You forgot this."

I stared at the pink fabric with white polka dots. "What?"

"You forgot?—"

"I heard you. Are you saying you came all the way to Cambridge to give me back my bikini?"

Dr. Kher cleared his throat. "What am I missing?"

I turned to face my boss, but before I could speak, Mick said, "She thought I was someone else, Dr. Kher. I misled her."

Dr. Kher looked confused. "Why would you do that?"

"Ah…I didn't want to interact with…well, anyone from out here," Mick explained.

Dr. Kher pointed to the bikini top. "But…ah…looks like you did interact with Belle."

I flushed. Seriously? This guy had some brass balls, coming to my workplace and letting my boss know we fucked? God, kill me now!

"We're not discussing that ." I snatched the bikini top and stuffed it into the pocket of my lab coat. "Thank you for signing the release; we'll let you know how?—"

"Oh, I'm planning to assist you," he said smugly.

"No fucking way." I took a deep breath and looked at my very amused boss. "Sorry about the language, Dr. Kher."

"This is like a Bollywood movie." Dr. Kher had a whacked sense of humor, for sure. "Now, if one of you could burst into song, it would be the perfect scene."

" No woman, no cry —" Mick began singing, and I screamed. Yeah, screamed like I was a child.

"Stop it." I took a deep breath. "Dr. Kher, I'm so sorry for being so utterly unprofessional, but may I ask you to give me a moment with Dr. Augustus."

Dr. Kher was nonplussed. "I think we're way past professionalism after I asked for a song. Well, lab meeting in thirty minutes, Belle, hope that's enough time." He walked up to Mick and held out his hand. They shook. "Nice meeting you, Dr. Augustus."

"I look forward to working with you, Dr. Kher."

I waited until my boss left the room and turned on Mick. "What the hell are you trying to pull?"

He shrugged, a slight grin spreading across his face. "Nothing. You want to use my patented process, and I want to see you use it. I want to be part of the clinical trial."

"Why?" I demanded.

"Because it's my fucking right, Babycakes."

"Don't call me that."

I was pretty close to crying. I had wept all the way back home, my heart breaking into a hundred pieces. I kept remembering what he'd said, "You came here to use me…I just let you use me differently."

I never meant to use either Dr. Augustus or Mick Bottom—however, I did feel taken advantage of, and made a fool of. Even though RiRi, Cato, and Franco had apologized, and I knew they were not laughing at my stupidity, it didn't change the fact that Mick had decided that I was a charlatan and humiliated me, especially with the fuck me and I'll sign the patent release suggestion.

"Belle, I'm here," he declared.

"And that's supposed to mean something?" My heart ached. I'd really thought that what we shared had been precious but that last night Mick had shown me who he really was, and I wasn't likely to forget.

"I came to give you what you wanted."

I narrowed my eyes, my jaws clenched. "Thank you. And now you can go back to Reef Harbor and spend your days drinking at the Coral Cove. If you leave your email address, I'll make sure you get regular updates on the trial."

He folded his arms. "No."

"Why?"

He cleared his throat. "Because it's not going to be convenient for me to woo you all the way from the fucking Caribbean."

I blinked. "Huh?"

"I said that it won't be convenient for me to woo you?—"

"I'm not deaf; I heard you. My huh was simply me wondering if you've lost your ever-loving mind."

He looked at me patiently, almost like he was assessing me. It was disconcerting to see Mick in clothes that were not board shorts, flip-flops, and some kind of T-shirt.

His jeans looked designer. His sweater was, for sure, cashmere. His boots were expensive. This was not the Mick I knew, which made me realize that he was a chameleon and, hence, completely untrustworthy.

"Why the name Mick Bottom?" I asked.

"My full name is Dr. Nicholas Michael Patrick Augustus, the Third. Augustus is the family name…my mother's first husband and my father was Lord Michael Patrick Augustus, who died when I was a baby. My stepfather was Jonas Bottom, and he pretty much raised me. He was American. Mother goes by Lady Arabella Maria Lucia Augustus. So, Bottom is not part of our names officially ." He walked to me and put his hands on my shoulders. "When I came to Reef Harbor, I wiped my past clean from the Internet, paid handsomely for it and became Mick Bottom."

"So…you're a Lord?"

He sighed. "Probably, but I don't use the title."

"Bottom is a weird name to pick." I removed his hands from touching me and took a step back, ensuring there was some distance between us.

"I didn't want to be Nicholas Augustus any longer, and my stepfather raised me so…." He looked sad. I wanted to probe further, but I wasn't interested in Mick Bottom or Dr. Augustus or whoever the fuck he was. I didn't care.

"Whatever," I muttered.

"I'd like to attend your lab meeting and join the team."

I folded my arms. "We don't just allow anyone to be part of clinical trials."

"I'm still listed as an officer of the company," Mick said in a playful tone, which irked me even more. "It might be hard to kick me off a project I want to be part of, especially when you're using my patent."

I shook my head. "Mick, I don't want you here."

"I know, Babycakes, but I'm staying 'cause I want to woo you."

"What the fuck does that mean?" I asked, exasperated.

"To woo, according to the dictionary, means to try to gain the love of someone, especially with a view to marriage."

I blanched at the word marriage.

"You're certifiable."

"No doubt about it."

"What on earth is wrong with you? We barely know each other, and you want us to get married?"

He smirked. "No, Babycakes, that's the dictionary definition of the word woo. I'd like to…ah… court you."

"And what's the dictionary definition of that?" I asked sarcastically.

"I believe it is to pay flattering attention to someone in order to win favor ."

I wanted to scream again . "Why would you want to win my favor, Mick?"

He looked me in the eye. "Because I'm in love with you."

I screamed. And then, because I was behaving like a crazy person, I took a deep, bracing breath to calm the fuck down.

"Let's go to the fucking lab."

"Good idea."