21. Bottoms Alert
CHAPTER 21
bottoms alert
MICK
" T eam, I'd like to introduce all of you to Dr. Nicholas Augustus," Belle announced blandly.
She was pissed off with me, and she had every right. I'd played her and, in that process, had ended up playing myself. Couldn't she see that? Couldn't she see what it had taken for me to come to her in her world, my old one—the one I had left behind because I couldn't face it any longer?
Cato had warned me that Belle wouldn't see my coming to Cambridge as some grand gesture—she'd see it as just another way I was manipulating her. He was right. She had distrust written all over her face—as if she was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for me to do something unexpected, something shocking and not in a good way.
“Thanks, Dr. Volnay." I looked around the lab, a pang of familiarity and loss running through me. I'd been in rooms like this more times than I could count, labs and offices humming with data analysis and anticipation, the drone of machinery, the smell of ethanol, the sterile air—places that had once felt like home. But coming back here now felt different, strange, like donning an old suit that no longer fit because the contours of my body had changed.
Everyone, except Belle, was staring at me, eyes wide with surprise, as if I were a myth, and they couldn't believe I was real . One of the younger researchers was practically gaping, glancing between me and Belle with a look of open curiosity. Clearly, they were as surprised by my arrival as Belle had been.
Belle took a step back, crossing her arms tightly, her eyes steely and detached. "Dr. Augustus is here to provide oversight on the patent and the trial. And before anyone asks, yes, it's the Dr. Augustus—the one who helped develop the process that we'll be using for this trial." Her voice was dry, almost clipped as if she couldn't stand to give me more credit than was necessary.
I cleared my throat, addressing the team directly. "I know it's a surprise having me here, and I'm sure you've all been doing incredible work on this trial. I'm not here to provide oversight; I'm just going to be a spectator, and I promise not to get into anyone's way."
A few people nodded eagerly, but Belle's gaze stayed locked on me, her lips pressed into a thin line. She wasn't convinced, and she didn't want anyone else to be, either.
Dr. Salim Kher broke the silence with a hearty chuckle, stepping forward to shake my hand. "Dr. Augustus, you have no idea what a privilege it is to have you here. You're practically a legend to some of us." His eyes sparkled with excitement, his enthusiasm so genuine that I felt a pang of guilt because I wasn't here for science; I was here for the fair maiden .
But Belle's voice cut through the moment. "The privilege is certainly ours, Dr. Kher," she said smoothly, her tone laced with just enough subtle sarcasm that I doubted anyone else caught it—but I did .
We did a round of introductions and afterward, I sat on a stool at a lab counter as the meeting progressed.
Dr. Kher was clearly excited, jumping into every detail of the trial. The rest of Belle's team seemed equally passionate, pouring over data and charts, genetic sequences, and minute details of Sanfilippo Syndrome.
Belle wasn't the same woman I'd met in Reef Harbor. This version of her, with her dark hair pulled back into a braid, was just as stunning as she'd been on the beach. But seeing her in a lab coat, speaking with such passion about a clinical trial—that was something else entirely. And she made me hard. I couldn't remember the last time listening to someone go through clinical trial protocols gave me an erection. Strike that; this was the first time that had happened.
I knew she didn't trust me to be a bystander, but I'd meant what I said. I wasn't here to provide oversight; I was here to win my woman back, and the only way I could see doing that was to force her into my company day in and day out.
"We will start Phase 1 of our trial shortly," Belle declared, and everyone clapped. "As you know, in this phase, our focus will be on evaluating the treatment's safety, typically on a small group of participants, in our case ten, to determine safe dosage levels and initial responses."
"When do you think we'll start to see results?" I asked, and her calm facade slipped a little. She wasn't expecting me to ask questions.
Hell, woman, if I don't rattle you a little, you're going to ignore me, and that I'm not going to have.
"What do you think Oliver?" she asked a member of her team.
I surmised that Dr. Oliver Fernandez, who had just completed his postdoc, was in his late twenties and as eager as I remembered being at that age. "In a Phase 1 trial for a gene therapy targeting a condition like Sanfilippo Syndrome, I believe we can typically start seeing preliminary results within three to six months."
Belle nodded and then turned to the woman sitting close to me. "Deepika, what else will our focus be in this phase?"
Deepika Jaiswal seemed less sure of herself, probably because she had recently graduated from university with a master's in biopharmacology. "This phase is primarily about safety and finding the right dosage, but we will monitor for early signs of efficacy, especially in cases of Sanfilippo Syndrome, a severe and progressive disease where any positive response is meaningful."
Well, that sounded straight out of a textbook. Deepika glanced at me nervously, and I offered her a reassuring smile. I'd been in her shoes before—scared, uncertain, convinced I'd never make it in a profession where failures far outnumbered successes. But when you did succeed, even just that one time in a thousand, the impact could be life-changing. The researchers who developed the mRNA COVID vaccines had saved millions of lives—and they'd started exactly where this team was now.
As the team broke into groups, starting to review data and trial logistics, I walked up to Belle, watching her face tighten.
"Happy?" she bit out.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know, I heard that Dr. Augustus was a control freak, and that was why he hadn't signed releases for his patents. You're definitely proving that." She was bitter, angry, and even worse, disappointed.
"Babycakes," I murmured, keeping my voice low so only she could hear, "you know this isn't about controlling you. It's about trying to make things right."
She gave me a hard look, barely holding back the frustration and betrayal simmering behind her eyes. "Make what things right?" she whispered, her voice sharp. "Showing up here, throwing your influence around, and insisting that you're part of the team”—she gestured around the room, her expression filled with irritation—"is not making anything right; all it's doing is pissing me the hell off."
"It's my fucking patent," I growled.
A few heads turned toward us.
"Let's take this into my office." Belle waved at a glassed cubicle next to the lab. We walked in, and as soon as we did, Belle pushed some buttons to frost the glass.
"Neat," I commented.
"My team already thinks something is off. First, I showed up and told them I couldn't find you, and now you're here looking damn familiar with me. I don't need gossip. This is my place of work."
Normally, an annoyed woman was my cue to walk away—I wasn't one for drama. But this annoyed woman? She was sexy as hell.
"Do you know what it took for me to come back here?" I demanded.
"No one asked you to," she retorted, her arms folded. "You could've just sent the paperwork and stayed on your island drinking your days away with Franco and Cato and fucking the female tourist population."
She was furious with me, and rightfully so. I hadn't been particularly kind, and with good reason, right? So, why was I here begging for scraps? Why did I care so much?
The guy with the horns on my shoulders looked at his long nails and said, rather sardonically, " Because your sad ass fell in love, beach bum."
Christ! All those people who said love was the answer didn't know what the fucking question was. However, I had learned the hard way that it was: Do you want to be miserable until the end of days? Because after you fell in love, everything was shit. If you had her—then you hungered for her. If you didn't have her, same result. After all these years of being smart, I'd fallen for the one woman who was so close to the life I'd left behind that it spoke volumes about my idiocy.
"Belle, I hate this ." I waved a hand around. "All of it."
"Then go," she challenged. "Go the fuck back, Mick."
"I can't," I replied honestly and rubbed a hand over my face. "You think I want this? I'm fucking miserable without you, and now here I'm with you, and it doesn't change. Jesus! Woman. You're not even my type."
Okay, so I'd been living on an island for three years, and in a lab before that, I wasn't what you called a stellar and articulate conversationalist; what I was was basic .
She threw the pen she was holding at me. It bounced off my chest. It was a lame move if I'd seen one. The pen was one of those light pilot ones that labs bought in bulk. It wouldn't hurt a fly.
"Didn't see you as being violent," I continued my mission to fuck up my life by not keeping my mouth shut.
"Are you kidding me?" She screeched. "Get the fuck out of my office, my lab, and my life."
"Office, yes. Lab, no. Life, definite no." I grinned at her, which annoyed her some more. I hadn't seen this Belle in Reef Harbor. There she'd been carefree; now she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. I knew the feeling and remembered it well. The stress of work, of schedules, project management, all of it. I didn't want this for her. But as Cato had told me, what I wanted didn't matter; this was her life. It wasn't mine anymore, though, but I had to respect her passion for it.
"Belle, I left this world behind for a reason. I came back for you. I thought it would mean something to you."
She shook her head, looking away, her voice flat. "It means nothing if you're just going to manipulate the situation to stay here. This isn't love, Mick. This is just…control. "
She walked away, leaving me standing alone in her office, feeling like the life I'd so carefully left behind had somehow dragged me back, heavy with its old expectations. But this time, it wasn't the work that weighed on me—it was Belle. And she was the one thing I couldn't bear to lose.