Chapter 1 Endocrinology, Brain, and Pituitary Gland #2
I noticed his jaw tighten at my joke. Pushing his hands into his pajama pockets, he leveled me with his trademark bored stare.
“Unlike PhD student labs, courts recognize weekends and are closed until Monday.” He sounded calm, but I sensed an undercurrent of odd aggression.
Or maybe my vibe-checker was on the fritz this morning.
Highly possible given my unconscious brain’s choices.
He went on. “I have pulled some strings to get it fast-tracked. Everything should be finalized before Thanksgiving.”
“That’s good. Thank you.” This felt like the first real, official step toward revenge. The engagement was all a show, but this adoption was legally binding. Perhaps my subconscious would avoid his bedroom once everything was final.
On that note. “Oh, again, since I’m apparently sleepwalking, I should barricade my door—”
“Do you think that’s safe?” He shuffled a step forward.
“—but you should probably lock your door at night. If I somehow get past the barricade and door, I don’t want to impose on you again. I am really sorry about last night.”
Andreas openly inspected me. The silence stretched for so long, I thought he might not respond, and I was just about to leave when he finally said, “I will keep that in mind.”
Hoping that statement was his way of politely agreeing, I nodded, then darted out, speed walking back to my side of the apartment. Once safely in the sanctuary of the bathroom, I braced my hands against the cool countertop, stared into the mirror, and tried to process the previous five minutes.
My hair was a fright. My shirt was askew. I still felt the ghostly imprint of Andreas’s hand on my skin.
One night into living with him, and I’d already been betrayed by my subconscious brain. I had to get a handle on myself. I was an adult. A scientist. A woman with a mission and that mission came first.
And yet, the only thing I could think about, as I stared at my reflection, was how good it had felt to be held by him. Even if he hadn’t meant it that way. Even if he was, very soon, going to be my legal father.
I groaned into the sink, then splashed water on my face. “Get it together, Sam,” I whispered.
But my skin still tingled where his hand had touched mine, and somewhere in my chest, something soft and dangerous took deeper root.
* * *
If I were being honest, I needed the cold late-autumn air. I needed the sting, because my brain had been running a fever since approximately 8:45 AM, which was when I’d tumbled out of Andreas’s bed.
I hadn’t even managed to put on my shoes before fleeing the apartment, waving off Andreas’s offer of coffee.
Instead, I’d clutched them to my chest like a security blanket.
Tara, who seemed to have the tact of a Buddhist monk and the judgmental restraint of a golden retriever, merely greeted me when I appeared on the sidewalk.
“I’m teaching a kickboxing class tonight. Want to come?” Tara asked as soon as she pulled into traffic.
“Yes. Please. What time?” Anything to postpone going back to Andreas’s apartment.
“Nine.”
I thought for a moment. “That works. I’ll finish up work around six, grab a bite, then we can head straight there? I’ll digest while I check out the gym.”
“Sounds good.” Tara flipped on her turn signal and the remainder of the drive passed in silence.
I spent it recalling all the boys I’d left before, every strategy for extracting inconvenient feelings or letting them die on the vine.
Usually, disentangling myself was as easy as identifying a man’s most repugnant opinion and, if necessary, blowing it out of proportion until I couldn’t see the good anymore.
But Andreas hadn’t cooperated last night, sharing none of his repugnant opinions.
My second strategy was typically foolproof and involved asking myself: What was so special about this guy, anyway? What did I actually like about him?
I mean, sure. Andreas was handsome. So were lots of guys.
And he was a kisser of rare talent, so that was something special.
And he was thoughtful, smart, and strategic.
And he seemed to genuinely care about doing the right thing, even if it made his life difficult.
And I’ve known him forever. And his hands . . .
DON’T THINK ABOUT HIS HANDS!
Squeezing my eyes shut, I gave my head a quick shake to dispel the image of Andreas’s gorgeous hands and decided to talk myself out of liking him later. For the remainder of the car ride, I stayed busy by making a mental task list of all the work waiting for me at the lab.
But the lab was even less successful as a distraction.
My hands shook so badly during pipetting that I had to recalibrate the digital reader three times, which is, for anyone keeping score, three more times than I’d ever miscalibrated it during all my years of grad school.
By 2:00 PM, I’d gotten so little work done, I abandoned the blessedly empty lab and worked instead on a project Dmitry had emailed to me last week.
He’d asked me to read through his methods section.
I edited it for him instead, adding new citations and fleshing out a few of his placeholders.
The only thing that kept me grounded was the knowledge that, after work, I’d hopefully get to burn off at least a fraction of my anxious energy doing violence to some heavy bags in Tara’s kickboxing class.
That was my new plan: punch things.
When 5:30 PM rolled around I figured enough was enough.
I texted Tara, changed in the locker room, and made my way downstairs.
Standing just outside the front doors of the biology building, blue scarf wound up to my nose, I searched the curb for the familiar hulk of Tara’s Mercedes.
The wind had me blinking against the cold.
Movement flickered at the edge of my vision.
A man, tall, moving forward purposefully, strode up the far side of the street.
His suit was an expensive blue-gray, not the fun blue of a retro car but the cold, almost metallic blue of a winter sky right before it snows.
He wore a cashmere overcoat that looked incredibly soft.
It reminded me of Andreas’s. Don’t think about Andreas!
Refocusing on the man, I noted his hair was cut close on the sides, styled just enough on top that it seemed to mock lesser men who dared to try the look. Huh. He sorta looks like Andreas . . .
Before I could chide myself for thinking about Andreas again, I registered who this man was, and every neuron in my prefrontal cortex fired at once.
Henrik Kristiansen.
Andreas’s half brother, the one Andreas had described as “unpredictable and often resorts to physical violence.”
Henrik’s stare locked on me at exactly that moment. A pulse of adrenaline had me standing straighter.
Run.