Chapter 43 #2
“That isn’t possible, Lord Norland,” said Jim. “You’re from the past. You have a life and a family there. And for the sake of protecting and upholding the timeline that’s already been written, you can’t be in a relationship with Miss Faez, and you can’t remain here.”
“That’s not entirely true, Dr Pine,” Victor said, leaning against the table.
Rayna’s head whipped to him, as did everyone else’s in the deadly quiet.
“I’d like to remind you that you signed an NDA, Dr Johnson,” Jim hissed.
An NDA? An NDA for what?
“An agreement that expired last year, which no one asked me to renew.”
Jim shifted a hard glance to Lang, whose face went red with a choked sound. “I–I’m…I’m sure I sent emails…” The spluttering man faded off, making the certainty of his statement clear.
“I didn’t receive any emails,” Victor retorted, “so there is nothing stopping me from telling them that you’re lying. Studies have been allowed to stay in the past.”
The revelation Victor dropped left a ringing echo in the room. Or maybe it was within Rayna because it was all she could hear as she held her breath in shock.
How…when…when had Studies been allowed to stay? Because for as long as she could remember, it had always been banned.
Anger flashed across Jim’s face. “That was a long time ago,” he bit out, reluctantly confirming Victor’s declaration. “Before we knew what taking someone out of their time period could do. The Rupture it causes.”
“Can cause,” Victor corrected. “It’s not guaranteed. It can be diminished or overcome given enough time to figure out what precautions need to be taken.”
Jim arched a brow. “Do you honestly believe taking someone as important as Lord Norland out of his timeline won’t cause a Rupture that can’t be managed?”
“You don’t know that with certainty.”
“Neither do you know the opposite with certainty.”
Both men stared each other down for a dozen seconds.
Then Jim Pine returned his attention to Rayna and Dominic. “You will end your affair today—”
“No,” Dominic snapped, and her heart stuttered with the same refusal.
“And you will return to your time tomorrow evening after wrapping things up at the museum, Lord Norland.”
“I said no,” Dominic growled. “I will not be separated from Rayna.”
“You just told us Studies have been allowed to stay,” Rayna added. “So, given the chance to overcome his Rupture, whatever that means, Lord Norland should be allowed to stay too.”
Jim rested his elbows on the table. “Miss Faez, the last time someone tried to overcome a Rupture, people died.” He paused as he stared her right in the eye.
“Your mother.” He glanced to George on the other side of Victor.
“Your parents. They died trying to help Alex overcome a princess’s Rupture.
Is that really what you want to happen again? ”
The solid, unforgiving blow of his words landed directly against Rayna’s chest, winding her. The high-pitched zinging swarmed her head and ears again.
“What?” George croaked.
“And it was your fault,” Victor rumbled, jerking forward.
“It was you who didn’t give them enough time to figure out the princess’s Rupture.
You rushed Yasmin into doing an experiment she told you wasn’t ready!
You were so desperate to cement your place on the Board, you forced her to choose between helping Alex and her safety because you knew she would risk her life to help him.
You’re the reason they’re all gone. Yasmin, Alex, Frank, and Samara died because of you! ”
Hot and cold rushes flooded in crashing waves through Rayna’s veins as she gaped at the anger and pain straining Victor’s face, a wetness coasting over his eyes.
“And you can sit there,” he hissed, “and pretend you earnt your place as the CEO, but you didn’t. You stole it from Yasmin. You killed her to get it.”
Pin. Drop. Silence. Numb and cold and agonising.
The same kind that had shattered Rayna’s strength when she’d seen her mum’s weak body in the hospital bed thirteen years ago.
The explosion had bruised her mum’s body where it’d thrown her across the room.
But the real damage had been on the inside, where the Type Two Z-energy that the POTeM functioned on began causing her organs to fail one by one until she lay lifeless two days later.
The pain, the realisation, panic, disbelief, the tears, and screaming had hit her when a sobbing Victor, her grandparents, and her dad had all tried holding her back as she fought to stop the doctors from wheeling her mum out of the room.
She could hear it all in her ears, see it all behind her eyes, as she tried to process the answers she’d never gotten to her questions all those years ago. And it was cracking the numbness, spreading a cold sweat across her neck, as throbs of excruciating pain radiated from her chest.
Dominic clenched her hand, rubbing her wrist under the table too as he watched her, and she could sense it, but she could barely feel it as she put all her concentration into trying to breathe over the suffocating emotions.
“So that’s what this is about? Those same baseless accusations.”
The low, emotionless voice of Jim Pine filtered through the noise in Rayna’s head, and she raised her gaze.
“Do you see now, Miss Faez?” he said. “Dr Johnson is using you in some scheme to get back at me for something he’s convinced himself in his grief that I did, when what happened to your mother and the others was a devastating accident. The very reason no Study is allowed to stay anymore.”
“Be quiet,” Dominic growled, clamping his hand around her forearm like he was willing her not to listen to the man.
But Jim ignored him. “Do you understand now that it’s in your best interest to end things with Lord Norland?”
She felt both Dominic and Victor react on either side of her, ready to slice the man with words, but—
“No.”
Everyone’s attention fell on her as her voice lingered in the silence.
Jim Pine had no idea who she was if he thought he could manipulate her and turn her against Victor. And to use that to try to separate her and Dominic? He couldn’t have done anything more to earn her instant distrust and hatred.
“No,” she repeated harder. “I won’t end things with Dominic, and you’re insane if you think I’d believe you over V.
” She sat upright. “If what he says is true, then you’re a murderer.
You stole my mum from me, you took George’s parents from him, and the Board helped brush it under the carpet as if you didn’t ruin multiple people’s lives! ”
She shot glares at all of them, and the black man who’d once been a scientist and the older brunette lady at the other end had the decency to look away guiltily.
“I won’t let you do the same to me and Dominic,” she continued. “And threatening or manipulating us isn’t going to work in your favour, I promise you that. We’ll fight you tooth and nail if that’s what it’s going to take, but you owe us the chance to overcome Dominic’s Rupture.
“This project owes me for taking my mum away from me. You owe me for all the work I’ve done, for everything my mum did, for everything V and George have done and lost. For all the pain you’ve caused the three of us. You owe me time!”
Some of the Board members exchanged wary, contemplative looks. Then the brunette lady at the end took a deep breath.
She said, “I accept Miss Faez’s request.”
Jim’s gaze snapped to the woman, but she didn’t glance at him, and soon enough the black scientist voiced the same opinion. Eventually, the two other women did too, leaving the silent Jim, Lang, and Sheun outnumbered.
Vindictive satisfaction touched Rayna’s pride, but it wasn’t powerful enough to show over her anger as Jim’s jaw moved back and forth faintly. Still, he didn’t relent.
“We will do this with or without your permission, Dr Pine,” she warned him. “At this point, it really doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
He didn’t like that she’d challenged him; his irritation was practically pouring from his pores like boiling liquid. “Three days,” he said. “And Dr River Harris will return Lord Norland if the Rupture reduction is not predicted at ninety percent.”
“That’s impossible,” Victor snapped.
“Then that settles that.”
Victor clamped his jaw together. “Two weeks. Sixty percent.”
“Three days. Ninety percent.”
“Lord Norland will need longer than three days to wrap things up at the museum,” Monty interrupted.
“And Dr Harris has been given this week off, seeing as he hasn’t had a proper break since he first scouted Lord Norland in April.
So it’s not possible to send the marquess back so soon anyway.
And there’s no one from the Evidence team either who could travel with him. ”
“Fine,” Jim said after a while. “One week. Ninety percent.”
Victor slammed his hands down on the table. “Ninety percent isn’t feasible even in the best-case scenario. You’re purposely setting an unreachable target!”
“Eighty percent is feasible, though,” Sheun said with a lift of her pointed chin.
“Not in a week.”
“Ten days then,” Jim countered. “With an eighty percent reduction. That’s as generous as I’m willing to be.
” He edged forward, hardening his tone. “And mark my words, when you fail to find a solution, you will return without complaint, without a single memory of the past four months, never to see each other again, Lord Norland. And we will decide the fate of your job on that very same day, Miss Faez, which the likelihood of you keeping is very, very low. Is that clear?”
“As long as you understand that when we find a solution, you will never threaten anyone’s job or interfere with our relationship ever again,” Dominic said.
“And you’ll give up your position as CEO of Two Worlds,” Rayna added with a snarl. “Without complaint.”
“Deal,” the man said with a quiet, mocking huff. So damn sure he was going to win.