LUCIEN: A Standalone Romance

by Glenna Sinclair

  “I interned at Jacob’s company a couple of summers ago, mostly so that I would be out of Mom and Dad’s hair. I delivered the mail, ran errands, that sort of thing. One night, Lucien was working late, doing something on his computer. He got up to deal with something Jaime brought to him and I got to looking at the code, and I just seemed to know exactly what it was he was trying to do and exactly what he needed to fix it. So I fixed it. He didn’t even realize it until the next day. And then he assumed his computer tech, Tito, had done it.”

  “And this was for what, exactly?”

  “The pancreas. He was trying to find a way to integrate all the different elements required to make such a thing work. Right now, most companies are just trying to take existing pumps and CGMs and make them work together. What he wanted to do was integrate all the different elements of these devices and turn them into one device. But to do that, he had to solve a number of problems, the least of which was how to teach the device the difference between a high sugar and a low one. I solved the problem.”

  “Did you tell him it was you?”

  “Yeah. Even showed him how I did it.”

  “But…?”

  Rachel shrugged. “He patted me on the head and told me what a good girl I was.”

  I shook my head. “I still don’t understand.”

  “Lucien refused to give me credit for my work on the device.”

  “Okay. So what?”

  Rachel straightened up on her stool, staring at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world. “So what? Do you know how much that device will be worth when it hits the market? It will revolutionize the way diabetes is treated!”

  “I know. That’s why Lucien is developing it.”

  “Yeah, well, he wants to keep all the credit for himself. But, if not for me, he never would have solved the biggest issue.”

  “And that’s why you did this?”

  “I asked him if he was going to give me credit. He openly denied it.”

  “But what does that have to do with this? With you kidnapping me?”

  She groaned. “We did this because it will force him to change the application for the patent. He’ll have to add me as one of the developers.”

  I tilted my head slightly, trying to decide if she was being truthful, or if she was just trying to buy time.

  She looked completely honest. But that honest face had tricked me once before.

  “And the emails?”

  “A distraction.”

  “From what?”

  “He said you would assume it was Tito and you would spend all your time checking into that while he changed the application for the patent.”

  “He said?”

  Rachel looked away.

  “I was supposed to assume it was Tito sending the emails because we traced them back to Lucien’s computer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And that would distract me from what was really happening.”

  “That was his theory.”

  “And what was really happening?”

  “We were trying to get the lawyer to change the patent application.”

  “Sharon Potter?”

  “Who?”

  “The lawyer,” I said, though I’d already realized that she had no idea what I was talking about. And, true to my suspicion, she looked truly confused.

  “The lawyer we were talking to was named Jack Falsey.”

  I stood up and began to pace the length of the kitchen. “Why kidnap me? Whose idea was that?”

  “Hers. She thought it would force Lucien’s hand because the lawyer said that we couldn’t do anything until we had his signature on the paperwork.”

  I nodded. “So your partner is trying to get Lucien’s signature as we speak?”

  “Yeah. She said they were talking and he was about to come around. I guess he really likes you.”

  “You don’t think all this is a little extreme for what you want?”

  Rachel looked away. “I told her that it wasn’t that big of a deal. I could use my skills to do something else. I mean, I’ve already written a game that’s selling like crazy in the Apple store.”

  “Yeah?”

  She smiled. “It’s this game that asks you all these impossible questions and you—”

  The phone buzzed against the countertop. Rachel found as she reached for it, but I grabbed it before she could get it.

  “Change of plans,” I read aloud.

  Rachel’s face twisted into a cloud of confusion.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. She’s not supposed to text me directly.”

  I began to pace again, trying to work all this out in my head. There was more to it than Rachel knew. Someone was after something, but it wasn’t the artificial pancreas. It wasn’t even the patent. If they wanted to stop or alter the patent, they were too late. It came through a week ago. This was about something else. Stealing the code for the pancreas was just an excuse to get Rachel to help.

  “Who is she?”

  Rachel’s eyes fell to the phone in my hands. “I should answer him. She’ll worry if I don’t.”

  “Tell me who you’re working with.”

  “Lynn.”

  I nodded slowly, my memory of Lynn a little less than flattering. She’d showed up at a restaurant where Lucien, his family, and I were sharing a meal. She was high or drunk or a little bit of both, and we’d had to drive all the way back to Houston to take her home. And she’d said things, things that implied that she and Lucien had been sleeping together for quite some time.

  Lynn was Jacob’s ex-wife.

  “Why Lynn?”

  Rachel shrugged. “She came to me a couple of weeks ago and told me that Jacob thought Lucien’s actions were despicable. She said they wanted to help me get my name on the patent so that when the device went to market, I’d get a piece of the profit.”

  “Jacob’s involved too?”

  Rachel shook her head quite adamantly. “No. He just told her what he thought. She was the one who told me to do this, the one who said it was the only way.”

  “But you said ‘they’.”

  “And Jaime.”

  Jaime. I knew that already.

  There was a camera I’d placed in Lucien’s office. I was watching it when Rachel burst into my hotel room. It had caught several people on it, but the most interesting thing was how it caught Jaime typing a text into a phone identical to the one that I was now holding. I’d thought we’d caught Lynn in the act when the camera showed her placing something on Lucien’s desk just after midnight. That’s why I’d saved the footage. But then I’d watched the rest—twelve hours of active recording that actually covered almost a full twenty-four-hour period—and was just piecing it together when Rachel hit me over the head. Memory of that phone… I knew it was Jaime on the other end.

  Lynn. Jaime. Rachel.

  It still didn’t make sense.

  “Run me through it again.”

  Rachel groaned. “I should answer. They’ll know something’s wrong if I don’t.”

  “Okay.” I slid the phone across the table to her. “But you be very careful about what you say.”

  She nodded as she flipped the phone open and began typing. I moved behind her. You can never be too cautious.

  Chapter 35

  Lucien

  “I didn’t steal anything!”

  “I don’t care about that,” Ruben said, pushing me harder against the desk. “I want to know where my daughter is.”

  “If I knew that, don’t you think I’d be there? Don’t you think I’d be with her?”

  “No. I think you had her kidnapped so that we would change our thinking about what’s going on. But it’s backfiring on you now. Your own brother no longer believes you.”

  I glanced over his shoulder, looking for Jacob, but he wasn’t there.

  “Where did he go?”

  That distracted Ruben enough that I was able to move around him. I grabbed the list of nam
es Jacob had written and ran out the door, running to the stairwell ahead of the goons Ruben yelled at to follow me.

  I had to find Adrienne. I had to prove that all of this had nothing to do with me. But first I had to figure out who it was about.

  I ran down three flights of stairs and burst out onto the street, running until I reached my car. And then I was speeding toward the interstate, not quite sure where it was I was headed. Just away. As far from Ruben and his men as I could get.

  I’d thought it was a good idea to turn to the people I trusted the most to find Adrienne. Now I was beginning to understand that I really couldn’t trust anyone.

  I pulled to the side of the road not far from Rice University. There was a huge park and a bunch of young people still out despite the fact that it was getting late. It would be ten in an hour or so, the meeting time in Katy. But my guess was that meeting wouldn’t lead to any more information on Adrienne than we already had.

  I turned on the dome light and studied the list Jacob had made, wondering what the hell all these random scribblings meant. I’d figured out part of his shorthand once, but it was long ago. I could just make out initials and random words here and there. Nothing that made any sense to me. Maybe they didn’t make sense to him, either. Maybe he hadn’t really written down the names the hotel manager had read to him.

  Was Jacob behind this? Was Jacob working with whoever it was who had Adrienne?

  Why would he accuse me of stealing code for the pancreas?

  And then I remembered. Rachel.

  Rachel wrote part of the code for the pancreas. She was upset with me when I told her that I wasn’t going to give her credit on the patent application. The thing was, I did give her credit. Her name was right there next to mine and Tito’s and the scientists who had helped us create it. I wasn’t one of those who tries to take all the credit to himself. I was honest. But I’d wanted to surprise her with it.

  If I had shown her the original application, would we have avoided all this?

  It made no sense to me. The reporter. The odd emails. And Adrienne.

  None of it added up. The threats that weren’t really threats. Emails from my computer that seemed to be a setup to confuse Ruben and his team.

  That’s what it all was, wasn’t it? Just a distraction.

  But from what?

  What was happening this week that someone was trying to distract me from? Not the pancreas. The patent had come through, but the FDA application was still weeks from approval. There was nothing else… But there was, wasn’t there?

  Fuck! Why didn’t I see it sooner?

  I gunned the car’s engine and turned it around, racing back to the office. I knew what was happening. I knew what he was doing. Why? Why would he do this to me, to the company? Was he that selfish?

  I didn’t want to believe it. Maybe that was why it took me so long to see it. I love Jacob. He’s my brother. But maybe… Maybe it didn’t go both ways.

  Self-centered, he’d said. My disease led to me believe I could get whatever I wanted. But I’d always thought it was the opposite. I’d always thought that my illness had made me more sensitive to other people. Maybe I was wrong.

  I shouldn’t have missed this. And by missing it, I’d put Adrienne in danger.

  If he hurt her…

  Chapter 36

  Adrienne

  “I’m supposed to take you back to the city.”

  I was reading the text over her shoulder. It said exactly that.

  Take the package to the roses.

  “The roses?”

  “It’s a code name for a bed and breakfast in Katy where Jacob and Lynn used to go all the time when they were dating. Lynn said it was the perfect place for a rendezvous because it was in the heart of the city, but in a place that’s sort of secluded, you know? It’s on one of those little side streets where people don’t go much.”

  I took the phone and slid it into my jeans pocket.

  “Let’s go.”

  “But what am I going to tell them when they see you all dressed and free?”

  “We’re not going to the bed and breakfast.”

  “But—”

  “Do you want to be arrested for kidnapping?”

  Rachel immediately stopped arguing. I grabbed the keys off of the peg outside the pantry and led the way to the garage. It was a much different walk than it had been a few hours earlier when she brought me into the house. The garage was still dark, but I had a better idea of where I was going. Rachel climbed into the passenger seat without questioning me. She clearly understood that the tables had turned.

  It would be more than an hour’s drive. More than long enough for Rachel to run through her story one last time.

  But first…

  I pulled the phone out of my pocket.

  “Poppy, it’s me.”

  The relief in his voice was so overwhelming that I nearly burst into tears myself.

  “Where are you?”

  “Safe. I’m on my way back to Houston.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “I told that man if you were hurt—”

  “What man?”

  “Lucien. I told him if he hurt you—”

  “Lucien isn’t involved in all this, Poppy. But I think his brother might be.”

  A heavy silence fell on the other end of the line. “Why?”

  “I’m still working on that.” I glanced at Rachel. She was watching me, her face so pale she might have disappeared if she were leaning against the outside of the white van. As it was, she seemed to glow against the dark of the upholstered seat. “I’ll be in the city in roughly an hour. I’ll explain everything then.”

  I disconnected the call and focused on Rachel. “Start talking. Tell me everything, even if it doesn’t seem important.”

  I needed to figure this out as much for my own sanity as for Lucien’s safety.

  Something in my gut told me this wasn’t the end of things.

  Chapter 37

  Lucien

  I went to the house because I knew he wouldn’t have done anything to hide the evidence this time. He knew I’d be occupied with other things. He assumed I wouldn’t put two and two together and come up with fourteen.

  But here I was, dragging his computer out of his room and running it through its paces.

  I remembered walking into my own kitchen and finding Adrienne going through Jacob’s computer, how outraged I’d felt at the sight. Jacob couldn’t possibly have done anything to hurt me, let alone the company. The pancreas was going to be the thing that would put our company over the top, financing all the other marvels of modern medicine we wanted to create. Jacob wouldn’t do anything to change that.

  But he would. There was something else more important to him, something bigger than the pancreas was ever going to be. Something that would change life as we knew it. And he was on the verge of discovering how to make it work.

  The proof was here. I just had to find it.

  A distraction. Just a fucking distraction. And I’d played a role in it all. The perfect role, as it turned out. Adrienne was supposed to be a decoy, pretending to be my girlfriend. And then she was in my bed and I couldn’t think of anything else. I’d welcomed her there, brought her in on my own. And she’d proven to be the one distraction Jacob hadn’t planned on, but which was the best gift he could have given himself.

  How could I be so blind to what was going on around me? How could I put Adrienne into that sort of danger?

  I booted up the computer and bypassed the welcome screen, moving into the hidden files without so much as blinking an eye. I’d looked over Adrienne’s shoulder, seen a few folders on the home screen that seemed suspicious. But that was all just another distraction. Jacob knew what he was doing.

  And there it was. Proof of what he was doing.

  Contracts. Code. Specs.

  He was stealing it all. Selling it to another company.

  I could see what was going to happen
. Jacob had decided that the drugs we were developing weren’t coming along fast enough to make money. And the few things we did have—the patents we’d purchased on other drugs, vitamins and other things, the pacemaker we already had on the market—weren’t making enough money to support the development of the new devices and drugs we were working on. The company was struggling. We’d discussed it months ago, the loans we were going to take out to make things better, to give us what we needed to make things stretch. But Jacob wasn’t going to wait.

  He was going to sell all of our patents and walk away.

  He was distracting me so that I wouldn’t see what he was up to. He was just waiting for the patent on the pancreas to come through. That was the cherry on top. He was getting billions of dollars for it all.

  He was going to leave me high and dry with a failed company on my hands.

  There were contracts for the whole thing. And the paperwork I’d signed last month giving me control over the company. He’d said it was for the loans. He’d said it was a safety measure. He’d said it didn’t mean anything.

  But it did. When the patents were gone and we had nothing left to sell, I was going to be left holding the bag for millions of dollars in unpaid loans. It would ruin me.

  I couldn’t let this happen.

  I dug through the paperwork, wondering how he was getting around my name on most of the patents. And then I remembered the power of attorney I’d signed when I first went to work at the company. He was using it to make the sales. And it was all such a joke, the way he played me. Hand me some paperwork, tell me it meant nothing, get me to sign it. Then he had the power to screw me over so royally I would never have survived the fallout. There would have been lawsuits from vendors, from our employees. There would be… It was so massive that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what all this would do to me, to the company, to the people who worked there. To the people we’d vowed to help.

  How long had he been planning this?

  “Fuck me!”

  “Yes, that was it exactly.”

  Every muscle in my body went rigid. I sat still, afraid if I moved I would do something I would forever regret. I felt him come up behind me and watched as his hands moved around me, picking up the computer from the counter in front of me.