For many things, I had a very long fuse before any irritation showed. But not when it came to my lab and my life’s work. In that, I had a very short fuse. Which meant that Troian probably heard more than she should have about my frustrations at work. One more thing to add to the list of why I was a terrible father.
“Right… well, you’ve been at the lab a lot more lately.” She ducked her head and it might as well have been a knife to my gut. “So, I haven’t really seen you, let alone heard much of anything from you,” she finished quietly.
“Troian—”
“I was wondering if you could do something for me,” she cut me off, her gaze rising to meet mine before I could even attempt an apology.
“Of course,” I said firmly. I also spoke quickly. Had I slowed, I might have realized that it wasn’t a favor for her.
“You know how I finished my internship a few weeks ago?” she asked, arching a brow.
I nodded, even though if she hadn’t said it, I wouldn’t have remembered. “Well, Lil—”
“It’s actually my favor, Mr. Milanovic.” Her voice slid down my spine like warm honey as she interrupted Troian.
Now, I had to look at her. Now, I had an excuse for my eyes to lock with hers; I had a reason to notice the way her cheeks slowly stained pink, a reason to wonder if the tips of her tits were the same color. I had a reason to watch her lick her plump lips, the image making my dick jerk against my pants, all angry and horny.
“I-I haven’t been able to find somewhere to do my internship,” she continued, her pupils dilating with either anxiety or lust. For both our sakes, I hoped the former. I could practically see her pulse fluttering on the side of her neck. I bit down on my tongue for wanting to lick it. For wanting to trace that pulsing heat down her body to her center where I could make her heart race so fast that she would take flight. “And, so, I was wondering if I would be able to come help you in your lab for three weeks so that I can graduate.”
Her words rushed out almost as fast as the breath from my lungs.
Too distracted with her lithe, ripe body, I hadn’t been paying attention to her words.
For someone who was obsessed with the rational. The statistical. The logical. All of that had evaporated like water on a hot stove when it came to her. She made me emotional. And I’d never had to deal with that before.
“Dad.” My head jerked to my daughter who was staring at me with raised eyebrows.
Instantly, I realized that Lilith had asked her question and I hadn’t answered; I’d just sat there staring at my own downfall.
I should say no. No one else but me knew just how much saying no was the right thing to do.
I wouldn’t say no because my daughter wanted me to do this. And I’d already let her down so much.
I wouldn’t say no because saying yes was the right, kind thing to do. For a normal parent to want to help a friend of their child.
But mostly, I couldn’t say no because my sick, traitorous body demanded that I say yes.
“I-if it’s too much of a problem—”
“Of course, you can, Lilith,” I interrupted her, fabricating a serene smile on my face. “I would be happy to help.”
“Dad…” my daughter drawled. “You better be nice to her. She’s my best friend.”
Fuck, did I want to be nice to her. I wanted to be so nice it would make her want to scream.
“Apparently my daughter thinks I’m an unfeeling jerk, Lilith,” I laughed, trying to hide the tightness in my chest – and in my pants.
“I don’t think you’re unfeeling, Mr. Milanovic,” she murmured.
I didn’t expect her to speak. I didn’t expect the heaviness in her words. It was like she knew I felt too much. And too much for her.
“Not yet,” Troy retorted, too busy standing to clear out plates to realize what was happening in the space between Lilith’s gaze and mine. “There’s still time…”
There it was again. The look she gave me that made me feel all-powerful - and like she was mine for the taking.
Alpha and omega.
Little did she knew that, if I wasn’t careful, she would be both my beginning and my end.
Chapter Two
Lilith
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. Maybe I should have just gone to the NIH.
Maybe I should have gone to see a psychiatrist for being turned on by my best friend’s dad.
These doubts… questions… had plagued my mind for the past three days. The AP Biochem exam had been less stressful than the fact that I was going to be interning for Damien Milanovic. The scientist who cured cancer. My best friend’s dad. The man who invaded my dreams.
Monday, he’d said - right before he disappeared upstairs after dinner with a look on his face that said he wasn’t thrilled about what he’d just agreed to; it was a look that only I’d seen.
After dinner that night, he’d told me that I could start coming Monday after school. At first, I thought it was a blessing – a few days to recover and figure out how I was going to act normally in front of him. He’d said that they hadn’t given him another assistant… did that mean that we would be working alone in the lab? Instead of a blessing, the time had been a curse to my curious self.
Between then and now, I’d played out a million and one experiments… reactions… and potential results of how this was going to go - and none of them seemed right.
If Troy was the quiet, yet fierce, brainiac, I would have been the popular, closet-nerd. Friends… boys… they’d come as easily as chemical equations. It wasn’t like that for everyone, but for me, the recipe for making a connection - for making people feel comfortable around me - was as simple as knowing that hydrogen plus oxygen would combine to form water.
“H-hi,” I stammered to the receptionist inside the lab building. Recovering quickly, I plastered my biggest, warmest smile on my face. “I’m here to see Mr. Milanovic.”
Her eyes widened slightly, beginning to look me up and down. Even though my heart began to pick up its pace, I stood stock-still. Her gaze made it as far as the insignia on the breast of my blazer - the crest of the private school that Troy and I attended – before her interest in me visibly plummeted.
“Are you his daughter?” she asked. Guess she was still slightly interested in my presence.
“A—Her friend.” My smile didn’t reach as high this time. “Mr. Milanovic is letting me intern with him for a few weeks for graduation.
“Of course,” she nodded, like she’d known this whole time. “His lab is on the fourth floor. There will be signs when you exit the elevator.”
I followed her nod over to where the glass shells flew up and down the side of the building, carrying people to every floor and gave them a complete view of the lobby in its travels. It was just one of the many features that gave the Quantum Pharmaceuticals research facilities the feel of a futuristic zoo - where you could come and stare at the strange creatures who were smart enough to save lives.
But an unpopular zoo, at that rate.
I guess that was how heroism really worked, I thought as I pushed the button for the elevator. In the quiet, out of the spotlights, toiling tirelessly against a villain that would just as easily mutate and continue its destruction the moment you thought you were safe.
The doors closed behind me and I was alone in the glass bubble.
I was alone in the sandy-tan hallways of the fourth floor.
And I was alone when I knocked on the door to his office.
No answer.
I reached for the knob.
Locked.
Was it the wrong day? Wrong time?
Had he forgotten about me?
I felt my forehead, sure that I had given myself a fever with worry. Yet still, my feet carried me further down the hall to the very last door. The breath I was holding released as the handle turned and opened into the crisp, white lab.
At first, I thought of Troy and how her room was always neat and ordered like this. Then, guiltil
y, I shoved her from my thoughts as I walked into the space.
“Mr. Milanovic?” I yelled hesitantly into the silence.
One breath.
And then there was a screech from the adjoining room – a stool sliding against the laminate floor.
My head turned just as he walked in. Brains and broodiness, perfectly outlined in a gray labcoat. Like always, heat pooled low in my stomach and I felt dampness collecting between my thighs.
“I—ahh. Sorry,” I stammered, looking down my uniformed-knee-high socks to my black flats. “I went to your office, but it was locked and—”
“What time is it?” He interrupted me with a glare that was equally as demanding just before it jerked around the room, searching for a clock since I wasn’t answering fast enough.
“It’s about ten-of four.” He looked like he didn’t remember what day it was, let alone what time. “I’m a few minutes early.”
“Right.” He nodded, his eyes scanning me up and down like he couldn’t stop himself - but then he did. “Come.”
Goosebumps coated my skin when his gaze tore away from me. He was like that all the time, I told myself. Heated. Intense. It didn’t have anything to do with me.
I followed him into the adjoining room where a collection of science and experimental equipment would have rivaled the worth of the crown jewels. Microscopes, mass spectrometers, centrifuges, and row after row of test tubes. I was like a kid in a candy store.
Momentarily distracted, I wandered along the various machines, admiring them more than most women would admire diamonds; diamonds couldn’t save lives.
“Put this on.” I jumped when a lab coat was shoved against me.
He turned away just as I went to look at him.
Was there someone wrong with me? With my face?
My cheeks burned. It felt like either he looked at me so intensely I might combust, or he refused to look at me at all.
I pulled off my uniformed blazer, laying it gently on an empty tabletop before I tugged the jacket on over my light blue polo shirt. My uniform fit me to a T… this, however, did not. I had to roll up the sleeves because they were too long, and the length came down to just below my knees. When I went to button it, I realized that it was one of his lab coats, Damien Milanovic embroidered on the left breast.
“This… your lab is incredible,” I blurted out, following several steps behind him as he walked along the counter in the back of the room. “These machines… Sorry… it’s just a lot to be standing in the room where miracles happen.”
It was like standing on the dock where the Titanic left from or in the booth where Lincoln was shot; there are just places where the start of something so momentous… so historical… occurs that the feelings overwhelm you.
“Machines aren’t miracles.” His voice snapped me back to reality. “They are the best attempt to cure the incurable; they help me create one set of molecules to destroy another. I’m not God, Miss Montgomery; I don’t deal in miracles.”
“But… your drug cures lung cancer…” My brow furrowed. “That’s a miracle to a lot of people.”
“Not proven yet,” he ground out as he spun to face me.
In his response, I saw most how Troy was like her father: a perfectionist. It didn’t matter if what she did was good enough for other people, it was never good enough for herself. And now, I saw where she got that from.
In front of me stood Damien Milanovic, the man whose drug compound would cure lung cancer and change lives. And he stood here scolding me because the drug hadn’t finished trials for the FDA yet and therefore wasn’t proven.
“Your job.” His fingers tapped on the counter next to us.
I swallowed hard as my eyes flicked over to the sink and then back to him.
What was he talking about? It was a sink.
“E-excuse me?” I stammered.
“I need all these beakers washed.” He nodded down the length of counter and I turned to notice this time, just how much of it was covered in glassware. “In fact, all the glass along this back wall needs to be washed.”
Washing dishes.
That was what my internship was going to be.
I caught my tongue between my teeth before it could dart out and say something that I would regret.
“Of course,” I said, pulling a smile out of my ass so that he wouldn’t see just how uncomfortable I was.
I was a mix of anger and hurt - wanting to punch him and cry at the same time.
If he didn’t want me here, he should have just said so.
I turned on the faucet, not saying another word, as I clung to the burning pain inside me like it was a lifejacket. The whole reason I wanted this internship was to get over this stupid crush on him and this closet-cruelty should be helping my plan; I should be happy.
Instead, I was just hurt.
With gloves on, I grabbed the first beaker and began to scrub, fighting the urge to turn around to see what he was doing.
I quickly realized that the washing wasn’t the worst part; it was the silence.
I may be going down in suds, but I wasn’t going to go down in silence.
“Do you usually lose track of time?” I practically yelled, making sure that there was no way he could pretend not to hear me. “Is that why you’re never home?”
Four. I had to wait four breaths before his voice rumbled behind me.
“My work is very consuming. I don’t have time to check the clock.”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that came out of me. He was so serious. Like making the clock visible or setting an alarm were inconceivable concepts. Thankfully, I was facing away from him and he probably wasn’t paying attention to me anyway to hear it.
“Is that your excuse?” I asked.
This time he replied right away. “Excuse me?”
“If you don’t like Troy’s food, you could just tell her. You don’t need to work yourself to death to avoid it.”
“Miss Montgomery—”
“Can you please call me Lilith?” He’d done it before. Why was he stopping now? “It’s weird to be called that.”
Another beat of silence. Maybe not complete silence. I could have sworn I heard some muffled curse but maybe that was just the water sloshing in the sink.
“I do enjoy my daughter’s food and I’m not working myself to death.”
“Oh, really?” I chuckled. “Then what would you call it when you’re never home, you never see her or go to any of our school events, because you are working?”
Oh, God.
The beaker slipped from my hands, clattering into the sink just like the words had unintentionally crashed from my mouth.
I didn’t mean it.
I did mean it.
I didn’t mean it like that.
I meant it as a joke - not to call him out for crappy parenting. I wasn’t going to judge that. He wasn’t a bad parent. He provided for Troy - home, school, food, a car… anything that she needed. And she never once told me that she resented him for never being around.
The silence of a second or two felt like a century. I was right; curing cancer wasn’t the only miracle that happened in this lab. It appeared that time could be stopped, too.
“I never said I was a great parent.” His tone was sharper than glass, the pain in it equally transparent.
“I-I know, Mr. Milanovic,” I stammered quickly, worried that today was officially my first and last day here. My hand shook as I reached for the glass. Thank god it wasn’t broken. I should have left it alone. “That’s not what—”
“What you meant?”
The glass almost made it safely to the counter before it tumbled from my grip again. This time, I didn’t care that it broke apart in the sink, all I could focus on was that he was standing right behind me. It was the closest he’d ever been.
It felt like the sun was at my back, so close I could turn around and touch it.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t m-mean you are a bad parent.” I gulped, feeling the
energy from his body sway closer to mine. “I just mean you work a lot…”
It was a lame apology, but I could hardly think enough to stay breathing, let alone stand up straight; there was no way I was coming up with the necessary, eloquent apology right now.
“I do work a lot,” he ground out, but I couldn’t tell if he resented me for reminding him or himself for the truth. “But there are people out there who need this. And Troian… Troian doesn’t need me. She never needed me. And neither did her mother.”
My breath caught. Troy never talked about her mom. I only knew the very bare bones of the story - that her mom fell in love with someone else, her parents divorced, and her mom moved north with the guy. Her tone, when she presented the facts, told me an affair had been involved.
“Of course, Troy needs you… You’re her dad.” That I happen to dream about like it’s my favorite binge show on Netflix.
“No,” he growled, and I felt the air against the side of my neck; I’d French-braided my hair to keep it back and out of the way even though it made me look younger. “She’s strong. She’s independent. She’s grown.”
“So?” I demanded, my fingers gripping the edge of the sink in frustration. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t need you or look for your support. Just like working all the time because you can doesn’t mean that you should.”
I winced. Now, I’d really stepped off the deep end. I had no place having this conversation with him; this was between Troy and him. I shouldn’t be telling him what I saw, how sometimes her strength is only a shield to hide her disappointment when he’s not there.
“No,” he said with a voice that was deep and in denial. “She doesn’t and she shouldn’t. And it’s a good thing, because this, right here, is the only thing I know how to do. This isn’t a miracle to me; this is science. Miracles are things like love and happiness and forever - and those are the kinds of naive suppositions that only happen in fairy tales.”
I didn’t know why but my heart hurt. I’d only known this man in passing - kind when present, but hardly even that, and the rest from Troy or others. My heart had no reason to hurt like it did to hear that he found something like love as unrealistic as what curing cancer used to be.
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