by Jade Powers
“Understand what? Are you threatening me?” Lauren stood up, her arms crossed, her taut body giving one single signal, and it wasn’t the one Lucas was hoping for. Lauren wasn’t stopping there. She said, “We had a chat. I told McFarland I wasn’t interested. I won’t roll over. If he comes after me, he’ll have a fight on his hands.”
Lucas put his hands up in the air, his smile innocent enough to truly be innocent, which made Lauren trust it even less. He said, “Whoa. I’m not threatening or anything. I’m here to offer you a boatload of money to join our team. We know Space Tech is courting you. McFarland thought you misunderstood the conversation, so he sent me to smooth things out.”
Picking up her towel, t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops, Lauren said, “I didn’t misunderstand anything. You work for the low-life scum of the earth. Get out of my face.”
Lauren stalked off, wishing she could stop to put on her wrap. It would have been a lot easier than carrying everything. She didn’t look back. If she had, she might have run. Suddenly Lucas was chasing after her like a puppy.
“Wait! Come on. I don’t care if you accept the deal or not. At least let me take you out to lunch. I saw you give that talk at MIT last year. I’ve wanted to ask you out for ten months. It was my idea to bring you on board. I told my bosses about you last year. That’s why I’m here. At least give me a chance.”
“I’m not working for McFarland,” Lauren wondered if she stuck a leg out and tripped the guy, if he’d stay down or keep coming. Probably keep coming. Instead she started jogging down the beach.
“How about dinner then? I’ll take you on a date and we’ll talk about nanotechnology,” Lucas ran alongside, easily. He was in better shape than Lauren, whose bikini body wasn’t bad. She took kickboxing and yoga classes every week, but she wasn’t a runner.
“My work is confidential. Sorry.” Lauren stopped running. It wasn’t like she was getting away. This guy was in shape.
“Seriously. I just want to go out. I’ll talk about my family, my hobbies, my ethics,” Lucas drifted off.
Glancing to the side, Lauren watched Lucas, the muscles in his calves, not too bulging, but defined enough. His butt. She couldn’t linger there, but his thighs were nice, too. His back was smooth and while there wasn’t much one could say about a back, there was nothing off-putting about it. Had he not admitted to basically being a spy against her, she probably would have dated him.
The real question was whether or not she should be honest. Lauren went for honesty and ended up blunt, “Look, I don’t date people who are spying on me.”
“But I told you the truth. I could have lied.” Lucas said.
“And you would have gotten a first date with the lie. Eventually I would have figured it out the agenda and dumped you. Which I bet would have been within three dates.” They were almost to the concrete. Lauren dropped her flip flops, and pulled her t-shirt over her bikini. In one smooth motion, she was mostly dressed and walking toward the parking lot.
“Fine. Here’s my card. I think you’re making a big mistake. If you end up needing help, you can call me,” Lucas handed Lauren his business card and turned back toward the beach.
Lauren felt a moment’s disappointment. Somehow she had expected him to follow her all the way home. Of course, that would have also been creepy, and she would have liked him less for it. She watched as Lucas jogged back to his towel. Lauren thought he was just there to scope her out. She was surprised when he stretched out on the towel and put on a pair of sunglasses.
One thing was certain. She would never call Lucas Roth, not if her life depended on it. At the hotel room Lauren tucked the card into one of the card slots in her checkbook. She told herself it was just in case she had trouble with more of McFarland’s lackeys. Lauren had dated plenty of liars. It was too much to hope that Lucas was actually telling the truth, even a bastardized version of it.
Lucas focused on a ship on the horizon as he jogged away. No way did he want to turn around and check to see if Lauren was watching him. Initially he hadn’t intended to hit on his target. His job was to swoop in, offer Lauren the money, convince her that McFarland was the way to go, and swoop back out again. Had she not been so darn cute in that bikini, Lucas might have pulled it off. Hard to say how much of her refusal was impulse because she didn’t like him personally and how much was McFarland.
Still, it wasn’t like him to screw things up so royally. He would give anything to see what she was doing now. Hopefully she was still watching him. It would be a low blow if she had immediately turned away without even considering him.
She didn’t even ask how much McFarland was offering. Lucas didn’t know if he was more perturbed that she had turned him down personally or that she had turned down an offer to work for General McFarland without even hearing how much he would pay.
At least he had sun, sea, and sand. Closing his eyes, Lucas stretched out. It was too fine a day to be wasted on spy games.
