by Unknown
He would have to talk with her again. He could play dumb, convince her that what she'd seen had been only the strange fetish of an eccentric billionaire. He had to get her on his side, make her a hundred percent certain that he was simply a sexual weirdo and nothing more.
It should not be so hard to charm her, to tempt her into his bed and show her a passionate wildness that would make a small bite on the neck seem like nothing at all. And then he would let her go, and all of her stories of him would be only tabloid fodder. She would never know the truth about the darkness inside of him, only that he was a callous lover, and then she would be safe. Better than having to kill her. Of course, who was he protecting but himself?
And why, then, did he feel such emptiness when he thought about Liz leaving for good?
Sitting in the foyer of his multi-million dollar penthouse in London, Robb put his head in his hands and wept for all of the people he had hurt with his love.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next morning, Liz slept through her alarm and woke up bleary-eyed. The inside of her mouth felt fuzzy and her head hurt. She rolled over and looked at the clock, and immediately bolted out of bed.
Two hours late. Two hours late. She'd never been late, much less two hours late, and she scrambled to brush her teeth and run a comb once through her mane of hair. She splashed water on her face and thought about what had happened the night before. Everything seemed like a dream. The blood cultures she had run, with their abnormally high plasma counts. Seeing Robb walk in with a woman, falling on the couch with her...
Liz flushed as she remembered the look on Robb's face, and her body grew hot all over with a strange desire. He'd been so scared that he had come after her, and although she would never in her life have thought it, the pressure of his hand on her neck made her shiver with a thrill that was caused more by pleasure than by anger. It was, perhaps, that she'd sensed his own desire, running like an undercurrent through his body.
But of course he had been aroused. He had been kissing another woman!
"Stop being ridiculous," Liz said, looking at herself in the mirror. She bit her lip and blinked hard at her reflection. "There's nothing there. Now get to work."
Work—yes, that was the most important thing. That was enough to send her flying across the university campus, her purse clasped to her chest, her lab notes pinned under her other arm, the papers fluttering. Not willing to wait for the elevator, she took the stairs up to the grad school lab three at a time and was breathing heavily by the time she pushed the door open.
Jenny swiveled around on her lab stool and flipped her long blond hair behind her.
"Nice to see you, love," she said with a bright smile.
"You didn't wake me up!" Liz said. She tossed her purse onto the lab table, the sheets of lab notes scattering across the surface. "The cultures needed to go through the second round of irradiation at eight this morning—"
"And they did, Liz," Jenny said. "I put them all in and got the radiation chamber running. Don't you trust me with this experiment?"
Liz let out a sigh of relief.
"Of course," she said, although she wasn't sure she trusted her roommate with anything more serious than getting a drink order right at the bar. Not to be harsh about it—Jenny was fun to hang out with, but she didn't take the work nearly as seriously as Liz did. "But why didn't you wake me up?"
"After last night?" Jenny cocked her head and gave Liz a look of sympathy. "It seemed like you needed the sleep, babe. Did you want to talk about it?"
"About what?" Liz immediately thought about the drop of blood she'd seen running down the woman's neck. No, she didn't ever want to talk about that.
"About you coming home crying after that date," Jenny said, standing up and crossing over to Liz. Liz didn't say a word as Jenny hugged her tightly, but her heart gave a pang of regret as she thought about Robb.
"It wasn't a date," Liz said. "I don't know what I was thinking."
"Not a date?" Jenny frowned. "Then what—"
"I really don't want to talk about it," Liz said. "It's over. I just want to get back to work."
"Sure," Jenny said after a moment, patting Liz on the shoulder. "Sure, hun."
"Are these the cultures that are already done?" Liz avoided Jenny's gaze. She didn't want sympathy. She wanted to forget anything had ever happened.
"Yep," Jenny said.
"I'll go wash them out then." She gathered up the glassware and walked to the back of the lab. She'd just finished cleaning out the last culture with isopropyl alcohol and leaned over to put the clean glassware back onto the shelf when her lab coat swung against the table with a soft clink.
The vial of blood. Robb's blood. She'd forgotten that she'd taken it.
Liz reached into her pocket gingerly, as though the vial had teeth to bite her, and pulled out the small tube of blood. The writing was still visible on the side—Robert Chatham—and without thinking, she scraped the label off with her fingernail. His name tore away in small pieces of paper and fell to the ground as she picked at the label with her nail, and she didn't even care that she was making a small mess on the floor. She didn't want to see his name anymore; she was only tempted to see why he'd been running tests.
The cytometer was right there in the back of the lab. Curiosity burned inside of her and before she could stop herself, she went over and inserted the vial into the machine. She'd done these tests so many times that the steps were routine for her, and she turned the dials to the proper settings automatically. Her finger only hesitated for a brief second before pressing the start button.
"Liz?"
Liz jumped back from the machine as though it burned her fingers.
"Jesus, Jenny!"
"Sorry, love, didn't mean to startle you. The cultures are all running their second trial now. I'm headed out to grab a tea, want anything?"
"No," Liz said. "I'm good."
"You sure?" There was concern in Jenny's eyes.
"Really, I'm good," Liz said. "I need to run another test here just to be sure of something."
"K! I'll only be a few," Jenny said. She raised her hand in a half-wave and then was gone.
Liz turned back to the cytometer, which was spinning around in a whir of motion. Just one initial test to see what the main components were.
She bit her lip, knowing that this was an invasion of privacy. But Robb had a secret, she knew it. If he was running tests on himself in the lab, she wanted to know what it was about and whether or not it had to do with the extra research he was asking her to do.
Liz rubbed her temples with her fingers. God, it had been a long night. Jenny was right; she needed some extra sleep. If she continued at the pace she was going, she'd be burned out before getting her graduate degree.
It took another couple of minutes before the cytometer wound down to a complete stop and she was able to start the analysis.
She'd tested for everything. Her heart beating quickly, she clicked through to the results readout on the screen. Her finger moved down the side of the column of numbers. Acidity was normal. Oxygen content was a bit low, probably due to the blood being stored overnight or however long it had been resting in the trash bin. Metal ion content was fine: iron was normal, potassium was normal, all of the trace elements were at normal levels. Blood sugar was normal, cholesterols a bit high. Liz frowned. Maybe Robb had high cholesterol and was monitoring his levels. That made sense.
Her finger clicked to go to the next page, and when she read the first line she stopped and read it again. That couldn't be right. She blinked and looked at the screen.
The white blood cell count was off the charts, and the reading showed a chromosomal transformation. Abnormal white blood cells. At a reading ten times the typical concentration of blood. Liz's mouth dropped open. It was the same high concentration of all of the cultures they were studying in the lab. She'd seen these counts before, and she knew what they meant.
Her hand fell away from the cytometer as the air ar
ound her seemed to turn blisteringly hot. She struggled to take a breath as her mind grappled with the secret laid bare before her. That was the truth behind his research.
Robert Chatham had blood cancer.
She heard Jenny open the lab door and quickly shut off the screen. She opened the cytometer and took out Robb's vial of blood, shoving it back into her pocket. She bent down and opened a cabinet to rummage through the glassware, breathing slowly to try and calm herself down. Jenny would be able to tell at one glance that something was off with Liz. Breathe, she told herself.
"That was fast," she said, her hands pushing aside glassware, her eyes locked down on the rows of test tubes. She hoped her voice wasn't trembling and she took one more breath before standing up. "Was the tea shop open—"
Her words sputtered to a stop as she stood up and saw Robb standing in front of her, just opposite the lab table.
"Good morning," Robb said. "What was that about tea?"
"I—I—" Liz had no idea what to say. Her eyes darted to the cytometer screen, but no, she had turned it off. Thank god.
"I wanted to talk with you," Robb said, his voice as calm as if what had happened last night had never happened.
"About the experiment?" Liz asked. "The second trials are running. Jenny already started them."
"Not about the experiment." Robb came around the lab table, moving slowly but surely. Liz put her hands in her lab pockets. One hand grasped the vial of his blood. His gaze flicked down to that pocket, and she held her breath for an instant.
"What is it?" Liz asked. She tried to sound professional, but she was terrified. More so now that Robb was close to her and her body was again reacting to his presence. He reached out and touched her arm softly. The immediate tingle raced from his touch all the way to her core, and she clenched her jaw.
"Last night," Robb said. "I'd like to talk. I need to explain."
His voice was calm, soothing, and the way he looked into Liz's eyes seemed to put a kind of a spell on her. She could not tear herself away from his touch, even as he stepped closer and began to caress her arm from the shoulder to the elbow, his fingers running lightly over her skin.
Oh, the ache! She wanted him to lean forward and kiss her, and at the same time she wanted to run. His eyes looked at her, as though seeing into her mind, and she twitched anxiously. The vial. His blood. His sickness. How could she work for him after learning his secret?
"There's no need to explain," Liz said, coughing to get the lump out of her throat. "It was a simple misunderstanding."
"I want to apologize for my behavior," Robb said. His hand, oh god, his hand was still moving, now with more pressure, all along her arm. She clutched the vial in her fingers tighter, thankful that she'd scraped off the label.
"You already did," Liz said. "I forgive you. It was all a mistake."
Robb's mouth twitched.
"Please come over tonight. Let me talk with you about all this." His dark eyes had a depth to them that Liz could get lost in. She was falling now, falling headlong into his gaze, falling—
"Oh! Sorry!" Liz looked over Robb's shoulder to see Jenny staring at them both, a cup of tea in each hand. "I got you, um, Liz, I got you a tea. Hi, Mr. Chatham."
"Hello," Robb said, his hand loosening from Liz's elbow and falling to his side. The connection between them was broken, and Liz inhaled sharply, the world finally clearing around her. "I hear you've been doing good work in here."
"Trying to," Jenny said. Her arched eyebrows were a question that Liz did not know how to answer. "We've got the second set of results coming in soon, if you'd like to look at them."
"No need," Robb said, his eyes still tracking Liz. "We were discussing an outside project." His phone began to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the screen, and turned it off quickly.
"Oh, sure! Right!" Jenny's voice was overly bright. "I'll just, um, I'll just be setting up for the third run this afternoon then." She walked backwards toward the lab setup, grinning at Jenny. Making quote marks in the air with her fingers, she mouthed the words: "OUTSIDE PROJECT!"
Liz closed her eyes, exasperated.
"I can't," she said. "I have to finish these trials. The last setup and run will take eight hours to complete, and we won't be starting until after lunch."
"Jenny, dear," Robb called out across the lab. Jenny poked her head out from behind the shelves. "Would you be able to run the trials this evening so that Liz can come help me with my project?"
"Sure!" Jenny said. "No problem at all." She gave a thumbs up and disappeared again behind the machines.
Liz shook her head.
"I don't—"
"Please," Robb said, and again Liz saw the fear and desperation behind his cool, collected mask. "I need to explain."
Liz's fingertips ran over the glass of the vial in her pocket, and she swallowed.
"Okay," she said, her heart thumping in her chest. "I'll be at your place by seven."
"Thank you," Robb said. His eyes flickered down to her lips, and for a moment Liz thought that he would kiss her. Then he stepped back.
"I'll see you then," he said, turning and walking quickly out. The door swung shut behind him, and Jenny poked her head up to look over at Liz, an expectant grin on her face.
"Don't ask," Liz said.
"You can't come home crying after a date and then have the guy show up the next day begging you to see him again, and then not tell me anything!" Jenny crossed her arms. "If you don't tell me, I won't run the cultures for you tonight."
Liz considered this, thinking that it might be better to not show up. Then she thought about the blood test results, and she knew that she couldn't break her promise to Robb. She would reassure him that she wouldn't tell anyone, and that would smooth their relationship. Their professional relationship.
Certainly he had been wary of letting her know his secret. He had blood cancer. Liz could only imagine how stressed he was, trying to figure things out by himself in secret.
"Come on! Pleeeeeease," Jenny begged.
"I'll tell you after tonight," Liz said. "I'll be home by midnight. If I'm not, call the cops." She smiled, but inside her stomach was fluttering with real anxiety. Robb seemed gentle now, but she remembered how he had been last night. Still, her curiosity burned brightly inside of her, and she longed for someone to talk to who understood her pain. His pain.
As sorry as she was to know the truth, his secret now bound them together.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Robb straightened his tie again in the mirror. He didn't know why he was so nervous. Surely it couldn't be the girl.
"First things first," Robb said to his reflection. "Get her to like you. Get her to trust you. Get her in bed. This is easy."
His stomach twisted in knots and he stretched his arms above his head to relieve some of his anxiety. Anxiety which had built up inside him for no good reason. The notches on his bedpost, if he kept them, would have whittled down the entire bedframe to sawdust.
Liz, though—Liz was different. She was intelligent, but more than that, she was guarded. So guarded, in fact, that he did not know if he would be able to break down whatever defenses she'd put up to keep him out. He shouldn't have attacked her in the first place, he knew. Stupid of him.
He leaned forward and brushed his hair back with one hand, then decided to part it on the other side. No, the first way was better.
A knock on the door made him jump before he recognized the voice coming through the door.
"I'm here to see about a mad scientist!" The voice was muffled, but the friendliness came through.
"Come in, Doctor," he called. "The door's unlocked." He adjusted his tie one last time before walking out to greet his visitor. Few people knew the code to enter his building, and Dr. Vasin was one of them.
The doctor came in the front door, stooped over his cane, and Robb was surprised, not for the first time, to see how much the doctor had aged.
"You're looking at my hair," Vasin said
, running his hand through the gray mane. "It's true, I'm old as hell."
"I didn't say that."
"You're looking good, though," the doctor said, squinting through his spectacles at Robb. "Maybe too good. When was the last time you let yourself age?"
"It's been a while," Robb admitted.
"You're supposed to be thirty-five," Vasin said, tossing his cane onto the couch along with his black leather medical bag. "Stop being so vain. Let yourself go."
"Easy for you to say," Robb said. "You don't have a choice."
"I'm in good shape for seventy," Vasin said, coughing into his hand. "You'd be surprised how I have to beat the ladies off with a stick."
"They just want your medical advice," Robb teased. "A doctor in-house."
"Ha! Don't I know it. I had one lady spend the night, and in the morning she came back to bed from the bathroom and told me all of the details of her bowel movement."
"Lovely."
"I wasn't as titillated by the description of her stool as she'd have liked me to be," Vasin continued. "Perhaps I'm just cut out for the bachelor life."
"Good that you've figured that out now," Robb said, laughing.
"After two divorces, I'm finished," Vasin said. He rummaged through the black leather bag. "Alright, let's get this out of the way. Off with your shirt."
"I just finished knotting my tie!" Robb said. "Beside, I only wanted to talk with you about a friend."
"We can talk friends over the phone," Vasin said. "But you're overdue for a physical anyway, and I have some more tests I'd like to run on your blood."
Robb sighed but loosened his tie. Vasin was as unemotional as a brick wall, and just as stubborn.
"We can't talk about this friend over the phone," Robb said, unbuttoning his shirt and stripping down to his bare chest.
"Oh? Why not?" Vasin asked. He pulled out a set of vials from his bag and ripped open the paper package, revealing a needle.
"Is that needle bigger than the one you used to use?" Robb said, as the doctor leaned forward and wiped the inside of his elbow with a sterile alcohol pad. "It looks bigger."
