Megan was silent as she studied the display of coconut shrimp. Or maybe she was silent because Vivian had joined the line at the buffet table and she didn’t want her elderly aunt overhearing their conversation—a suspicion that proved true when they were seated and she finally responded to his question.
“I appreciate that you’re here with me,” she said. “But we both know that you only agreed to come because you felt as if you owed me a favor. Now you don’t.”
“And your point?” he prompted, popping a stuffed mushroom in his mouth.
“My point—” she swirled a carrot stick in the dip she’d spooned onto the edge of her plate “—is that there’s no reason to talk about rain checks because there’s no reason for us to ever see one another outside of the lab again.”
“What if I want to see you again?”
She bit off the end of the carrot, then stared at him, clearly baffled by the possibility. And he found himself again mesmerized by those wide, violet eyes.
She chewed, swallowed, then finally asked, “Why would you?”
He fought against a smile. “Forgetting the why for a moment, it seems that I do.”
She considered that while she nibbled on the rest of her carrot stick.
“I’m not easy,” she told him. “Despite the way I wrapped myself around you on the terrace, I’m not going to sleep with you.”
He’d never known a woman who just blurted out what she was thinking the way that Megan did. After dating so many women who played mind games or worked personal agendas, her forthrightness was refreshing—and only one of the things he was beginning to like about her.
“I’d say the wrapping was mutual, and while I certainly wouldn’t object to more of the same, it wasn’t my plan to take you to bed.”
Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from thinking along those lines when her body was pressed against his, but the fact that they worked together complicated the situation immeasurably. Not to mention that she could be exactly what he needed to secure the promotion that his father had dangled in front of him like a proverbial carrot.
But as he watched the little furrow between her brows deepen, he couldn’t resist saying, “Not yet, anyway.”
Chapter Six
Megan was enjoying her first cup of coffee and the quiet solitude of the morning when she heard a key in the lock. A glance at the clock revealed that it wasn’t quite ten—earlier than her sister usually came home after spending the night with her fiancé, and a lot earlier than she would have expected the morning after their engagement celebration.
And when Ashley came into the kitchen, Megan noticed that Paige was right behind her.
“Why are you home so early? And what are you doing here?” The first question being directed to her sister and the second to her cousin.
“Are you kidding me?” Paige responded first. “I saw the lip-lock on the terrace.”
“And I want to hear all the details,” Ashley demanded.
Megan took a long sip of her coffee, hoping the oversize mug hid the flush in her cheeks. “It was an Academy-worthy performance, wasn’t it?”
Her sister scowled as she put on the kettle for the tea she favored. “What do you mean ‘performance’?”
“Gage was there, pretending to be my boyfriend,” she reminded her sister and cousin. “He thought a kiss might further the illusion.”
“A kiss is a way of testing the waters,” Paige said. “Like dipping a toe in the ocean. You and Gage—that was a tsunami.”
“It really wasn’t that big of a deal,” she denied, while secretly agreeing that in Gage’s arms, she’d felt as if she’d been swamped by an enormous wave. The heat and hunger had crashed over her, dragging her into depths that were so far over her head she wasn’t sure she would ever find solid ground again.
But it had only been one kiss.
Despite having alluded to wanting to do that and a whole lot more, when he took her home, he simply walked her to her door, took the keys from her hand to unlock it for her, then stepped back and said “Good night, Megan.”
And she’d gone inside alone, uncertain whether she should be relieved or disappointed.
“Then you’ve been getting a lot more action than I have.” Paige’s complaint drew her attention back to the present. “Because I got seared from the heat standing on the edge of the terrace.”
“And I missed it,” Ashley grumbled.
“You’ve got your own hot-and-heavy romance,” Paige reminded her. “I’m the one who needs to live vicariously.”
“Things didn’t go well with Ben last night?” Megan asked, anxious to change the topic of conversation.
Her cousin shrugged. “He’s sexy and sweet, but there just isn’t any zing.”
Before last night, Megan wouldn’t have had a clue what she meant. She’d been attracted to other men, had experienced the stirring of desire, but nothing in the category of zing. But after last night, after being held in Gage’s arms, she definitely knew about zing.
When Megan came into the lab Monday morning, Gage noted that she’d gone back to wearing her glasses.
And the ponytail and baggy clothes.
He was a little disappointed, but not really surprised. He wasn’t sure if she felt more comfortable dressed that way, or if she deliberately downplayed her natural attractiveness so that she didn’t draw attention to herself.
If he had to guess, he would say it was the latter, and he couldn’t deny that her efforts were mostly successful. He certainly hadn’t taken much notice of her prior to their chance encounter at the shopping mall.
But now that he knew her a little better, was aware of the subtle curves hiding beneath her clothes and the unexpected passion simmering beneath her cool demeanor, he knew he would never be able to look at her the same way again.
He would never be able to look into her eyes and not remember how they’d gone all misty and soft—like lavender fog—when he’d held her in his arms. And he’d never be able to look at her mouth and not remember how soft and sweet it tasted, and how avidly it had responded to his kiss.
But if memories of their kiss had tormented him throughout the rest of the weekend, Megan gave no indication that it had even happened. As always, she was the consummate professional at work. She performed the tasks that were assigned to her, answered questions when they were asked and generally continued with her duties as usual. She never sought him out, never initiated conversation, and not once did he catch her looking in his direction—as he found himself looking in hers, a lot.
He let her continue to ignore him—as it was obvious to him that’s what she was doing—for three whole weeks. On Friday at the end of the third week, as they were clearing up in preparation of leaving for the weekend, he finally approached her.
Megan looked up from the stack of files she was sorting. “I can finish up here if you have to go.”
“Go where?”
She shrugged. “It’s a Friday night. I thought you might have plans.”
He shook his head. “The only women I’ve seen since we’ve started prepping for this trial are the clinical subjects. And you.”
“Did you lose your little black book?” she teased.
A few weeks earlier, he couldn’t have imagined that she would have teased him about anything, and he wouldn’t have guessed that she had a sense of humor. But he knew her better now—and still not nearly as well as he wanted to know her.
“It’s a BlackBerry,” he teased back, and earned one of those rare, shy smiles. “But the only reason I’m anxious to get out of here tonight is that I’m hungry.”
“Me, too,” she admitted.
“Got any plans for dinner?” he asked, deliberately casual.
“Oh, um, no,” she said. “Nothing specific. But I wasn’t fishing for an invitation or anything like that.”
“I know,” he said. “But I’m in the mood for a burger and I have a rain check to cash in.”
Megan finished unbuttoning her lab
coat, hung it on the hook by the door. “Actually, I’m—”
“You’re not going to renege on your promise, are you?”
“I don’t recall making a promise.”
“Then it’s a good thing I do.”
And that’s how they ended up at The Ranch with plates overloaded with quarter-pound burgers and spicy spiral fries. They didn’t talk much while they ate, or not about anything of significance, and when Gage finally pushed his empty plate aside, he noticed that Megan had nearly cleaned hers, too.
“You have an impressive appetite for a skinny little thing,” he noted.
“I like food,” she admitted. “It just never seems to stick.”
“What else do you like?”
She nibbled on a fry. “What do you mean—like books, music, movies?”
“Sure, we can start there.”
She sipped at her cola—the regular kind, not diet. “I’ll read almost anything, though I lean toward nonfiction.”
“Music?” he prompted.
“Blues-rock.”
“Movies?”
“Anything that I don’t have to think too much about. If I’m going to spend twenty bucks, which is what it costs by the time you add a bag of popcorn and a soda to the price of the ticket, I want to enjoy it. No dark war settings or depressing social issues or complicated psychological thrillers.”
“If it was my twenty bucks, could I pick the show?”
She frowned over his question as she sipped her cola again. “Are you inviting me to a movie?”
“Well, you did spring for dinner,” he said. “And there’s a new Vin Diesel movie playing. You know the kind, with lots of car chases and big explosions and very little plot.”
“Sounds like my kind of entertainment,” she said.
“Then it’s a date.”
She was okay until he called it a date.
Grabbing a bite to eat with a coworker—even if that coworker was Gage Richmond—wasn’t a big deal. Deciding to catch a movie together because they both had nothing else to do shouldn’t have been, either. But as soon as Gage put that label on it, all of her perceptions changed, and the easy camaraderie they’d been sharing suddenly wasn’t so easy anymore.
Unfortunately, she’d already agreed, and as the movie theater was within the same shopping complex as the restaurant, she had neither the time nor the opportunity to come up with a reason to bow out. He took her hand as they walked across the parking lot and Megan tried to be as nonchalant as he was about it, as if she held hands with guys all the time, as if the casual contact didn’t make her pulse race.
Gage was standing in line at one of the automated kiosks to buy their tickets when Megan felt vibrations in her chest. At first she thought it was her heart knocking erratically against her ribs, then she remembered that her cell phone was tucked in the inside pocket of her jacket and set to vibrate.
“Excuse me,” she said to Gage, and stepped away to answer the call.
“I know you had to work late tonight,” Ashley said without preamble. “I just wondered if you could pick up some Motrin on your way home.”
“What’s wrong?” Megan asked, alerted not just by the request for the medication but the obvious strain in her sister’s voice.
“The usual,” Ashley said, then sucked in a breath, and blew it out again. “Okay, it’s hit a little bit harder than usual.”
She moved back to Gage, who had just started scrolling through the movie options on the screen. “I’ll be home in fifteen minutes,” she promised.
Gage looked up and, without any question, stepped away from the machine so the next person in line could proceed.
“Problem?” he asked.
“My sister’s not feeling well.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but no. You can stay and watch car chases, but I have to get home.”
“Rain check?”
“That’s really not—”
He touched his finger to her lips, halting her protest.
“Rain check,” he said again, and it wasn’t a question this time.
“Okay.”
He insisted on walking her to her car, told her to take care of her sister and watched her pull out of the parking lot.
And though she was anxious to get home to Ashley, she didn’t quite manage to banish all thoughts of Gage from her mind as she drove away. And she couldn’t completely extinguish the little flicker of hope that the interest she’d seen in his eyes could be real.
At home, Megan found her sister on the sofa in the living room, curled up under a blanket and obviously in pain.
When Ashley had first been diagnosed with endometriosis, she’d been willing to try anything that might relieve the pain. It turned out that her symptoms could be treated quite successfully through the use of oral contraceptives. The problem with that, of course, was that she wouldn’t get pregnant so long as she was taking them.
Megan suspected that was why Ashley was suffering now, that she’d stopped taking her pills. It was no secret that her sister wanted a baby and while pregnancy happened easily for many women, it wouldn’t be easy for Ashley. In fact, her doctors had warned that it might not happen for her at all, but she refused to give up on the dream of someday holding a child of her own in her arms.
“Hey,” Megan said, coming into the room.
Ashley managed a weak smile as she accepted the medication and the glass of water her sister held out to her. “Thanks.”
Megan lowered herself onto the coffee table. “What’s going on, Ash? You haven’t had pain like this in years.”
Her sister dropped her gaze. “I stopped taking the Pill.”
Though it was just what she’d expected, Megan couldn’t hold back her sigh. “When? Why?”
“Just a few weeks ago. Because Trevor and I are getting married in the fall anyway and because I really want a baby.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks and she swiped at them impatiently. “And maybe because I feel him slipping away and I don’t know why, but I know if I get pregnant it will make things better.”
Megan wasn’t so sure that was the answer, but she was hardly in a position to offer relationship counseling to anyone. “Why didn’t you talk to me about this?” she asked instead.
“Because I didn’t think it was fair to always run to my little sister with my problems.”
“Forget the big and little part. You’re my sister.”
“I’m sorry I pulled you away from the lab.”
This time it was Megan who looked away. “I wasn’t actually at the lab.”
“Where were you?”
“I just went to grab a bite to eat.”
“Based on the deliberate vagueness of that response, I’m guessing you didn’t go alone,” Ashley said. “In fact, I’m guessing that you were with Gage.”
“So?”
“So…good for you.”
Megan frowned. “You’re making a big deal out of something that isn’t.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Her sister managed a smile. “I’m sorry I ruined your dinner.”
“You didn’t.” Megan jumped up when the microwave dinged, grateful for the reprieve from her sister’s questioning. She came back with a warm bean bag, which she laid gently across Ashley’s abdomen.
“Thanks.”
“Can I get you anything else?” Megan asked. “Do you want me to call Trevor?”
Ashley shook her head. “I tried calling him before I called you. I tried his office and his cell and got his voice mail both times.”
“You knew he was working late tonight,” Megan pointed out reasonably. “It makes sense that he would turn his phone off if he was with a client.”
Her sister nodded, though she didn’t look convinced. “You’re right. It’s just that he’s seemed so distracted and inaccessible over the last few weeks.”
“It’s tax season,” Megan reminded her.
“You’re right,” she said again.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” Megan asked, hoping a mug of chai and a change of subject would smooth the furrow in her sister’s brow.
Ashley shook her head. “I want to hear more about your date with Gage.”
It was a change of subject but not quite the one Megan was hoping for.
“It wasn’t a date.”
Her sister’s brows lifted. “You were having dinner with a man yummier than anything on the menu—what would you call it?”
“A burger and fries.”
Ashley shook her head. “You wouldn’t have had the nerve to ask him out again—not without some serious bribery or blackmail being involved—so he must have invited you. Which means, obviously, that he’s interested.”
“Or maybe he just didn’t want to eat alone. You said it yourself,” Megan reminded her. “Gage is like the yummiest thing on the menu—the juiciest sirloin burger with all of the fixings. I’m the pickle spear they throw on the side of the plate. No one really wants it and it’s not particularly appealing, but it takes up space.”
“That’s so not true,” Ashley objected, then sucked in her breath and gritted her teeth.
Megan, understanding that another wave of pain had hit, turned the bean bag over. “Okay?”
Ashley nodded, exhaled slowly. “How are preparations for the trial going?”
“They’re under way,” Megan said, relieved to abandon the topic of Gage Richmond for now. “We’re scheduled to begin administration of the drug to the first group next weekend.”
She didn’t often talk to her sister about her work, partly because Ashley had no interest in what she was talking about. But a couple years earlier, she’d started doing some independent research in the hope of finding a drug that would not just help alleviate the symptoms of endometriosis for women who were trying to have children but improve their chances of conception.
About a year earlier, when she’d finally made some progress, she’d taken it to her boss at Richmond Pharmaceuticals and received official approval—and a budget—to continue her research. And now the drug whose development she had spearheaded was going into the clinical-trial phase.
The Engagement Project Page 7
