“Later. She’s takingsanctuaryhere,” he spat the word out. “With her girlfriend. Who was recently being held prisoner by your ex. So she’s still here, and I’m now partially responsible for their health, and you, you’ve become a pain in my tech.”
That sense of dread increased as she listened to Reid and replayed his words again in her head. Any excitement about her surgery or the fleeting control she had regained had quickly died. Her gaze shifted back to the windows but it was too bright to see what was outside from where she sat. Clara ran her palm across her stomach, already saying goodbye to the dream she had come here so desperately chasing. There was no way she could have or raise a child while she was being hunted.I have to take care ofhimfirst.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, still searching the windows. “This was a bad idea.”
“What do you plan on doing?” It hurt that he didn’t deny her stupidity.
Clara pulled herself back in. “I think I’m going to take care of the issue.” The thought of seeing her ex again made her sweat in places that shouldn’t have sweat. “I was hoping... I was hoping that it would clear itself up all on its own. That when Santino got out of prison...” She stopped and patted her belly. “He did this to me. I’m still surprised I lived through it, but I thought he’d forget about me if he ever got out, I hoped I wouldn’t be on his radar anymore, and if I was, I was out of his reach with a new name, living as an extraterrestrial on a colonized planet.” Clara raised one of her hands and clasped it over her forearm. “Things never work out, ya know,” she laughed humorlessly. “I think I did something horrible in my last life. I must’ve murdered people, maybe I was a war criminal during the Galactic War, and now I’m paying my karmic debt in this life.”
Reid still hadn’t moved and it made her feel anxious and comfortable all at once. On one hand, when she chanced a glance at him, he was solitary and focused, but on the other hand, he was intimidating and stern. Hot and fucking cold.
Clara waited for him to call the authorities and have her escorted out of the breeding facility; she waited for a slew of demeaning words to leave his lips. It didn’t matter what happened. She’d flow right through it. But the anticipation was what made it hurt.
“Why aren’t you on another world?”
His question threw her.
“I couldn’t afford it and I wasn’t allowed to leave. After the Santino incident, I was in and out of hospitals for years, rehabilitating, and I could never make enough money to pay for transport, let alone transport for a sickly person. The price for my care, to get me safely to one of the outer orbit stations, was beyond what I could make in a year’s time.”
“There are options.”
Why does he care?
“I won’t marry a stranger or become a lab rat,” she hissed. “Not to get off-world.”
“And yet, you seem to have tried both.”
Her back stiffened but she kept her mouth shut.
“You had an ex-fiancé, which was fairly recent if what it says here is accurate.” He finally moved and pointed at the tablet in his hand. “And when that didn’t work out you signed up as the only woman in a cybernetics breeding facility? What about that doesn’t say lab rat to you?
“You say you want children, a family, more than anything and yet you’re about to throw it all out the window over one man,” he laughed harshly and swept his hand toward the windows. The skin on her arms raised. “You’re in an endless loop and all because of one bad choice, one mistake. And now you’re letting yourself live this way because of it. Santino controls every aspect of your life. Everything. Admit it. If not to me at least to yourself.”
“No,” she breathed.
“Oh, dear Clara.” Reid stood up from his chair and circled around her. She tightened her arms around her middle for protection. “Nothing about your life is yours. Has it ever been?”
He said the words directly behind her; they were breathed somewhere over her hair and into her ear, but she couldn’t sense his presence and she couldn’t turn around. The prickles on her skin piqued her sensitive flesh, the deep unapologetic baritone of his voice rushed into her, and suddenly she remembered why she couldn’t trust men.
She stood and without looking at her lurker, she once again moved toward the door, her hand on the security, waiting for the access to leave. “Let me leave.” She needed to get out of his office. Now. Not only because he was an asshole, but because he was just like Santino in that way... that way where she could lose her soul in his presence.
The only difference was that Reid was a doctor, a caregiver, a military veteran who protected the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. He was a Cyborg. And Santino was a street-rat criminal. If she lost her way with her doctor, there would be no running, no hiding, there’d be nothing in the universe that she could do to get away from him. The risk wasn’t worth it.
The door immediately swished open. She was sad to find the hallway devoid of her pup.
“This is my choice,” she said with feigned bravado. “I’ll take care of it and then I’ll be back. I. Want. My. Fucking. Family.”
***
REID WATCHED HER LEAVEwith every wire and piece inside him thrumming with energy. The conversation had not gone the way he had intended it to go. Not in the least.
Her alluring scent overcrowded the four walls of his office, caressing him and filling him with a need to take it and mark it as his. The angry, half-rushed sounds of her footsteps receded into the distance, down the hallway, past the reception, and behind the many doors between him and the living area. He waited until he heard the subtle, damning vibration of her room door closing before he moved back to his desk.
Something in his systems, and in his beast screamed to go after her, for once working in accord without his manipulation, but for his mind, that rooted him to the spot.
Clara was everything he tried not to want in his life. The very thing he avoided. And yet, here she was, filling his nose and his head with everything that eluded him, everything that he craved. She forced him back to his younger self and the need to pack.
Reid cracked his neck and closed his eyes, flushing his systems with clarity. The ventilation went on at his will and began to suck the thick fruity aroma from his space. It wasn’t enough; it clung to his suit, and it morphed into a light smell that stayed with him. The air was clean now except for the brief hints, like quiet whispers, or tickling touches on the back of his neck.
