“Aye.”
“See any alligators?” she asks.
“Yup, and some flamingos, doing the whole one-leg thing. Goddamn show-offs.” Josie feels impossible to read, but when she smiles, I decide to take it as a peace offering. “I saw lizards, too. Should have brought one home for you. I bet you’d make a whole terrarium for it, complete with a sequined nest.” Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I’d love to see what she’d do with a pet lizard. She’d probably make it a bedazzled leash and walk it around town and cuddle with it at night. Jesus, and now I’m jealous of a fictional reptile.
I need another cold shower and a stiff drink.
“You are a ridiculous human being,” Josie says, but she’s grinning.
With a ping, we’re on the SynthoTech roof, and I set thelightest touch of my hand on the small of her back to guide her through the glass doors.
When she sees what’s in front of us, she gasps. Just as I hoped she would.
“Wow,” she whispers. We’re looking at my natural wonderland: a two-thousand-square-foot heated hydroponic garden full of imported trees from all over the world, with an unrivaled view of downtown.
“I love it up here,” I admit. “This is where I come to think.” She seems struck by the giant vertical green sweep of it all—the citrus trees, the orchids, the vines trailing up the trellises—though there’s also a fear in her eyes that I don’t understand.
“Are there, um, any bees out here?” she asks.
The dossier on Josie, which I’ve got seared into my brain, says she did not exactly have the cheeriest childhood. Her hospital records alone are as thick as a brick. I did not read them—just skimmed the summary my assistant pulled together. Digging into all her medical details felt too bloody intrusive, a line I was not ready to cross.
“No bees, I promise. Allergic?”
She nods, relieved.
“One sting could kill me.”
“Not on my watch,” I say, making a mental note to carry not only snacks but an EpiPen for her, too.
“This rooftop is a secret paradise.” Josie slowly circles to get a full view. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You built this?”
“Aye,” I say, and keep my voice blasé, though the truth is I might be prouder of this garden than I am even of SynthoTech. The sun is hitting my big thinking chair just right; if Josie weren’t here, I’d treat myself to a lie-down. The air’s so fresh up here, andthe view of Shelton spread out below shows you the whole city at a glance. “The garden’s slower-growing this time of year, even with the hydroponics,” I tell her. “But in the summer, when all the roses and the Japanese cherry trees are blossoming, it’s like a natural wonderland.”
“Incredible.” When she stops by the koi pond, she drops down to her knees to get a better look—and I’ve got to hold back a smile.
I’ve noticed how easily Josie finds moments of childlike joy, and I’m envious of that. My guess is she didn’t get a lot of that, growing up in examination rooms and hospitals, and I’m impressed it’s left her curious as opposed to bitter. As she stares into the water’s depths, I take advantage of the moment to enjoy her soft reflection wavering on the water’s surface—I trace the curve of her neck, and I stop at that sweet little spot at the nape where those reddish-gold curls soften like candy floss. I swallow hard.
“I can’t believe something like this exists in the city,” she murmurs.
I take a deep breath and shake off my overwhelming and irrational desire. It has no place here. I’m not that sort of boss. “Josie, I mentioned I asked you to come here for business reasons.”
At that, she bolts up to stand, smoothing her skirt, her curiosity working against a new suspicion in her face. “Yes. What’s up?”
I shift my weight, cross my arms. Glance up at the canopy of trees and the skyline beyond. Get it together so that I can stare her down. Be fucking Axe MacKenzie, CEO, former CIA and all-around arse-kicker, and not Awkward Axe, who spent more time coding and reading books than talking to girls.
Christ, what is it about her that gets me so tongue-tied? I give my head a shake, forcing the thoughts to line up. This pitch is a tightrope—the last thing I need is for Josie to think she’s my ideaof the perfect prototype. That would be both embarrassing and borderline creepy given the professional context.
“We’ve been working on a project at SynthoTech. An AI partner.” I make sure to sound all-business. Keep my eyes trained on hers. Not a glance south, not a bloody twitch. “We’ve put years into development so far, and we committed an eight-figure budget to it.”
Her brow furrows slightly. “Okay…?”
“I know how you feel about AI. But again, this is not about taking away any paying jobs. At least, not legal ones.”
“Wait. Did you sayeight figures?”
“Aye, I did,” I say, rushing the words out. “And we need a source model, a baseline for the simulator. So the team was wondering if you might consider it. The data we’ve been gathering on you—not in any dodgy way, just, ah, observational—suggests that your, ah, personality, your mannerisms, your…your…everything would work. You’d be well paid.”
Fuck, that couldn’t have come out worse if I’d written it down beforehand. Come to think, why didn’t I script it? Because I never script anything, most likely. And because I spent the morning chopping Petrov’s right-hand man into bite-size pieces. Wasn’t lying about the gators. Turns out they’re brilliant coconspirators—they love the taste of human flesh, and, of course, they can’t talk.
