“What did I just do?” she whispered.
Sam picked up the phone and rolled onto his back, reading the exchange. And then he threw back his head and began to laugh.
CHAPTER 24
She went to work. It had taken a great deal of arguing to get Sam to stay behind, but there was no way she could explain taking him into the lab with her.
She needed an escape from the apartment. The thought of spending all day twiddling her thumbs, waiting for Logan to come home so she could enact the stupidest idea she’d ever had, was unbearable to her.
The door creaked on its hinges as she stepped into the lab.
Brenda straightened from where she’d been stooped over a slide, frowning at her. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to take the day off.”
Ophelia pulled her scarf off.
“I thought better of it,” she said, shrugging out of her coat. “We have so much progress to make in such little time. I would hate to be the reason we fall further behind.”
“Everything in this world doesn’t rest on your shoulders. You do know that, right?” Brenda grabbed her shoulder and shook her gently. “I was relieved when you said you were taking a day for yourself. You haven’t been yourself lately.”
“I’m feeling a lot better,” she said, and it wasn’t exactly a lie. “Besides, I wanted to review the results of our last genetic study. Gavin sequenced that new lily hybrid, didn’t he?”
“So he did.” Brenda sighed, throwing her hands up. “I guess it all works out. He called out sick today, anyway. His kids have got that cough that’s going around.”
With relief, Ophelia made her way to her bench and roused her holographic desktop. She pulled up the results on the translucent screen and stood back, biting her cuticle as she studied it against the last three failed hybrids. For all that they had advanced in isolating genes, turning them on and off with epigenetic factors could still be a crapshoot.
The door shrieked again, but she was too lost in thought to glance back.
“Can I help you?” Brenda asked, stirring the air as she walked past Ophelia.
“I hope so.”
Ophelia stiffened.
No. There was no way. He wouldn’t.
She turned in horror to find Sam standing at the door in one of Logan’s suits.
“They sent me from the head office to check on your progress,” he said—the rotten, lying machine. “I was hoping someone could give it to me in layman’s terms.”
Brenda toyed with the end of one of her locs, clearly not immune to Sam’s universally attractive good looks. “Oh, well. We haven’t been introduced yet, Mr…?”
“Samuel Nolan.” He held out his hand for a shake, meeting Ophelia’s gaze over Brenda’s shoulder.
I’m going to kill you, she mouthed.
He grinned.
“Well, where would you like to get started, Mr. Nolan?” Brenda asked. “I could show you around since it’s your first time at the facility.”
“I can do that,” Ophelia said hastily, stepping away from her workstation. “I’m stumped at the moment, anyway.”
For a moment, she thought Brenda might argue. Instead, her supervisor gave a wistful sigh. “Alright, then. Let me know if you need anything.”
With one last lingering look at Sam, she walked away.
“Right this way, Mr. Nolan,” Ophelia said, gesturing that he should follow her. “We can start in the back and work our way forward.”
His grin spread, and she had a terrible longing to kick him in his metal shin. “Yes, miss…?”
