“It is.” His whole face lifted, causing new wrinkles to appear. They didn’t age him, though; they were happy wrinkles, gained from smiling and laughing.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why did you leave Lockwood Family Pharmaceuticals?” Ginger and orange tangoed with her taste buds. She made a mental note to bring Quinton here. If the steak was half as good as the salad, they’d have a new hangout.
Thomas swiped at his mustache with the white linen. “Well, we’d done about all we could on InfantPure. Jillian gave the team the option of reassignment, but I was still reeling from your father’s death. He was too young to die of a stroke. I kept thinking,That could have been me.” He took a bite and chewed for a moment.
Ginny waited. Silence was a motivator and it allowed people to think deeper, which in turn allowed them to reveal more.
“Jillian pulled me aside one day and offered an early retirement package.”
“Did she do that a lot?”
He tucked his chin. “Looking back, I think she was making over the company. There were a lot of new faces in the building. Missing ones, too.”
Ginny nodded. It was just as she’d suspected. A changing of upper management often led to adjustments, but it was almost like Jillian wanted to wipe the slate clean, to erase Dad from the company completely.
Or maybe she was trying to erase Ginny.
“I took the deal. I’m glad I did. This time in my life, making my family my focus, has been rewarding.”
Ginny balked. “But you developed pain meds to help burn victims.”
“I know. It’s a different kind of fulfillment. I don’t know if I can explain it.”
Ginny dabbed at her lips. “You don’t have to. Not to me. I’ve been there. Except I did it backwards. I had that kind of fulfillment first.” She lifted her glass and took a sip of water.
Thomas grunted. “Do you want some advice?”
“Of course.” Ginny set down her glass, ready to listen to one of the mentors who had shaped her course in life. Thomas was not just science intelligent; he was people intelligent. Perhaps he would know how to handle things with Jillian moving forward.
“Don’t stop at building a company. Build a family too.”
She laughed lightly to cover her discomfort. “That wasn’t at all what I was expecting.” Truly, as much as she wanted a family of her own, it didn’t seem likely in the near future. Especially since she wasn’t seeing anyone. Well, she was hanging out with Quinton, but that didn’t count.
Did it?
Could it?
Her thoughts jumped to their marriage pact. Neither of them had brought it up, but it kind of made sense. It wasn’t like they had time to really date around and look for love.
“Ah, you might not have expected it, but you’re thinking about it now.” Thomas touched the side of his nose. “Your dad and I, we used to talk about family. His biggest regret was that you were an only child.”
“No way.” She shook her head, making the room spin. Or maybe it was the blast of insight into her father’s innermost thoughts. “He was too narcissistic to want more kids.”
Thomas chuckled. “True, but he loved you, and he worried that you were lonely—especially because you grew up surrounded by adults. He thought you’d be a wallflower in college, a loner. Sending you off to Stanford was hard for him.”
“I wasn’t lonely. Not at all.”I had Quinn.They hadn’t made plans to see one another after their dodgeball war, leaving the option open had been enough after their big talk. She vowed right then to ask him to dinner that very night.
“That’s good to hear.”
They were coming to the end of their meal and their time together.
“Thomas, what happened with InfantPure? Why did research stop?”
“We reached the end of our capabilities. It’s all in the files.” He waved his knife around in a circle. The files. She’d have to dig those up and get her hands dirty if she wanted the specific answers. And she wanted them.
Ginny made another vow to herself to her hands on those files ASAP. The project was shut down almost five years ago. Technology changed. Science advanced. There might be a way to resurrect InfantPure. If there was, she would find it.
Chapter Ten
