As she touched one of the black marks, she asked her brain, What happened? Who attacked me? Why? What had he hoped to gain?
Genie frowned in concentration and her temples throbbed as her mind bounced up against an implacable barrier.
It was no use. Frustrated and achy, she muttered a curse and looked through the rising steam. She couldnt concentrate with Wellington in the room. He was too distracting. Took up too much space. You can leave now, she said, her voice echoing in the tiled bathroom. Ill call you if I have any trouble in here.
She saw his masculine outline, blurred by the moist air and the ridiculous shower curtain, shift from one foot to the other. Are you sure? Youre not feeling dizzy or anything?
What would he do if she were dizzy? Get in the shower and hold her up? Scrub her back? Wash her hair?
Protected from fear by the web of amnesia, her brain chose that moment to prod her with a mental note. Get a date. Suddenly, Genie could smell acrylamide and musk over the delicate perfume of Parisian soap, and she had a quick, improbable fantasy of Dr. Nicholas Wellington naked in the shower with her, his large, blunt fingertips massaging her scalp and taking the ache away. She imagined his big hands working in maddening circles, moving down her neck, across her shoulders, and down She started to feel dizzy, but not in the way hed meant.
He would press himself against her backside
And push hard, grind against her in the bloodred light while the developer clanked and groaned so loud that nobody could hear her muffled screams.
What is it? Genie, whats wrong? Do you feel faint? She must have made some noise, because suddenly he was in the shower holding her tight while the water blasted them both, quickly plastering the clothing against his hard, sculpted body.
He pulled the butterflies closed, making the shower into a warm, safe nest lit with bits of reflected color. There were blue butterflies, Genie saw as she stared at them rather than at the man who held her, and green and yellow ones that shone through with bright, warm light.
Not red and black. And the roar of the water pounding down on them was the shower, not the X-ray developer. But she was still cold. So cold.
Genie! His voice was sharper now, demanding an answer, bringing her back through the red-black mist. Are you in pain? Do you want to go back to the hospital?
No, she managed to get out through chattering teeth, grateful for his arms around her, grateful when he turned the water even hotter to ease the chills that gripped her. No, I remembered a little of what happened. Just a quick flash, thats all.
Thats enough. His words were clipped, but his eyes were steady when she looked up into them. His hands were gentle on her body as he seemed to wrap himself around her until she felt a little warmer. A little safer. He rocked her back and forth until her trembling eased a bit, and said quietly, Im sorry.
Lulled by the feel of the man against her, it took a moment for Genie to register the words. Then she said, For what? You didnt grab me in the darkroom. Even you wouldnt go that far to get time on the sequencer. Shed meant the last as a weak joke, but fell silent when the words came out sharp, bitchy, the way they always did when she tried to talk to Beef Wellington, thirteenth floor hunk.
No wonder he hated working near her. She couldnt even say good morning without sniping at him. Get a life, her brain reminded her.
Yeah, easy for it to say. It was just too bad for her that of all the classes shed aced over the years, shed missed Get a Life 101. It had probably conflicted with calculus.
They stood there for a moment and Genie tried to frame an apology in her mindone that sounded if not friendly at least less nasty. She shifted away from him, hoping that distance would bring more clarity to thoughts that seemed steeped in his heady scent. Instead the motion dragged the tips of her breasts across the wet material of his T-shirt and she froze as she became intimately, acutely aware that she was naked and he was not.
The small space within the butterfly curtain grew warmer and her breasts suddenly felt harder and softer at the same time, heavy with an unfamiliar, pulsing ache.
Over the pounding rush of the shower, she heard Wellington take a sharp breath. She looked up into his face and froze, mesmerized by the play of color and light across his features. The tendons of his strong neck stood out sharply beneath the slick skin of his throat, the muscles of his jaw rippled as he swallowed hard, and she wondered what he was thinking.
Was he wishing that he were anywhere but in the shower with Genius Watson? Was he thinking that his good deed for the day had turned into more of a project than he had planned? Was he thinking of the ride in the ambulance? Of the blood on her gray wool skirt and what mightve happened if she hadnt fought back, hadnt been lucky?
Her eyes traveled up from his throat, slid across the wide planes of his cheekbones and up the aggressive jut of his nose to his eyes, which glittered through the steam like chunks of pale blue topaz. She wondered if maybe, just maybe, he was thinking the same thing she was thinking. Feeling the same things she was feeling.
Suddenly the events of the day didnt seem quite so unbelievable in the face of another incredible fact.
She was naked in the shower with Beef Wellington. She, Genius Watson, who in college had been voted by one mean-spirited fraternity as The Most Likely to Die a Virgin, was standing in the shower. Naked. With Nicholas Wellington III, the most popular, eligible, drop-dead gorgeous man at Boston General Hospital.
The wet material of his T-shirt grazed the hard tips of her breasts when he rasped in another breath and his soaked jeans were rough against her thighs and belly. She felt a liquid throb, warm and low, and her lips tingled with a phantom imprint as though he had kissed her already.
He sucked in a third breath as though filling his lungs was the most important thing in the world, then slid his hands up to cup her shoulders and Genie thought, He feels it, too. Hes going to kiss me. Her belly churned with a dizzying combination of anticipation, painkillers and delayed shock. She felt his fingers tighten, saw the muscles beneath the wet T-shirt ripple, let her eyelids drift shut
As he gently but firmly pushed her away, his eyes glued to the nearest butterfly, he growled, Since you seem okay in here, Im going to head downstairs and dry off. Yell if you need my help. He practically leaped out of the shower and was gone.
Genie sagged against the cool bath tiles and pressed both hands to her burning cheeks once she heard the bathroom door shut in his wake.
What had just happened here?
You almost jumped Nick Wellington, thats what happened, her brain supplied as her heart stopped pounding from excitement and started thumping from sick, horrified embarrassment.
What had she been thinking?
She shook her head as the blasting inferno oflust? desperation? mental instability? delayed reaction?slowly cooled and left her feeling nauseous. She hadnt been thinking, which just showed what a terrible day it had been. She always thought first and acted secondit was the secret to an ordered, controlled life. A scientists life.
A safe life.
Genie knew from experience that when she thought through her actions she didnt make mistakes. Didnt do stupid things. Didnt end up climbing out the third-story window of a house on fraternity row with her teeth chattering as sleet cut through her ripped shirt and slicked the rose trellis beneath her numb fingers.
A safe life.
Genie knew from experience that when she thought through her actions she didnt make mistakes. Didnt do stupid things. Didnt end up climbing out the third-story window of a house on fraternity row with her teeth chattering as sleet cut through her ripped shirt and slicked the rose trellis beneath her numb fingers.
Pressing her bruised cheek to the tile, she made a small sound of pain and frustration. Why could she remember every detail of that one humongous miscalculation during her college career and not a thing about this afternoon in the lab? Remembering her single date with Archergorgeous, popular, wealthy Archerdid her no good. It hadnt helped back then and it served no purpose now. But remembering what had happened in the darkroom was important. It could help Detective Sturgeon find the man who had attacked her. Could help hospital security figure out how he had gotten onto the locked thirteenth floor of Boston Generals Genetic Research Building.
Might prevent it fromdear Godhappening to someone else.
Tell me! she ordered her brain, and tried to fight through the layers of defense to that blank place at the back of her mind. What happened, damn it? Who was it? Why?
The fingermarks on her hips and breasts throbbed in time with her heartbeat, in time with the pounding of her head, but the blanks remained stubbornly blank except for a gentle California drawl and the phantom press of a mans fingers.
She closed her eyes and knew why Archer was suddenly vivid in her mind after more than a decade had passed. Her brain might not be willing to show her what had happened in the darkroom, but it wanted her to remember that shed been stupid about men before. Really stupid.
I get it, I get it, she muttered. Wellingtons out of my league. You think I dont know that? She reached for the bar of expensive soap her mother sent her each month from Paris in an attempt to forge the connection theyd never managed when they lived on the same continent. Besides, I dont even like him.
But she knew, as she slicked the soap over her breasts and down again, that for the first time in a long, long while she was lying to herself.
NICK PULLED A BEER out of the fridgewho wouldve guessed Dr. Genius drank beer?and drained half of it while he stood at the sink and waited for his hands to stop shaking with a potent combination of lust and self-loathing.
What had he been thinking?
The answer was obvious. He hadnt been thinking. At least not with his brain. He closed his eyes and swore while the feel of her rocketed through his system and set off every warning buzzer in his body.
In a hundred years or so he might get past seeing Genie Watson lying in a pool of blood next to the smashed developer. But he was never, ever, going to forget the sight of her naked body, wet with the shower and glowing with reflected butterflies that filtered through the plastic curtain. And the feel of her. He cursed. It had taken every ounce of willpower hed possessed to set her aside and to leave the shower while he still could. And it had been a close call at that.
Hed almost kissed a woman whod been sexually attacked not eight hours earlierthat knowledge was enough to make him feel like a jerk. And the fact that the woman in question was Genius Watsonwell, that was just downright scary.
Hadnt he learned anything from Lucille?
He chugged the rest of the beer in self-defense and it went straight to his head, reminding him that hed been too caught up in DNA sequencing to eat lunch and hed spent dinnertime in the E.R. waiting room.
Since he absolutely wasnt going to follow up on any of the irrational suggestions his hormones were sending him, he decided to cook.
Food was the next best thing.
He heard the water being shut off upstairs while he peered into her refrigerator. Pleased that she was well stocked with food as well as beer, he decided on scrambled eggs and toast, making the meal heartier by adding onions, parsley, and a wedge of crumbly cheddar. He felt himself unwind a bit, relaxed by the mindless snick of the knife against the cutting board and the mundane pleasure of preparing a meal.
Mrs. Greta had taught him well. The Senators cook had been a round, motherly woman whod given her employers growing son a swat or a hug depending on the circumstances, and some of Nicks happiest memories from back then were set in the rambling kitchen with her off-key humming in the background. Shed taught him to cook and hadnt told his father, for which Nick had been eternally grateful.
With the memory of the older woman bustling warm and happy around the edges of his mind, Nick breathed deeply through his nose and looked up toward the second floor, wishing idly that he could see through the walls to the steamy shower beyond. If he closed his eyes, he was sure he could picture Genie Watson in glorious, pink-wet nakedness.
With a mans fingerprints glowing purple against the rosy skin. The marks of violence at her neck, hips and face. A crumpled white ball under the chemical sink. A pool of blood, dried black at the edges, liquid and dark red in the center.
The housekeepers happy ghost vanished and Nick scowled at a half-peeled onion. He was here because a co-worker had been attacked. Because she had wanted to come home and needed someone to stay with her.
Someone to protect her.
He slid the mixture into a skillet while his thoughts poked and prodded at the facts. The detective, Sturgeon, had said there was no reason to think that Genie had been the target, but it didnt make much sense to picture someone hiding in the darkroom waiting to assault the first person that walked in. Then again, picturing someone hiding in the darkroom didnt make any sense at all to begin with.
Why their lab? Why the darkroom? How the hell had he gotten onto a locked floor in the first place? And how had he gotten away?
At the thought of a blood-covered, would-be rapist escaping through his lab space, and what might have happened had Genie not defended herself, Nick missed an English muffin with a wickedly serrated bread knife and almost took off his own thumb. Shioot!
Be careful. Im a little too shaky to sew you back together and Im not up for another trip to the emergency room tonight, okay?
Sucking on the narrow slice hed carved into his thumb, Nick looked up to see Genie, wrapped in a thick terry robe, standing at the threshold. Her hair was a damp waterfall across her narrow shoulders. Her eyes were shadowed, wary, and the bruises on her cheek forcibly reminded him of her vulnerability even as his heart thumped at the sight of her. She needed his help, nothing more. His protection. Besides, he didnt even like her.
You cook? Her voice was stronger, as if the shower had distanced her from the afternoons events, and he was grateful for that, since he wasnt feeling particularly distant himself. In fact, he was fighting the insane urge to cross the room, scoop her off her feet and take her back to the shower so he could protect her. Naked.
Yeah, I cook. He waved the thumb in her direction. If you dont mind the occasional miss. Giving her a wide berth, he placed two plates on the granite breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the dining area.
But I thought She hitched herself up on a stool, seeming not to notice that the robe had fallen open across one rosy, damp thigh.
Resisting the urge to pull the robe closedor off, whichever she preferredhe sat opposite her so he couldnt see her pink-painted toenails. Never in a million years would he have guessed that Genius Watson painted her toenails pink.