4

“ARE YOU OKAY?” CLARA ASKED.

Hope smiled at her half-sister. The two of them had always been as different as night and day. Clara was a hedge fund manager, one of the few women in the field her age, and she was beyond driven. Hope was also driven, but where Hope’s ambition lay in helping others, Clara’s lay in becoming rich and successful.

They were even opposite in looks. Clara had long, curly, auburn hair that hung around a pale face and sharp, green eyes. Both Hope and Clara looked like their fathers, and nothing like their shared mother.

“Yeah, why?” Hope said.

Clara poked a fork into the pile of salad greens and chopped chicken breast on her plate. “Because you ordered pork carnitas and a side of fries. That’s some serious comfort food there.”

Hope plunked a fry into ketchup and then popped it into her mouth. She chewed, swallowed, and said, “I had a bad week at work.”

“Oh?” Clara sipped at her mineral water, her eyes searching Hope’s face over the rim of the glass. “How so?”

Damn. She’d just said that because it was the first thing that had come to her mind. The truth was that the steamy tryst with Jackson had done something to her, something she could not explain.

Jackson was the last guy she needed around, and yet she found herself thinking about him a lot and wishing he was not such a player. He’d made it really clear he was not willing or ready for anything serious, and she damn sure wasn’t, so why was she wishing she had gotten his number and maybe texted him or something?

“Hello? Earth to Hope.”

Hope blinked. “Sorry. I was just gathering my thoughts. It’s work, you know. All the usual things. I need to find a way to really impress the research grant boards, but I don’t have a lot to offer them, and I am getting worried about my funding.”

Clara’s smooth forehead crimped. “You still aren’t willing to try for investment funding?”

“No.” The suggestion, as always, made Hope cringe. Investment funding was not the route she wanted to go, because if she did, then her research would belong to whatever pharmaceutical company she had bartered her soul to, and there was no guarantee they would make any treatment she managed to come up with affordable to most the world.

“You know Dad would tell you to do just that.” Clare set her fork down and leaned across the table. “Honestly, Hope, I get it. I mean, how could I not? But I think if you are ever going to make any progress, you are going to have to go the investor route. Right now, you’re barely making a living, and your research is being stunted by tiny budgets and red tape.”

Stung and angry, Hope said, “I’m doing ok.”

She looked down at the delicious citrus and garlic-flavored pork stuffed into warm tortillas. The truth was that she could barely afford that lunch, and she had a car payment coming due, too. She had to have a grant not just for her research but to continue to stay on the campus where her research was carried out. There was simply no way could she afford rent – not with the way rent prices in the city had skyrocketed over the years.

In other words, she was a failure.

Their monthly family dinner, which was coming up fast, would be hell. Robert, her stepfather, and Clara’s father would spend half the evening bragging about his latest successes and a big part of the rest of the meal bragging about Clara’s success. Then, he would begin deriding, in a totally passive-aggressive way, the work that Hope did. He was all for her joining up with a big pharma company’s ranks and making big bucks no matter how against her principles that was.

Hope had never felt comfortable or even particularly wanted by her stepfather or her mother, who still held a grudge against Hope’s father for leaving them, but she and Clara had managed to have a relationship despite all the ways their parents pit them against each other.

Clara said, “I’m sorry. I’m starting to sound like Dad.”

Yeah, no shit. Hope managed to smile. Clara was two years younger, and she had rocketed to the top like a Roman candle going off. Her success came with a gorgeous and expensive park-view apartment, a fancy car, and a high six-figure salary. She was the child that Hope had never been able to be. That was not Clara’s fault. If anything, it was self-defense against the constant demands for perfection and achievement that the two of them had been raised with.

Hope said, “It’s ok. So, how was your week?”

“Good as always.” Clara pushed away her half-eaten salad with an air of finality that reminded Hope so strongly of their mother she had to look away. Having even an ounce of extra body fat was the sign of a person with no self-control. In sheer defiance, she ducked a few more fries into the ketchup, ate them, and then chomped into a carnita while Clara fiddled with her water glass.

The awkward conversation was not unusual for them, and Hope found herself wondering why the two of them kept up this traditional weekly lunch. They never had much to say to each other, and there was no way in hell she would ever tell Clara about Jackson.

Clara said, “Listen, I’ll get lunch, ok?”

“Ok. I won’t even argue you on that one.” She wouldn’t. The place had been Clara’s idea, and it was trendy and glittery, and very expensive, too. The food was good but not worth the enormous price tags attached. The tiny order of fries – which she had probably somehow desecrated by using ketchup on them – alone had been ten bucks. Coupled with the high-end carnitas, her share of the bill would have been enough to guarantee she had to eat ramen for the next week.

“Good. I’d hate to wrestle you for the bill and embarrass us both.” Clara chuckled. “I really need to get back to running again, but my schedule’s so crazy, I usually end up just using my treadmill at home while I’m in the midst of conference calls. You still running?”

Hope said, “Yeah, I run to work and back home every day. It’s easier for me to do that than try to drive across the campus, and it gives me exercise, too.”

In fact, that was just what she could use right then. The heavy and mismatched meal was sitting squarely in her belly, and her mood could use a lift. Besides, running cleared her mind, and right now she could really use that.

Clara paid the bill, and they wandered out to the sidewalk. The valet rushed to bring their cars. Clara’s was a fancy new sports car. Hope’s was an older sedan in need of a good washing. As she surveyed the two cars, Hope grimaced. The car and her life were both a mess.

She drove back to her small apartment and parked. Inside, she dropped the keys on the counter and went to her bedroom to change. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail, put on shorts, a sport bra, and running shoes and socks. She stretched a few minutes then headed out.

She had hoped that the exercise would make her feel better, but all her woes dogged her fast footsteps.

Jackson stayed in her head with every passing mile. No man had ever done that before. She couldn’t figure out why either. He was so wrong for her!

She turned around, coming back around the campus in a long loop. She was sweaty and flushed, her sports bra sticking to her body when she finally slowed to a fast walk that she gradually brought down to a slower pace to regulate her breathing.

Her heartbeat picked up the pace once more though as soon as she saw Jackson standing near the stairs of her building. He wore tight jeans and a t-shirt, both of which accented his long and strong body. He’d hooked a thumb through a belt loop and was leaning back with one foot up in a sexy and casual pose that made little rivulets of fluid run from her inner folds.

His hand, lying so close to his groin, and that thick and heated flesh just beyond the denim drew her eye as she drew closer. She searched for words as he straightened and let his eyes run over her body and face with an appreciation she could not mistake.

Her body was awash with a whole new type of heat, and she had to take a few long breaths before she could approach him and speak.