Chapter One
Love at first sight didn’t happen for guys like Finn Kane.
Besides, the anomaly that sent his heart pounding like he’d just run from The Office lounge and out into the chill night air felt too violent to be love. He didn’t know what the hell it was, but it was unsettling. The irony made him laugh. The raw, choking sound drew startled eyes as it left his throat. He watched a couple jaywalk across the street to get away from him.
Christ, they think I’m crazy. He laughed again. I probably am.
He needed to pull himself together, but the idea of running in his condition was so absurd that he couldn’t help his hysterics. Stairs could be challenging on a good day, and the ones leading up from the speakeasy beneath Chicago’s famous Aviary were steep and many.
Winter had come early to the Windy City. It was October, and already the cold seeped into his bones. He resisted the urge to rub away the warmth unfurling in his left leg.
It’s all in your head.
God, he hadn’t needed that pep talk in twenty years…the last time he let anyone see him limp. Pride wouldn’t let him keep walking. Neither would his damn leg. He looked up to see a few more people quickly averting their eyes as he accepted defeat and flagged a cab.
“Just drive around,” he gritted, easing his tall frame into the back seat.
Something in his tone stopped the cabbie from asking any questions. The meter started, and Finn scooted to the other side of the seat, his back to the door. He used both hands to lift the offending leg onto the seat.
All in your head, he repeated the mantra again.
No. All because of a woman he’d never laid eyes on until half an hour ago. But it hadn’t been her beauty that first caught his attention. It had been her voice…
She owned him from the moment he first heard her speak. He couldn’t see her yet, had no idea who she was, but he knew from her voice that she’d be beautiful. She could have been ordering a cocktail rather than entertaining some of the entrepreneurs lucky enough to make the guest list for the invitation-only event that night. It wouldn’t have made a difference—not to the hairs of his neck and arms that stood on end, or to his skin. That…electricity.
Just from the sound her words made as they left her mouth.
He could only think of a handful of people with voices like that—who made it feel as if they’d touched listeners without being near them at all. Frank Sinatra and Whitney Houston when they sang; Sean Connery and Morgan Freeman with their omniscient tones; maybe Anthony Hopkins or the guy from the old Bell Atlantic commercials…Oprah.
But this voice was…more. Different. It commanded the small group that shielded her from his gaze but it paralyzed Finn. It was like her voice existed in a frequency to which he alone was attuned. He was squandering an opportunity, ignoring his own small group members who were buzzed from their cocktails and the prospect of success. He didn’t blame them when they left him alone to go network with people who hadn’t frozen into living statues. People capable of carrying on conversation.
It didn’t matter though, because someone in the woman’s small group shifted and he could finally see her. He felt self-satisfaction that lasted a single breath before his heart tried to break from its cage. Pulse beats in places he never paid attention to like his temples and wrists sped up like he was running rather than standing there. He was right. She was beautiful.
Her face was high-boned and delicate, with full, round lips and sultry brown eyes that looked black in the dim light of The Office lounge. She turned to look at him, and dark curls brushed her shoulders to fall behind her.
Sexy.
Hers weren’t the only eyes on him, he realized through his haze. It took him a few seconds to come out of it. “It” felt like his entire body was waking from numbness. Tingling that started in his fingertips and shot to his toes. He was rooted to the floor. And sweaty. He hoped she wouldn’t want to shake his hand.
Fuck. What did she say?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Could you repeat that?”
His voice sounded gruff and far away. He needed to get a grip. Fast.
She accommodated his idiocy with a smile. “I asked what brings you to Chicago, Mister…”
He cleared his throat and took a leaden step toward her. “Kane,” he offered. “Doctor Finnegan Kane—Finn, please.” He sounded like a maniac. And he still hadn’t answered the damned question. He cleared his throat again. “I’m from Seattle. I work in biotechnology.”
There. He’d strung two complete sentences together.
“Drugs?” someone asked.
“Devices,” he answered.
His eyes were riveted to her face, but he could see the others in his periphery. They dispersed like waves when a pebble hits water. Right. Devices were risky investments. That’s why he was here in the first place. He swallowed hard against his nerves.
Don’t screw this up. You’ve done this a dozen times.
“So…” She came closer.
Oh God, so close…
“Was that some kind of party trick, or do you have something interesting to share with me?”
She stood two feet from him. He could smell her. Her unique scent took root in his brain and made his entire being vibrate with need. His blood pumped so hard it made his head swim, and the pitch he had been able to recite in his sleep was nowhere to be found in his suddenly pea-sized brain. He couldn’t understand how she was so composed when he felt like he was drowning…how what he was experiencing could be one-sided.
Fuck’s sake, you’re blowing it.
“I’m developing neuroprosthetics,” he blurted to shut out his thoughts. “Smart limbs that communicate seamlessly with the nerves and the brain.”
That made four complete sentences. He was on a roll.
She leaned toward him with obvious interest, and he decided to just hold his breath against her assault on his senses. He needed this. He was forty-one with a twenty-year-old dream that he was this close to realizing. Two. Feet. Away.
“Robots?”
He took a breath to answer, and her scent hit him again. Jesus.
“There’s no need to be nervous, Doctor Kane.”
Her tone was light. Like she was teasing him. Trying to get him to relax.
“I won’t blow the whistle on you for crashing this party.”
Shit!
“Your name was handwritten on the list. Not typed,” she said. “So who do you know?”
It was the second time she’d smiled. But she was much closer this time, and now those distracting lips twitched at the corners.
“My colleague’s husband is Jamie Faulk,” he said.
His tone had deepened, but she didn’t seem to notice. Recognition lit her expression, and he was distracted by her skin. Golden brown. Like raw sienna.
“The chef! He knows his wines. I’ve never seen anyone create such spectacular pairings,” she said, oblivious that she’d abandoned her professional tone. “He saved my life a few times.”
Her humor was infectious and he chuckled. “Mine, too.”
Tonight, for example. And just like that, some of his tension was relieved. Well, almost. The urge to touch her persisted; to bend his head and kiss her, to fit his hand in the dip of her waist where it arrowed down to the perfect spread of her hips…
But the ice had been broken.
“He made a couple of calls to get me in,” he said.
“If Jamie Faulk thinks you deserve a foot in the door, let’s make it worth his while, shall we?”
She outstretched her hand.
“Emanuela Monroe.”
Emanuela Monroe. Neurons fired in his brain as he made the connection. Of Hurst Capital. Huge firm out of New York known for its eccentric CEO and cutting-edge investments. She’d made Principal last year at only thirty years old. Why didn’t I recognize her? Because the photo of her on the firm’s website didn’t begin to capture her luminous skin, the depth of her eyes. He needed to stop feeling things…and thinking things like luminous fucking skin. This tiny, soul-sucking goddess was a force, and he needed to impress her.
Her small hand clasped his, the soft pads of her fingers grazing his palm. His thumb caressed her skin out of pure reflex, and his eyes shot to hers. They were wide open and shockingly dark—almost black, full of questions, shifting over his face, then down at their hands. He swallowed. His usual handshakes didn’t last this long.
She gently removed her hand, probably suspecting he was going to hold it hostage forever. She managed to find her voice first, but she’d taken a step back. “I… Tell me about these…”
“Neuroprosthetics,” he finished for her.
His voice sounded weak, not at all confident. He assumed by the way she averted her eyes that he had a similar effect on her. She nodded, looking at his shirt collar…or maybe his neck. God, this was torture.
“They are a lot like robots,” he said. “But they appear lifelike, and the remote control is the nervous system. I’ve designed a bi-directional brain—computer interface—that allows for two-way communication with the brain and nerves.”
She looked at him then, as if he had three eyes.
“Two-way communication provides sensory feedback,” he said. “Touch something hot and a message is instantly sent to your brain to snatch your hand away. With this feedback, my devices can anticipate what the brain wants to do next. They can carry out a series of commands that seem simple to a typical person.”
“Like what?”
He eyed her cocktail glass, held at its stem by manicured fingers. “Well, if I were to take your glass, it would be a single, fluid motion. For someone with a bionic arm, it’s four,” he said, extending his arm toward her. “Raise arm…” His eyes met hers in a brief moment of hesitation, but she didn’t flinch, so his hand went for the stem. “Aim…” The moment lasted seconds, but the whisper-light touch of their fingers as his wrapped around the stem seemed to slow down time. “Grasp.” He pulled it from her fingers, his eyes never leaving her face. “Retract arm.”
She smiled again. “I hope you like red.”
“I’m more of a whiskey kinda guy.”
They shared a laugh. A moment of release. She took back her glass.
“There.” He motioned toward her. “See? It’s something we don’t think about. We can feel the glass in our grasp, its temperature, how heavy it is…we don’t need to see it to sense those things. My devices would imitate these sensations for the wearer.”
“Ah, so it makes for less clumsy movement. More efficient.”
“Exactly. I’m not sure any device will ever be as fluid as a natural limb, even if it’s more powerful, but mine would greatly improve functionality and quality of life.”
She observed him for a moment. It felt like she was looking into him, and the unnamable energy from their handshake resurfaced, thickening the air again. His left leg felt fatigued, and he couldn’t help but shift his weight to his right. The effect she had on him was beginning to take its toll.
“What makes you the best person for this venture?” she asked at last. “It’s risky, and visually lifelike prosthetics are already on the market. Insurance companies would see them as cosmetic. Are they worth it?”
The pulse in his temples picked up again. Her questions were reasonable, but she’d struck a nerve. His brain shrank back to pea-sized, and he acted impulsively. He bent to his left and lifted his pants leg until the hem caught halfway up his calf.
Emanuela frowned at first, but her brow smoothed seconds later. He gave her an ironic smile, sensing the exact moment she’d picked up on the flatness of color in his leg, the lack of pink tint to match the rest of his light sandy skin. There were no veins or identifying marks or hair. The barely-audible whirring sound it made when he rotated his foot drew her stunned eyes back to his.
He released his pants leg and straightened again. “To someone like me, it’s worth everything.”