The patient file on the counter read Malakai Collins, but the man who stood across the room, slack-jawed in his surprise, was inescapably the same Mal that Vincent had met at Gwynn’s wedding. His pale eyes traced Vincent, seeking answers that Vincent couldn’t offer. All Vincent could do was put on his best bedside smile, pretend like nothing was wrong, and hope Mal could do the same.

Vincent had only been working in tandem with Aurora’s Science and Ethics Advisory Group since the beginning of the month, when he’d started his employment with Synecta’s clinical trial branch in Aurora, but back in Corvallis, SEAG wasn’t a force to be meddled with. If they found out that there was a pre-established connection between himself and Mal, it could spell trouble.

Maybe.

The situation wasn’t exactly clear-cut.

Mal had been a one-night stand—a one-night stand that Vincent longed to know better, but, so far, nothing more than a temporary connection. Morally, Vincent was required to announce any personal ties to the clinical trial applicants. It was too easy to overturn objectivity when emotions were involved, and the nature of the clinical trial—and Vincent’s career in general—demanded that Vincent remain professional at all times. But the fact that Mal stood in this room at all told Vincent what Mal’s lips never had—that Mal had been trying, and failing, to conceive a child through IVF. The patient files Vincent had reviewed prior to Mal’s arrival painted the picture for him, detailing Mal’s struggles with fertility due to his advanced age.

That night, in the storage closet, when he’d stumbled in to find Mal in heat…

If he excused Mal from the clinical trial by virtue of their association, Mal would never have the baby he’d been struggling to conceive. This was his last chance.

Vincent swallowed.

He made his choice.

“Hello, Mr. Collins,” Vincent said amiably. He abandoned the patient files he’d been going over prior to Mal’s entrance and crossed the room to shake Mal’s hand. Mal remained where he stood, eyeing Vincent as though he’d come back from the dead. Really, that wasn’t so far off, but Mal had little way of knowing that. “It’s a pleasure to have you here with us today.”

Mal accepted his handshake, but the look on his face was still quizzically hesitant. “Thank you for accepting me. I was told that very few applicants are chosen.”

“For phase one, yes.” Vincent dropped his hand. The touch of Mal’s palm against his own was electric, and he tried to chase the buzzing sensation from his skin by curling his fingers into a loose fist, then releasing them. “Eventually, the pool will broaden, and—provided that what we predict holds true—soon enough our medication will revolutionize the fertility treatment industry and impact thousands of lives.”

“I hope so.” Mal held his gaze a moment too long, and Vincent knew that if he didn’t look away, he wouldn’t be able to continue. Right now, they were doctor and patient, not one-time lovers who’d briefly bared their souls to one another.

“My colleagues, Dr. Peterman and Dr. Heaney, will be walking you through the first part of the process.” Vincent gestured to a curtained partition set up in the corner of the room. The pastel-green drapery had been left open, exposing a plastic chair with metal legs upon which had been set a neatly folded medical gown. “If you’d kindly change so we can start the process, it would be appreciated.”

The shock on Mal’s face was gone, but curiosity sparked in his eyes, like he couldn’t quite understand why Vincent was doing what he did. “Thanks.”

“If there’s anything, let us know.”

Mal showed himself to the partition and yanked the curtain closed. While he changed, Vincent returned to the patient files he’d been surveying in anticipation of Mal’s arrival. Phase one of the clinical trial was divided into five groups, each of whom would receive an increasingly large dosage of the clomiphene phylacetate solution. Mal was part of group three. According to the Core Critical Operations pharmacology team, group three was the most likely to be the maximum safe dosage—the sweet spot between receiving an ample enough dose without receiving too much. Side effects were predicted to be minimal, and a pregnancy was expected to occur.

Vincent let out a breath, masking his sigh of relief with a brisk cough absorbed by the crook of his elbow.

Group one, who’d started treatment on Vincent’s very first day of work, hadn’t even succeeded the stimulation phase. Group two had done better, but the results were lackluster, and Vincent was fairly certain that very few of his patients from that group would leave the trial with viable pregnancies.

Fate had favored Mal. It was up to Vincent to make sure it stayed that way.

While Dr. Peterman, the CCO’s pharmakineticist, and Dr. Heaney, the team’s medical officer, saw Mal to an examination table to run simple tests and draw blood samples, Vincent continued to scan Mal’s patient files, looking for any potential issues that might negatively impact the treatment. There were no placebos to worry about this early into drug testing, but Vincent still found himself nervous.

What was Mal doing, signing up for phase one of a clinical trial? It was the phase that posed the most risk—the first introduction of the drug to human biology. While every drug that made it through preliminary laboratory testing was intensely scrutinized, introducing new chemicals to human biology often led to unpredictable results.

Did Mal know what was at stake?

The tiny print on Mal’s patient chart began to blur in front of Vincent’s eyes, and although he was very familiar with all the abbreviations and medical jargon common on documents such as these, the jumbled letters stopped making sense. His mind wandered. On the night when he’d taken Mal to bed, had Mal wanted him to use a condom? Had he read the signs wrong? If, at that point, he was trying to conceive, had Vincent shot him down by sharing that he was infertile? It was the truth, but that didn’t make it easy—especially not to a man who’d been trying to start a family.

Nothing Vincent read bore meaning anymore. His eyes registered the letters, but his brain failed to make sense of them. He closed Mal’s patient file, masked another sigh with a cough, then prepared the injection. For the next seven days, Mal would report to the clinic daily to receive treatment meant to stimulate ovum production, and Vincent would be the one to administer it. It was something he’d done countless times before, but something he now doubted he had the finesse to perform.

Serum filled the barrel of the syringe. Vincent measured the appropriate dosage with care, eyeing the graduation line carefully, then tapped the air bubbles from inside and removed them with a push of his thumb against the plunger. There was still a chance to confess his connection to Mal. Before he made the first injection, he could admit that, morally, he wasn’t able to treat Mal as a patient. Dr. Biernacki would escort Mal from the building, Vincent’s career would be safe, and Mal…

Mal would be left heartbroken.

Vincent couldn’t bring himself to do it.

As Dr. Peterman and Dr. Heaney finished with the preparatory work, Vincent came to join them. He brought with him the injection that would change Mal’s life, and very well might change his, as well.