Chapter Sixteen
Michelle
She made it around a corner and partway down the block before the tears started to fall. Through the haze, she saw a park across the street, and made a beeline for it and an empty bench.
Kase had lied to her. The revelation felt like a knife to the gut. Cold, brutal, stabbing pain. No, not pain. Agony. She hurt from being lied to, but on top of that, she felt like the fool. This was twice now she’d trusted Kase, and twice now he’d treated her wrong.
“Fool me once,” she whispered, angry at herself for being humiliated like this.
How could he have let her continue to think that the shuttering of the lab was her fault? That she’d somehow not done a good enough job of making him happy, or whatever his reasoning was for closing it. All her problems had started the day he’d walked back into her life under the lie of wanting to survey the lab. How could she have been so blind?
Now she was stuck in the city without a car, and would have to cab it back home. After that, she’d have to call her parents and make arrangements to move home. Finding a new job in her field would be a time-consuming endeavor, and she wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to go back to work right away either. The pain of knowing she’d been so close to success would haunt her for a long time.
“Everything okay, miss?”
She jumped at the voice, looking up. A tall man stood in front of her. Very tall. With lots of muscles. What the hell was it with her and guys with more muscle than brains? Seriously. Were they all into short fat girls and she just didn’t know it?
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, perhaps a bit more gruffly than she might normally. Right now she didn’t want to be bothered.
“I see. Do you mind if I sit?”
Michelle frowned, looking pointedly at the three other benches within thirty feet, all empty. “There’s plenty of other seats.”
The big man ignored her insinuation. “Thanks, but I want this seat,” he said, settling in next to her.
“Can I help you?” she asked cautiously, moving to the far end of the bench.
“Actually, yes, you can, Michelle.”
Alarms screamed in her head. How did this person know her name? She didn’t recognize him at all. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“I have a proposal for you.”
“Ew. I’m not a prostitute, mister. I don’t know how you know my name, but I don’t know you. Please leave me alone before I call the police.”
The big man sighed. “It’s a business proposal. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Oh.” Now she felt somewhat embarrassed. Must be the emotion of the day. “You still haven’t told me how you know me. I’m not interested anyway.”
“Are you sure? With your lab closed, you might want to hear what I have to offer.”
“Who are you?”
“Someone who wants to help you so you can continue your research.”
“You’re going to fund my lab?”
The mystery man hesitated. “I want to ensure you can continue the work you’ve been doing so far.”
Michelle frowned at the evasive answer. “Are you offering me a job?”
“I have the funding. Well, my company does. You could continue what you’ve been doing.” He crossed one leg over the other and sat back, his hands firmly clasped together in his lap. “If that sort of thing interests you.”
“It might, if you would be willing to provide more details.”
She was suspicious of just where he might be from. It’s not like places where her skillset could be of advantage were numerous. Most of them were big pharmaceutical companies, places that charged huge markup on the drugs they produced to rake in as much money as possible. They were less prevalent in Europe, but they still existed, and many of them operated in the United States as well.
Michelle had purposefully gone to work for Kase’s lab because it was private. Whatever she came up with there belonged to the lab, and would be given to the public at a cheap price, so that everyone could afford it, not just the wealthy privileged elite. She refused to be a part of that, and it was why she’d turned down every offer that had come her way to jump ship and take her research somewhere else.
The worst of the lot was EPP, the company that had been harassing her almost since day one to defect and come work for them.
Of course, with her lab being shut down, there was no work happening there. If she went to work for EuroPharma Prix or any of the others, at least she could keep working toward a cure. An expensive drug that worked was better than no job at all, that much was for sure. Especially if it helped her father.
All the thoughts left her conflicted. What should she do? Was there any harm in hearing more of this man’s offer, if he would give some specifics? There didn’t seem to be any drawback to listening.
“I can’t be specific right now,” the mystery man told her, the bench groaning as he leaned even further back into it. “This is all informal, and has contingencies.”
“Like what?”
“Do you want to know more then?”
“I don’t know who you work for, but I can guess what sort of company it is. You know who I am, which means you’re also well aware of how I feel about companies like yours and their exploitive practices.”
All she received was a dip of the head in acknowledgment. Not happy with his lack of loquaciousness, she decided it was her turn to be silent and wait for him to speak. After all, he was here to convince her of something, not the other way around.
“Very well,” he said with a sigh. “You’re correct. We can, however, offer substantial funding, both for your work and for you, along with state-of-the-art equipment, whatever you need. We’re also prepared to bring in half your team.”
That was almost unheard of. Why were they so desperate to get her to come work for them? Did they know how close she and her team had come to formulating a cure? They must have, or else they wouldn’t be wasting such a lucrative offer on her. How was that possible, though?
“I don’t think so,” she said, making up her mind. “I need to get going.”
She would find another lab. Besides, without her data, it would take her years to come up with anything. Who knew what would happen in that time. Whatever it was, the price wouldn’t be worth it to the millions of sufferers across the world. It would be better for her to go somewhere else private, and do it the right way.
The public as a whole deserved that from her, didn’t they? Conflicted, she turned to go. Whatever the choice, it wasn’t right to sign on with this man, or any of the big pharma reps. For all she knew, they would take her cure and lock it away, charging instead for the drugs they currently had. Drugs that only helped manage the symptoms, but didn’t actually cure it, which was what she’d been trying to do. In fact, that seemed much more likely. All of which reinforced her initial rejection of his offer, and that she should go home and start to heal now.
Fingers like steel closed around her wrist. “I think you should reconsider,” Big Pharma snarled, getting to his feet and looming over her.
“Let go of me!” she said, pitching her voice high so that anyone nearby could hear.
For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to stop, that she might truly be in danger. But his gaze darted around, likely noticing that it was a fairly crowded park, even if there was nobody in the immediate vicinity of them.
His hand dropped.
“Leave me alone. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can go fuck yourself,” she snapped, backing away from him. Looking over her shoulder, she saw a nearby soccer field filled with youth and made sure her backward steps took her in that direction.
Eventually the Pharma rep, which she knew without a doubt he was, turned and left. There might have been a smirk on his face, there might not, she couldn’t tell—and frankly, she just didn’t care. Michelle was over it. She was over it. Over her old job. Over Kase. Just over all the god damned bullshit.
Now if only I could just stop thinking about him.