Ride: A Bad Boy Romance (45 page)

“I wanted to show him the view,” she said. “It’s really pretty from the roof when there’s a full moon.”

“You can get a view of the lake from lots of legal places,” the cop pointed out.

“Not as good as this one,” she said.

He gave her a hard look, and Zach had the wild urge to punch the guy, then grab Katrina and
run
. Anything to protect her.

It was stupid, of course. There were three cops and they all had guns, so he forced that urge deep down inside himself, grinding his teeth.

“So you won’t mind if we search your car?”

Zach shook his head. He wasn’t crazy about the idea, but if it got them out of there, so be it.

“Go nuts,” he said.

They stood together on the side of the road while the cops went through Zach’s old car, pulling out the blankets and granola bars he kept in the trunk just in case he broke down somewhere bad.

“I’m sorry,” Katrina whispered.

“It’s okay,” Zach whispered back. “I had a really good time anyway.”

She looked up at him, blue eyes shining in the moonlight.

“Really?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “I just hope this turns out okay for you.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m worried about you.”

Zach felt warm and squishy in the middle.

“I’ll be fine too,” he said. “We should do this again.”

“This?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“You know what I mean,” he said.

Before he could go on, one of the cops who’d followed them through the hotel came over. He had two yellow pieces of paper in his hands, and gave one to each of them.

It was a ticket.

Zach’s heart soared, and Katrina looked at it quickly, then looked from Zach to the cop.

“A ticket?” she asked.

“We’re going easy this time,” he said. “We didn’t find any drugs, so we’re letting you off with a trespassing ticket and a warning. Next time you get charged.”

Zach kept his face as straight as he could, even though he almost wanted to kiss the man.
Almost.

“Thank you,” he said.

Katrina nodded.

“Next time, canoodle in your own home,” the cop said, still not finished talking. “It’s not like you’re teenagers or something.”

“We’re sorry,” Katrina said instantly.

“Really sorry,” Zach said, barely able to contain his glee.

The cop nodded once, then walked back to his own car.

Zach and Katrina barely made it into the Escort before bursting into amazed laughter.

W
hen Katrina’s
alarm went off the next morning, she groaned and pulled her fluffy white comforter over her head, only extending one hand from her bed to bat at the clock.

It was no use. She was already awake, her
lovely
dream cut short.

Zach had been in it, of course. They’d been on her couch, pretending to watch some movie on her television, and he’d
just
unbuttoned her dress.

Staring up at the comforter over her head, Katrina made a face.

I should have invited him up last night
, she thought.
He’s not the kind of guy who won’t call you back when you give it up on the first date.

Still, though. A lifetime of hearing
good girls don’t
from basically everyone she knew had taken its toll, and now she was alone in her bed, having pathetic sex dreams about a guy she’d just met. Katrina didn’t even think of herself as a particularly good girl — she sure wasn’t a virgin — but, no matter how badly she wanted Zach, she hadn’t been able to invite him up last night.

She blew air out of her lungs, puffing up her cheeks, then tossed the comforter aside, swinging her legs onto the floor. Her whole apartment was a kind of controlled chaos. She had a lot of things in piles, but she knew what was
in
each pile, and each pile had a specific home.

It wasn’t organized. Katrina would have never claimed
that
, but she more or less knew where everything was. Most of the time.

She pulled on her flannel bathrobe and padded to the kitchen in her slippers, turning on the kettle for tea. As she waited, she checked her phone.

The home screen was chock full of texts and emails, and she smiled when she saw who they were from.

The night before, she’d barely unlocked her front door when Zach had texted her:
Are you free Sunday night?

Yes
, she’d texted back.

Now he’d already texted her that morning:
Can’t wait until tomorrow night
.

Katrina grinned at her empty kitchen, a slow warmth flooding through her body.

Along with it came just a
hint
of guilt, but she tried to get that out of her head. Just because she’d met him on a weird mission from her boss didn’t mean she didn’t
like
him. Maybe this was a good thing: if they hadn’t been specifically seeking out Zachary Monson, Katrina would never have met him.

Plus, Pete had sworn again and again that he just wanted to get the guy into the MutiGen offices. Katrina had a sneaking suspicion that they were going to try to get his DNA somehow — a hair shed onto a chair, saliva left on a water glass — and she wasn’t a big fan of that, but it wasn’t like it would
hurt
Zach.

Besides, once they had it, she could do her best to get rid of it. She couldn’t talk her boss out of something he wouldn’t even admit he was going to do.

This whole eagle thing was stupid, anyway, and Katrina couldn’t
believe
that a company full of
scientists
were so convinced it was true. It was totally insane. Humans couldn’t even regrow their own limbs, like starfish.

The idea of a person turning into an eagle even defied basic physics. No matter how big golden eagles were — and they were big, Katrina had done her homework — they weren’t as big as
people
, and the conservation of mass was the most basic principle in the world.

There was simply no way to turn something into
less
something, and that was only one reason that Zach obviously couldn’t turn into an eagle.

The kettle whistled, and Katrina yawned, then turned and poured herself a cup of Earl Grey tea, slipping her phone into her pocket. While it steeped she put a few other dishes into the dishwasher, then added honey and milk, and finally went to go read emails on her phone in her living room.

She hated that she compulsively checked her work email, even on Saturday. But she also knew that it was the only way to get ahead: always be available, particularly while you’re still a junior engineer. People higher up got to ignore their email for the whole weekend, but not her.

“Fuck,” she said out loud, when she saw the subject line of the first email:
NEED YOU IN THE OFFICE TODAY PLEASE RESPOND ASAP.
It was sent by her boss, Pete, of course.

The body of the email only said, “Best, Pete.” Katrina had to close her eyes for a moment, irritated that he hadn’t even bothered telling her
what
it was about.

Feeling slightly rebellious, Katrina finished her tea slowly, flicking through her Facebook feed, before responding to Pete, saying she’d be there shortly. She rolled her eyes as she hit send, and then made a face at her apartment.

I guess I have to put on office clothes
, she thought.
Damnit.

What the hell does he want that can’t wait until Monday?
she wondered.

Then she got up, put her mug into the dishwasher, and grabbed a skirt and shirt from her closet.

* * *

T
he MutiGen offices
always felt weird on the weekend, though Katrina wasn’t a stranger to being there on Saturday or Sunday. She tried to avoid going, but every so often she’d have a project that she just wanted to
finish
instead of waiting for Monday.

It wasn’t like she was dating someone who’d take up her weekend time.

Not yet, anyway. Katrina was ready for
that
to change, she thought, remembering her dream about Zach.

She blushed slightly as she held her ID badge to the scanner at the front door and walked in. The lights were on in the small lobby, though of course Stephanie the receptionist wasn’t there and her desk was dark. Katrina scanned her ID at another door, and another, and in a few moments she was putting her jacket and purse down in her office, then going down the hall to see what the hell Pete wanted, anyway.

“Come in!” he shouted to her knock.

Pete was sitting at his desk, facing the door, typing frantically. He didn’t look up as Katrina entered, his eyes glued to his computer screen. He was wearing the standard outfit for men in their office — khaki pants and a polo shirt — but he looked rumpled, like he’d been wearing the outfit for a long time already, even though it was barely noon.

The top buttons were unbuttoned, and Pete himself looked sweaty and pale, his hair sticking to his scalp in a few places. His mouth as he typed was a thin, grim line, totally humorless.

“Pete?” Katrina asked. Without a pause in his typing, he cocked his head to one side, indicating one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Katrina sat. She folded her hands in her lap, watching Pete.

Naturally, she started to worry.

Something’s gone wrong with a project
, she thought.
All of our products mysteriously lost power at the same time. The pacemaker I worked on last year has some kind of fatal flaw, and hundreds of people just had a heart attack at the same time.

The thought made her go pale. It was easy to forget that what she worked on was destined to become
part
of someone.

All the prosthetic hands that we’ve got people beta-testing started trying to choke the humans who were wearing them, she thought.

That one almost made her laugh, and she squirmed in the chair instead.

“One minute, almost done with this,” Pete said, vaguely.

Katrina examined her fingernails until he finally hit a button and his email program made a
swoosh
noise. He’d never figured out how to turn it off.

“Right,” Pete said. “We’re bringing Zach in for an interview in—” he checked his watch, “—forty-five minutes, and I wanted you to be here to help make him comfortable.”

Katrina stared at Pete for a moment.

Does he know...?

“You went on a date with him last night, didn’t you?” Pete asked, his eyebrows furrowing behind the thin rims of his glasses.

“Is that important?” Katrina asked. “I prefer to keep my private life
private.
”

Even though right now, I already know it’s going to be a losing battle
.

He blinked, his eyes looking wet and a little vacant behind his glasses.

“You made those plans while I was standing right there,” he said. “On MutiGen time, if I recall correctly. So, you went out, right?”

Katrina just nodded. It seemed useless to deny it.

“How did the date go?” Pete asked.

“Why is this important?” Katrina asked, sitting up straighter in her chair. She was
certain
that the men on her team never got asked how their dates went, for fuck’s sake.

“Just in general,” Pete said, waving his hand. “Did it go okay?”

“Sure,” Katrina said. She hated giving Pete even an inch in this battle, but something strange was going on.

“Great,” Pete said, sounding relieved. “I need you here to make sure he’s comfortable.”

“Comfortable with
what
?” Katrina asked.

What the hell is going to happen during this interview that he’d be uncomfortable with?

Pete glanced nervously at his computer, then folded his hands on his desk.

“We need some of his DNA,” Pete said.

I fucking knew it
, Katrina thought.

“Just a hair,” he went on. “Something he’d leave behind anyway. Saliva on a soda can or something.”

Katrina stared.

“No,” she finally said. “That’s an insane violation of Zach’s — of his — his personal
rights
,” she said, sputtering. “You can’t just look at someone’s DNA without their permission. I’m not helping.”

She stood, but Pete held up one hand.

“In law enforcement cases, the courts have ruled that DNA given willingly can be used as evidence,” he said, his voice going higher-pitched and shaky. “And leaving your DNA somewhere counts as giving it willingly.”

Katrina ground her teeth together.

“You leave your DNA
everywhere
you go,” she said. “I don’t care if it’s legal, it’s wrong, and I’m not doing it.”

She turned to leave his office.

I have to text Zach and come clean
, she thought.
I have to tell him not to come
.

“Do you like working here?” Pete suddenly asked.

Katrina turned around, standing in his doorway.

“I did,” she said, a little sadly.

“Sorry,” he said, the word coming out like the bleating of a goat. “I should rephrase that. I meant, do you like working? As an engineer?”

Something squeezed at Katrina’s heart.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Good,” Pete said. Behind his glasses, his eyes were still big and wet, but now something gleamed in them that Katrina had never seen before. “Then you should probably do what I’m asking. It’s not just MutiGen who’s interested in this man, Katrina. I know some very powerful people in some very high places, and they want some answers as well but can’t afford to get their hands dirty.”

Katrina held her breath. She felt like all the air had left the room.

“If you don’t want to be a waitress down at Johnny’s Truck Stop ’N’ Diner for the rest of your life, you should probably just do what I’m asking, then,” he went on.

Katrina flexed her jaw. She didn’t say a thing, because she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“Good,” he said.

He took his glasses off and wiped them with a tissue from a box on his desk. With them off, he suddenly looked older and more tired.

“All I need is for you to meet him at the front door and bring him back to my office,” he said. “When that’s done, a quick tour of the labs. That’s all. I’m afraid I’m going to be asking him some rather strange things, but if you’re around, I don’t think he’ll bolt.”

“You’re using me as a honeypot,” she said, crossing her arms in front of herself.

“Call it whatever you want,” Pete said. He turned back to his computer and ignored her, until Katrina finally left and went to her own office.

She was
fuming
.

It wasn’t enough that, as one of the very few women in the company, she was constantly held to a higher standard than her male counterparts. If one of
them
fucked something up, it was just their problem, but if Katrina fucked something up, it wasn’t because she’d done something wrong. It was because
women shouldn’t be engineers
.

And they keep sending me on these goddamn college job fairs
, she thought.
Because they think I’m nicer, or less threatening, or something
.

Well, those are fucking over
, she thought.

But worst of all was the knowledge that she was helping Pete get one over on Zach, and she hated herself for it. Even if it was legal, it was still
wrong
, and she was certain of that.

What if Zach ever found out? What if they got
serious
and he found out she’d helped to steal his DNA, and that she’d chosen her job over him?

It’s not like that
, she thought desperately.
I’m choosing between having a job at all and doing something that he’ll probably never know about
.

Even that didn’t help the muddled, sinking feeling in her stomach.