Jessica Andersen - Under the Microscope

He used his foot to hold open his hotel room door. “I’m not sure, but Ike’s checking it out. She’s trying to pull the sample batch numbers and see if the deaths were linked that way. Maybe a small portion of the samples were tainted during the original production process.”

Raine frowned. “How is she going to figure out…she’s hacking into the FDA? That’s illegal!”

“So’s conspiring to hold useful drugs off the market so your own patented compounds keep making money.” Max pushed the door open and stepped through. As an afterthought, he pulled out a twenty from the emergency funds and handed it to Raine. “Get something from room service for yourself.” When she shook her head in protest, he insisted, “Trust me, protein and carbs. You may not want to eat, but you’ll feel better if you do.”

After a pause and a sigh, she took the twenty, lips curving in a soft smile. “You saving me again, Max?”

“Nah. Saving myself from having to carry you around tomorrow after you faint from low blood sugar.” That got a small laugh out of her, pleasing Max. Feeling as though they were chitchatting to prolong the end of a date, he said, “Good night. Sleep well.”

And before he’d fully processed the impulse, he leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips.

It was a chaste kiss, little more than he might give a first date he hadn’t really connected with. But its effect on Max was anything but chaste.

His blood leaped in his veins, revving from idle to racing speed between one heartbeat and the next. Her lips yielded beneath his, warm and inviting, and he was poised to accept that invitation-

When she pulled away.

She blinked up at him, then exhaled a long breath. “Sorry, Max. I’m not looking to be rescued anymore, and I don’t want a man who has to be needed that way. I’m looking for someone who’ll see me as an equal, someone who’ll need me as much as I need him.”

I see you as an equal , he started to say, but stopped when he realized that wasn’t so. He saw her as a beautiful, desirable woman. As the surprisingly savvy boss of a company that had proved itself successful up until its current troubles. As a different person than the vulnerable, fragile woman he’d known back in Boston.

But not as his equal. Not as someone he could turn to when things got tough.

She nodded. “Thought so.” She pressed her lips together as though remembering his kiss. “Too bad, Max. It might’ve been fun for a while.”

She disappeared into her room next door, leaving him alone with the taste of her on his lips.

“WHEW. NARROW ESCAPE,” Raine said into the generic hotel room, the likes of which were becoming depressingly familiar. She glanced around, saw nothing out of the ordinary and shrugged. “Guess it’s a shower first.”

Then she stopped, having realized that she was talking to herself, trying to fill the quiet. She’d been in constant company for nearly the past four days.

Being alone felt strange. A little eerie.

“Max is right next door. There’s even a connector.” She crossed the room and unlatched her side, so he could come through if she called for him. Not that she would, of course, but in the case of an emergency…

“Get a grip,” she told herself. “They don’t know where we are. You’re safe here.”

Still, the creepy feeling persisted as she checked and double checked the locks, then stripped down for her shower.

She was tempted to luxuriate beneath the spray, but that felt somehow wrong after what she’d been through that day. Cari Summerton would never again take a good shower, would she? That sweet little girl would never get to swim with her mother, never get to talk to her, laugh with her, yell at her, all those things girls did when they grew up with a mother of their own.

Many of the things Raine had missed out on.

“This isn’t about you,” Raine said sternly as she shut off the water and stepped out onto the bath-mat. “None of it is about you. At least not directly.”

It was about Thriller. About a group of men who, for reasons unknown, had decided to discredit the drug and destroy her in the process.

Collateral damage, Ike had called it.

When self-pity threatened, Raine scrubbed harder at her hair, wringing it dry until the tears came from the pull at her scalp rather than worthless sniveling. She wrapped a dry towel around her torso and stepped out into the hotel room.

And stopped. “Oh, hell.” Her relatively clean clothes-the business outfit she’d washed in the sink last night and hung to dry-were in Max’s duffel. She looked down at herself. “Oh, hell no. That’s so not happening.”

Refusing to be so stupid-or obvious-as to visit Max in a hotel-size towel, she grimaced and pulled the jeans and sweater back on. She padded to the connecting door barefoot and knocked.

She heard the sound of a lock being thrown, and the door swung open to reveal a scowling Max. “There wasn’t supposed to be a connecting door.”

Though she felt a frisson of disappointment at how thoroughly he wanted to avoid her, Raine shrugged. “Sorry. I promise not to bother you again. I need my clothes.”

His face went blank. Then comprehension washed over his expression. “Right. Wait here.” He turned away, cursed and turned back. “Ignore me, I’m being an ass. Come in.” He gestured to a table beneath the single window, where a room service tray rested. “Eat. I got enough for two, because I figured you wouldn’t follow orders.”

“I just got out of the shower!” But even given the circumstances, Raine found a faint smile. “It’s one of the basic differences between men and women. The woman showers first. The man orders food.”

Still standing, they shared a tentative smile.

At Max’s prompting, she sat. Their knees bumped beneath the hotel-issue table, but neither of them mentioned the contact.

Many things went unspoken as the meal progressed.

By silent accord, they kept the conversation light. They didn’t speculate on the case. They didn’t talk about their past association or the way it had ended. They didn’t talk about Charlotte or Max’s empty apartment. Raine didn’t ask whether he’d ever gone to New Bridge, looking for her once she’d run.

Instead, they stuck to safe stuff like movies-which they mostly agreed on-books-ditto-and the occasional foray into current affairs and politics, where they were forced to agree to disagree.

The good news was that it made for a pleasant meal. The bad news was that it recalled entirely too many of the hours they’d shared during her stay at Boston General.

Worse, it reminded her that Max wasn’t just a handsome face stuck on a hell of a body. He wasn’t just an overprotective macho man in search of a little woman to take care of.

He was both of those things, true.

But he was also really good company, damn it.

When the meal was over, their conversation faltered. She fell silent, and after a moment, he did, too. They stared at each other over the remains of their food. The scene was lit by daylight filtering through cheap hotel curtains. It wasn’t romantic, wasn’t ambience, but Raine’s heart tilted nonetheless.

“Aw, hell.” Max leaned forward and Raine met him halfway. Their kiss tasted of red wine and companionship, and the heat built gently. Surely. As though this time it was right.

Only it wasn’t. He’d already admitted he didn’t see her as an equal.

He was still looking to save her.

Raine pulled away, blood humming, and saw the knowledge already written in his eyes.

“Not yet,” he said as though they’d already discussed it. “Not tonight.”

Maybe not ever. Probably not ever.

“Thanks for the meal.” Raine stood and gathered her change of clothes. “See you tomorrow.”