“Is it true?”
The smile faded again. “Oh, yes. I don’t lie about my childhood. My scars are all on the inside, but they’re there, and they affect every part of me. I’ll lay it on the line. I’m a man who’s been in therapy for a decade. I go almost every Thursday. My therapist is on vacation right now, but I have an appointment next week. Unless it’s dangerous for me to leave you, I’ll make that appointment.”
“You don’t have to justify your therapy. It’s good and healthy, and I’m happy it works for you. I’ve done some myself. After the car accident. I still struggle to drive. Anyway, your healthy attitude toward therapy is okay with me.” More than okay. He’d been vulnerable in the last couple of minutes, and she had a hard time shutting him out. They would be working together for a little while. “Do you want to start over? Like pretend the whole morning didn’t happen?”
He stood, his eyes warm as he held out a hand. “I’m Hutch. It’s nice to meet you, Noelle.”
She took his hand, and she could have sworn she felt freaking sparks. Warm and true. He enveloped her hand and she had to remember to breathe. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”
“Hey, MaeBe says yes. She can take us. I call shotgun.” Kyle was smiling and looking way less broody than he had before. And younger.
She felt younger standing there looking at Hutch like he was the lead singer in a boy band. She forced herself to take her hand back. “We should go then. I’m late.”
She would focus on work and not the man waiting for her at the end of the day.
He wouldn’t be there for long. That was the truth she had to remember.
Chapter Three
Twenty minutes later she made her way to the parking garage, Hutch at her side. She’d noticed he’d matched her stride, which was much slower and shorter than his. It was only polite, she supposed, but there was something nice about it. Often she felt like she was holding people up, but Hutch seemed perfectly comfortable with the slower pace.
“Do you know what Madison was working on? And I’d love to see any kind of reports on the accident in her lab.”
While they’d waited for MaeBe and Kyle to text them that they were ready to go, they’d talked about the case. He’d gone over how a hacker could get into her system, patiently explaining the methods and answering her every question.
He’d also offered her candy. He had a surprising amount of candy on his desk.
“She was working on something top secret. I think it’s some kind of biochemical experiment,” she replied as they stopped on the ground floor of the garage. “She had every technician who worked with her under some hard-core NDAs.”
Everyone signed a nondisclosure agreement when they started work at Genedyne, but Madison had her own to cover her specific lab.
“So you work on whatever you want to?” Hutch had a bag in his hand. Apparently he kept a spare set of clothes and a toiletry bag at the office in case he got stuck working late.
“Consider Genedyne as something of a think tank combined with a university, but making money like a corporation.” It could be hard to describe the way these new firms worked. “They’re all about the patents they potentially get coming out of this.”
“So you do the work and the company gets the patent, and the patent is what makes money. Doesn’t seem fair to me, though I know it’s how the system works.”
“If I was at a university, they would own my research. I honestly wouldn’t have research if I didn’t have company money backing me up. I get a generous salary, my name on everything, and bonuses if the idea works out.” She loved her lab. “If I hadn’t been hired by Genedyne, I would probably be working in some company on someone else’s research. I’m female and young, so getting to do my own work is a miracle.”
“How did you get hired?”
“The normal way. Everyone knows once you get hired there’s the internal fight for a private lab. I liked the fact that ideas were more important than past experience at Genedyne. Not that I would have kept my lab if I screwed up. Jessica is quick to hire and even faster to fire,” Noelle explained. She didn’t talk about the fact that an employee who got fired was lucky to merely slink away. Sometimes the employee got fired or accused of trying to steal company property.
“And Jessica Layne’s reputation didn’t bother you?” Hutch asked.
“Do you know what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world? Of course you don’t. She has to be tough or they’ll eat her alive.” She knew the rumors, but she was giving her boss a chance. “Look, I’m careful. I want to stay off her radar as much as possible, but I also recognize the amazing opportunity she’s given me. I know a lot of what she does is theatrical, but it’s how she gets attention for the company. She’s always been considered an innovator. Is she perfect? Of course not.”