Damned If You Don't (6 page)

Jack had changed all that.

Morgan didn’t know whether to be grateful or furious. Could one enchanted evening really alter a person that much?

Her mind filled with a picture she’d seen in a zoology text—a chrysalis—a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. He’d broken open her cocoon and given her the ability to fly free. That might, just might, keep him alive when they stopped.

“Easy, kitten.”

Her gaze must have narrowed, because his half smile fled, and yet her heartbeat soared from zero to sixty in less than three seconds, a new land-speed record. To hide her reaction to him, she turned away to look out at the landscape speeding by them. A new wave of motion sickness ruined what mood was left inside her.

“Call me Morgan. Better yet, make that Dr. Mackenzie. You have no right to call me kitten anymore.”

“All right, Morgan. But this isn’t about me, anymore. It’s about you.”

She snorted in disgust, hugging herself to keep from going after him again. “Nice of you to understand that.”

“Not too long ago, I screwed over my best friend and partner to save your sorry ass. I even let you sleep. The least you could do is try to be a tiny bit grateful.”

“Grateful? You want me to be grateful?” She tucked her hands in tight and told him to go do something anatomically impossible.

Obviously that got his nuts in an uproar. “Listen, Morgan. And listen well,” he bit out. “You’re going to have a hard time trying to explain to your employer why you’re not a thief.”

That was the least of her problems at the moment.

“They didn’t hire Sam to play games.”

No kidding.

“Now, Sam made it seem as if this job was on the up-and-up, but obviously it’s not.”

Tell me something I don’t already know.

“The people who want their property back obviously want this all on the hush-hush. That’s why Sam didn’t bring in the police.”

Tell me something I really don’t already know.

“But if they have to drag in the authorities, I’m getting a real bad feeling they will. Just remember it’s not always innocent until proven guilty. So taking your anger out on me is a waste of time.”

If he was trying to scare her, he was doing a good job. But she’d be damned before she’d let him know that. Wait a minute. She was already damned. So what the hell?

“All right, Jack. I want the truth.”

“Ditto.”

“I get to go first,” she retorted, her tone icy cold.

He inclined his head.

“One of the things I don’t understand is why you stopped me in the hotel.”

His lips lifted into a self-deprecating smile. “Couldn’t help myself.”

Did she dare believe that? Suckers were born every day.

He pinned her with his gaze. Two could play this game very easily. “You know what I don’t understand?” he asked. “I don’t understand why you came to my room last night.”

“Couldn’t help myself,” she replied, throwing his look and his smile right back at him.

A long silence grew between them. She tried to tamp down the well of anguish inside her belly, but as she and Jack stared at each other, it became part of the silence. His gaze told her he couldn’t stop it from growing any more than he could make amends. But he could try.

“I know you won’t believe me, but it wasn’t just sex,” he finally told her.

“I made love to you,” she cried, clutching her body as her insides twisted.

“I know.”

She watched him lean forward and balance his forearms on his thighs. “God.” He laughed, the sound bitter but at the same time sweet. His gaze lifted, caught hers again, and refused to let go. “I can’t explain what happened except to say I stopped breathing the moment I saw you.”

Oh, no.

“So that made everything all right. Being ‘in sex’ with me made it all okay. You knew you were going to have to hand me over, you bastard. You knew. But that was just fine. Because you got your rocks off along the way.”

He jumped up out of the seat and dropped to his knees in front of her. His posture begged, not to forgive him, for he seemed to understand the impossibility of that at the moment. No, he dropped to his knees, begging her to allow him an apology.

“I’m sorry. I had no right to do what I did.”

He didn’t try to excuse his behavior or his actions. “Thanks for making me the exception,” she bit back at him.

He released a heartfelt sigh, which finally reached through her anger. “No problem.”

His gaze darkened, catching hers, refusing to let go as they both remembered the ferry deck.

“You should never have come to my room,” he told her.

“And if I hadn’t?”

His smile hurt both of them. But the truth hurt sometimes. “I’d have come to yours.”

“To keep me near you,” she whispered, her tone bitter.

“Yes!” he exploded, her pain reaching him. “I couldn’t let you go.”

Did she dare believe him? That they both fell into the enchanted evening knowing they shouldn’t? “Thanks for being honest.”

Her tone let him know exactly how she felt. The South Pole would have been warmer.

His reached up with his hand to graze her cheek, then let it fall without making contact. “I know it’s no consolation but you stopped being a job the moment I danced with you.”

That didn’t help matters although a small, secret part deep inside her felt better. “You gave me up.”

“I had no choice.” He raked his hands through his hair. “I had to find out why you were so special.”

She frowned. “Special?”

Pride laced his tone. “I don’t get called out on a job unless it’s really important, kitten.”

She let his endearment slip by while she put on her snark. “Wow. I mean, gee. I’m a celebrity.”

His gaze hardened. Guess he didn’t like snide. Too bad.

With a deep indrawn breath, he rose and sat back on the seat. “You need to tell me everything, Morgan,” he replied, his body language simply weary now. “Whoever is paying the bill, well, they mean business.”

No kidding.

Her heart sank, but she dared not let him in on the rest of her problems. She couldn’t. So Morgan played this the way it needed to be played.

You’re a thief. Stay a thief. Act the part.

“All this time I’ve known I was in trouble, that I’d done something wrong. But to hear someone else say it—” She shivered. “I’m in a whole lot more trouble than I thought.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” he protested.

She shook her head. “Not your problem, Jack.”

“You don’t think so? Guess again. I’m up to my neck in this now whether you like it or not. And I don’t feel like giving up just yet. So I need to know the truth.”

He took a deep breath and asked, “Just what the hell did you do?”

THE SIXTY-FOUR-thousand-dollar question.

Morgan knew she was just as guilty as BioClin. She’d accepted the job. But someday, the people at BioClin were going to know just what they’d done to her life.
Her
life.

Damn bastards.

There was a murderer lurking out there. Somewhere. And Morgan had no idea what to do about that.

She knew she would never be safe until the memory stick she carried made its way into reputable hands. The rest, she could only guess at. Which on the one hand made her a suspect, and on the other, a target.

Morgan needed help. Only one person could do that for her now, her old graduate advisor, Dr. Huan Chuan Lee, the head of Molecular Biology at Emory University in Atlanta. An expert in the field of metabolic research, he’d contributed to research that went on to win a Nobel Prize. His safeguard was that he wasn’t expendable, not without raising some serious questions.

Morgan needed time—time to find out who was behind the journal entries. She needed Dr. Lee’s reputation and status as a shield. BioClin knew the process didn’t work, and now Dr. Lee would too. They wouldn’t dare go public with anything as long as they knew he had the project in his possession.

But that would also put him in terrible danger.

Welcome to the reason she’d been running around the East Coast for the last week. And the reason Jack had been able to track her.

Damn the man.

Could he help her buy that time? Could he help her get to Dr. Lee’s in one piece?

Yes.

Did she dare trust him further than that?

No.

Morgan examined her logic again. Silence in exchange for time.

God, she still couldn’t believe it.

What she’d stumbled on—oh hell, even
she
couldn’t begin to estimate the possibilities. They seemed endless. And the potential profit for BioClin? Astronomical.

All for a new diet drug.

She’d been hired to find a solution to the growing problem of obesity in America. All they had to do was come up with a method that worked. Morgan and her team decided to go after the triggers that stimulate metabolism. If the glycolytic rate inside the cell necessary to maintain cellular energy level could be forced to continue in excess, a person would burn more calories than they could take in and ultimately lose weight.

The problem was that the natural activation pathways were generally unknown. Her team found one. Then all hell broke loose. At the height of promise, just as Morgan was about to prove out their findings, top management leaked their results to the press, creating a flurry of expectation.

The bastards didn’t wait. Damn them all to hell and back again.

Morgan shook her head, trying to tame her emotions. Anger warred with fear. BioClin knew she and her team weren’t anywhere close to anything concrete yet. They had a theory. They had a process that worked—in theory. But BioClin also needed money. By letting the proverbial cat out of the bag, BioClin already had investors breaking down their doors. If word got out that they didn’t have the data, they’d be ruined. So the officers of the company were going to do whatever they thought necessary to get their property back.

Damn them, they jumped the gun. For money. Screw people and their lives. It was all about the bottom line. Morgan would never be able to understand why. Sure, her brain had figured it out. But ethically?

And besides, they had to know there was a possibility something might go wrong. Would go wrong.

Did go wrong.

Morgan shivered, trying not to let Jack see. She corralled her imagination before pictures started creeping into her head. No one else was going to be put in harm’s way. No one else was going to die.

Whoever had done this despicable thing, well, they’d underestimated Dr. Morgan Mackenzie. She was going to make damn sure they paid. Big-time. Because Morgan Mackenzie was about saving lives, not taking them.

Maybe that was why she couldn’t get Pinky and Louie out of her head.

She’d been a fool to name her test mice.

She’d been an even bigger fool to let herself get caught by a man. Now she was sitting in the backseat of a limousine headed toward freaking wonderland.

“I’m not exactly sure how to explain.”

“Try English. I’m not stupid.”

She smiled, enjoying his discomfort. Obviously, he was out of his element. “Testy, are we?”

He waved away her enjoyment. “I don’t speak geek. Sue me.”

Morgan laughed. “All right. All right. Take it easy.” She sobered, then tried the easiest explanation she could give him. “You’re aware of who I am?”

“Dr. Morgan Mackenzie,” he quoted. “Bachelor of science degree in biochemistry.”

“With a minor in genetics,” she added.

“A master’s degree in molecular biology,” he continued.

“Just a stepping stone.”

“A PhD in cellular kinetics.”

“That one was hard.”

She watched Jack’s eyes widen with appreciation at the pride in her tone. “You think keeping you alive is going to be so easy? Guess again.”

She thought about that for a long time. “I barely finished high school,” he continued. “Doesn’t make me stupid.”

She nodded and her chin lifted. “All those degrees don’t make me stupid either.”

Point received and taken. “Agreed.”

He sighed. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Do you know who I work for?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“I work for a company called BioClin. I found a process that would lead to the first diet drug that would work naturally with the body. All totaled, it could be worth billions.”

She listened to him whistle. “Really? You’re not playing with me?”

“No. No joke.”

“Wow,” he whispered. “No wonder—”

“Yeah.” Morgan nodded, her smile turning sad. “No wonder Sam wanted to turn me in without any help. Probably would’ve earned one helluva bonus.”

Jack’s face tightened. “You don’t mind if I reserve judgment on that, do you?”

“You can think whatever you want. I really don’t give a damn. All I need right now is to get my data into the hands of someone reputable, someone
my employer
will think twice about going after.”

“And once that’s done?”

Morgan’s blood chilled, but she answered honestly. “I’ll face whatever consequences I have to.”

Jack didn’t reply, and she didn’t continue. Morgan knew the ramifications of her actions. She wasn’t about to renege now. Besides, no matter what anyone thought she had right on her side, and she wasn’t about to make any of her actions wrong any time soon.

Chapter Seven

Jack dialed a number he knew only too well on his prepaid cell, not surprised when the phone was picked up after the first ring.

“Not bright, Andy,” Sam chided.

God, he hated that name. But right at this moment, his name wasn’t Andy and it wasn’t Jack. It was fool with a capital F. Because getting screwed always came when you least expected it. From the last person on earth you thought would betray you.

Across from him sound asleep, Morgan half sat, half lay against the inside of the limo, looking all kinds of innocent.

“You know I hate that name.”

Sam laughed. “Very dramatic. You also know I’ll find her.”

“Probably,” Jack replied, realizing the inevitable. “But not on my watch. And not until I know the truth.”

Could what she had in her possession really make Sam turn traitor to everything they fought for, everything they believed in? They’d been trained to take life but in cold blood?