“I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but Dr. Kirchner was also working late in another part of the lab. I went to get a soda from the lounge and saw him come out of the specimen storage unit.” She bit her lower lip and then released it slowly. “He had a mobile phone in his hand. He was talking into it to someone.”

Delaporte’s eyes narrowed. He knew about the new rule against bringing any mobile phones into the building; he had written the memo about it himself. “Do you know who he was speaking to?”

She shook her head. “As soon as I saw what he was doing, I stepped behind a cabinet. I don’t know why, exactly. I think I was afraid. I’ve never been very good at confrontations.” She produced a weak chuckle. “I couldn’t make out much of what he was saying, but he mentioned the transerum and the dominant female Kyndred Mr. Genaro is searching for.” She waited until he finished writing his notes and looked up at her. “I did hear one thing clearly. He said they would be arriving within twelve hours. Mr. Delaporte, he must have been talking about the team that was sent to New York to retrieve that girl.”

Delaporte watched her until he realized he was staring, and then returned to his note taking. “Have you seen Dr. Kirchner use this unauthorized mobile phone since that night?”

“No,” she conceded in a small, ashamed tone. “But if he were using it to pass sensitive information to a party outside the company, wouldn’t he have it with him, or keep it someplace safe, like in his office? In the event something important came up and he had to make contact quickly?”

She’d pushed the girlishness a little too hard; Delaporte’s gaze turned harder, less sympathetic. “I wouldn’t know, Dr. Hoff. The only way to check would be to search him and his office. I couldn’t do that without Mr. Genaro’s approval. I doubt he would give it based solely on a verbal report from a single witness.”

He would need more of an incentive to do something on his own, Nella thought, resigned to what would have to come next. She got up from her chair to walk over to the row of eight monitors showing ever-changing views of the interior of the building. “Can you check the security videos for that night? Maybe one of them shows him using the phone.”

Delaporte joined her, and stood just a little too close for professional courtesy. “We don’t use cameras in certain portions of the lab. There aren’t any by the specimen storage unit.”

Nella turned to him, making sure the front of her body brushed his before she put one hand on his chest. “I’m so worried about the project, Mr. Delaporte.” She lowered her chin and continued in a strained whisper. “It’s been so difficult for me. You don’t know how cruel and vicious Dr. Kirchner has been. The things he says to me when we’re alone.” She thought of what would happen to her if she failed to get rid of Elliot, and lifted her face so that Delaporte would see the very real fear in her watery eyes. “I feel so powerless, and scared. I don’t know what to do.”

His arms came up to support her as she collapsed against him. After several wet sobs into his shoulder, she lifted her face to press her cheek against his, and breathed through her mouth so he would feel it against his ear.

“Nella.” Delaporte’s hands shifted, pressing her close instead of simply holding her. The front of his trousers were tented over his erection. “It’s all right. You don’t have to deal with this alone anymore.”

“I knew I could depend on you.” She turned her head to give him a kiss on his cheek, and then gasped as he turned his so that their mouths met. “Mr. Delaporte.”

“Don.” He pulled back and looked into her eyes. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll take care of you.” Then he kissed her again.

She deliberately stiffened before relaxing against him and opening to the wet, hard push of his tongue.

Nella faked the moans, the trembling, and the limpness as he moved her over to the couch. She had to keep her eyes closed to endure the groping and sucking that followed, and fantasized about her last lover to stay wet enough to be convincing. But when Delaporte mounted her she discovered the stout, homely looking man sported a beautiful cock the size of a small club, and what he did while he kept her pinned down and impaled on it was better than the efforts of her last five lovers.

“You’re so big,” she gasped out, not having to fake the tremors of shock she felt every time he thrust. When he finally seated himself to the hairy root, she cried out. “Oh, no. No, please, I can’t take it, I can’t.” She thrashed her head from side to side, whimpering as she pushed at his chest. “Please it’s too big, please stop.”

Her whining and pleading only spurred him on, as she suspected it would, and he began to grunt with satisfaction as he plowed into her. He was like a screwing machine, she thought, and perspired like a pig, but for some reason his endless, unimaginative pistoning of her and the smack of his sweat-slick body were getting her hot. Then with a genuine squeal of astonishment she had a gushing orgasm, and when she finished he pulled out and ejaculated into a handkerchief he had produced like a magician.

Nella would never admit it, but she wasn’t entirely faking the tears she burst into a moment later.

Delaporte tucked in his shirt, zipped up his trousers, and disposed of the handkerchief before he came to kneel beside her. His big, hot hand on her exposed breast made Nella curl over toward him.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said quietly. “But you knew what you were doing.”

Nella shook her head, still trying to play the innocent. Her heart wasn’t in it, however, and she fought a terrible urge to tell him the truth about her and Kirchner and everything she’d done. Suicide, she thought. I might as well stick a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger.

“Nella, look at me.” He waited until she did. “You’re going to leave early today. Go home, and get some rest.”

“I can’t leave.” She sat up, pulling her blouse over her breasts. He’d left suck marks all over them, and seeing the dark pink love bites made her sex clench. She looked up at him. “What did you do to me?”

“I took good care of you, baby.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “Just like I will when I come to your place tonight.”

Nella pressed her lips together. Having sex with him in the office was a necessary task, but if he came to her apartment, he’d expect to stay. The prospect of being subjected to his battering ram of a penis for an entire night scared the hell out of her. It also thrilled her down to her heels.

I can work on him, she thought, not caring that she was lying to herself. By tomorrow he’ll do whatever I want. “Do you really want to come over tonight?”

“Of course I do. You need me.” He tipped her chin up so that she looked into his eyes before he gave her a firm kiss. “Now be a good girl and go home.”

Nella straightened her clothes and after glancing one more time at Delaporte, slowly walked out. She went up to the lab to retrieve her purse before checking out.

On the ride back to her apartment, Nella used the mobile phone in her car to make a call. “I’ll be out of touch until the morning,” she told her employer. When he asked why, she answered honestly. “I have some personal business to attend to.”

Being unceremoniously dumped in Central Park by Meriden left Rowan sitting with her jaw in her lap for all of five minutes. Whatever she’d said to chase him off, it had worked superbly. She could spend the rest of her day sulking over it—and on some level, probably would—or she could run her errands and enjoy what was left of her day off.

At her request, Dansant had paid her wages weekly in cash, but refused to take more than a quarter of what she’d earned as repayment for what he’d given Bernard. He also overpaid her, and when she’d tried to argue with him, had told her what he paid the others—more than twice the going wages for line cooks.

“Why aren’t you bankrupt?” she demanded, aghast at the staggering sum he laid out for his employees.

“D’Anges does a good business,” was all he would tell her.

Later that night she asked Lonzo about just how well the restaurant did every week.

“On average we do nine hundred, maybe a thousand,” he said, referring to the number of meals served. “Customers tip well, too, so the waiters always clean up.”

She did some rapid calculations in her head. “Holy Hannah. Nine hundred, every week? You sure?”

He glowered at her. “You think I can’t count how many dinners I plate every night?”

“No, I just . . .” She shook her head. “That’s unbelievable. This place isn’t even that big. I mean, you’d have to sit every table every single night straight through from opening to close.”

He puffed up a little. “In case you haven’t noticed, kid, we do. That and we got the group room filled three, four times a week.” His gaze turned speculative. “You’re thinking how with the lousy economy, right? Maybe some other places are hurting, but it’s never made a difference to us. People keep coming because they know at D’Anges they’ll have the best meal they’ll eat all year. That’s why you won’t see any prices on the menu, Trick. We don’t need ’em. They don’t give a shit what we charge ’em.”

She glanced toward the back stairs. If Dansant was pulling in millions every year from the restaurant—which by her calculations he had to be, even after paying all of his employees and covering the cost of food—he probably didn’t care that she was occupying an apartment he could have rented out.

“It wasn’t like this in the beginning, though,” she said to Lonzo. “It couldn’t have been. He would have had to make a name for the place.”

“I was the first chef he hired,” Lonzo told her. “We had a full house opening night, and since then there hasn’t been an empty table in the place.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”