He could hear the woman Becca had been talking to wish her a good day.
“No, and there’s a reason for that,” Jax said. “Ezra was informed a couple of minutes ago that Green is at CSIS.”
Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the closest thing Canada had to the CIA. Was he checking in or something more nefarious?
“Carter?” Becca sounded surprised.
It appeared the whistle-blower had shown up, and it wasn’t at all who they’d expected. Carter Adams was here, and it looked like he had something to say. Well, there was a reason he’d been following her all week.
Owen started to go out, to help her. He wasn’t leaving her alone with a man who obviously had an ax to grind.
Robert held out a hand.
And then Carter said something that had Owen standing still, his whole soul in complete shock.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bump into you. I’m a klutz.” The pretty woman with the long black hair who’d teased her about the difference between Canadian and Chinese politics had bumped into her, and naturally she’d dropped her bag.
The lady in the insanely high heels knelt down, grabbing the bag before everything could fall out of it. Becca only had to reach for her keys and the protein bar she kept around but never quite convinced herself to eat.
The woman handed her back the bag and wished her a nice day before walking off.
She was alone again. Owen was wandering around somewhere, and she was waiting here like a spy or something. Was he right? Owen thought this was pretty crazy, but she couldn’t let it go. She couldn’t get rid of the feeling that something was wrong.
Except for the night when Owen had made her feel like a sex goddess. She’d learned that even incredibly awkward positions could be made superhot when she found the right partner.
Her backside still ached from where he’d spanked her. After she’d lost the plug, he’d started everything over again, though the second time he’d taken her to the shower. He’d cleaned her up and then proceeded to get her dirty as hell all over again.
She was going to let him do it. She was going to let him have her in a way no one else had and she was shocked that it was something she was looking forward to.
She glanced around. Was she going to stand here all afternoon? She needed to be back at the office, writing up the latest round of test results, but no she was here playing the spy because she couldn’t let it go. It was something she needed to deal with because her control issues were becoming a problem.
And she’d recently discovered that giving up control could be a good thing.
Another ten minutes and she would go find Owen and put this all firmly in his hands. She would go back to work and wait for him to figure this thing out.
She glanced over at the stairs and wished she’d come here for the right reasons. The place was incredible, and she would love to learn more about the history of it. Next week she was taking the whole weekend off and she was going to explore this city with her new boyfriend.
A familiar face came into view.
What the hell was Carter doing here? She felt her eyes widen at the sight of him as she settled her tote back over her shoulder. Now she realized her crappy choice of accessories wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to her today. Carter was here. He’d obviously come straight from work. He was in his normal uniform of pressed slacks, a button-down he’d buttoned up, and shiny loafers. She’d avoided him all week, but it looked like she couldn’t now. He looked up and down the hall and his stare found hers. He turned and there was no doubt in her mind that he wasn’t surprised to see her.
“You sent the message.” She tried to wrap her head around any other explanation for why he was here. He didn’t have anything to do with accounting and he could easily have dropped all the drama and had this conversation with her anywhere else. They lived in the same building. No one would have listened in on them there.
“I didn’t send you anything.” He stared at her, his arms crossed over his chest. “But I did need to talk to you away from the office. I’ve been trying to have this conversation for a solid week, but you’re always with that ape-man boyfriend of yours. I decided this place is crowded enough to risk it. I doubt that asshole will try anything in public. One of the interns overheard you talking about being here this afternoon.”
Damn it. She’d talked to Owen on her cell phone this morning. She remembered one of the interns being in the room at the time. This was why she wasn’t a spy.
“Did you think you could get away with it?” Carter asked in a cold tone.
“With what?”
His eyes narrowed. “I know you’re planning on getting rid of me. God, and to think I believed you could be the one woman in the world for me.”
“I thought that was some woman in nephrology.” He’d mentioned that he’d grown disillusioned with a woman.
“I lied. It was always you,” he returned. “I’m embarrassed to say it now, but from the moment I heard you were coming to the foundation, I thought we could have something special. You have a great mind and I have all the resources to make you even greater. We could have made an excellent team. We did make an excellent team.”
“I never gave you any reason to believe we could be more than friends, and this is an inappropriate conversation. I need you to leave.” Why had she told Owen to stay away? She wasn’t comfortable with Carter. The hallway was public, but there was only one tall man in a ballcap at the end of the balcony railing. He was taking pictures and paying absolutely no attention to the drama playing out behind him. Owen was back in the exhibits waiting for her to come for him.
“Of course you did, but then that’s what women like you do,” Carter hissed. “You get what you want out of a guy like me and then go find some asshole with muscles to fuck.”
She wasn’t going to let him do this to her. He’d obviously set this up. She didn’t completely understand why, but he hated her deep down. “I’ll be having a talk with the foundation human resources when I get back to the office. Don’t bother me again.”
He leaned toward her, his voice a quiet snarl. “I’ll have a talk with them, too. I’ll have a long talk with them about Project Tabula Rasa.”
The words stopped her in her tracks. Tabula Rasa. It was Latin for blank slate. She forced herself to turn. Tabula Rasa was what Hope McDonald had privately called her work. It was a nickname and not anything that would have been on her formal files or the work she might have tried to publish about it. McDonald had been working for a pharmaceutical company at one of their European labs at the time. “What about Tabula Rasa?”
The project had taken place in the lab she’d run from and sworn to never go back to. The universe seemed intent on reminding her of that terrible day.
He stared at her for a moment and then something dawned over his face. It was as though he’d figured something out, some puzzle piece falling into place. “Well, now who holds the cards? I know about what you did when you worked with Hope McDonald. They kept it quiet, but I know what she was really working on.”
“She was working on memory function,” Becca replied. McDonald had been creepy and a little weird, but she hadn’t been the problem. Her staff, on the other hand… She wouldn’t think about it. Dr. McDonald had been almost worshipful of her patients, especially the ex-military ones.
“She was working on how to erase memory,” Carter said. “And you helped her.”
Heat flashed through her. It had always been there, the idea that McDonald wasn’t what she seemed. Hadn’t that asshole told her that?