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“Everything’s fine,” I assured him. “It’s not worth getting into.”

He nodded sagely. “Understood. Your private life is your own.” How generous of him. “And you’re set to deliver reports on this week’s work at the end of the day?”

“As always.” My skin practically tingled with anticipation.

He was asking if I was ready to move on, if my research was properly documented so another employee could come in and pick up where I’d left off and inject even more lab rats with even more solutions to chart their reactions and tweak the formulas accordingly. It was all falling into place. I could see myself standing in front of a room of team members, all of them taking notes on my instructions. Sitting in a desk like Harrison’s, calling people in for meetings to discuss their progress.

His bald head gleamed in the overhead light as he bent over a file which he’d spread out across his desk. “That’s good news, because I’m about to ask you to move onto a new project.”

I blinked. That didn’t sound promising. “Excuse me?”

“A new project. Sort of… outside the realm of what we normally work on around here.”

Another blink. I waited for more, until I figured out that he was waiting for me to respond. “Outside how?”

“You won’t be filing reports, for one. Your work would be secret.” He dropped his voice at the last word.

Secret. I would be doing secret work.

“All right. Where? Doing what?” I resolved not to overreact when I didn’t know all the facts, even as all I could think about were my rats and my research and all the work I’d done to put together the inoculations they’d been injected with. Not that I imagined curing cancer or anything like that, but my work was important. My heart was in it. I didn’t want to give it up.

“I haven’t received many details,” he admitted, “but an old friend of mine contacted me this morning, asking if I had a researcher I trusted with highly confidential work such as this. You were the first and only person who came to mind.”

Was I supposed to be flattered? It was obvious that he thought I should be. He expected me to thank him, to promise I would do him proud. All I wanted to do was cry, while he sat there smiling.

“What am I supposed to do?” I whispered as tears threatened to choke me.

I forced them back. I wouldn’t let him see me cry. Women of science didn’t break down in tears over the slightest disappointment—at least, not outside the ladies’ room, tucked back in the last stall where nobody could see them.

“You’ll be reporting to a new compound just beyond the Maryland-Virginia border. I already did the research, and it isn’t any further from home than our facilities. It seems like this is a perfect fit for you.”

I practically gagged on my frustration. Yes, because the length of my commute was all I considered.

“My friend will contact you over the weekend, with all the details you need. She wouldn’t give them to me. I don’t rank.” His broad wink turned my stomach.

“She already knows how to contact me, when you’re only telling me about it now? I suppose there isn’t much choice as to whether or not I’ll go through with it, then.” I stood, ready to leave. If I stayed around much longer, I’d make a fool of myself.

“Carissa.” His thin mouth curved into a frown. “Please, don’t take this as a demotion. This is a promotion, if anything.”

“It’s not the promotion I had in mind.” It was unprofessional for me to admit something like that, but I was tired of holding my tongue.

If I had all weekend and thought about nothing else, I probably wouldn’t be able to list all the many times I had kept quiet in favor of professionalism. When Jorge, one of my former lab partners, told me I’d be so much prettier if I would just smile more. When Kenneth, a manager old enough to be my father, asked why I didn’t wear more feminine clothing. Ryan’s incessant attempts to ingratiate himself.

Not to mention all the times I’d stayed late, come in early, typed reports until my eyes crossed and my back ached from sitting at my laptop for endless hours while my lab mates had long since left for the day. I had swallowed it all with a bitter smile and told myself it would pay off when I earned my own team.

I stared at Harrison, choking back tears of rage and disappointment, but what I saw was my dreams dissolving.

“I know you’re disappointed, but believe me. Take this at more than face value. This is a big step up for you.”

“What happens when the work is complete? Will I come back here? Will my job be waiting for me?”

“There’s no guarantee that it ever will be complete,” he admitted. “Again, you’ll have to get that information from my friend. Mary, her name is. You can ask her all these questions. She’ll also have salary information and anything else you need.”

I could only nod in resignation. There was no room for me to argue my case.

As usual, I had to fall in line and pretend to be okay with having no control over my life.

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