Page 38 of Reckless Kiss

Now my scalp pricked. Esme was smart and if she was changing the subject, it was for a reason.

She knew.

“I look forward to being utterly confused by the presentation.”

She kept her eyes on the bar. “Somehow I believe that you’re exaggerating. Genetics isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but you’re smart and if you hang around a bunch of geneticists all the time I bet you’ve picked up a few things.”

“I’ve picked up a few things,” I agreed, “however I’ve been to these events before. They go well above and beyond my comprehension. I’ll follow along for approximately one minute, and then be totally lost.”

“Thenwhydo you come?”

It was a valid question. What was someone like me doing at a party like this? Someone who barely even understood what the night was about. “I support my friends. And this is a fundraiser, is it not?” I pulled out my wallet and waved it through the air. “I understand money.”

The couple in front of us cleared out of the way and the bartender looked at us expectantly. “After you.” I held out my hand, indicating that Esme should order first.

“Basil Hayden’s on the rocks.”

“Make it two,” I said. I leaned closer. “I thought you didn’t drink bourbon?”

She flushed, took the glass, stepped away. “I’m sorry about that. There are things—complicated things—about my life that are hard to explain.”

She kept shrinking away from me. I followed her. “Try me. You might find I’m shockingly understanding. I do work with athletes, if you recall.”

Her gaze darted around the room and if I wasn’t mistaken, she was scared. “That’s part of the problem,” she muttered. “I like you, Leo. A lot. Too much.”

I liked that fact but not the warning that was hidden beneath it. “I like you too, Esme. Too much.”

She eyed me warily. “You wouldn’t like me if you really knew me. If you knew me you’d learn being near me is dangerous. Save us both a lot of trouble and heartache, and walk away right now.”

“No.”

I heard her words, knew there was a coded meaning laced inside them, but I couldn’t hear or comprehend any of that because of the fire coursing through my veins.

“Stupid man,” she muttered. “Go sit down. Don’t talk to me again tonight.” Then she spun and stormed back to her table on the opposite side of the stage from Jeffry’s table.

Learn things you wish you hadn’t.

Dangerous.

Trouble and heartache.

It was damn hard to think straight but I forced my brain to work anyway. How could Esme possibly be dangerous? She was a tiny thing. Sweet and quiet...except when she was in my bed. But dangerous? Never.

Like a robot I finally succumbed to Esme’s commands. I returned to the table and never looked back. I engaged in conversation, smiled, wrote a nice fat check, but inside I’d gone numb.

Until Jeffry poked me in the ribs. “Watch this part.”

The presentation had been going for a good ten minutes, not that I’d seen any of it. When I looked up, the screen flashed to a picture of Jeffry and his team in the lab. The narrator detailed their work on the genetic code, their groundbreaking work creating programs to extrapolate missing DNA.

And then there was Esme. In the field. An excavation. She was so different in shorts and a t-shirt, her hair swept back in a simple ponytail, no makeup. Several more pictures of her with some very high tech equipment, another with a trowel pointing at bones in the dirt, and then finally in her lab with the skeleton laid out like a primetime forensics show.

“Dr. Brown teamed up with the Gloria Elba Genetics Research Team to sequence the DNA from multiple ancient skeletons to create the worlds’ first interactive genetic map of human migration.”

A map of the world came to life in three dimensions. It showed the moving and mixing of different groups from thousands of years back, all the way up to the twentieth century.

“Her work is just beginning, but as you can see there is already incredible new information coming from her research.”

I couldn’t help it. My gaze drifted across the room to her. She was sitting very still, looking up at the screen with her hands folded in her lap. I couldn’t tell if she was nervous or excited. Her expression gave nothing away. The only sign she was tense came in the way she held her shoulders.

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