Page 36 of Provocation
She looks so disappointed that I put my arms around her to hug her from behind, but not before I begin recording our conversation with my phone. Shade is more distraught about this than he’s letting on and I think it’s important that he hears her side beforelater. I don’t think he’ll hurt her, but there won’t be any mercy, and the past few days have been tough on her.
Her mental wellbeing is as important as her physical one. Shade might forget that sometimes, but that’s one of the places where I can and will pick up the slack.
‘He’s upset with you,’ I tell her truthfully
She looks back at me, her confusion evident. ‘Why?’
‘Are you asking me because you don’t know?’
She nods. ‘You said if I didn’t know things, I just had to ask, and you’d tell me. Why is he angry with me?’
I let out a sigh. ‘He’supsetbecause you’ve been less than honest with us, Tulip, and we keep finding out more stuff. How deep does the rabbit hole go? What are we going to find out tomorrow? What else have you been keeping from us?’
‘Nothing,’ she says, but looks away from me. ‘Nothingimportant,’ she amends.
‘Maybe you should let us decide what we think is important, huh?’
She gives me a small nod, and I already know that, despite what she says, she isn’t quite ready to tell us all of the things she keeps hidden from us. Shade conveniently forgets that he’s been keeping things from her as well. What the detective told her about the Novelle family business was a surprise to her. She had no idea at all. I’m sure of it.
‘But surely everyone has secrets,’ she says, lines appearing between her brows.
‘Sure,’ I agree, ‘but there’s a difference between lies, even ones by omission, and secrets.’
‘I suppose. Are you angry with me, too?’
‘I’m a littleupsetwith you. I’m also a little upset with me that I didn’t check the permissions. If it was anyone but you, that would be a huge breach, Daisy. Do you understand? If it had been Marcus or one of the postgrads, at the very least, I would have lost my position in the lab. It would have gone on my record.’
Her face is blank. Something that happens when she’s battling intense emotions, I believe.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says woodenly. ‘I didn’t think of it that way. I was just happy that I was going to be able to?—’
‘Get one over on us?’
‘Maybe a little,’ she admits after a moment, ducking her head. ‘But more that I would have some control over my life for once. I think you guys forget that I spent the whole year of sixth grade under John’s thumb, and then was locked up for a decade in a place where everything from my bedtime to the food I ate was decided for me. And then I come here as an adult and I think I’m going to be free, have some autonomy, but it’s just back under John’s thumb again.’ She closes her eyes. ‘At least until Joe Banderville gets his claws into me. God only knows what his rules will be like. I have a feeling the no drinking alcohol one is just the tip of the iceberg.’
She rubs the back of one of her thighs absentmindedly and I cover her hand with mine, stopping the phone recording with the other and sending it directly to Shade.
‘Let’s get this batch done and get back to the house, okay? I’ll lay in bed with you if you want and we can catch up on some sleep before tomorrow. There’s no point in making more until we have feedback from Shade’s guys anyway.’
She nods and takes the canister out of the mixer, putting it straight into the tablet press.
‘I calibrated it earlier for fifty percent active ingredient and fifty inactive, and I tuned it to four hundred milligram, but let me know if they aren’t right and I’ll change it. Here goes nothing,’ she murmurs and turns the machine over by hand to make the first one.
I watch as the first light green pill is ejected smoothly and rolls into the collection tray. Picking it up, I make sure it’s not too brittle.
‘We might want to make the color deeper,’ I say, peering at it closely and then handing it to her.
She takes a thorough look as well. ‘Yeah,’ she murmurs, ‘the color right now is a natural result from the chemical process, but we can easily add a dye if you guys wanted.’
She puts the pill back in the tray. ‘The press sounded fine when I turned it manually, so I’m going to start it.’
I nod and she presses the red button on the side.
The machine beeps and I hear her echo the sound just before it roars to life, the pistons moving up and down, compacting the ingredients into the little round pills that begin to run down the small ramp into the tray. When I look at her, she’s watching the machine work, a small grin on her face.
‘We did it,’ I say above the whirring, and she nods, her smile widening.
‘Hopefully it works.’
