"Nope." He put his fork down. That was the old Nick. He leaned forward and Kay put her own fork down at the serious expression on his face. Time to give her the new Nick. "That weekend had a lot of ASI guys-the single ones-going up and down the mountain, just like you said, and a few got laid, but I wasn't one of them. I met you for the first time two months before the lasagna weekend. Since I laid eyes on you I haven't fu-messed around."
There. It was out in the open now. He'd nailed his colors to the table. Ball in her court.
Kay folded her arms and leaned forward, keeping her eyes on his. "I've been avoiding you," she said.
He nodded. "I know. The whole company knows."
She winced slightly. "It wasn't like that."
"No?" Nick held her gaze. "So, how was it?"
Her chin firmed. "There's a reason I was avoiding you. I was trying to protect you."
Nick's jaw dropped, then he clenched his teeth. "Protect me? What the hell? I don't need protecting."
Kay reached out with one hand, letting it hover over his, then drop to cover it. Her hand was slim, pale, soft. A scholar's hand. His was larger, darker, tougher. A fighter's hand. He waited to hear how she thought she was going to protect him.
"The weekend we were supposed to meet up in Washington, remember?"
God yeah, he remembered. He'd switched training cycles with a teammate when he heard Kay would be in town for a full weekend, bought tickets to something high-minded at the Kennedy Center. And then sat around steaming when she canceled her visit at the last minute.
Kay dicking him around. More of those to come.
She tightened her grip on his hand. Met his eyes. "The day before our meeting, Priyanka asked me to meet her in Grant Park in Atlanta."
"Priyanka?"
A sad smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Priyanka Anand. A biochemist at the CDC and my best friend. Was my best friend. She died. In a car accident where she drove herself off the road while drunk, so they said. But that was impossible-because Priyanka never drank, ever. She was allergic to alcohol, something very few people knew."
Oh God. Nick put his other hand on top of hers, sandwiching it. Her hand was chilled.
"She hadn't been much in touch lately and when she asked me to meet her on our lunch hour at a park far away from the CDC, I thought maybe she was going to tell me she had a new boyfriend or had accepted that job teaching at Stanford. She was being headhunted ferociously. Priyanka is-was-a genius. Not to mention funny and kind."
Kay's eyes welled and she dropped her head between her shoulder blades. A tear plopped on the table. She took a napkin and wiped her eyes with her free hand. Her head lifted.
Nick's gaze didn't waver. "Go on."
Kay cleared her throat. "So, I thought it was a casual meeting between friends. Instead, Priyanka was agitated, worried, anxious. She said she wanted to meet in Grant Park because there were no security cameras. That was my first clue that something serious was going on."
"What was Priyanka's job?" Nick asked.
"She was trained as a biochemist, but she was an expert in bio-warfare."
Fuck. Nick opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.
"Yeah." Kay shook her head. "If Priyanka was worried, I was worried too. It turns out that a colleague, a man, had been acting strange. I know the colleague in question, Bill Morrell, and honestly, I don't know how she could tell strange from normal with that guy. He was a high-functioning sociopath, definitely on the autism spectrum."
"Was?"
"Mm. Alive when we met, though. At first, I didn't take her too seriously. Bill had a thing about Priyanka. Somewhere in the recesses of his brilliant but sick mind, they were meant to be together. Two people who knew so much about the genetics of viruses were destined to be a couple. And of course, to fall straight into bed together. No matter that Priyanka was blindingly beautiful and Bill's eyebrows had dandruff, and his eyebrows were the most attractive thing about him. He'd have needed about a year of plastic surgery and dentistry and serious gym time to even think of asking Priyanka out on a date. And he had bad hygiene. Horrible personality, awful looks coupled with amazing arrogance. A male trifecta. Priyanka couldn't stand him and had complained several times to management about him."
"They should have gotten rid of him. Any guy in the FBI whose female colleagues complains about him to management would be gone."
"Unfortunately, Bill was also brilliant at his job. Even Priyanka conceded that. When she told me he became rich all of a sudden, though, things changed."