The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

“Not if we can’t point to a deliberate attempt to defraud people legitimately entitled to a payout.”

“I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Did someone get to you too, Henri?”

Henri slumped over the bar, his forehead inches from the dull wooden surface. “It’s unrelated. My supervisor gave me a warning. If I don’t shape up, I’ll be out of a job.”

“Who is your supervisor friends with?”

“No, it’s not like that. I’ve been distracted and I...” Henri sat upright and looked at Jack. “His daughter and Kaspersky’s daughter are on the same softball team. He’s always jawboning about it.”

Henri would’ve run out into the street with his head on fire had Jack not stopped him. “They know,” Henri said, trying to dodge around Jack. “I can’t talk to you.”

“You can’t panic either. You’re a whistleblower and you’re protected by the law. But not if you’ve gotten this wrong. If this isn’t fraud—” Jack’s story would collapse, but for Henri the impact would be personal “—you’re in a difficult place.”

“They’ll come after me for theft and trading company secrets. I could go to jail.”

They spent the next hour talking through the additional information Henri could provide without tipping off his suspicious supervisor. If he could provide the names of additional doctors linked to higher than average denial of claims and Jack could connect them to Bix, they were back in business.

It was a big if. Henri was scared, but having come this far, he had a lot to lose. Meanwhile, Jack needed to prove that Kaspersky’s home visits weren’t random, while Berkelow and some of the other business writers were tracking down other victims and writing up new case studies.

It was late again when he made it home. He stood outside his apartment door, and checked his cell one last time. Derelie had messaged him hours ago, but he’d not seen her text till well after she’d have made alternative plans for the night, and that shouldn’t have been disappointing. He had no juice left for company, and it wasn’t like they had expectations of each other aside from keeping the fact they were lovers secret.

He eased his key into the lock and got into position to open the door and slip inside without letting Martha out. The click click of the lock retracting wasn’t followed by a merrow of outrage. His shins weren’t head-butted when he slid inside. His desk lamp was lit and there was no righteous starving cat flicking her tail at him to deal with the empty bowl situation.

What was unreasonable disappointment became irrational chest-tightening when he stood in the doorway of the bedroom. Martha wasn’t furious with him for being late, she wasn’t crying from hunger, she was curled on the bed, her large rump backed into Derelie’s stomach.

Both his girls were sleeping. He leaned on the doorjamb and took them in. Martha might well have been drooling, she looked so content, a large ball of fluff, tail tucked around her like a blanket, face buried in her paws, only one pointy ear indicating which end was up.

Under the covers, Derelie looked equally serene, her lovely face relaxed, her hair spun out on the pillow behind her in a chocolate-red swirl. She was curled on her side, with one hand under the pillow. He could see a bare shoulder. He could see a different kind of future in the shape of her, one where neither of them were alone, one where his world was the other way up and he wasn’t just a bystander anymore.

How the heck was he going to manage not to fuck that vision up?

Martha must’ve sensed him and woke, pushing her paws out, arching and rolling on her back. “Merrow, yip.” She gave Jack a look that said, “this is what happens when you leave me, sucker,” and yawned to punctuate her couldn’t-give-a-shit-about-him attitude.

“Hey.” Derelie opened her eyes. She caught Martha’s yawn and came up on her elbow. She’d worn her underwear to bed; he saw the shadow of a nipple through creamy lace. “I hope you don’t mind that I stayed over.” Her sleep saturated voice, low and crackly, hit his ears and communicated with the rest of his body parts that weren’t already alert to possibilities. “I didn’t hear back from you and I knew you were busy.” She rubbed Martha’s belly, and the cat brought her paws up under her chin and stretched her neck out, the position for chin scratch now. “I was going to feed her and go, but I really wanted to see you.”

Whatever exhaustion he’d trailed home was now an insistent buzz of desire. “You appear to have stolen my cat,” he said, with zero attempt to sound remotely concerned about that.

Derelie tickled under Martha’s chin. “We’re besties now.”

“She’s five years old. I’ve fed her every night of her life. You’ve fed her twice.” That’s what he liked about cats. No sentimentality, merciless self-interest. You knew exactly where you stood with them.

“Are you jealous, you big dinkus?”

“That my damn cat is close to you and has your hands on her? Hell yeah.”

Martha’s purring was deep-throated approval, a vibrating hurr sound, as Derelie caressed her. She flexed one paw in her ecstasy, opening out her pink jelly bean toes and showing scimitar claws he’d had to trim when she was a kitten but she’d never used on furniture and only occasionally on skin.

“You’re not annoyed that I stayed over?”

“I’m annoyed I didn’t answer your text. I love that you stayed over.”

?

??Are you going to keep standing over there being all broodingly attractive?”

Not if she kept looking at him like what she had planned was going to be worth going without sleep. “I need to clean up.” He rubbed his jaw, whiskers, and the grit of the city was all over him and he didn’t want to infect her with the stench of his failure of a day.