Love Reduced to Zero, No Need to Meet Again novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Locked Out

Porter locks Cora out of her lab and promises she will be back by Friday, but all nine of her staff walk out with her, and at Draper Tower the man she was meant to marry is standing and healthy.

My badge was dead at the lab door the next morning.

I swiped it twice. The reader blinked red both times.

Red. I looked away from it and kept my hand on the coat's collar.

A man in a gray suit stood on the other side of the glass.

He was Porter's chief of staff. He opened the door two inches and no more.

"Dr. Ellsworth, your access is suspended until further notice. Mr. Ellsworth's orders."

"Dr. Fairbank," I said. "I never changed my name at work."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then you've locked out the wrong person. Open the door."

He didn't move.

Behind me the elevator opened.

My team came off it in a clump, all nine of them, carrying coffee and tote bags.

My senior postdoc was in front. The youngest tech trailed behind with his earbuds still in.

They stopped when they saw me standing in the hall.

"Cora?" the postdoc said. "Why are you outside?"

"Because my husband locked me out," I said. "In front of you, so you'd see it."

Then I heard the second elevator.

Porter stepped out in a fresh navy suit with a white box in each hand.

He gave me his gentlest smile.

"There she is," he said, to the team, not to me.

"Good morning, everyone. Dr. Fairbank had a hard night."

"She's emotional, and I'm taking care of it."

He held up the boxes.

"Blueberry cake, for the whole lab. A little apology from both of us."

Nobody took one.

The young tech took his earbuds out.

Porter came close and lowered his voice so only I could hear.

"Cora. Come home tonight. Daisy's gone to stay at our mother's. We'll talk about the lab on Friday, like adults."

"You have a funny idea of Friday."

"You'll be back in the building by then. You know you will."

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

I stepped back from his hand.

"The papers will be on your desk by noon," I said.

His smile stayed where it was.

It was the only thing about him that did.

"Cora. If you walk out of here, the funding stops."

"Every one of these people is out of work by Monday, like I told you. Think about who you're doing this to."

He wanted the nine of them to hear it, so I made sure they could.

"Everyone, listen to me," I said.

"Porter is telling you that your jobs depend on whether I forgive him for sleeping with my sister."

The hall went completely silent.

The postdoc set her coffee down on the floor.

"I am resigning from this lab," I said. "Today."

"I'm not asking anyone to follow me. You're all very good, and any of you can find a place without me."

"I'm in," the postdoc said at once.

"Me too," said the young tech.

"Count me," said someone from the back.

Then the rest of them said it, one at a time, until all nine had.

Porter stared along the line of them.

"Don't be stupid," he said. "The data is on our servers. Eight years of data. It belongs to Ellsworth Capital."

"It belongs to the people who generated it," I said. "And the part that matters isn't on your servers."

I opened my tote bag.

Six black paper notebooks sat inside it, the ones I wrote in every night at the kitchen table.

Porter had watched television beside me for three years and never asked what they were.

I held one up so he could see its cover.

"You can keep the servers."

The chief of staff took a step forward.

"Dr. Fairbank, company policy says those notebooks belong to the company."

"Touch my bag," I said, "and she films it."

The postdoc already had her phone up.

Porter's jaw worked.

He took a breath, and I watched him decide what kind of husband to be for an audience.

"Cora, love," he said, loud and warm, "let's not do this in the hallway. You're upset, that's all. Take a few days."

"I'm not upset," I said. "I'm finished."

"Friday," he said again, quietly. "You'll be back."

I turned around and walked down the hall.

My team walked behind me. Nobody looked back at the white boxes.

On the street the postdoc fell into step next to me.

"Where are we going?" she asked. "Do you have a plan?"

"I have a phone number," I said.

"And one condition that the person on the other end said yes to before I'd finished."

"That's not a plan."

"It's a start."

Forty minutes later we stood in the lobby of Draper Tower.

The harbor shone behind the glass, and nine people held their lab coats in their arms.

I gave my name at the desk.

The receptionist did not look at a screen. She did not ask me to spell it.

"Dr. Fairbank. He's coming down himself."

The young tech whispered, "The CEO comes down himself?"

"I don't know him," I whispered back.

The elevator at the end of the lobby opened.

A man stepped out of it.

I had seen one photograph of Eli Draper.

His family had sent it to mine seven years ago, when my parents wanted to marry me to him.

In it he lay in a hospital bed with tubes in his nose.

The card said he would likely never walk again.

The man crossing the lobby was six foot three and walked without any trouble at all.

He had dark hair, a pale scar through one eyebrow, and gray eyes that were looking at nobody but me.

He stopped an arm's length away.

For a moment he did not say anything.

Then his eyes dropped to my shoulders, to the gray wool coat I was wearing.

"Dr. Fairbank," he said. "You came."

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