Prescription for Romance / Love and the Single Dad: Prescription for Romance / Love and the Single Dad

She didn’t think of herself as cynical, but she let it go. Instead, she said, “These days, cynicism is built into the DNA.”

With a sigh, Paul shook his head and then pushed open the door to their state-of-the-art lab. He was proud of the equipment, proud of all the advances they’d made in the field because they were able to afford the kind of cutting-edge research to be done here.

Holding the door, he allowed her to walk in ahead of him.

Like the conference room, the lab was one large room. Unlike the conference room, it had two tables instead of one. The tables were waist high, equipped with sinks and a number of microscopes that were hooked up to projection screens and computers. There were several people in the lab at the moment, all dressed in white coats.

She’d heard as well as read a great deal about the newly transplanted research team of Bonner and Demetrios before she ever came to the institute. Consequently, she knew them on sight.

Only Ted Bonner was present at the moment. Chance Demetrios had an office in the building. Her guess was that he was probably there now.

Bonner did strictly research. He had the luxury of divorcing himself from the people who ultimately made use of the end product of his research via one of the doctors on the staff. This allowed him to throw himself wholeheartedly into his work. His failures had no faces on them, but then, neither did his successes.

She heard Paul take in a breath, as if he was bracing himself for some kind of ordeal. The next moment, she realized that she was the ordeal.

“Dr. Bonner,” he addressed the exceedingly tall, exceedingly good-looking dark-haired man who was about to bend over to look into one of the microscopes, “I would like to introduce you to Ramona Tate. She’s our new public-relations manager.”

Shaking her hand, Ted quipped, “I didn’t know you had an old public-relations manager.”

“We didn’t,” Paul answered before he realized that Ted was joking. “This is my brother’s idea. He thinks we need protecting.” He flashed a semiapologetic smile toward Ramona.

Thinking to spare him, she made no comment. She was getting a great many mixed signals from this man and decided it was better to pretend to be oblivious to all of them.

She turned her attention to the man who was still holding her hand enveloped in his. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Bonner. Would you mind if I got back to you later sometime? I’d like to ask you a few questions if I may.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Ted assured her. “Anything I can answer now?”

She slanted a glance toward Paul. “No,” she assured Ted. “Not now.”

“Then I’ll get back to work,” he said, releasing her hand.

“What do you want to talk to him about?” Paul asked her the moment they walked out of the lab. He didn’t bother to try to hide the suspicious look on his face. What was she up to? he wondered. Were all these questions normal? Was he so out of touch with the way things worked outside his small sphere?

She was ready for him. “Well, for one thing, I want to know what enticed Dr. Bonner and his partner to come here to do their research.”

They walked down the corridor, each with a different destination in mind. He to his other office and she back to hers. But for now, they walked together.

“The lab they came from wasn’t exactly third rate or shabby by any means,” Ramona continued. “And there’s a certain amount of inherent prestige being associated with a teaching hospital–slash–college the caliber of the one they came from.” She stopped walking. He stopped a second after that and looked at her, waiting. “Did you offer them more money?”

He made no answer, trying to gauge what, if anything, he should say. Maybe, if he just waited long enough, she’d go away. Silence ricocheted between them.

Ramona pressed her lips together. “Dr. Armstrong, you need to talk to me if I’m to do my job and do you any good.”

“It was a little more money,” Paul finally admitted to her.

The inflection in his voice told her there was more. “And?”

Paul drew himself up. It was a purely defensive move. Knights running to man the castle parapets. “And I gave them carte blanche.” He shrugged carelessly. “I thought that having them here would negate any bad publicity that might have cropped up.”

“Aggressively heading that publicity off at the pass accomplishes that,” Ramona pointed out. “For starters, I need to get that press release—released,” she concluded, humor curving her generous mouth.

He glanced at his watch, blinking once to focus in on it better. “I have a procedure to get to,” he reminded her—and himself.

“Then I should get out of your way,” Ramona responded amiably. “Thanks for the tour,” she added.

As far as it went, Ramona added silently. She noticed that the good doctor had conspicuously left out the basement with its archives. But she wasn’t put off. She was confident that she’d find a way to get into that one way or another. Ramona had a very strong feeling that was where she’d find what she was really looking for.

At least, she sincerely hoped so.

Nodding at Armstrong, she turned on her heel and quickly headed back to her office. She had work to do: theirs, her editor’s and, the first moment she could find an island of time when no one was around to catch her, her own.

Paul stood like a pillar, watching her leave. With effort, he roused himself. He had no time to stand here like some pubescent adolescent, watching her hurry away, he silently chastised. He had a reputation to uphold. That reputation included never being late, especially not for a procedure.

How the hell had things gotten so damn out of control?

The question echoed over and over again in Derek’s brain, haunting him.

Taunting him.

It had all started out so innocently. So harmlessly. A simple weekend trip to Atlantic City. He was going to be staying at one of the more luxurious casinos and, if time permitted, he figured that he’d indulge in a little gambling.

How was he to know that things would mushroom into this—an obsession that would threaten to completely ruin his life?

He’d never seen it coming.

In his defense, he’d never even felt the inclination to gamble before. But that had been before the first incredible rush had found him.

There was no other way to describe the feeling that exploded in his veins when turn after turn of the card rendered him the big winner at the table. It was an exhilarating, overwhelming rush. The closest he had ever come to a religious experience.

By the end of that first evening, he was staring at more money than he ever had before. And it was his money. Not his father’s, not his family’s or the institute’s, but his. Exclusively.

He wasn’t just one of Gerald Armstrong’s sons, or the CFO of the Armstrong Fertility Institute, an empty title awarded him because of who his father was. At that specific moment in time, he was Derek Armstrong. Winner.

And then, when he returned to the table the next night, as mysteriously as it had found him, his winning streak abandoned him. Hand after hand, he lost. Desperate to recapture that magical feeling, to see that life-affirming envy in the other players’ eyes, he kept betting.

And he kept losing.

At the end of the weekend, he’d not only lost all the money he’d won, but he lost twice as much as he’d brought to Atlantic City.

He began signing notes, barking that he was good for it. His luck remained bad. He only won enough to remind him that it was possible. Just not probable.

Eventually, the house stopped accepting his markers. That was when someone else did. And his life took a turn for the worse.

Addled by his desire to recoup his losses and to prove that his groundless certainty that he could win it all back if he just kept at it long enough was right, he went on to accept the loan for a large sum of money. The loan had come from a well-dressed, older man with the flattest eyes he’d ever seen.

And now, now he was in so far over his head that he despaired he would ever break through the surface again. Lying on top of the rumpled bed in the shabby Atlantic City hotel room, he dragged both hands over his face in abject despair.

What was he going to do?