Beginner's Luck. Kate Clayborn

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СКАЧАТЬ me,” comes a deep voice from behind me, and it’s so unexpected that I jump a little, hitting my elbow on the creep frame I’ve just finished cleaning.

      “Ow,” I mutter, turning to meet—oh, only the most attractive person I have ever actually seen in real life, unless something is happening to my vision. I raise a hand immediately to my face, noting the lab goggles I am wearing—right, this is ideal—over my actual glasses. I pull them off, the rubbery strap getting a little stuck in my hair, and wince when a few strands come out. Once I’ve got my glasses straightened, I have another look.

      And, yeah. Still the most attractive person I’ve ever seen, tall and broad-shouldered with sandy-blond hair and a square, set jaw, eyes so blue I can see them even from several feet away, where he’s standing in the doorway. I don’t usually go for guys in suits, probably because most of the men in my line of work are more the rumpled-khakis or jeans type, but damn. This guy wears a suit like it’s his job. Which, it probably is his job, since it’s noon on a Friday.

      “I’m looking for E.R. Averin.” Excellent voice too—deep and smooth, and I had not really realized until this moment that I am so hard up if I am noticing this man’s voice so forcefully. Maybe there was something to Zoe’s constant haranguing about my nonexistent dating life.

      “Well, you found her,” I say, glad to hear that my own voice, at least, sounds normal.

      “I—” He paused, looked back over his shoulder. “I have?”

      “You have.” He blinks, unbuttons and then rebuttons his jacket. It is awkward to a high degree, and let me tell you what, you don’t spend your life around a bunch of experimental scientists without getting a real skewed sense of what’s awkward. This guy seems completely thrown.

      “You’re E.R. Averin?” he says, a little edge of doubt in his voice, and it’s at this point that I get almost relieved to know what I’m dealing with. Not for nothing am I the only female—not to mention the youngest—lab technician to ever work in this department, and in fact the only woman working in a lab tech role in the College of Engineering. I’ve dealt with a lot of dudes who have doubted me.

      “I think I’ve made that clear, Mr.…?”

      He has the decency to look genuinely chastened. “My apologies, Professor Averin. I’m Ben Tucker.”

      He steps forward, holding out his—well, very nice, very large—hand, but I hold up the bottle of ethanol and my rag, shrugging in half-hearted apology. “Hello, Mr. Tucker. I’m not a professor.”

      “Right, yes. I apologize.”

      “That’s okay,” I say, and I almost feel sorry for him. There’s something about him, some weary feature behind his handsomeness, that gives me the sense I’m getting him on a bad day.

      “Please, call me Ben.”

      “Okay, Ben. Call me Ms. Averin.”

      He smiles at that, and I suspect on anyone else it would seem condescending, that smile. But his seems genuine—wide and a little crooked on the left side, chasing a dimple that appears in his cheek. “Right,” he says again.

      There’s a beat of silence, while I take in that smile of his, that dimple. I probably smile back a little, despite my best efforts to look stoic and completely unaffected by him.

      “How can I help you, Ben?”

      “I’m here representing Beaumont Materials.”

      I know Beaumont Materials—anyone who works in my field, who does any kind of work at all in materials science, knows about a company that manufactures everything from pipelines to jet engines to those little plastic thingamajigs you can use to hang pictures without nails. But some additional thread of familiarity tugs at my brain. I generally have a good memory, but probably this guy’s jerk-hotness has scrambled it. I decide not to try and sort it, and head instead over to the steel storage cabinet where we keep supplies, putting some distance between me and my new visitor. “Go on,” I say, appreciating the opportunity to look busy. “I just need to start packing up here.”

      “We’ve reached out to you recently, Ms. Averin, regarding the article you and your coauthors published in Metallurgy International.”

      Oh. Oh, fuck, I do remember now what that tug of memory is, and my palms go a little more sweaty beneath my latex gloves. “Ah. Yes. I saw a couple of emails. I don’t remember seeing your name, though.”

      “I wasn’t part of the original contact team,” he says, stepping farther into the room. “But I read your paper, and I decided I had to meet you, and talk to you about the opportunities Beaumont could offer you for your research.”

      “I don’t want any opportunities from Beaumont,” I say, more quickly, more defensively than I intend. I’m immediately grateful for the fact that I’m here alone today—just as I don’t want anyone here knowing about the lottery, I don’t want them catching wind of Beaumont trying to contact me. When those emails had come in, I’d deleted them almost right away, same as I did with any message from potential employers. I’m happy here, and I don’t even want there to be a suggestion to anyone around that I’m otherwise.

      He smiles again, and—ugh. I need to get this guy out of here; he is terrible for my self-preservation. “I think we got that message from your silence,” he says, “but I’m afraid we couldn’t let this go without having the chance to tell you what exactly it is we are willing to do for you.” He looks around the lab as he says this, and I suppress a wince—all right, so it may be super clean in here, but it is far from state-of-the art, and to a guy coming from Beaumont Materials, it probably looks budget as all get-out. Even after ten years of being here, Dr. Singh was still the most recent faculty hire, and he’d inherited this, the oldest lab, on a side of the building where the HVAC was unreliable and the floors had never been replaced.

      “I’ve got everything I need here,” I say, but at that exact moment yet another handle from the already-dilapidated steel cabinet falls off, clattering on the peeling, faded linoleum. “I mean except for functional handles.”

      Hell. That dimple. “We could take care of that.”

      “I’m sure you could,” I say, hooking a finger through the hole left by the wayward handle and pulling open the cabinet.

      “As I’m sure you know, state-of-the-art equipment is the least of what we’d be willing to do to have you on board. Beaumont is working on alloy technologies that relate directly to your research, and we think we could make a real difference working together.”

      I let out an unladylike snort at this, this cookie-cutter pitch he’s giving me. And anyways, I know what alloy technology Beaumont’s been pouring most of its money into in the last five years—big oil and big guns—and I want no part of either. My work’s always been about figuring out weaknesses in old materials, studying bridge or pipeline failures, figuring out how to make what’s already here work better. “I’m not looking to make that kind of difference,” I say, setting the jug of ethanol back in its place.

      “Many of the scientists we work with have that reaction initially, I can assure you. But Beaumont’s packages are very attractive—we’re talking a great deal of funding sources for your work. Let me take you to lunch and tell you—”

      I cut him off here, bored with everything he has to say, and that’s in СКАЧАТЬ