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said. Don’t think you know me because your people did a few background checks. And don’t think you can order me around because you saved my life, or because you think that little charade with—” She broke off. “Oh, hell. You’ve got to get Raine—if that’s even her name—back here.”
    “Why? What’s wrong?”
    Cautious of patient privacy, Meg said, “Not here. Have your wife—” She saw the shift in his expression and pressed her lips together. “Another lie. Who is she?”
    He didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed. “Raine Montgomery, vice president of my pharmaceuticals division.”
    “Lucky for you there was a pregnant woman handy. And lucky for her, too. Have her meet me in the lab in ten minutes.”
    He scowled. “You won’t be in the lab in ten minutes. You’ll be in the ER.”
    Temper fraying with the need to get somewhere alone, somewhere private where she could shake, scream, fall apart, all the things she couldn’t do across the street from her office and in full view of countless hospital employees, Meg snapped, “Don’t tell me what to do. In fact, leave me the hell alone. I want to see Raine ASAP, but I don’t want to see you. Not ever again.”
    His expression shifted to neutral. “That could be difficult.”
    She sneered at him. “The way I’ve heard it, you thrive on a challenge, Mr. Falco. Consider this one.”
    She turned and pushed through the crowd to the hospital, ignoring the TV reporters’ microphones and shouted questions. She left the cops enough information to find her later, after she’d cleaned up. After she’d broken down.
    It wasn’t until she was halfway across Kneeland Street that she realized her feet were burning. Shelooked down and stared stupidly at her gray-smeared toes, which were barely covered by torn panty hose.
    She’d lost her tall brown boots. They’d been sucked off by the cement, left behind when Erik Falco had risked his own life to drag her out of the muck.
    That small detail brought home the danger before she was ready for it. Her stomach knotted on a surge of nausea and her throat closed down until only a trickle of oxygen seeped through.
    She was suffocating.
    The gray waves closed in on her, surrounding her, compressing her. Killing her.
    Not here, Meg told herself. Not now. Not yet. Not where she would cause a scene on hospital property. Her father was right. Her science was controversial enough without her personal exploits adding fuel to the flame. The thought of her dependable, rock-steady sire helped hold off the shakes and she forced her trembling legs to carry her the rest of the way across the street, barefoot.
    She thought she heard her name called in deep, masculine tones, but she didn’t turn back. If it was one of the officers, he could phone the lab. If it was Falco, he could go to hell.
    She had no intention of prostituting her work to some megacompany that cared only for profit.
    And if he tried to force the issue with her bosses, she’d fight him tooth and nail.
     
    “DAMN STUBBORN WOMAN.” Erik cursed under his breath as she disappeared through the main hospitaldoors. Then again, why did that surprise him? She’d already managed to block his representatives at every turn, fighting to keep her discovery in the public arena by administering it through the university rather than a private company.
    He respected the effort. Too bad it was doomed, because he had no intention of failing. Her fetal cell isolation process would be his, with or without her cooperation. His whole pharma staff was on it.
    At the thought of his staff, he grabbed for his cell phone and speed dialed the office. “Get me Raine.” When she answered the transfer, he said, “Sorry for the quick turnaround, but I need you back at the hospital right now.”
    “Another stint as Mrs. Phillips?” Raine asked, her voice carrying an unfamiliar lilt that put him on edge.
    Six years earlier, her résumé had overridden his reluctance to work with