Page 7 of Frequency of Attraction

Tate said her name, but Vadim didn’t catch it. When she answered, her voice held a telltale French lilt, lyrical and familiar. Soothing, even. His college years in France had been his happiest. Studying engineering, with space on the horizon, life then had been full of possibility.

As it was now. Full of fucking possibility.

5

Aweek had gone by since Vadim Baranov had descended like a lightning storm at OrbitAll. Even in her mind, Quinn couldn’t break free from the man’s intense gaze. She saw his blue eyes everywhere. He was half a world away and she still felt him. Vadim possessed black hole gravity, deep and destructive. Without any effort, he was in danger of ripping her apart.

She’d played their short conversation in the hangar over in her head a thousand times.

After she’d figured out how to form words again, she’d asked who he was. Or tried to. “What’s this?” she’d asked, indicating with a sweep of her hand the group of Chen, Tate, and the striking stranger. She’d heard his accent. If he was a cosmonaut visiting from the Russian space program, she should have been made aware. That was worth a tweet.

“Don’t you mean, ‘Who’s this?’” the man had goaded. He haddared. “That’s what you really want to know, isn’t it?”

Thatsmirk. Mortified that he’d somehow read her mind, Quinn had snapped her iPad shut and tried to freeze him with a glare. “Fine,” she’d ground out. “Who are you?”

“Vadim is your new test pilot,” Chen had told her, all smiles.

She hadn’t believed him until Tate had later confirmed the news. Vadim could not look less like a pilot. His clothes were too tight. He had an ornate stained-glass window tattooed on the front of his neck. The look in his eyes was too taunting, his draw too tempting.

She’d known instantly that having him at OrbitAll could be bad. Not for the program. For her. She couldn’t work with him around. She couldn’t evenfunctionwith him around. She had thrown Tate a look.Please don’t let it be true, she’d silently pleaded. Like she didn’t have enough stress in her life.

“OrbitAll, remember?” Tate had whispered, stressing the latter half of their name like she somehow disapproved of him for any reason other than the fact that, for the first time, she craved someone—and that someone knew it.

Somehow, Quinn had extricated herself from the gravitational pull of the massive man and his ice-blue eyes. She had left them then, stunned by the stirrings in her body. She had tried not to look back at him, but she had failed.

He would not let her forget that failure; of that she was sure.

Quinn resented Vadim and his allure for the sleep she’d lost over the past week. Ruthlessly, she pushed thoughts of glacier blue out of her mind and focused instead on the problem directly in front of her.

She tapped her lip, assessing the placement of the metallic streamers Elle had picked out for Chen’s going-away party. They’d serve as the backdrop for the food table, piles of bao and tacos, currently being arranged by Rosie Flynn, their architect, Elle’s best friend, and Tate’s secret love. Well, he thought his feelings were secret. Like the world couldn’t see that he melted in Rosie’s sunny presence.

“A little more to the left.”

Suresh, one of their tallest engineers, obligingly scooched the backdrop to the left.

“Bien. Thanks, Suresh. You staying for the party?”

The man nodded, fishing the thumbtack out of his mouth and pinning the decorations in place. “I like Chen.”

It was impossible not to like Chen. He was loud, friendly, prone to physical touch. He was like an annoying big brother who never stopped smiling.

“Do you know who’s taking his place?”

Quinn sighed. The Vadim train had left the station and was headed straight for her. His paperwork was signed, his visa in the works, his apartment secured. In ten days, the man with the startling eyes and unprecedented effect on her body would join them. Vadim had done devastating things to her psyche with mere seconds and no contact. What would happen when they were thrust together all the time?

“Tate will make the announcement this week,” Quinn told Suresh. She’d already drafted the press release and the internal email highlighting his virtues. In true Tate form, he’d asked her to include some anecdotes from cosmonaut training that Vadim had emailed over, and a quote about Yuri Gagarin, his apparent idol. Tate wanted the team to know Vadim, not just what he had—or hadn’t—done. The man hadn’t flown a fighter jet since college and had never been to space, points the releases glossed over.

Personally, Quinn wouldn’t have hired someone so inexperienced. Well, inexperienced in the cockpit. Other kinds of experience radiated from his pores like an atomic bomb. But she knew Tate didn’t make mistakes, not when it came to people. Vadim would likely surprise them all.

Quinn moved closer to Rosie. “I can’t believe he’s leaving. This is all happening so fast. Is Elle okay?”

“I don’t see how she could be,” Rosie replied.

She frowned. Was it worth it, she wondered, this gamble on love? You could really only win once, and only if you were dealt the perfect hand. Elle and Chen had everything going for them and still couldn’t make their relationship work. Utter heartache in exchange for a few dinner dates? Why bother?

“One of many reasons I don’t do relationships,” she muttered.

Rosie flicked her a surprised glance, her golden eyes full of concern. “Never?”

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