Page 1 of Savage Beauty

PROLOGUE

Sloane

What am I missing?

The hard edge of my nail clicks lightly, tapping out a beat on the plastic key, the keyboard as my instrument.

Tap tap da tap tap tap da tap tap tap

Am I clear in my discourse and presentation of data?

The sharks will rip it apart. As they should. That’s the point of a peer review.

But is this ready to be shredded?

There’s no one to ask. Of course, there’s no one to ask. It’s Sunday afternoon on island time.

I’m the only one who works on Sunday in this sun-soaked town.

Even the cleaning service only works Monday through Saturday. On Sunday, the offices are divine solitude. But today, isolation is an unfortunate reality. It would be beneficial to have someone to read through my premise, the evidence I’ve collected, and my conclusions. Someone to challenge me before I publicly share what I’ve found.

If I’m correct—and Iamcorrect—there’s no way they’ll stop funding my research.

A shadow darkens the sun’s rays over the white tile squares on the lab floor.Why didn’t I hear footsteps?

Light rays stream around the tall, muscular man wearing a black button-down dress shirt with sleeves folded up his sinewy forearm. The top two—no, three buttons of his shirt are undone. A heavy gold necklace glints above a nest of curly chest hair. Two gold rings glimmer, obscuring the black ink on his fingers. The thick black hair atop his head matches his full, trimmed beard. This man is not a scientist.

With his back to the sun, the shadows conceal the contours of his face, but I can see enough to know he’s handsome in a rugged, bad boy way. He could be a model on one of the mafia romance books my sister Sage likes to read. Or the ones I read when my brain is too tired to absorb material with sustenance.

“Why are you here?”

Those worn black boots and jeans don’t match the tourists’ outfits. Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and flip-flops, or possibly a t-shirt with an idiotic saying on the front are what tourists wear. And I’ve never met a bad boy scientist. I’ve read about them. Characters in a Penny Reid book, maybe? But those men aren’t hairy.

“Saw a gorgeous woman through the window. Sitting all alone on a beautiful day.”

I haven’t showered since Friday, and I’m in a hooded sweatshirt, running shorts and sneakers. I didn’t apply the eyeliner like Sage showed me, didn’t curl my eyelashes, and the roots of my hair are slightly greasy. Maybe he’s horny. Or drunk. Studies have shown drunk men find women more attractive than sober men.

He pulls out a cigarette.

“You can’t light that here.” There are rules, and even growly, book-cover-worthy men need to obey them.

“Who says?”

Click. A yellow flame shoots up near his thumb.

“This is a non-smoking building.” I’m up, off my stool, report forgotten. “Sir, you cannot smoke in here. Exposure to secondhand smoke causes an estimated forty-one thousand deaths annually in the United States. Data isn’t publicly available for the Cayman Islands or the Caribbean region, but it’s reasonable to assume the results translate to all regions.”

He holds the cigarette between two fingers, lifting it higher, as if out of my reach. But I’m five-foot-nine.

“Sir.” My fingers are inches from the tip. “This is a non-smoking building.”

“Why don’t you come outside with me?” He grins.

I snatch his unlit cigarette out of his fingers, break it in two, and drop it into a black plastic trash can. I brush my hands to clean them of the offending item, but I need a sink. Who knows where that thing has been?

“Don’t like smoking, huh?”

I twist the knob on the stainless-steel sink. Sinks are in all the labs here. The soap at this sink needs to be refilled, but there’s enough for two pumps of milky white antibacterial soap to fill one palm.

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