Page 28 of In Bed with the Enemy

"You mean, you don't know?" my boss asked me.

"Know what?" I asked, genuinely confused. I started walking around the room a bit, wondering where Ethan could have disappeared to.

"About the offer?"

"My God, Jeff, just spit it out. What is going on?" I huffed, my heartbeat starting to increase at both him and the fact that Ethan seemed to be very much gone.

"Amy. Standard Energy called first thing this morning. They've made a huge offer to purchase the patent on your invention."

I nearly dropped the phone at the news. "What?"

"I thought for sure you had something to do with it," Jeff admitted.

"No," I replied honestly. "Did you accept?"

I knew that technically I wasn't the one that owned the invention. I had developed it working for the company. According to my employment contract with them and long standing lawsuit outcomes, that meant that they owned it. It was a work by-product. Meaning, they could also do what they wanted with it.

"Yes, of course I accepted, Amy," Jeff said without hesitation. "Do you know how much money they put on the table?"

"I don't care about that," I nearly yelled back into the phone. "Do you know what this means?"

Just then, Ethan walked into the room. "I'll call you back, Jeff," I said, hanging up the phone suddenly. "What have you done?" I nearly screamed at him. "I trusted you!"

"Babe, what are you talking about?" Ethan asked, putting down the cups of coffee and bag of breakfast he had in his hands.

"Don't!" I said, holding up a hand as he tried to make his way toward me. I backed up, feeling like we were back to repeating our first meeting all over again. "I trusted you."

"Amy, I really don't know what you're talking about," Ethan said, looking distressed. But, I was too emotional at the moment to care. "Can you just tell me what's going on?"

"What's going on is that your company has stolen my invention!" I said, before sitting down heavily on the bed and beginning to cry. "Why would you let them do this to me?"

Ethan was silent and my sobs continued to fill the room.

"They'll never use it," I said, knowing it was true. "They're just buying the rights to the patent so that they can sit on it. I told you why, Ethan. I told you why this was so important to me. I thought it was important to you, too!"

"It was," he said, before correcting to, "it is!"

"It doesn't seem like it!" I yelled back. "You’re in charge. There's no way you didn't know about this!"

He was silent, and that was all the confirmation I needed.

"I thought you were better than this, Ethan," I said, grabbing my things and running towards the door. He stood up, as if to follow me and I stopped and turned around. "Don't. Don't follow me, Ethan. I came here with all my dreams intact. The moment I met you, they all fell apart. Please, just stay away from me," I said, tears streaming down my cheeks.

He looked stunned by my words, and he just stood there.

We both let the door close between us.

18

ETHAN

I watched her go. I hated to watch her go, but after what she'd said, how could I possibly go after her? I didn't deserve to go after her. She was right. I was the one that had ruined everything for her.

Instead, I wanted answers. I hadn't authorized any sort of a purchase. Nor had I heard about anything, either.

I turned around and picked up my cell phone and dialed Harrison's number.

"Yeah," my brother answered groggily on the other side of the line.

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