Six
Heidi
Sighing, she shut down her computer and stretched her shoulders, knowing that the calculations weren’t quite right but also knowing that she was too tired to sort out where exactly she’d gone wrong.
Gathering up dirty coffee cups and muffin wrappers—her guilty pleasure was the banana chocolate chunk ones from the best bakery in town, Molly’s—she made sure all the equipment was either shut down or properly collecting data they’d retrieve in the days and weeks to come.
Her assistants had left several hours before, but she was playing catch-up after having had a meeting with the board earlier in the day. Which meant she’d spent more time schmoozing than mathing—and had hated every minute of it.
She understood the need for the schmoozing. She just was never more at home than when she was in her lab. A lab that was hers and hers alone. Well, hers alone if she ignored the fact that the funding came from the company and she had to clear her research with the board members. But for the most part, they left her to her electron microscope, her spectrometer, her calculations.
Aside from the schmoozing.
Thankfully, that only happened quarterly, and the rest of the year, she was left to her own devices, in her own lab. That she was in charge of.
Yup.
She was living the female scientist dream.
When she’d quit her previous job just over a year before, she’d been at a loss. She’d worked at universities and big corporations. But the red tape had been astronomical. And not only that, but she’d felt like every single one of her decisions she’d made, every shred of research and evidence she’d conducted and garnered had been questioned. Ostensibly, she’d been running her own lab for one of the best companies in the world.
And she’d been micromanaged within an inch of her life.
She’d been miserable and ready to change positions—or maybe to go back to school and make a bid at becoming a career student.
Then she’d found Volton.
And this company was different. It was still a power in the industry, but it was smaller and run by a CEO who was determined to not let it get bogged down with big company problems.
Which made it a joy to work for.
It was the mystical unicorn of careers to actually love getting up in the morning to come to work, and she was riding that magical, horned horse like a champ, clomp-clomping into her lab every weekday morning. And some weekends.
So long as there were coffee and muffins.
Smiling to herself, she placed the dirty mugs in the sink, set the coffee pot to be ready to brew for the morning, and locked up.
Her phone buzzed as she walked to her car, and she pulled it out of her pocket, smiling wider when she saw that it was Kate texting her a picture of her purple-painted toes dipping into the white sand of a beach.
Typing on the screen as she walked, she sent,
Why are you wasting time with your precious hubby to text me?
A beat. Then a buzz.
To torment you with all the luxury that’s surrounding me.
The words were accompanied by a photo of two massage tables set up on the beach.
Heidi laughed.
You’re evil.
Then added.
But you’re having a good time?
Kate’s reply came in just a few seconds.
The best.
Heidi’s heart squeezed.
I’m glad. Now stop texting me and go enjoy your honeymoon.
When no reply came, she smiled, stowed the cell in her pocket, and pushed into the underground garage. Which was the exact moment her phone buzzed again.
“Kate,” she muttered, “you just don’t learn.”
But when she glanced at the screen, the message wasn’t from Kate.
It was a call from her mother.
“Good God,” she whispered, debating ignoring the call and the ramifications that might bring. Her mom wasn’t like Kate’s or Jaime’s. She wasn’t . . . nice, wasn’t the type to make cookies or pull up an extra chair at the table for an unexpected guest.
Nope. Her mother was razor sharp.
And fuck did it burn to be on the receiving end of her words.
But she was old enough to understand that a conversation now would save a longer, drawn-out, painful conversation later, so she waved goodbye to the security guard and swiped a finger across the screen as she got into her car.
She didn’t drive anywhere though.
Not yet.
Her mother had a way of infuriating her beyond reason, and after one close call too many while trying to ignore exactly how painful her barbs were and the subsequent distraction making Heidi a danger to other drivers, she’d promised herself no vehicular operation under the influence of her mom.
“Hello?” she said.
“Why aren’t you at home?”
Her brows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“Your father was at a meeting in the city. We drove by to pick you up for dinner, but you’re not home.”
“No,” she said, not surprised that her mom, Colleen, had shown up without a word, expecting her to drop everything. That was the status quo. “I’m not home. I’m just getting off work.”
Saying that was a mistake.
She knew it.
Somehow, she had been dumb enough to say it anyway.
Colleen’s sigh was loud. “How are you ever going to get married if you work so much?”
As far as responses went, that was a one on a scale of ten. One meaning the best-case scenario. It wasn’t denigrating her career choice, just a simple, almost normal-mom reaction lamenting the fact that she wasn’t married.
That was something Kate or Jaime’s mom might say.
Or had said, since they were married now.
But then the one turned into a . . . six-point-five.
“You know there’s a reason female scientists are rare,” her mom said. “It’s because most of them actually listen to their biological clocks and get out of the field in time before their ovaries dry up.”
Ew.
“I love what I do, Mom.”
Colleen scoffed.
“And I’m happy being alone.”
Another scoff. “No, you’re not,” she said, and now her voice approached razor blades, approached that ten out of ten on that scale of awful. “You’re sad
