“Not for me. I’m the same.” He just smiled at that. “Maybe because I’m a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to relationships.”
“Good,” she said. And then, she chuckled. “You do realize that we’re just getting the basics out of the way. So that we have a good idea who and what we are.”
“Danger also accelerates relationships,” he said. “You really get to know who people are when the stakes are high.”
“How does that work?” she asked.
“Well, think about it,” he said. “If you do the dating scene, you can take months and months before seeing what somebody will be like under stress and under pressure. In something like this, we see that person show up immediately.”
“So, if I was weeping and wailing and crying?” she asked. “You’d know something about me that you wouldn’t normally see?”
“To a certain extent, yes. Because, if you were dating, how long would it be before you actually saw something like that?”
She nodded. “Right. So now what does my behavior tell you?”
“That you’re steady. That you can handle rough, high-stress situations. You can follow orders, when orders are snapped out because they’re necessary. You’re accommodating, and you pivot quickly.”
She thought about that assessment and nodded slowly. “You know what? I think you’re right with that. I hadn’t really considered it. But is that of any value?”
“It’s of huge value. You’re not a whiner. You’re not somebody who’ll complain because you didn’t have your fancy clothing or the special food you wanted or the coffee that you must have. You can share a bed and a bathroom. You didn’t need to have your own room,” he said. “You know what? A lot of people have very heavy diva traits, and we deal with those people because they’re part and parcel of the job we do, but that doesn’t mean a diva is anybody I would choose to be with. I know it works for a lot of people and great for them.” He added, “It’s not necessarily my preferred personality.”
“Mine either,” she said. “I can’t stand working with them either.”
“Exactly.” At that, she snuggled back in again. “So I have a question for you,” he said.
She once again twisted to look up at him.
“You’re getting a kink in your neck,” he said. And he lifted her up and pivoted her sideways, so she sat between his legs, with her legs hooked over his thigh.
And she now faced him, her arm around his back. “What is it?”
“Where do you live? How do you live? And what are you doing when this is over?”
Diesel loved the way Eva burst out laughing in delight. He grinned. “So bad questions or good questions?”
“They were the right questions,” she admitted. “And honestly I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing, but I would like to see you again.”
“Good. Even if I’m not out rescuing you?”
“Oh, Lord,” she said, “please, let me be in a scenario where I don’t need to be rescued ever again.”
“Hear! Hear! For that. Are you likely to be in trouble again after this?”
“I hope not,” she said. “I think I’ll change jobs though.”
“Are you blaming the lab?”
“I’m not so much blaming the lab as much as I’m wondering if it was their lax security that got me in trouble or their need to have press releases, showing their progress. I get that we must have investors, but, at what point in time, is it dangerous for the staff?”
“Do you think there’s any connection to why you were targeted?”
“Well, I have to consider it,” she said. “I don’t like to, but I do have to.”
“And?”
“It’s inconclusive,” she said. “My work was handed over. Everybody at the company who’s working on the same project has access to the same information, the same conclusions I do. I don’t know where the Chinese would have gotten the information that we had, what we had, but I know that the media had really made a big deal out of some of our research findings, and that was good in the sense that the company needed the influx of cash that came from that. But it was dangerous,” she said, “and, apparently because of it, we were most likely targeted. So do I want to work for a company where having investor money outweighs the risk? No.”
“But did they know what the risk was?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Again that’s part of that trust that I’ll have to reexamine.”
“Well, take some time with your father and see how you feel about the job afterward. You love your work, don’t you?”
“I really do,” she said with a smile. “But then I have to question whether I love it because it was the challenge and maybe more challenges are out there for me or whether it’s time for a change. I don’t know. This scenario has made me rethink a whole lot in life.”
“Such as?”
She looked up at him. “For you, this is normal. You get into these situations that are rife with danger, and you know how to get yourself out of it. For me, this is one of those eye-opening I didn’t know if I would live or die scenarios,” she said. “I still don’t know really. I mean, if you think about it, we’re still on the path to get me back safely. And then I have to question, is this the kind of work I want to do? Is this … I mean, if you were told that you had forty days left to live, what would you choose to do with those forty days?”
He stared at her in surprise.
She shrugged. “This is just some of what was rolling around my head the entire time that I was a captive. The things that are important before you lose your freedom are something that you have to reexamine when you do regain that freedom. What’s important to me? It was my father,” she said. “While my brother is part of the family too, my
