Chapter 6
The applause and the envious looks from my coworkers felt like a scene from some absurd play.
Mike was still riding high, handing out assignments and explaining what the project meant for the company.
Every word landed somewhere in my nerves.
The Quantum Research Institute was the client.
Jonathan Reed was the name on the file.
The name I dreamed about escaping was now the objective on my work plan.
"Emily? Are you listening?"
Mike's voice pulled me out of it.
I said, "Yes. I'm listening."
"What's wrong? You don't look well. I know the pressure on this one is enormous, but it's a chance that comes once. I believe in you," Mike said.
What could I even say?
Should I tell them the lead figure on this project was my ex-husband, and that I was planning to run with our child?
I lowered my head and forced out a smile that was worse than crying.
"Understood, Mike. I'll do my best."
"Not your best. You have to win it!"
After the meeting, my coworkers crowded around to congratulate me.
"Emily, you're about to hit the jackpot."
"If you land this, you'll be the next director for sure."
"You're buying dinner when you get there!"
I nodded along while my head spun.
Turn it down?
On what grounds?
It was a project that could bring the company back from the dead, and both the owner and Mike were counting on it.
If a senior employee turned down an opportunity like that for no reason, the refusal itself would be the strangest thing in the room.
They would wonder, and then they would start asking questions.
My resume showed plainly that I had graduated from the same university as Jonathan Reed. If anyone dug at all, the fact that we had been married would come out.
I would lose my job and pull every eye in the company onto me.
That would be a hundred times worse than the situation I was in now.
Accept it?
Accepting meant walking straight into Jonathan's world.
I would have to study his work, analyze his team, and write the most flattering copy of my career about him.
I might even have to sit across from him and go through the details of the proposal.
Standing in front of him, pitching a campaign calmly, pretending we were strangers.
I just couldn't do it.
And with any interaction, the risk of Nathan being exposed would multiply exponentially.
This was a trap with no way out.
I shut myself in my office and stared at the screen.
On it was the project folder Mike had sent, everything zipped into one file.
With trembling hands, I opened it.
The first document in the folder was Jonathan's personal profile.
A high-resolution ID photo came up on the screen.
In the photo, he was wearing a white lab coat, his eyes sharp and intense.
Ten years had barely marked his face. If anything, they had given him a settled, magnetic weight.
I looked at that face and my stomach turned over.
I quickly closed the photo and clicked open the project brief.
The lab wanted the partner company to assign one lead planner as the main point of contact for the whole project.
Their contact was a director named Mark Shaw.
It was like catching hold of a rope.
If I stayed away from Jonathan and dealt only with Mark Shaw, maybe I could keep the risk down.
I could stay behind the scenes, draft the proposal, and let someone else present it.
That was the plan.
I took a deep breath, forced myself to calm down, and started analyzing the client's needs and laying out the proposal structure, just like I would for any other project.
I told myself it was only work.
Jonathan wasn't my ex-husband. He was a line item on a brief.
The only way to keep my escape plan alive was to handle this without a single crack showing.
I worked all day and went to pick up Nathan from school in the evening.
He was practically bouncing when he saw me. He ran over and said, "Mom, our science teacher praised me in class today!"
I said, "Really? For what?"
He said, "He was talking about quantum mechanics, and he threw out a few college-level questions. I was the only one in the whole class who got them."
His face was glowing. "He said I have a real gift for it and asked if I wanted to be a scientist."
My heart sank.
"So do you want to?" I asked carefully.
"Of course!" He didn't hesitate for a second. "Scientists are the coolest. Like that guy on TV who won the award. He gets to do huge research and change the world!"
The guy he meant was Jonathan.
Blood ran deeper than I wanted it to.
I had kept him away from Jonathan for ten years, and he was still walking his father's road without knowing it.
I looked into my son's eager, shining eyes and couldn't say a single word.
If I smothered his interest and his talent to keep him safe, how was I any different from the Jonathan of ten years ago?
I had barely unlocked my phone at home when a message from Mike came through.
Mike: [Emily, just heard back. The lab is very interested and wants a face-to-face as soon as possible.]
Mike: [Mark says Dr. Reed cares a lot about this campaign and will be at the meeting himself. Two o'clock tomorrow afternoon, in their conference room. Get ready, I'll drive us over.]
I stared at the screen and the whole room seemed to turn.
There was no way out.
Tomorrow at two o'clock, I'd be meeting him.