Chapter 3
Owning an investment firm and working at one were not the same league.
Sophia unconsciously tightened her grip on her bag.
"Emily," Sophia suddenly turned to me, "so what's going on between you and Michael?"
Everyone at the table fell silent.
Linda held her cup and watched me. Richard hid behind his newspaper and pretended not to hear.
I opened my mouth to speak.
"I—"
"Last night, she got drunk and said she wanted to marry me," Michael said, so deadpan it was like he was just talking about the weather.
I nearly dropped my cup.
Daniel looked like someone had hit him with a truck.
"You're kidding, right?" Sophia let out an awkward laugh.
"I never joke," Michael replied coolly.
I looked at him.
He didn't even look at me, just sipped his coffee, his expression unchanged
Linda was laughing hard enough to hurt herself.
Richard turned a page of his newspaper and pretended he wasn't in the room.
What kind of turn was this?
My mind was completely scrambled.
"Daniel, we should go," Sophia said, getting to her feet, her face looking pretty grim.
"Leaving already?" Linda said, all warmth. "Don't rush off. Stay for dinner!"
"No, really, we've got plans this afternoon," Sophia said, already dragging Daniel toward the door.
At the door, Daniel glanced back at me.
There was a lot in that look.
Surprise, a hint of bitterness, and something else I just couldn't read.
The door closed.
The living room went quiet again.
I turned to Michael. "Why would you say something like that?"
He looked at me, his expression cool as ever.
"That's what you said last night," he replied.
"I was drunk, Michael!" I protested.
"Doesn't matter if you were drunk. You still said it," he shot back.
I was totally stumped.
Linda came over and patted my shoulder. "Emily, don't be angry. Michael was helping you. Daniel walking into this house with his new girlfriend was meant to get under your skin."
I stayed quiet.
Linda was right.
Daniel's message said he hoped I wouldn't mind, and he could have stayed home, picked another day, or come without Sophia.
He did it on purpose.
"Thanks," I said to Michael, my voice coming out a bit dull.
He stood up and put his empty coffee cup down on the table.
"Don't mention it," he said, taking a few steps before pausing, not even bothering to look back. "Try not to get so wasted next time."
Then he walked upstairs.
I stood there in the middle of the living room, my heart still racing.
My phone buzzed again.
It was Daniel.
Daniel: [Emily, who is that guy? Don't let yourself get played.]
I replied: [None of your business.]
Then I blocked him.
On the fifth of January, I went back to school.
First day of the semester, I headed straight to the lab to run my experiments.
The nanocatalysis project came from Richard, and I had been on it for a year and a half. Good results by the March conference would matter for my graduation and for every job I applied to.
I changed into my lab coat and pushed open the lab door.
Melissa Ford was standing at my workstation.
She was another of Richard's PhD students, two years ahead of me, in her fourth year.
"Emily, you're back?" She turned around, giving me a professional smile.
"Hi, Melissa," I replied.
"I organized your data for you. Take a look," she said, pointing at my computer screen.
I walked over. My experiment folder was open, and the data was arranged differently than I'd left it.
"Melissa, did you change something on my computer?" I asked.
"I only tidied it up, so relax," Melissa said, picking up her bag. "By the way, Professor Foster says you're presenting at the March conference?"
"Yeah," I replied.
She smiled, "Well, make sure you're ready."
Then she left.
Something wasn't right.
I went through the folder, and two subfolders were missing.
My third and fourth control groups were gone.
I searched the whole computer, even checked the recycle bin, but they were nowhere.
It was deleted.
I sat at my workstation, my hands going ice-cold.
That was three months of work with no backup, because the lab's cloud drive had been broken for weeks and IT still hadn't fixed it, so I'd kept everything local.
How convenient.
Right after Melissa helped me organize my files, the data was gone.
I grabbed my phone, about to call Melissa, when the lab door swung open again.
A man in a crisp white shirt walked in.
I looked up.
It was Michael.
"What are you doing here?" I blurted, surprised.
He was carrying a paper bag, which he set down on the table by the door.
"My mom asked me to drop something off for Professor Foster," he said.
"Professor Foster isn't here today," I said.
"I know," he said, giving me a quick look. "Just wanted to see how you were doing."
I didn't know what to say.
He walked over to my workstation and glanced at my computer screen. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing—" I started.
"You look really bad," he said.
I hesitated for a couple seconds, then told him what happened.
He listened, his face unreadable as ever.
Michael asked, "How long ago did you lose the data?"
"Not sure. Maybe yesterday, maybe the day before," I replied.
"What's the hard drive format?" he asked.
"NTFS."
He reached out. "Move over."
I stepped aside.