Chapter 12

12

Easton

The light from the morning sun shown into the bedroom. Last night was amazing. I rolled over and she was gone. Where did she go? She left without saying anything? I sat up and ruffled my hair lost. Did she regret what happened last night? I thought she was sure that this wasn't going to be a one-night stand? My insecurities started to heighten and then footsteps were heard.

"Isla?" I called out from the bedroom. There was no reply. "Isla? Wait!" Without thinking, I got out of bed and headed straight for the living room, not thinking about the lack of clothing until I saw her eyes. "Fuck, sorry! I… uh."

There was no reason for me to be shy about being naked in front of her. Especially after what we did last night. Her eyes strayed down my body and a grin took over her face once she landed on my dick. It was obvious I had been dreaming about her.

"Are you trying to make it harder for me to leave?" She licked her lips. "Seriously, put some clothes on. You better start getting ready for work or you are going to be late too."

I grinned and walked over to her, placing a tender kiss on her lips. "I don't even know what time it is. So we will talk later?"

She nodded, but something about her posture told me a different answer. It was like she couldn't wait to get out of here.

"Are you okay?" I asked, taking her hand. "I can be late if you wanna talk now."

She moved her hair behind her ear. "No, that's okay. I can't be late. See you later," she said, shutting the door behind her.

I didn't move, standing there pathetically, staring at the door. Our hearts were right to be guarded. It had been a long time and neither of us wanting our hearts broken again. Running into each other yesterday was great, but what did it mean for us long term? Were we going to start dating? After last night, maybe she decided it wasn't a good idea. Like me, I was sure she had a lot of things going on in her life, and she seemed pretty focused on her career too.

Was it wrong of me to want more? Since college, I had always been my love life on the backburner. Chasing the chance at cure was always my priority. Now, Isla had walked back into my life and it made me want to find time. She gave me that feeling of wanting to change stuff around so that I could be with the one I loved. But did she feel the same?

Don't get wrong. This whole situation was a bit crazy. How could I expect her to just up and change things? We both worked so hard to get where we were in life…

Whatever. Right now, instead of getting stuck in my head about this, I needed to get ready and rush to work. No reason to start being late now, but something definitely changed between last night and this morning.

Isla

My heels clicked on the linoleum to the elevator two minutes shy of being late. Crap! I throw my blazer on and fidget with my hair right before the doors open and all eyes were on me. Everybody knew who I was now, and that meant project managers would try to kiss my ass to be on my good side. Little do they know, nothing would change my mind. If they did what they were supposed to do, plead their cases through their reports, then they had nothing to worry about with the cuts.

"Good morning, Isla. Could I get you anything while you meet with Paul this morning?" his receptionist asked.

"I'll take a coffee. 3 cream and 3 sugars, please."

She nodded and took off to the breakroom while I went inside.

"It looks like things have been shaken up a big around here." Paul said, looking out his windows behind his desk. "I've never seen project managers so on edge."

"Well sir, that tends to happen when there are talks about budget and funding cuts."

He shrugged his shoulders and turned around. "You are the expert in this matter. So we expect your professional opinion on what project to cut."

He threw a stack of reports on his desk toward me. "Here are the financials. We expect your answer by end of day."

Okay, so Paul might be some big shot here, but he could really learn to talk to people better. Right now, he came off as an asshole. Largen Co. was on the brink of discovering cures and vaccinations that could save hundreds of thousands of lives and he doesn't seem to care one ounce about that like the project managers did. It pissed me off.

Instead of letting the anger out, I walked right out of his office and bumped into his receptionist. She was rushing to get me my coffee.

"Sorry about him. I'm not sure what's going on, but he's in a worse mood than normal." She handed me my coffee. "Just like you asked. Have a good day."

I didn't want to waste any time today. Going over these reports would take all day and if he wanted my decision before I left today, there was a lot of reading to do. The corridor was filled with people, more than yesterday, and eyes were landing on me. Right now, I was the evil woman here to take people's hard work away.

Once I made it to my makeshift office, I closed the door and sat down. The ten reports beckoning me. Paul was smart. Names were left off the reports so if I didn't know that Easton was heading up the Parkinson's project, then there wouldn't be an issue. But I did. So I put his at the end of the pile and started reading.

The reports were each very thorough, explaining where every dollar of funding had been allocated, and how much they project would be needed to continue through the first quarter of next year. Paul wanted me to focus precisely on results though. Not necessarily how much money the project was costing, but if it was worth the results. I had all the reports sprawled out over the desk on the same page. It was easier to cut it down from ten to two that way.

Within the first four hours, I had narrowed it down to two projects. One of them was Easton's. Last night was not going to effect my professional opinion in anyway. He couldn't receive special treatment, but my heart hurt. I knew how important this project was to him, and knowing that it came down to him and one other person broke my heart.

There was only thing that could help make her final decision. On the last page, they documented their trials. Easton's project had only been in trials for three months whereas the other one had six months worth of results under their belt. Damnit! He wasn't as established in his project, even though the results of the trials were going great, so was the other person's. I knew what I had to do.