chapter 5

"Not much to tell."

"It's tough, isn't it?" She leaned against the counter opposite his. For once, her eyes weren't bright with humor or challenge. "Being who we are and trying to get involved. The money thing, I mean."

Because they both came from money. Because they'd been raised with the idea that they had to be careful, to make sure they didn't fall for someone who was in it for the wrong reasons.

Without wanting to, Liam remembered sitting in on a painful conversation between Emmett and Eva. He'd tried to escape more than once, but his friend had wanted him to stick around to make sure Van really listened.

"Guys are going to know who you are," Emmett had told her. "You have to be smart and not just think with your heart."

Eva had been sixteen. She'd writhed in her seat as Emmett had talked, then she'd stood and glared at him.

"Who is going to want me for anything else?" she demanded. "I'm not pretty. I'll never be pretty. I'm nothing more than a giant brain with braces and a big nose. I'm going to have to buy all my boyfriends."

Emmett had looked at Liam with an expression that begged for help, but Liam hadn't known what to say either.

They were too young to be guiding Van through life-what experiences did they have to pass on? Doing twins from the law school hardly counted.

"I have it easier than you do," Liam said, forcing himself back to the present, not wanting to think about how he'd failed both Emmett and Eva.

"The women I go out with don't know who I am."

"Interesting point. I don't talk about my family, but word gets out. I've actually reached the point in my life where I have to have men investigated before I start dating them. It's not fun."

"You're doing the right thing." Not that she was the only one checking out her dates.

He ran a check on all of them, too.

For casual dates, he only bothered with a preliminary investigation but if it looked like things were getting serious, he asked for a more involved report.

She glanced at her watch again.

"You have an appointment?" he asked.

She grinned. "I have a surprise."

+

"Another one?"

"Oh, yeah. So there's no little woman waiting in the wings?"

"I told you-I'm not the little-woman type."

"Of course. You're the kind of man who enjoys a challenge. Which is what I am."

Okay, so kissing her hadn't gotten her to back off. He needed another direction.

He refused to spend the next three and a half weeks dodging Van. All he needed was a plan.

He'd never been defeated before and he wasn't about to be defeated now.

"But I want something different from the men in my life," she continued. "Maybe my tastes have matured, but I'm looking for someone smart and funny-but normal-smart. Not brainy. I could never marry another genius. We'd have a mutant child, for sure."

He chuckled. "Your own version of genetic engineering?"

"Sort of. I made a list of characteristics that are important to me. I used to have a whole program I wrote one weekend but that seemed so calculated. A list is more ordinary."

"Not if you wrote it in binary code."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. I'd never do that. C++ maybe."

He was going to guess C++ was another computer language, but he could be wrong.

"Not that I needed a computer program to know Justice is a great guy."

Liam stared at her. "Justice?"

"The man I've been dating for a while now. He checked out great, and things are getting serious."

Liam didn't remember hearing about any guy named Justice. Not that he got personally involved unless things were heating up-which, apparently, they were.

Why hadn't he been told?

"How serious?" he asked as he heard the sound of a truck heading toward the house.

"I'm probably going to marry him," Van said, then ran out of the kitchen. "You hear that? They're here!"

Marry him?

Before he could react to that, he found himself following her to the foyer and beyond that to the front of the house.

A shuttle van pulled to a stop in front of the porch, and the door eased open.

"Who's here?" Liam asked, but Eva wasn't listening.

She bounced from foot to foot, then threw herself into the arms of the first person off the shuttle.

+

He was short, skinny and wearing glasses thick enough to be portholes.

Nothing about him was the least bit threatening, and Adam immediately wanted to kill him.

"You made it," Eva said, hugging the guy again. "I've missed you so much."

The guy disentangled himself. "It's been a week, Van. You need to get out more."

She laughed, then turned to the next person and greeted him with exactly the same enthusiasm.

Okay. So nerd guy wasn't Justice. Good to know.

Vanessa welcomed all eight visitors with exactly the same amount of enthusiasm, then she turned to Liam.

+

"Everybody, this is Liam. Liam, this is my team."

"Team for what?" he asked.

She grinned. "Would you believe me if I said polo?"

Judging from their pale skin and slightly peering gazes, he was going to guess none of them had ever seen a horse outside of the movies or television.

"No."

"I didn't think so. This is my solid-rocket-fuel team. We're working on ways to make it less toxic and more efficient. There's a technical explanation, but I don't want to watch your eyes glaze over."

"I appreciate that. What are they doing here?"

+

"Don't freak. They are not all staying in the house. Only Derrick and Sloane. The rest are staying at nearby hotels."

Liam didn't like the idea of anyone else hanging around. He needed to concentrate on work.

Of course, if Van were distracted by her friends, she wouldn't be such a problem for him.

"Why are they here?" he asked.

"So we can work. I can't leave the mountain, so they agreed to a field trip."

She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. "I know you're going to find it difficult to believe but this is a really fun group."

Most of her colleagues were squinting in the sun and looking uncomfortable. "I can only imagine."

She walked over to the oldest woman in the group-a slightly overweight, stylishly dressed blonde-linked arms with her and led her forward.

"Liam, this is my friend Sloane. Technically she's a liaison-she stands between the team and the real world, taking care of all the details the scientifically gifted seem to be so bad with. In reality, she's my best friend and the reason I'm just so darned normal."

He eyed the other woman and wondered how many Eva's secrets she knew.

"Nice to meet you," he said as he shook hands with Sloane.

Sloane smiled. "I'm enjoying meeting you, as well," she said. "Finally."

Finally?

Eva grinned. "Did I tell you or what?"

Tell her what? But before Liam could ask, the group went into the house. He was left standing on the porch, wondering when the hell his life had gotten so out of his control.

**********

Eva sat cross-legged in the center of the bed while her friend unpacked. "He's gorgeous. Admit it-you saw it."

Sloane smiled. "Liam is very nice-looking, if you enjoy the tall, dark and powerful type. He wasn't happy about us arriving."

"I know. I didn't tell him you were coming. It was fabulous. I wish you'd seen the look on his face when I explained why you were here. Of course, it was right after I told him I might marry Justice, so there it was a double-thrill moment for me."

Sloane unpacked her cosmetics and carried them into the attached bathroom. "You know you're not marrying Justice. You're baiting Liam."

+

"It's fun and I need a hobby." Eva flopped back on the bed. "Why shouldn't I bait him? He deserves it. He was mean to me."

"He was in college. At that age, men are not known for their emotional sensitivity. Actually, they're not known for it at any age. But the point is, you bared your heart and soul and he reacted badly. I agree some punishment is in order, but you're taking it all too far. This is a mistake, Eva."

Eva loved Sloane like a sister... sometimes like mom. There were only ten years between them chronologically, but in life experiences they were light-years apart.

Sloane had been the project manager's assistant at the think tank that had first hired Eva. The second week Eva had been there, Sloane had walked into her lab.

"Do you have anything close to a sense of humor?" the other woman had asked. "I don't mind that you're brilliant, but a sense of humor is required for any kind of a relationship."

Eva hadn't known what to say. She'd been eighteen and terrified of living on her own in a strange city.

Money wasn't an issue-the think tank had hired her for more than she'd ever thought she would earn and she had a family trust fund.

But she'd spent that last third of her life in college.

What did she know about furnishing an apartment, buying a car, paying bills?

"I don't know if I would qualify as funny," Eva had said honestly. "Does sarcasm count?"

Sloane had smiled. "Oh, honey, sarcasm is the best."

At that moment their friendship had been born.

Sloane had been turning thirty and on her own for over a decade. She'd shown Eva how to live on her own and had insisted she buy a condo in a good part of D.C.

She'd taken care of Van after both her surgeries, offered fashion advice, love life advice and had hooked her up with a trainer who had pummeled her into shape.

"Why is getting revenge a mistake?" Eva asked as her friend finished unpacking. "He's earned it."

"Because you're not thinking this through. You're going to get into trouble and I don't want that to happen. Your relationship with Liam isn't what you think."

Eva frowned. "What do you mean? I totally understand my feelings about Liam. I had a huge crush on him, he hurt me and, because of that, I've been unable to move on.

If I sleep with him, I'll instantly figure out that he's not special at all. He's just some guy and I'll be healed. The benefit is I get to leave him wanting more."

Sloane sat next to her and fluffed her short hair. "I hate travel. I always get puffy."

Then Sloane drew in a breath. "You didn't have a crush on Liam. You were in love with him then and you're still in love with him. You're emotionally connected to him, even if you refuse to admit it.

Sleeping with him is only going to confuse the matter. The problem with your plan is that, odds are, the person left wanting more could easily be you."