Dr. Kramer didn’t have to prove his claim about her scientific misconduct. Sams’ review committee didn’t need to uncover fraud in her paper, either. The damage to her professional standing was already done. A researcher’s name was nearly as important as their data output for securing publication and funding; a notorious study conducted by social scientists Dr. Gabriel Bernard-Boucher, Dr. Jarred March, and Dr. Hannah Hedgehower, in which they’d submitted bogus papers to journals under their own credible names and been accepted for publication, was hard proof that reputation held greater weight than fact.
Dr. Erin Monaghan, fraud.
Whatever Dr. Kramer had told Sams over dinner or on a putting green yesterday had already impacted her career.
Maybe wrecked it completely.
He knew this, even while he was still stupidly offering his danish, even while she was clearly eyeing the pastry box not with hunger, but as a place to vomit.
She knew it, too.
“I’m…”
Not angry.
He knew her anger, knew its sizzle and flash: pyrotechnics, loud and vivid and short-lived as a lightning strike. But she was quiet and pale now, lips chapped with her thin breathing. Dilated eyes, bloodless hands.
Afraid.
She was afraid because she’d risked Dr. Kramer’s wrath not just for the preservation of her credit on their quantum gravity project, or even for the sake of the women in her anonymous network. She’d risked it for Ethan.
She’d risked her career for him.
Bold, beautiful, lucky Erin had gambled and lost.
20
“I’m…” again, her breath shaking.
“Erin—”
“Uh… I n-need to…” Her backpack’s zipper snagged under her fumbling fingers as she staggered into the corridor. “I—I… need… just need…tomorrow, I’ll…”
She didn’t answer when he asked if she could get home safely.
Fuck.
This was his fault. He followed her out, because imagining her on the road like this, pedaling among lanes of honking commuters shouting at their phones while driving on autopilot—and yes, she knew her streets, was master of her lanes and traffic lights, but she hadn’t eaten lunch or touched the danish—
The building’s exterior doors clicked behind her. He was alone in the dark, empty hall.
No:almost.
Dr. Kramer was also there.
Locking up his office prior to tomorrow’s departure for CERN, carrying a final archival box with his briefcase under his arm, Ethan’s supervisor hadn’t seen him exit the Sidewinder conference room. He could backtrack inside. He could still dodge Dr. Kramer, could wave him off to Switzerland and its golf courses over email. He hadn’t encountered his department head since yesterday’s status report meeting, and although he’d originally hoped to make amends today if he could, that was before Erin had announced her investigation and he’d understood that pacifying his manager was impossible. So, he could avoid Dr. Kramer for almost an entire year, if he just edged back and closed the door.
But. He had this one chance to make things right for her—for brave, clever, resilient, frightened Erin.Right now.
A bright heat ignited in his chest. Not panic.
Fierce. Protective.And yes:brave.
Hewoulddo this for her.
This is how you win the space-time war.
Setting his jaw, crushing years of defensive habit that would’ve had him dodge confrontation, would’ve made him take Dr. Kramer’s punishments and praises in equal indebted silence, he moved down the hall.
