Samantha Dawson needed to get out more. Working long hours with two men who are too young for her can really wear a girl down. Accidents happen, but can this one make Sam learn to live in the moment, or play it safe and stay in her lab.
Samantha took a deep breath; this was the biggest project of her career. Sitting in the lab, she realized the wool in her coat felt itchy and her silk stockings no longer felt as decadent as they did this morning when she put them on. The hum of the air conditioner in the pressurized room didn’t calm her nerves like the sound usually did.
Pressure from the donators was getting to her; why didn’t they understand that science took time? Well, time was what she was running out of. This formula needed to go to trial soon or this project might be scrapped. Everything would be okay though. The new intern she got approval for last week started today. He might not know the particulars of the project, but as soon as she sat down with him to explain the importance, they would all be on the same page. She should check on him to make sure he was typing up her research notes correctly.
Sam sat back from the table she was using as her lab desk, and looked across the room at her assistant, Bradley. He was too good looking to be locked away in a lab for fourteen hours a day. She was always attracted to him, but other than glances he never seemed to see her as anything other than his boss. At least she had some eye candy to look at all day; his six-two, dark-haired, swimmer’s body sure helped to pass the time. Too bad he was ten years her junior, not that she had one foot in the grave at thirty-five. Her curly, red hair could barely be contained by the rubber bands and clips used to keep it out of her face, and she always thought her eyes were so pale that they seemed to have no green in them at all. Her large breasts and wide hips made her stomach look small, so she guessed she shouldn’t complain, but she wouldn’t catch any eyes, since she barely hit five-four.
Sam couldn’t help but remember how at the last family reunion, her cousin Beth’s seven-year-old daughter said she looked like her Merida doll, from her current favorite movie, Brave. Sam rolled her eyes and took one last glance at Bradley; he was her assistant, not someone that would be warming her bed at night. As Samantha scanned the room, her gaze fell on the new intern. What was his name again? Damn, she should have been paying attention to other things than his credentials. Twenty years old, senior at the university where he carried a 4.0 average and majored in ethology. All else was unimportant; as long as he did his job right and the donators liked him, then that was all that mattered. He wasn’t bad looking either, a little shorter than Bradley with wavy, blond hair. Maybe she should find a reason for him to take off his lab coat so she could check out what it was hiding.
God, I need to get laid, she thought. The only problem was that school and work had always been more important to Sam. After losing her parents her freshman year at the university, Sam focused on schoolwork and vowed to not get close to anyone who could be taken away at any moment. That meant that dating usually took the back burner, and Sam slowly stopped even trying to get dates. Back to work, Samantha! Start acting like the professional you claim to be!
“Shit,” Bradley shouted. “Seal off the room!”
Samantha shot out of her seat and hit the silent alarm that automatically sealed off the lab, which took up the entire floor of the five-story building. The seal would recycle the air on their floor and close off the other floors’ vents to ensure no one got contaminated air. The elevator and stairwell doors also sealed closed so the lab and four other rooms on this floor were locked in a little bubble. It, of course, could be overridden in an emergency, but since there didn’t seem to be smoke and flames, they probably didn’t need to get out of the lab. “What happened? Is everyone okay?”
“Yeah, we’re okay, Dr. Dawson. I messed up; I broke the vial that the newest formula was in. We have more samples, so we won’t need to start over making a new batch.”
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