Contract Bride. Debra Webb

certainly do. She was starved.

      After he’d placed the order, he sat down in the only chair in the room, his expression unreadable. “The pizza’ll be here in twenty minutes.” He leveled that dark, analyzing gaze on her once more, making her tremble in spite of her best efforts not to. “I know who your father is and most everything I need to know about the company, BalPhar. But I need you to start at the beginning and tell me why you think someone is trying to kill you.”

      His apathy infuriated her. “I don’t think,” she said hotly, “I know.” She glared at him, though she was confident her killer stare was not nearly as effective as his.

      He lifted one shoulder and let it fall, the gesture as nonchalant as his tone and all the more infuriating. “Then tell me how you know.”

      She drew in a deep, bolstering breath and started at the beginning as he’d requested, but opted for the abbreviated version. “Five years ago my father began a new research project with another scientist, Dr. Kessler. As the research progressed, Dr. Kessler made extraordinary advances. Then two years ago another scientist came on board with the project. With his help, the results rocketed to a whole new level.”

      She was so tired. None of what she was about to say could be proven. How could she expect an outsider to accept it? How could it even be happening? Her father had always been so careful. How would she ever make this man believe the unbelievable tale she was about to relay? It was real and she had to have his help. Her father trusted Victoria Colby. If Victoria had sent this guy, Jenn had to trust him. But she couldn’t tell him everything—not yet. If she told him too much too fast, he would never believe her. Some things a person had to see with their own eyes.

      She rubbed at her temples and stretched her neck in a bid for more time, then went on, “About a year ago there was a falling out between the two lead scientists and Dr. Kessler left. Now, the project named after him is ready to move to the next level—testing on human subjects.”

      “Kessler is out of the picture completely?” Delaney wanted to know.

      She nodded. “He won’t have anything to do with BalPhar. He even refuses his share of the stocks.”

      That revelation made headway with her so-far unimpressable guest. He looked somewhat more interested.

      He asked no questions, so she continued. “The drug created is a chemotherapy agent that literally neutralizes cancer cells. It’s called Cellneu.”

      She noted another almost imperceptible change in those dark eyes. Even she felt amazed at how the drug worked. “Astonishing, isn’t it?”

      “And very valuable,” he suggested.

      “Very.” That one drug would make BalPhar a fortune a dozen times over and has the potential of saving countless lives. “There’s only one problem,” she added, but hesitated before going on. She had absolutely no proof of what she was about to say.

      He studied her for a moment, considering what she’d told him so far. “Is that why you think someone is trying to kill you? To steal your new drug?”

      She shook her head. “Someone is trying to kill me,” she explained, “because I know something he doesn’t want me to.”

      Delaney gestured with his hand for her to continue. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

      Jenn moistened her lips. She knew how this was going to sound. She could only hope that he would believe her. “There’s something wrong with the drug. It may be dangerous to humans in the long run. I think maybe that’s why Kessler got out.”

      “Can you prove it?”

      She sighed. There was the one sticking point. She stood then, hands on hips for emphasis. She had no evidence, just the word of a dying man. “I can’t prove it, but I know it’s true.”

      “And how do you know this?” he asked calmly. So damned calmly she wanted to scream.

      “Because my uncle, who worked on the project, whom I trusted implicitly, told me with his dying breath.”

      One of those dark eyebrows quirked. “His dying breath?”

      “My fiancé killed him. He would have killed me, too, but I got away.”

      Delaney leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his widespread knees. “Where exactly did this take place? Were there any witnesses?”

      “In the chapel where I was about to be married.” She tried to blink away the images again, but couldn’t stop them. Her blood-stained gown. Russ lying lifeless on the floor. The sinister look in David’s eyes. Jenn pressed her fingertips to her closed lids and tried to banish the ugly pictures her mind conjured. Russ was dead. Was her father dead already, too? “There weren’t any witnesses. We wanted to keep things quiet. The others present worked for my fiancé. Even the minister.” She remembered vividly his doing nothing to help her as the man dragged her away. The minister simply stared at her, a passive expression on his face.

      Delaney stood and started in her direction. Startled, Jenn tensed. In a protective move, she wrapped her arms around her middle. Be strong.

      He towered over her. Intimidating, commanding. A little hitch disrupted her breathing as her senses absorbed his nearness. His scent. The heat he radiated. The restrained power behind all that muscle. She fought the fear. He was supposed to be on her side. No fear.

      “So you were at this chapel, garbed in full wedding attire,” he clarified as emotionlessly as if he were inquiring about the time of day, “ready to walk down the aisle and your fiancé tried to kill you. But you got away. Is that what you’re saying?”

      He didn’t believe her. Fury swept through Jenn, evaporating the last of her fear. She had no reason to lie. Couldn’t he understand that? “Basically, yes,” she returned tightly. “Except that he ordered one of his men to kill me. He dragged me from the chapel, then drove deep into the woods.” She shivered, knowing for the first time in her life how Snow White had felt. “He made me watch while he dug a shallow grave. When he decided to have himself a little fun before he killed me, I managed to get a grip on the shovel. I hit him hard, then ran as fast as I could.” She shuddered. “I didn’t look back.”

      “All right.” Delaney still looked ambivalent. “Why don’t you give me your fiancé’s name and I’ll call a detective friend of mine in the city and have him pick the guy up. It shouldn’t take us long to sort this out.”

      Fear rocketed through her. “We can’t call the police!”

      Delaney inclined his head, studying her from another angle. “Why not? You said he murdered your uncle and that he attempted to have you killed.”

      She chewed her lower lip. She couldn’t let him call the police. “He…he has my father. If I call the police and they investigate, but don’t lock him up, I know he’ll kill my father.” Panic tightened her chest. Though her father was gravely ill, on the verge of death really, she didn’t want him suffering. “Please.” She advanced on Ethan Delaney and grabbed him by his jacket. “Please don’t risk making things worse for my father. You have to help me.”

      Those dark eyes softened just a fraction. “Tell me the name of this fiancé that you’re so afraid of and I’ll see what I can do.”

      She nodded and swiped at the tears welling. “His name is David Crane. Dr. David Crane.”

      TWO AND ONE HALF hours later and Ethan was sitting in the reception area outside Dr. David Crane’s plush tenth-story office at Ballard Pharmaceuticals.

      It had taken Ethan a full half hour to convince his client to go along with his plan. She’d done everything short of crying to dissuade him, and she’d been damn close to doing that. Once he’d explained exactly what he intended to do, she’d reluctantly gone along with him. He’d asked her a few more questions about the Kessler Project as she wolfed down half the pizza he’d ordered. Though he was still skeptical of just who she was, he recognized that she was extremely