“And I’ll let tell you something else, ma cherie,” Martineau said in the same quietly incensed tone. He gestured around his bedroom. “What goes on here has nothing to do with work. In fact, until you came along, my practice was to never mix work and romance. After all, Ellen, I’m your boss. I could lose my job for this, as you call it. But your genius, your dedication, your passion—they were like aphrodisiacs for me. And maybe you aren’t aware of it, but long before you came into my bed, I recognized your sexuality.”

Horton felt herself reddening.

Martineau sighed. “And yes, I admit it. I wanted—I want—to see us succeed. Not only for the world’s benefit, but for yours and mine too.” He stopped and stared at her for several moments. “But don’t flatter yourself, Ellen. I wouldn’t whore myself for the job, regardless of how important you think your cooperation is.”

He stood up and walked for the door.

Horton jumped up from the bed and followed after him. Catching him at the door, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him from behind. “I’m sorry, Luc. I had no right to say any of that. I’m so confused right now. Viktor … those chimps … the FDA … I’ve never felt so lost before.”

Martineau turned slowly. He nodded but his distant expression suggested he had not forgiven her. She leaned forward and pressed her bare breasts against his chest. She kissed him on the lips. When his growing hardness pressed against her pelvis, she felt the heat rising between her own legs.

He pulled her back to the bed. His slow, gently teasing approach of previous encounters was gone. Now his aggressive animalism only heightened her arousal. She wanted him to find relief from the hurt of her earlier accusations.

Some time later, spent, they lay on their backs, side by side. For a while both stared at the ceiling lost in their own thoughts. Finally Horton spoke up. “Luc, there’s something else I haven’t told you about Oraloxin.”

He turned to her. “Oh? What’s that?”

Horton didn’t know how to broach the subject. She suddenly regretted raising it at all.

Martineau sat up in the bed and looked down at her suspiciously. “What is it, Ellen?”

Horton pulled the comforter tighter around her neck. “This new superbug, MRGAS. It reminds me of another bacterium.”

His eyes narrowed. “Which one?”

“Well, it’s not really … ,” she began awkwardly, “it’s nothing seen in nature.”

His face reddened. “Ellen, what are you talking about?”

“In the lab, we engineered a bacterium to test against Oraloxin,” she said. “We wanted to see how it performed on staph aureus that was more than just methicillin-resistant. In other words, something worse than MRSA.”

His shoulders stiffened. “And?”

“We came up with a form of staph aureus resistant to every known antibiotic.”