The Chemistry of Love(51)

Users might not like the end product, and I didn’t have anyone besides Catalina and me to test it on.

One of the bright points in my experimentation was that the high-shear mixer was utter perfection, and if I’d initially turned Marco down with his whole fake-dating plan, this would have been the thing that would have gotten me to say yes.

Mixing, weighing, formulating, combining, baking, I missed this. My home lab was great, but I wanted to be back in a professional setting again. I’d sent out some more résumés but still hadn’t heard anything back. One company had an automatic reply and said they’d be in touch, but so far nothing.

My alarm sounded, and with a sigh, I put my beaker back on the table. I’d have to clean all this up when I got back from Marco’s house.

I took a quick look at myself in the mirror. I could practically hear Catalina’s voice in my head telling me to make myself presentable, but he knew what I looked like. He had literally seen me at my worst. I did check out my armpits, though. Sometimes basic hygiene went by the wayside when I was in the middle of a project I loved.

Figuring I was good enough, I headed downstairs and ran into my grandpa, who was reading the newspaper. He lowered it to look over the top at me. “Going out again?”

His note of surprise felt so discouraging. “Yes. To see Marco.”

He peered up at me from behind his paper. “Will you be out late?”

My grandpa tended to wait up for me. Not that I’d given him many opportunities to do it recently. “I don’t think so. I’ll call if anything changes.”

He put his paper back up and told me to have fun, and I headed out to Marco’s. I hadn’t given myself quite enough time to get to his place. I had forgotten to account for Friday afternoon / evening Los Angeles traffic. When I finally arrived, I discovered that he lived in a nice, shiny condo building. There was even a valet to take my car. I felt a little embarrassed getting in line behind the luxury automobiles, but I handed off my keys with as much dignity as I could muster.

I took an elevator up to the tenth floor and walked to the end of the hallway to find Marco’s place. The door was slightly ajar.

For some reason, this alarmed me. Why was his door open? Was he in trouble? I put my keys in between my fingers just in case he needed help.

Although what assistance I thought I could offer a man who could bench-press me, I wasn’t sure.

I still couldn’t believe he’d left his door open. Any random off the street could have just waltzed in. Didn’t anyone in his life ever tell him he needed to lock his front door? Marco might have been smart, but common sense was like deodorant. The people who needed it most never had it.

But what if something had happened to him? I had to go in and see. So the random wandering in off the street was me. I pushed the door farther open and called out his name. “Marco?”

There was a rhythmic thump-thumping noise, and as I came around the corner, I saw Marco on a treadmill, running.

Without a shirt on.

I audibly gulped as my uterus skipped a beat.

I had guessed at his physique based on touching him and his appearance, but now I had to be sad about how poor my imagination actually was. He had the kind of perfect body that slow motion was invented for.

His big muscles flexed and moved as he ran, all sweaty and glistening, and the sight of him made my internal organs do a bunch of somersaults. He had a torso people should write poetry about or make sculptures of. Maybe they already had.

I could set up a carnival booth and sell tickets to get a look at him like this, and people would pay it.

He was so powerful and fast. There was a definite running-to-Isengard-to-save-the-hobbits thing happening here that I enjoyed.

So unfair. I had to pretend to date Mr. Sexy Chest and keep these ridiculous hormones in check. It was like the universe had decided I hadn’t had enough bad things in my life and that I needed to be punished or tempted or something.

If Marco’s plan worked and Craig wanted to be with me, I really hoped these pesky attraction issues of mine would go away. They had to, right? I couldn’t still be lusting after him once Craig and I were official. I didn’t need any additional awkwardness in my life.

Then I wondered just how long I’d been standing there ogling him like some mega creep.

“Marco?”

No response.

I walked over into his range of vision, and he noticed me. He looked very surprised, like he hadn’t personally invited me over to his house or something. He pressed buttons on the console, and the treadmill began to slow down.

If he’d caught me running topless on a treadmill and surprised me, I would have fallen backward and knocked myself out. Marco, on the other hand, gracefully stepped off the machine as it came to a stop.

“Anna? Didn’t we say five o’clock?”

I looked at my phone. At first I cursed my own stupidity for not getting a picture of him while he was running.

. . . for Catalina. Yeah, for Catalina.

Not any other reason.

But it was a little bit after four o’clock, and he definitely had said five. I felt so stupid as I realized what I had done. “Right. I set my alarm to remind myself to start winding down, but I mistook it for the ‘leave now’ alarm. I’m sorry about that.”

He took a step toward me, apparently unaware of his partial nudity. To paraphrase Rey, couldn’t he put a shirt on or something? He reached for a small towel and used it to wipe off the back of his neck.