“Charles, having been with Luc for several days while he was under the influence of the love potion has given me a new perspective on this project. I’m not saying we dump JBX. I’m just saying we need to step back and set some new parameters.”
Sylvie had come to some startling conclusions the past few days… days during which she’d refused to speak with Luc, days when all she’d done was think. The conclusion was clear: She did not like having a man fall in love with her prompted by a love potion. Whether the love carried over after the effects wore off was beside the point. Love was demeaned when it began because of a chemical formula.
Besides that, Delilah had taken a decided dislike to Samson, and Sylvie thought she understand why. The situation had become so bad that she’d had to buy another critter cage to separate the bickering rats. Could the rat behavior be extrapolated to humans? Would Luc turn on her, the way Delilah had with her lover?
“We don’t have the luxury of time,” Charles contended. “The cat’s out of the bag, so to speak, and other companies will be copying us if we don’t act quickly.”
“How can they copy us if they don’t have our formula?”
“That’s another thing. You need to turn over the research data. I’ve tried… and our other chemists have tried… to break down those jelly beans you left behind with your enzymes in them, but there are some ingredients we just can’t identify.”
“I could have told you that,” she answered, not liking the fact that they were trying to “steal” her formula behind her back.
But then something Charles had said struck a chord with her.
“You didn’t have any jelly beans with my enzymes in them. Those were the ones that Luc took. The ones left sitting on the counter were the neutral set.”
“You’re wrong. The jelly beans left behind definitely had your enzymes in them.” To prove his contention, he motioned toward a microscope that was already set up with a slide on it holding a halved jelly bean.
She peered into the lens, and gasped. He was right.
She frowned with puzzlement. If the jelly beans left behind had her enzymes, then that meant that the jelly beans Luc had ingested…
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “That means that Luc never took the love potion after all. There must have been a mix-up in the petri dishes.”
“I thought you knew that all along.”
“Are you crazy? You thought I went off with Luc, pretending that he took the love potion? Why?”
Charles shrugged. “Good publicity.”
“You believed this was all a PR stunt on my part?”
He nodded.
“You are a world-class worm.”
There was no love potion. Sylvie reeled as the implications of this news numbed her. If Luc hadn’t been under the influence of JBX, then that must mean that he’d been fooling her all along. Sylvie felt as if she’d been sucker-punched in the gut.
Tears burned her eyes while the ramifications kept occurring to her one by one, like dominoes falling in place. It had been a game to Luc all along. The teasing. The seduction. The profession of love. And the whole time, he’d probably been laughing at her.
Grabbing for her briefcase, Sylvie pointed a finger at Charles. “The JBX project halts right now. I’ll see you in court if necessary, but we are not proceeding till some new ground rules are set.”
Charles started to protest, then indicated with a motion of his hand that he acquiesced. “Let’s give it a week, then meet together with our lawyers.”
“In the meantime, you’ll do nothing.”
“I’ll do nothing,” he promised. “But JBX is too promising to discontinue. Agreed?”
She inclined her head in compliance.
Sylvie left the building and the parking lot as soon as she could, still unable to comprehend the full significance of this latest turn of events. She wasn’t sure what all the effects would be, but one thing was certain: She was devastated by Luc’s deception.
She’d thought the possibility of Luc’s fathering Tee-John was bad, but this was worse. The “bad boy of the bayou” had proven just how bad he could be.