Love According to Science_ A Hot Enemies-t-Lovers Romantic Comedy (Dirty Martini Running Club #2) - Claire Kingsley Page 0,20

was due to the fact that we were both new here. It was a logical reason, and I was happy to let Elliott keep thinking it. The rational grown-up inside me didn’t want to have to explain to my boss that the thought of working closely with Corban made me feel like the blood in my veins had been replaced with lava.

Corban raked his fingers through his hair. “Okay.”

Did he have to act so miserable about it? Was working with me the worst thing that had ever happened to him? Of course, I wasn’t showing any enthusiasm either.

Still, it stung, even though I knew very well that it shouldn’t.

“All right,” I said. “When do we get started?”

“Immediately,” Elliott said with a satisfied smile and opened his folder. “Let’s go over the details.”

My arm ached from creaming butter and sugar. I had a stand mixer, but I’d opted for some old-fashioned elbow grease. I made a mental note to research the etymology of the expression elbow grease. It was an odd turn of phrase when I thought about it, one I surmised had its origins in agriculture or perhaps the Industrial Revolution.

With my large glass mixing bowl braced in the crook of my right arm, I stirred furiously with my left, whipping the soft butter and sugar into a smooth mixture.

The oven beeped, letting me know it had finished preheating. Erwin twitched his ears at the noise, lifting his face and blinking his green eyes at me.

“It’s just the oven,” I said, still stirring.

Erwin lifted a single gray paw and licked between his claws a few times. He sat on the floor just outside the entrance to the kitchen, where carpet met linoleum. He only came into the kitchen to eat—or to escape capture—seeming to prefer the softness of the rug. His long gray fur spread out around him, making him appear larger than he was.

Glancing into the bowl, I studied the texture of the butter and sugar mixture. Deeming it smooth enough, I set the bowl on the counter and shook out my tired hand.

“Erwin, what am I going to do?” I started measuring dry ingredients and carefully pouring them into a second bowl. “I have to work with him. How can I work with that man? He’s… well, he’s… I mean, really, he’s so…”

I didn’t know what to say. Not that Erwin understood. Nor did he reply. He didn’t, as a general rule, which was only to be expected considering his feline nature. Despite the illogic of holding one-sided conversations with a cat, I did so regularly. I told myself it was fine because I was fully aware of what I was doing. Talking to an animal as if it were a person wasn’t crazy if you didn’t expect them to answer.

Truthfully, I found it comforting.

“He’s a pain in my ass,” I said, finally. I picked up my martini and took a sip.

Usually baking relaxed me. I liked the precision of it. Proper baking required exact measurements to produce the right chemical reactions during the heating process. And the products of my labor had their own, delicious appeal.

But whipping up a batch of my signature chocolate chip cookies wasn’t making me feel better.

My persistent sexual frustration wasn’t helping my mood. I cast an irritated glance at my bedroom, just down the short hallway. The most recent accessory I’d tried had been as useless as the rest of my growing collection of self-pleasuring technology.

I picked up the bowl of butter and sugar and stirred it more, just for good measure.

“Obviously I’m excited at the prospect of working in the motion capture lab. And surely this experience will strengthen my grant application. We both know how important that is.”

I was excited to work on Elliott’s study. But my professional goals included doing my own research. That was another reason I’d taken the job at Woodward College. Elliott was highly supportive of his staff pursuing their research interests. To that end, I was working on a grant application. It was quite competitive, but I was confident I had a solid chance at securing the funding. And I certainly wasn’t going to let Corban Nash get in the way of that.

“What do you think, Erwin? Am I being too hard on him?” I put down the bowl and cracked an egg into the sugar-butter mixture. “There’s just something about him. It’s like he knows exactly how to get under my skin and drive me crazy. How does he do it? We haven’t even