Chella's Quest [NOOK Book]

Sarto slid a bony finger along her cheek. "You lost it, my sweet. You find it."

Chella resisted the urge to jerk her head away from her supervisor's touch. "But someone stole it from me. From us." She looked past his shoulder and focused on her reflection in the mirror. Without her lab coat and goggles, Dr. Chella Ter-Berron might actually pass as attractive. Maybe even sexy. The stylist Sarto had hired was worth every krontar.

Her limp brown hair now looked darker than a starless night on Promethia. The stylist had fused ringlets into Chella's straggly locks and colored her new mane midnight black. Wild spirals framed her face and cascaded down her back. The ebony curls shimmered with purple highlights that matched the violet in her eyes. A tight crimson gown hugged her curves and identified her as a pleasure worker. Creamy flesh, untouched by the suns of her home planet, glowed against the red of the low-cut bodice.

She turned back to Sarto and nibbled her bottom lip. "Why not use a corporate enforcer? This is the kind of thing they live for."

He chuckled. "This little project is top secret. Only you and I know about it."

Something knotted in her gut. The enforcers knew everything that went on at Divuli Industries. Every drug being created. Every prototype being tested. Why would Sarto hire an elite security force and keep them in the dark about their most important project?

Chella pushed these disturbing thoughts aside. The possibility of having sex with two strangers--possibly at the same time--worried her more. And stealing back the prototype T-56 file, if the men even had it, could land her in a detentionterritory for the rest of her life.

Sarto had demanded that she leave no paper trail at the company headquarters, and nothing in the file would prove she alone had created a drug so perfect it would make pain a thing of the past.

She thought of the knockout pills in her purse and her plan to use them before the sex started. "But what if the KO pills don't work? What if the men expect to get what they paid for?"

Sarto laughed. "Then pod them and enjoy yourself." His hand reached out for her cheek again. "There's a reason why they call this orbital a pleasure station." Cold, trembling fingers trailed down to her neck and toyed with the strap at her shoulder. "And if they don't satisfy you, you can always come back here..."

She ordered herself not to flinch. "I don't believe that kind of service is in my contract."

"I'm flexible. Think of it as your reward for finding the missing prototype."

"Finding the T-56 will be reward enough." She hoped Sarto hadn't detected the quaver in her voice. He practically owned her. Signing on the dotted line without consulting a lawyer was, without a doubt, the dumbest thing she had ever done. Until tonight.

Sarto's eyes scanned her body and lingered on her chest. She crossed her arms in a lame attempt to cover her breasts and felt a slow burn scorch her cheeks as the pale flesh rose over the bodice.

"You're too nervous, Chella," he chided. "Do yourself a favor and take an Ardorex. Otherwise, they'll think you're a very squeamish whore."

Corporate whore. She wondered how that would look on her resume. She'd practically sold herself to Divuli Industries to pay for advanced semesters at the Academy. And now she was selling herself to two men to get back the thing that mattered most to her. The thing that would put her name down in the annals of scientific history. She held out her palm.

"Good girl." He turned to the berth computer and placed the order. Three small white pills appeared on the console.

"How many should I take?"

"One every two hours."

Chella gasped. "I thought this, um, encounter would only last thirty minutes. Forty-five at the most."

"Maybe for the puny Rundian named Seth. But Kain Suvan is a Cruthian male in his prime. You may have to order more."

She hobbled gracelessly in her high heels to get the pills and dropped them into her tiny matching purse. With one last look in the mirror at the Chella who had some self-respect, she turned and headed for the door.