Cutie Pi (Holidays of Love Book 3) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cutie Pi

  by

  Ellen Mint

  Holidays of Love Series

  Gettin’ Lucky

  PSL

  Cutie Pi

  Inquisition Series

  Undercover Siren

  Fever

  Wild Ménage Series

  Reefcake

  Happily Ever Austen Series

  Pride & Pancakes

  Stand Alone

  Hog Wild

  Special Delivery

  Copyright © 2020 by Ellen Mint

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2020

  ASIN: B084KHSLJQ

  If you want to get in early to learn about my new books and deals, please join my newsletter to receive a free story.

  CHAPTER ONE

  3.1415926…

  The atrium overflowed with people in lab coats and the grant donors who made buying said lab coats possible. Voices spat small talk at the same decibel level as a riding lawnmower chewing up long grass beside a highway. And, in the middle of it all, stood me, my mind churning with my best coping mechanism.

  …5358979…

  “Trini?”

  Crap. Someone wanted to talk to me. Was it someone important? How should I start? Mention my research? Or the weather? They say to start with the weather.

  I twisted on my Converse heels straight into a pair of eyes bursting with stars. Not literally, of course. Stars are massive spheres of plasma composed of hydrogen and helium, and he was…probably not made of gas balls. But on his verdant iris field, I’d swear specks of yellow sparkled as if stars hid in his eyes.

  Not that I would ever tell that to my lab partner. “Nolan,” I said, then grimaced. Were we supposed to use formal names for this party? I tried to mentally scrawl back through the email that ordered us all here but drew a blank on the formality.

  A soft laugh rolled off his tongue. Ph.D. candidate Nolan Smith raised a finger to point at the plate clutched in my hands. “What do you think?”

  I darted down to find golden apples oozing off the flaky crust, my fork nervously shredding the filling apart. “It’s…” Slicing through the pie, I crammed a massive bite in my mouth and attempted the impossible—chewing and speaking simultaneously.

  “Very good,” slurped from my lips while I tried to keep the crumbs inside with the use of my wrist. “The texture is…”

  Nolan swept a palm across his hair, causing the sheered brown locks to waft. He was a man of much congruency. While soft-spoken and well versed in oncological studies, he also looked to all the world like a jarhead fresh off a tour. Even adding a lab coat didn’t shake the image as it strained against the spread of his wide shoulders. Despite having far too much face for his features, in particular the mouth, he wasn’t unattractive either.

  His smile was dangerous. I’d forget how much while talking shop, only to have him whip it out on me and… Not that that ever happened. Or would. Because he has no interest in me whatsoever beyond a professional capacity.

  And he was still watching me eat pie.

  “Glad you like it,” Nolan said, his hands locked tight behind his back. He always stood at attention, again hinting at a military background. But all my internet sleuthing never found proof.

  “Wait.” Laying the fork beside the truly good pie I stared at him anew. “Did you make this?”

  “Yep, all five. The pecan gave me the most trouble. It didn’t want to set in this humidity.” He gestured to the banquet table usually filled with cookie trays from a local grocery store and a massive pot of Folgers. Instead, we were greeted with five delectable pies sliced up in far too tiny of slivers for the guests.

  Wow. I hadn’t so much as baked a muffin in my life. How did he have the time? Or energy? Or skill for that matter? “You’re very…” I began, when he flashed his starry eyes on me and my tongue dried to ash.

  Talented? Would that make him upset that I hadn’t noticed any previous pies brought to work functions?

  Skilled? Implying that I questioned his handling of lab work in comparison to baking?

  Well-trained? Come on, Trini, that makes him sound like a cocker spaniel.

  “…good,” I sputtered, my stomach sinking to the floor.

  I assumed he’d move on through the crowds and question other post-docs to see how they found his pastries. Post-docs who didn’t speak to other human beings like an AI chatbot programmed by a third-grader. But Nolan’s eyes remained on me and his voice darkened. “You’d be surprised.”

  I raised my head, my curiosity daring me to stare directly into his stars. That once shining face shadowed. A shiver rode the length of my spine and my fingers rattled the fork against the plate. What was he…?

  “Smith!”

  The gentle smile returned, obliterating my sudden delusion. It was only Nolan. Happy-go-lucky, pie-baking Nolan. “Sorry,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “but my professor calls.” With that, he slipped into the crowd, finding doctor Dalal.

  The professor slapped two hands around Nolan’s shoulders, and he tried to rock the man on his heels. “You wouldn’t believe the data we’re getting from his project…”

  I turned away, my stomach roiling at the idea of anyone grabbing me at random. Everyone knew Dalal was a gregarious man, always hugging and shaking hands. Thank God he wasn’t my boss.

  “Dr. Martinez,” the voice of my research god commanded from on high.

  “Yes…?” I began, straining my neck back to meet my professor’s face when I was struck by a GQ model instead. Skin as brown as mine—though the complexion was light years ahead—his face was designed to sell infinity scarves and leather bags. All cheekbones, to an unfair degree, and deep-set eyes with such wide irises they were a massive pool of burnt sienna.

  “Have you met Dr. Shiro Andersonn?” my boss asked while I stared slack-jawed at the man.

  “N-n-no,” my stutter flared up and I thrust my hand out for him.

  His eyes whipped down only a moment to my fingers nearly brushing against his sternum. A low rumble rose from his chest and his hands remained locked at his sides. “You are Doctor Martinez?” he asked, the voice crackling like a pack-a-day smoker.

  “Yes?” I glanced over at my boss but kept my periphery on this Shiro Andersonn. What an odd combination of names? That had to be quite the origin story.

  “He’s our newest post-Doc. Fresh from MIT, no less,” their boss continued to crow about the man who didn’t glance once to the person about to finance him.

  “Doctor Martinez,” Shiro intoned slowly, “what is your research?”

  “Oh.” I snickered, half my body prickling with heat and the other sweating from chills. “I’m working with RNF tools to help map cancer cells and other oncology-related genomes…”

&
nbsp; “I don’t care,” Dr. Andersonn interrupted, twisting my tongue for a loop from sliding into reciting the machine learning algorithms.

  “Wh…what?” I sputtered, leveling my gaze with the crystal windows towering above our heads. Refracted like a fly’s eyes, they cast prismatic light down upon the easily impressed. And I couldn’t stop chasing the shaft of rainbows as if I’d find a leprechaun to rescue me from this boiling stew of embarrassment. From the edge of my hunting, I caught Nolan flocked by dozens of important professors. But, despite the smile on his face, he was glaring in my direction.

  “What of your other work?” the voice yanked me back to the fresh Post-Doc. What other work? I was assisting a handful of masters students, but that hardly seemed worth…

  Shiro narrowed his gaze upon me. “The one with polynomials.”

  Shit.

  “How do you know about—?” My whole face shifted to plasma. I didn’t need a mirror to know I turned red up to my eyebrows.

  Coughing politely, my boss tried to intervene. “The logic experiment. Unimportant. A foolish little side project. Which isn’t to interfere—”

  “It doesn’t! It’s not. I’m…” So many sentence fragments from my boss could only mean that he was pissed. Not as if I was wasting any major resources puzzling the math problem out. Even if all of my colleagues laughed at the very idea I set out to solve.

  “Why don’t I introduce you to the dean?” he tried instead, but no amount of social tugging could turn Shiro away from me.

  The near-stranger loomed. Full-on ‘Dracula about to sink fangs into a swooning maiden’ loomed. “Your polynomial research, is it complete?”

  I nervously tapped my tongue against the roof of my mouth. Steam hissed from my boss’ neck collar. He clearly wanted the entire matter dropped and kicked to the curb, but I couldn’t not answer a question. “No,” eked from between my lips.

  Shiro snorted. “Inform me when you have. I am quite interested in such things.”

  Without another word, the new post-doc marched out. My boss called to him, asking if Shiro wanted to tour the lab, but he shot one last glance at me as if to say, ‘You better not have fucked this up, Martinez.’

  Shame swirled through my veins. Each small molecule was picked up by every red blood cell and carried straight to my heart. There it could be disseminated to the entirety of my body to drive home how utterly useless I was. How did Dr. Andersonn even learn about my side project? Were people talking again? Laughing about it in the breakroom? About me?

  A mysterious clanging, like the bells for a funeral, rang through my ears. Would my boss fire me? He’d been rather adamant I not waste time on such frivolous research, as if he wouldn’t gladly accept part of the million-dollar prize. But it wasn’t as if I had any hard data yet to prove my suspicions.

  Why couldn’t I get a handle on debugging people?

  Movement caught my eye and I realized my fork had been vibrating against the plate. I stopped, silencing the death peal, but not the churning in my heart. My stomach was too crammed with dread to allow anything more inside. A shame, as Nolan’s pie was delicious.

  With my head tipped low, I slid the half-eaten slice onto a table and vanished into the hall. The rest of the department carried on as if they didn’t even notice I’d left.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “LET ME RUN it again,” I said, leaning closer to the screen. In doing so, the trusty pen I kept notched on my shirt slipped free. It struck three keys, changing the code to gibberish and setting off another run cycle.

  Damn it! That never-ending shame churned through my gut and I froze, watching the numbers scroll to their endless doom.

  “Whoops.” A voice rolled in a laugh. I watched as his hand glanced across my keyboard, not that that would solve anything. We were already deep into losing ten minutes of useless code crashing. Oh. He picked up the wayward pen and raised it to my eyes.

  At magma levels of embarrassment, I swiveled my chair to come face to face with Nolan. Dr. Smith.

  Nolan, he insisted.

  The pen waggled at the tip as if he was challenging me to grab it. I stared transfixed at the movement almost forming a perfect infinity loop. Nolan blinked and his hand froze as if he hadn’t meant to do that. Thrusting the pen back to me, he said, “I’m guessing that’s a special one.”

  “Why?” I mumbled already sticking it back where it began.

  “Just…” He shrugged, his smile widening further while his stoic, military features all slid into place. They wanted to keep him stern, but he couldn’t cease grinning, obliterating the dour illusion. His rich voice dipped to a soft whisper. “You’re always wearing it.”

  “Oh, I…” It’s from undergrad. I got it when I signed up to join the engineering club which I lasted in for two weeks. I have no attachment beyond always using it and finding the USB drive in the end useful. “I’ve found it fits best here without…” Slowly, I pulled my finger from my collarbone straight down to my bulging ‘Mandelbrot set.’ If you know what I mean.

  Nolan followed the movement, as any mammal would, which left him staring right at my chest. Brilliant move, Trini. Truly Noble prize-worthy there.

  Gulping, I returned to the numbers doing their useless dance. Find a topic that doesn’t reveal how fumbling you were. “Did you watch it?”

  “Excuse me?” he asked.

  “The trilogy. Okay, it’s more a prequel that came out after the other two, then the original and a sequel. But they synch up fairly well.”

  The edge of his lips raised, digging crinkles beside his mouth to form a half-smile. “The space one?”

  “Yes. Yeah. The one that I suggested.” When he’d last collaborated with me, he mentioned wishing for something new to watch and I pulled out the old Tri-Wars. Dated, especially in the effects department, but solid storytelling and characters…if one ignored the reliance on silver bikinis for all the female aliens.

  Nolan winced and rubbed a hand against his pristine chin. “I’m afraid I don’t go in for the space stuff.”

  “Oh.” My voice deadened as I raced to not sound disappointed. What would I care if he wasn’t a sci-fi nerd? No nerd at all. Look at him? Nerds didn’t have jawlines that could cleave diamonds. Usually.

  “But I did watch that elf and dwarf one you kept quoting?”

  “Last Sword of Gilain?” I tried to not squeal in surprise. That wasn’t a movie but a massive series that stretched into ten seasons.

  “Yes. I quite preferred the bard Drager.”

  “Did you get to the part where he…?”

  “Was secretly a dragon the whole time?”

  My heart fluttered while my brain dredged up the million-and-one facts I knew about the old serial. Not just the show but the books, the comics, and that one breakfast cereal tie-in. “I freaking adore his singing goat. Whoever thought to include that in the show was a genius. In the books, it was just a sword which like, please, we’ve all seen that before.”

  “Right. Yes, we have,” Nolan said cautiously, his words prickling my ears.

  Don’t make it all about you. “I mean,” I snickered, “what did you like most about him?”

  “The dragon part, mostly. Breathing fire on his enemies was…cool.” Nolan’s eyes drifted down from mine, a fact I barely noticed until he didn’t look up. What was…?

  Oh, god. In my excitement, I’d clamped my hands around his. Both of them. Warm, strong fingers hung tight in mine. The backs of his hands sported those manly veins prodding out of rough skin. What would it feel like to trace them clear across his body, up his arms, over his chest until reaching the heart…?

  Stop being weird.

  “S…” The sorry clogged in my throat and I released him. Fumbling for anything to do with my hands, I tried brushing back my hair that was already in a safety bun.

  “Were there any other dragons in the show?” he asked as if I didn’t grab him out of nowhere.

  “Um.” I tapped my tongue on the roof of my mouth while tryi
ng to remember. “Yes, an ice dragon and an electricity one. Oh, but they weren’t in the show. It was canceled before getting that far.”

  “Hmph.” Nolan snorted as if he’d been invested in such a thing. Folding his arms tight to his chest he said, “Isn’t that always the way?”

  “But they did appear in the comics! I’ve got some of them and could show you?”

  His starry eyes lit up as he focused fully on me. “Really?”

  “Maybe, um, maybe we could make a night of it. Start at the curry place on fifth for takeout—”

  “Ah,” he spoke over my getting to the comic book portion. The curtain slammed down in an instant, as the hot man figuratively ran away from the babbling nerd. “I’m afraid that I cannot. Busy, super busy with my work here. Which I should be getting back to, in fact. Perhaps another time?”

  “Sure,” slipped from my tongue, my face knotted into the simulacrum of a smile. Everyone’s happy. No problems whatsoever. As Nolan walked to the door, I gave a stupid wave with my fingers like I was on a parade float.

  When my office door closed, I collapsed to my desk. What were you doing? My self-flagellation was cut short by my laptop chirping. On reflex, I answered the call and—even through my face merging with the desk—I spotted my sister. While I moaned in my three-day-old bun, Ava wore her hair lightened to a caramel blond in one of those Brazilian blow things. She outmatched my math pun t-shirt decorated in tabbouleh stains with a French pantsuit. We stopped being identical twins the second she got a credit card.

  “I see you’re doing well,” Ava said from her lofty office halfway across the country. I limply held up my thumb and buried my face deeper into my desk.

  “Have you heard from Diego?”

  I rotated my head in a no, then risked glancing up. “Why? What’s he done now?” Technically, I was both a triplet and twin. My identical twin sister was a business guru who charmed all she met. Our fraternal brother was probably in a motorcycle gang protesting to save sea lions. He was all metal studs, leather, and dozens of tattoos that sent our abuelita chasing him for three blocks on foot.