Dancing with Deception by Avery Gale Read Free Book Online Page A

disrespectful, but you have to remember I was raised by a father who didn’t suffer weakness well. He was loving, but he didn’t believe coddling served any purpose. Fear and uncertainty were seen as weaknesses that needed to be concealed or they’d be used against you.”
    She hated seeing the looks of sympathy on their faces, this was exactly why she rarely opened up to anyone about her father. It would be wrong to say he didn’t care about her—he absolutely did, in his own limited way. Joelle counted her blessings every single day because her life could have certainly been far different had her father chosen to leave her in the care of boarding schools like so many of her friends’ parents had done. Instead, he’d taken an almost fanatical interest in her education, assuring her success was what you earned not what you inherited.
    Phoenix was the one who finally broke the uncomfortable silence. “Why don’t you tell us how you ended up in Pine Creek? And sweetheart, you need to make sure it’s the whole story and not the abbreviated version you told me when you wanted the upgraded security system installed.” Joelle knew without asking Phoenix had done his homework. Damn, he probably knows more about me than I do.
    Looking at the four men watching her, Joelle had a flash of the old movies where glaring spotlights were pointed at a woman tied to a chair. The intense lights blinding her to the deep, mysterious voices barking questions from beyond her view. They might not be shouting their inquiries, but their body language told her they intended to wring every detail from her. Taking a deep breath, Joelle started by explaining exactly what her position at Phillips Pharmaceuticals had been, and how important the research element had been to her personally. Having lost her mother to cancer as a young child, Joelle had been driven by the desire to prevent other kids from suffering the same loss.
    “I’ll spare you all the chemical details, but the important thing is the formula showed remarkable potential from the very beginning. And by the time I’d refined it, the results were truly astonishing. Best of all it’s almost entirely organic so the number of people who won’t tolerate the treatment it will be a fractional sample.” She paused for a few seconds trying to refocus on the story because her emotions were starting to get involved. The potential for her discovery was so enormous, Joelle honestly had trouble understanding how the board could ignore the social responsibility accompanying a discovery of this magnitude.
    “At what point did you share your findings with your father and the board?” Phoenix asked a question she suspected he already knew the answer to. But, she was grateful he’d brought her focus back to recounting the facts. It was so easy to get bogged down in the emotional quagmire of the board’s rejection, and going down that road wasn’t going to help.
    “The results were well documented before I shared them. There wasn’t any question but that we’d found a formula that could change the entire landscape of cancer treatment. To be honest, I was completely blown away by their response. Sure, I knew there would be factions of the medical community that wouldn’t be thrilled. After all, we’re talking about a multi-billion dollar industry. I wasn’t naïve enough to think there wouldn’t be huge financial implications. But I was completely unprepared for the vehemence of their reaction.” Her dad had supported her but in the end, the board’s demand she scrap the project remained. “Of course, I tried to make it appear as though I’d accepted their decision but truthfully I’m not a very good actress.” Glancing at Nate, she grimaced. “As you may have already noticed.”
    Joelle felt her cheeks heat in embarrassment, and they felt like they’d been set on fire when Master Nate chuckled. But his words warmed her heart, “Darling girl, being genuine is a blessing. It’s