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“No, it’s not. Only half of your twenty-nine million even know their headaches are migraines to begin with. Only half of those will seek help from a physician, and less than half of those might be prescribed a drug like this one. Another percentage will never fill the prescription. There are barely enough adult sufferers to make a new migraine drug viable. There are not enough children.”
“To make the medicine viable? You mean profitable.”
“I mean viable. Can it begin to recoup the millions—the hundreds of millions—that were spent on bringing it to the local drugstore? I estimate that only one in five drugs that makes it to the public sells enough pills to cover the cost of inventing it in the first place.”
“I’m talking patients here. There may not be a lot of them, but there are children out there who suffer terribly from migraines. They’re in pain, Braden. They can’t play and go to school. What about them?”
At the moment, Braden hated his job with a passion. Why did he have to be the one destroying Lana’s dreams? Let someone else disillusion her.
She kept championing her cause. “The adult medicines don’t work well to relieve the pain for children. Most of the treatments aren’t even FDA approved for pediatric use—”
“As it should be. They don’t work well in pediatrics. Lana, step back and look at the big picture. When the first one or two migraine medicines ran pediatric studies, they failed. They didn’t work. Why should the other drugs in the same class throw time and money down the same drain?”
“Money. Always money. What about the patients?”
“I am thinking about patients. There is only so much money out there. What should we spend it on? Who needs it most?” He’d heard her words a dozen times before. She’d always maintained that if he cared about people, he’d be a physician, not a corporate executive.
He felt himself sucked into a time warp of sorts. Felt himself once more losing the woman he loved as she accused him of placing money before all else.
As he had a dozen times before, he tried to make her understand. “This is what I do, Lana. These are the life-and-death decisions I make now. Should I fund a pediatric migraine study that might—and I emphasize might—improve the quality of life for a fraction of a percent of all children? Or should I take those same funds—because by God, there are only so many dollars out there—should I take those same funds and invest them to develop a cardiac medicine that could prevent millions of deaths?”
He was standing, he realized, as was she. They were glaring into each other’s eyes, battling for supremacy. Again. Always.
“You make that call, Lana. Should I help three million kids who have episodes of pain, or should I help eighty million adults, the parents and grandparents of those children, who are facing death? You choose, because I don’t have enough money to do both.”
She stayed silent, but she didn’t back down, not in her body language, and not in her glare. Why had he thought this time would be different?
Braden berated himself for letting her bait him into this debate. None of it mattered. Their entire conversation wasn’t going to change the fact that PLI was withdrawing further funding. He wasn’t going to throw more money at an unlikely solution to what amounted to a rare problem in the universe of medical crises.
And Lana was not going to understand him now any more than she’d understood him then. He’d had six years to stop wanting her to understand him. Wanting her to respect his career. Wanting her to trust him, to support him.
Wanting her.
She was so damned vibrant, so passionate, so beautiful. The temptation to end this match with a crushing kiss was overwhelming. That physical attraction had become a crutch for them, toward the end. They couldn’t agree on their careers and their future, so they’d fall into bed and have silent, soul-searing sex.
In Lana’s opinion, they’d had sex one time too many. The last time had had consequences neither of them had been ready for.
Still, he found himself craving the smoothness of her skin, the curves of her body, the surrender of herself. Six years hadn’t been long enough apart. He needed another six to kill his desire for Lana Donnoli—and he wasn’t going to spend it waiting for absolution and understanding in this conference room.
“I regret to inform you that Plaine Laboratories International has decided to end all trials of NDA zero two one zero six one. West Central’s contract will expire in accordance with our prior arrangements, and no renewals will be pursued. Goodbye, Dr. Donnoli.”
* * *
Braden’s decision was final. Lana knew it; she watched him close his laptop case with a single click of a lock.
He’s leaving, and I failed.
The expression on his face was no longer fierce, no longer focused on her. He looked withdrawn. Remote. He was already gone, although he was still in the room with her. Then he picked up his briefcase and was gone for real. The door closed after him with a firm, controlled click.
I failed him.
Him? Not only the hospital, but him?
Somehow, he’d been disappointed in her, yet Braden had no right to expect anything from her. What had he wanted?
Professionally, her failure was simple to define. She’d failed to keep this hospital’s study going. Failed in her new responsibility to get financing for the research branch of West Central Texas Hospital.
Is it west or is it central? You can’t have both.
She couldn’t have the migraine trials, but could she have something else instead? They had the facilities. They had the staff, the patient flow—there must be other studies that PLI needed a site like West Central for. There were other funds she could secure for her department.
She stopped debating with herself and started walking after Braden. Quickly. She needed to talk to him today, before he walked out of the hospital completely, like he’d once walked out of her life.
Breathless from catching up to his much longer strides, she followed him to the bank of elevators. The doors started to slide open before she could reach him.
“Braden, don’t go!”
The back of his head jerked up, just a bit. He turned her way and stood still, not moving away from the elevator, but not stepping into the car, either. She was suddenly so afraid he might leave without her, she jogged the last few steps to him and put her hand on his sleeve.
“Don’t go yet. Please.”
He placed his warm hand over hers. There was a clear question in his eyes, a concerned tilt of his head, a softening of the hard mask of his face. “Why not, Lana?”
“I want a second chance. I want to talk to you about PLI.”
He removed his hand to stab the button to recall the elevator. “The decision is made. I can’t explain it any better. If you don’t understand, that’s your problem.”
“No—no, that’s just it. I do understand. PLI only has a limited amount of research dollars to go around. But I want a second chance.”
The elevator doors opened and Braden walked into the waiting car, away from her. She followed, grateful that the car was empty.
“Listen, Braden, please. I just got into town. Dr. Montgomery walked out, literally, minutes after I arrived this morning. I haven’t had a chance to get my bearings or take stock of what we have here, but I know West Central has a lot to offer in the way of research facilities and staff, far more than it did when we were residents here.”
She made her best case while she had him trapped in the elevator. “Give me the rest of today to review my department. PLI and West Central can use each other, I’m sure of it. You must have dozens of studies under way,