Messerschmitt, if that offer to learn more about the business is still on the table, my fiancée and I would love to learn all about the dry-cleaning ...usiness. She's going to get an accounting certificate from the local college, and will become my bookkeeper when the time comes. I'm very eager to learn all that you know — I'm certain that you've forgotten more about the business than I'll ever learn, but I'm yours — if you'll have me?"The next morning, my fiancée and I slept late. I found a note. "Heh, seems like you really like it," Nicole said. "Why don't you bring the bottle with you?"Whoa, George thought as bubbles of light-headedness trickled up through his brain. He was probably going to regret this come tomorrow morning. Against his better judgment he picked up the bottle anyway. Damn stuff was so moreish.Nicole led him through the back of her house. It seemed a lot larger than it had looked from the outside. And deeper. She led him down some steps and into a maze-like basement. I had come here to get a degree in Physics and play with quarks and neutrinos for the rest of my life. After I'd been splashed in the face with all that cold math, I'd dialed my career back to Astronomy. I was never going to be a nuclear physicist. Brandy could be, if she wanted. She was pretty smart.I had let go of her face and I leaned back. "I have to admit I've never won a beauty contest. In fact, I've never even entered one. Nobody ever called me a pretty-boy." Ah, but Sir Robert, of all. Behind her came a booming, "I'mTaurus."She turned and saw a man standing six and a half feet tall, withrippling muscles and a scowl on his face that made her flinch in fear.He grabbed Binary into a deep hug and kissed her cheek. The six did notdare say a word about the affection, none of them dared to upset Taurus.Binary's nanites didn't react to him in the least. There was somethingabout him that made them sense that he wasn't a threat to her and lether feel his strength and warmth rather than.