Sheltering His Desire (14 page)

She pulled up the crowd-funding admin page.
Donations spilled in slowly. A couple a day, but nowhere near what
they’d need to meet their goal before their deadline. The largest
donation—the anonymous one that had come in first—still sat at the
top of the page. Taunting her. Something clicked in her thoughts as
she studied the number. Something Jared had said the other day?
Mikki had discovered…

She couldn’t grasp the idea. It would come to
her. Right now, she needed to concentrate on work, and not losing
the shelter. The rest could wait.

*

Tate had a love hate relationship with short
work weeks. On the one hand, taking Monday off meant all the good,
obvious things like extra time away from work. On the other hand,
it also meant five days of work compressed into four, and always
feeling like he was a day behind. He scanned the messages waiting
for him when he got into the office Wednesday morning. His eyes
grew wide when he saw the newsletter from NetSafe Systems. He
subscribed to all manner of industry mailing lists as part of his
job, so getting the email wasn’t the surprise. It was the content.
NetSafe Systems announces their newest offering—crowd-funding
for your small business!

Tate’s irritation grew as he read the rest of
the promo. Most of it was standard hype. It was the mentions of
heightened security, twenty-four-seven community managers, and a
fool-proof comment system. On top of all that, this was the first
he’d heard of it.

He clenched his fist, glaring at the screen.
He’d expected them to compete, it was what they did. The phrasing
in the message gnawed at him, though. Heightened security. The
phrase repeated in his thoughts.

Fuck. Time to take a stroll. Seconds later he
stood a few doors down, in front of Vivian’s office. She looked up
at the knock, and gave him a half smile. “What’s up?”

He took the chair across from her desk,
pulled up the message on his phone, and slid it across to her.
“What do you think?”

As she scanned, her lips drew into a thin
line. She handed the device back to him. “So they already know what
happened to you on Saturday.”

“I assume. So much for non-disclosure
agreements, right?” His question was flat.

“They could have seen the issues. All your
sites were dragging.”

Tate spit out his theory. “Could have seen,
may have caused…”

She pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Childish, unethical assholes,” she muttered, and dialed a number
on her desk phone.

“Yup?” Mikki answered.

Tate leaned in to speak. “The slowdown on
Saturday. Can you take another look and see if there’s anything
suspicious about it.”

“There was.” Mikki’s answer came too quickly.
“Someone tried to take a bunch of websites offline that weren’t
doing anything but sitting out there all happy and boring
like.”

Tate might have laughed at the dry retort, if
his suspicion and concern weren’t mounting. “We’re looking for more
than that. A fingerprint.”

“Give me ten.” Mikki disconnected.

Tate leaned back in the chair, closed his
eyes, and rubbed his forehead. He didn’t do spite, but he still
hoped if NSS was behind this, they’d left an ugly trail. Something
else to crucify them with, in the upcoming civil case.

“Did you end things yet?” V asked.

Of course. She was back on the conversation
from lunch last week with Lys. The last person he needed to be
thinking about, and the one name constantly lingering at the back
of his mind. Acknowledging her name sent a flood of memories
through his thoughts, teasing him. He straightened, and met her
gaze. “Pretty sure it’s none of your business. But yes.”

“No need to get defensive. I just missed
seeing you both at the party on Monday.” She said it so simply, as
if it were the most innocent question ever.

“I couldn’t tell you where she was.” He
couldn’t say her name. Her voice in his head was already wreaking
havoc on his senses. And it was true, he didn’t know where she’d
gone after she left the country club, though he still wished he
could have gone with her.

Instead of replying, V looked over his
shoulder, eyes focusing on something behind him.

Seconds later, Mikki claimed the chair next
to him. “It’s not what you think, but it is a good thing you had me
look. Someone is screwing with your config, and they did it again
today. Your bandwidth has been severely limited.”

That didn’t make sense. Tate mulled over the
comment. “Someone is intentionally going in there and slowing my
sites down. Over and over?”

Mikki nodded. “They’ve tweaked the work we
did over the weekend, not as thoroughly as before, but someone’s
restricted access for your clients.”

“Fantastic.” Sarcasm dripped from Tate’s
voice. “Like, who?”

Mikki quirked her mouth to the side, and
shrugged. “One of Jared’s people. Whoever’s got access to your
servers, which is all of them. I’d ask if you pissed off upper
management, but since you are…”

Could Marge be choking his sites, to force
the crowdfunding site to fail? The thought surged into Tate’s head,
sounding absolutely ludicrous. This was still business, and even if
she didn’t like the idea, it was still surging toward successful,
despite the problems.

“Do you want more?” Mikki asked.

V looked at Tate, apology in her eyes. “I’m
sorry. After hours, maybe, but she’s got her own work to do.”

“I get it; it’s fine. Thanks for looking.”
Tate sank lower in his seat. He needed to get to the bottom of
this.

The moment Mikki was gone, V turned back to
Tate. “Look, I know Alyssia is everyone’s favorite baby sister. But
this is business, and you need to consider shutting her down.”

Tate was getting sick of hearing that. “It’s
not just business.” The retort came out sharper than he intended.
He needed to dial it back.

“It should be.”

Tate rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I
mean. She’s running an animal shelter, and they do good things.
This isn’t just about a bottom line. What about all those
animals?”

“I’m not heartless.” Vivian’s expression
softened. “I’ll write them a check. I’m surprised you haven’t done
the same.”

“She won’t take my money. I’d fund the entire
operation if I could.”

Vivian raised her brows. “Strictly for the
puppies?”

“Of course.”

“If she won’t take a perfectly legitimate
donation, maybe Alyssia’s the problem. I hate to say that, and I
know you don’t want to hear it. But if you do this emotionally,
people are going to get fucked.”

Tate dug his fingers into his leg, and
squeezed in frustration. V was wrong. He knew it. He just couldn’t
figure out what was right.

When Tate stepped through the front door to
the shelter, a painful sense of déjà vu washed over him. He shook
his head to clear out the thought. The boarded up window already
had his anxiety cranked to max. He’d been out since after lunch,
dropping off paperwork with all their crowd-funding site pilot
groups, and the shelter was last on his list. Because Lys’s shift
didn’t start until later, of course. No other reason.

Sara’s smile looked forced when she glanced
up from her computer. “You might not want to go back there.”

He nodded at the window. “Something I should
know first?”

“That was a rock last night. Our friendly
neighborhood picketers.” Her usually chipper tone was flat. “But
that’s not the problem.”

“Okay?”

“She did a rebuttal piece with the news
station last night. It aired about ten minutes ago.”

An invisible hand clenched around Tate’s
chest. “Do I want details?”

Sara just shook her head. “I heard some kind
of primal-scream-type yelling. She’s not answering her phone, and
when I tried to check on her, she told me to go away. You should
probably check on her.”

Tate was already moving toward Alyssia’s
office, adrenaline pumping through him at a painful clip. She
didn’t look up when he stepped inside and closed the door behind
him. Her attention was on her feet, as she traveled from one end of
the office to the other, and then back.

Every impulse he’d struggled to suppress
since Monday. The desire to protect her, to keep her safe, to wrap
her up and never let go, flooded through him. “Lys.”

She jumped and whirled to face him. Her eyes
narrowed. “What?”

Not the reception he’d expected, but it was
fair, all things considered. “Are you all right?”

Her laugh was bitter and sharp. “Your powers
of perception are slipping if you don’t already know the answer to
that.” She shook her head and resumed pacing. “But since it’s not
obvious, no. I’m not fucking all right.”

Anger. He could deal with that. It meant
she’d talk, and he could find a solution. “Fill me in.”

“Is there something about me that screams
stupid? Or gullible?”

“Absolutely not.”

She finally looked him the eye. “In that
case, tell me something, and be honest.”

“Of course.” He was losing control of the
conversation, and he didn’t like that. But he couldn’t think of any
alternative but to go along with things until he uncovered more of
the situation.

“Did Sara tell you what was going on?”

The question was too easy. That couldn’t be
where things were going. “She gave me a brief run-down. I figured
I’d get details from you.”

“How many times since you walked in the front
door have you told yourself you’d fix this?” Her lips twisted in
irritated amusement. “How many different ways are you thinking
you’ll
make this better?”

Tate didn’t know what bothered him more—that
she’d crawled into his head and plucked the thoughts out so
succinctly, or her irritation when she asked about it.
“
We’ll
make it better.”

She shook her head, kicked out her office
chair, and dropped into it. “I did what you told me not to. I
talked to the news station. That crowd outside gets larger every
day, and our numbers have slumped off noticeably in the last few
days. I had to do something.”

Tate had to clench his jaw to keep from
interrupting.

“And they slaughtered me. Took everything I
said out of context. Almost all of their footage was of the people
on the sidewalk. What little they showed of me was clipped to make
it look like I only do this to make people suffer. I take their
pets in, never give them back, and call the police on the people I
don’t like. They spun it that way.”

It was Thompson’s TV station. What had she
expected? “Call your lawyer. It’s slander.”

She slammed her hands on the desk hard enough
to shake the floor. “I know it’s fucking slander. The damage is
done. And so help me, if you’re thinking you need to rein me in,
and make me calm down, I’ll have Ricco throw you out.”

Once again, he was bothered she’d read him so
easily. “You’re not solving anything this way.” He struggled to
keep his tone cool and calm.

“You think?” She breathed deep. Her chin
quivered, and she clenched her hands into fists several times. She
scrubbed the back of her hand across her cheeks and eyes. “None of
this is solving anything.” The fire in her voice wilted, faded, and
ended in a crack. “Your ideas aren’t exactly batting one-thousand
either. If the site keeps taking donations at this rate, it’ll be
twenty-fifty before I’ve raised enough for the shelter
expansion.”

The conversation with Vivian tickled his
memory. “So let me write you a check. I can get that out of the way
now, and then we can focus on the legal problems, and setting
things right.”

“Let you. You can get. Do you hear yourself?
I don’t want you to make this all vanish. Nothing gets better if
you sweep your magic money wand over the entire situation.”

“Where’s this coming from?” He’d been cold at
the party on Monday, and he owed her an apology for that, but this
didn’t seem even remotely related.

“You can’t bail me out for the rest of my
life, Tate. What happens when we grow apart?”

The question burrowed under his skin and
drilled a hole into his thoughts. A wave of cold passed over him.
“Why would we grow apart?” It was a stupid question. Of course they
would. He’d just never thought about it before. Not seriously.

She tugged on her hair. “You keep talking
about this mysterious Mister Right that I’m going to end up with.
Do you think things are going to stay the same between us when he
comes along? That we’ll all be best buds, and our relationship
won’t change?”

She was just spitting his own words back at
him. Reiterating the future he’d always seen for her. The one that
didn’t include him. But hearing her acknowledge it sank into his
feet like concrete. He’d never hated an idea more.

“I’m not like you.” She continued. “I don’t
like the idea of growing old alone. My life plan has never included
not getting attached. I want kids, and a happy marriage, and a
house with a big enough yard for dogs and cats. Maybe that does
mean I’m stupid or gullible, but that doesn’t stop me from
hoping.”

He couldn’t think about her entire statement.
Taking it in its entirety jumbled his thoughts. He zeroed in on the
bits he could grasp. “I won’t be alone. I’ll have my friends.”

“That’s all fine and good. But it’s not the
same.” She stared at him, gaze driving into his soul, as if she
searched for something he was certain didn’t exist. “Friends are
great. But I want more.”

How had this gone from being a conversation
about the shelter, to the rest of their lives? He wanted to switch
the conversation back to something more neutral. Bring it back to a
place he understood and that didn’t make him ill. Something told
him that wasn’t an option. Even though he’d always known her future
was somewhere else, even though he’d been repeating it in his head
and out loud for the last week, hearing her say it felt like
betrayal. It wasn’t fair to tell her that, though. Because she was
right, and any other answer was selfish. “You’re right. You deserve
that. You deserve more.”