“Sounds like you may have met your match.”
“Fiona, I think I’m off the market for good.”
Her eyes bulge. “That’s…that’s good news.”
I’m not sure what she thinks with that response, but I don’t care.
“Call this woman’s lawyer and let them know if we have a blood match after the baby is born, I’ll pay her a million dollars plus an additional hundred thousand a month. But I promise you, that is not my kid, so I’m not giving her a penny until we test again.”
I leave Fiona’s office with a black cloud over me. I don’t mean to be an ass, but I have not slept with that woman. Yes, she seems to know how I operate, but that only means we know someone in common—not that I slept with her.
When the car arrives at the office, I don’t even notice. “Sir, is this where you want to be?” Greg asks.
I look up at the building and realize where I am. “Yes, sorry. Thank you.”
I hop out and walk into the office, trying to put aside what happened this morning. Upstairs, I go in search of Gage and his team. I find them with deep, dark circles under their eyes and wearing the same clothes from yesterday.
“How’s it going?” I ask.
I get the rundown on their many unsuccessful attempts at fixing the router and the network issues.
My blood pressure rises. “Do you think this is a sabotage attempt to slow us down? Or is it someone stealing the software?”
Gage sighs. “I think it’s both. We’ve figured out what might have been stolen from the original Disruptive software, but we’re struggling with why the reboot keeps happening. We have a mirror image of Tinsley’s computer, and we’re running it in a controlled environment, but something is still causing the reboot. The only advantage is that none of the information has been shared. It’s like the reboot is a fail-safe.”
“Could that be embedded in the software she’s using for her coding?”
“I don’t think so. I usually call in the big guns at SHN, but Cameron hasn’t called me back.”
I know why. He’s with the five-foot-six-inch dynamo that gets my dick hard. “I’ll see what I can do. You all look miserable. I’m glad I didn’t pick up any coffee. You need to go home and get some sleep.”
I walk back out to the car and have Greg drive me over to SHN. When I arrive, I’m shown to the conference room where four people are already working.
“Hey, welcome. Everything go okay this morning?” Tinsley asks.
I nod. I’m surprised at how in tune she is to me. “Nothing to worry about. How are things here?”
She studies me carefully. “I’ve divided up the code. Cameron and his team are working through the dictionary part. I’m taking the oldest code. You can help me if you have the ability, but if you need to do other things, don’t worry. I can do it.”
“Happy to help.” I turn to Cameron. “Gage is in our office having an issue and is looking for you.”
Cameron nods and excuses himself.
I turn back to Tinsley. “Point me to a place to start, and I’ll get to work.”
“Your wish is my command.” She winks at me, and I feel a little more like my old self. If only what she said were true.
Chapter 20
Tinsley
I can tell something is weighing on Landon, but I guess when he’s ready to share it with me, he will.
Our team of developers sits at SHN for the remainder of the day, each of us recoding the software. We know there are going to be issues with the code, so we’re testing strings as we go. And there are more than a hundred thousand words in the Spanish dictionary.
While all Spanish dialects adhere to approximately the same written standard, spoken varieties differ to varying degrees. Getting all those sounds right makes this challenging, and I’m loving having a team to discuss things with as we work through.
In the afternoon, an alarm sounds from the phone of someone on Cameron’s team. He blushes. “Sorry. I have to go or my son doesn’t get picked up from daycare today.”
“I understand,” I tell him. “No worries. This will take a few weeks. No use in all of us burning out today.” Everyone stands and begins to stretch. “We can start again on Monday.”
Cameron smiles at Landon. “Do you miss the days of coding?”
He shakes his head. “Hardly. It reminds me how bad my typing skills are. My brain works so much faster.”
Cameron laughs. “It’s a skill, that’s for sure.”
Landon and I climb into the back of the Suburban, and he still seems off. He’s slouched, and his eyes seem unfocused. “What’s going on?” I ask.
He squints at me. “I have a few things on my mind.”
“I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
He nods. “I’d rather go back to my empty apartment and enjoy you for a few days.”
“We’ll get there,” I promise.
When we arrive at The Adams, there’s Tiffany in the lobby. I hold my breath, waiting for her to say or do something. She’s even more immature today. She pretends to cough as we pass and shouts, “Asshole.”
I roll my eyes.
Landon smiles.
When we step into his apartment, we’re engulfed in the smell of simmering tomatoes and spices.
“What’s for dinner?” Landon asks.
Claire peeks around the corner. “Maria, Landon’s housekeeper, made us her eggplant parm, and Mom’s made her garlic bread.”
Landon rubs his hands together. “Tonight, we’re eating good.”
He isn’t wrong. After a few glasses of a nice red wine from Claire’s vineyard and lots of eggplant parm and garlic bread, I’m stuffed.
