CHAPTER NINE
I spent the morning shopping IKEA online and picked out a bedroom set, figuring I would will my futon to Sid eventually. I also ordered a small dining room table and matching chairs, and a few other odds and ends. I scoured the classifieds and found a decent used couch that someone could deliver for an extra few bucks. Sid had already moved in his television and gaming systems, which sat in the otherwise bare living area.
This apartment might be the closest thing to a real home that I’d had since my mother passed. Of course now I was sharing it with Sid, but who knew how long that would last? I clung to the thought of this being home, my home, giving the word new meaning with this new chapter of my life that was filled with so many unknowns.
For the past four years, more even, I’d had everything planned out. Now I had no idea what to expect from my future. I had only my intuition to guide me. Unfortunately Blake was marching all over my intuition. I wasn’t expecting a man like him—and everything that came with him—in my life.
Unable to concentrate on work, I slapped down the screen of my laptop. I needed some fresh air. Thanks to Blake’s chauffeuring me around and the new living situation, I’d been cooped up inside most of the day.
I stepped outside and walked the length of the street, keeping a keen eye out for a celebrity sighting, until the grass-lined walking path ended. There I settled on an empty bench and let the sun warm my skin. The day was mild, still too cool for the beach but perfect for being outside comfortably.
I decided to call Alli. I missed her too much already. After several rings she picked up.
“Hello?” she answered, her voice hoarse.
“Are you okay? You sound sick.”
“I’m fine. Long night.”
“Who are these friends you’re staying with?” I asked, suddenly concerned.
“I was with Heath.”
“Oh.”
“What can I say? He parties like a rockstar.” She let out a weak laugh.
“On a Thursday night? When do you start work?”
“Monday, and you can stop worrying now. We’re just having fun. Plus I’m meeting some new people here. Making connections for us.”
“Okay.” Though what great connection partied all night on a Thursday?
“So how are things with you?”
“Pretty good. The new apartment is great.”
“Ugh, I’m so jealous. The apartments here are ridiculous. I feel like I’m shopping for closets.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I could end up on one of those hoarder shows in a few months. I invited Sid to come stay with me. The new can collection has begun.”
She laughed. “Oh shit. Okay, I’m not jealous anymore. At least I won’t have to share my closet, if I’m lucky.”
I laughed and agreed.
“What’s new with Blake?”
I told her about the housing situation, which didn’t surprise her as much as I thought it would. Maybe Heath had already clued her in to Blake’s over-controlling tendencies. Thankfully she didn’t grill me on whether I intended to keep our one-nighter just that, because I was still trying to figure it out myself.
“So when are you going to come visit me?” she asked.
“I guess when we both get settled. We’ll see how things go with Max. I should be able to visit after that.”
Alli filled me in on all the fun spots she was discovering in the city that we’d go to eventually. In the middle of our conversation, Blake beeped in. I promised to call her later and answered Blake’s call.
“Hey, the site went offline a few minutes ago.”
My stomach fell. “What? How do you know?” The site had gone down before, which obviously wasn’t good, but I needed everything to be perfect for my meeting with Max tomorrow.
“I set up a program to ping me if the site went down.”
“Why?”
“Erica, can we focus on the issue at hand?” He sounded more irritated than I should have been, considering it was my website we were talking about. “Can you put Sid on?”
I didn’t like being pushed to the side, but this was not my department.
“I’m out right now, but I can be home in a few minutes.”
“Give me his number, I’ll call him.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll call you back in a bit.”
Back at the apartment, I knocked quietly on Sid’s door, then louder. He was never up this early. Eventually I walked in, determined to wake him from his sleep coma. He was fully dressed and passed out face down on a sheetless air mattress.
“Sid!” I yelled, breaking the silence of an otherwise quiet and peaceful morning.
He groaned and rolled over. “What?”
“The site’s down.”
“Oh,” he said, unmoving.
“Blake called. He wants to talk to you.”
“I need caffeine,” he grumbled.
I groaned, in no mood for his pissy morning routine. “I’ll be back with some energy drinks. Get up and figure out what the hell is going on.” I left my phone on his desk with Blake’s number up and walked down the street to the convenience store.
A few minutes later, I returned to find Sid frowning at his computer screen, analyzing what, from past experience, looked like the server logs. These held answers about the site’s activity that I had no idea how to interpret. I heard clicking noises coming out of my phone, which was set on speaker.
“It looks like they’re attacking the log in script and bombarding the server with requests so the host shut us down,” Sid said.
“Sounds like it’s just script kiddies then,” Blake’s voice said.
“What are script kiddies?” I asked almost in a whisper, not wanting to be the ignorant one. Still, I needed to know.
“Amateur hackers with too much free time,” Sid answered.
“Oh.” Compared to skilled hackers on a schedule? A hacker was a hacker, as far as I was concerned. An enemy threatening my business. Hopefully Sid and Blake could craft a defense plan soon.
“Do you have a redundant server?” Blake asked
“Obviously,” Sid replied flatly.
“Get that going, and let’s see how persistent they are. Can you give me access to the server?”
Sid looked at me for the okay, and I nodded.
“I’ll send it over now.”
“I can set up an IP blocker, if you want to work on patching vulnerabilities,” Blake said.
“Sounds good.”
“Do I need to call the host?” I asked Sid quietly.
“No, I’ll reboot the server, and we’ll be back up in a few minutes.”
I took a deep breath. “Do you need anything from me?”
Sid turned his head, fixing on the bag of cans I held. I fished one out for him and put the rest in the fridge, feeling a bit useless.
I pulled out my laptop at the island and refreshed the website repeatedly until the site came back up, while Blake and Sid continued their unintelligible tech speak in the other room.
The fact that we had been hacked concerned me, especially since I hoped to finalize a deal with Max within a matter of weeks. Blake and Sid didn’t seem overly concerned about the nature of the threat, but I had an unsettled feeling. Why we were being targeted all of a sudden? Who hated fashion so much that they needed to take us offline? Once we were on the other side of this minor setback, I hoped to have more answers from Sid.
I spent the rest of day monitoring the site and testing Sid’s patches as he rolled them out. We ate leftovers and went over statistics for me to reference in the morning. As the night rolled on, I didn’t hear from Blake. At the very least, I expected him to come raid the fridge. After all, we’d seen each other every day since I moved in, and he seemed to have a growing dependency on my Italian cooking.
I peeked out to the street for his car. I considered texting him, but what would I say? I missed him, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
* * *
I arrived at Angelcom a few minutes ahead of schedule. I entered the reception area and the same frumpy brunette greeted me with a tight smile and walked me down the hall into Max’s personal office. Like the conference room, it featured a wall of windows with a view of the Harbor and the skyline to the north. Dressed in an impeccable black suit, Max pored over some paperwork at his desk. He stood up when he saw me, circling the desk to shake my hand and give me a polite kiss on the cheek.
“Erica, you look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say, but I self-consciously smoothed back my hair, already tucked tightly into a twist. I wore black editor pants and a deep red shell blouse, figuring I could skip the suit now that we’d gone beyond first impressions. I tried to appear unaffected by Max’s new level of comfort with me. He motioned to a small round table in his office.
He peppered me with all the right questions, ones I had expected thanks to Blake. I answered them expertly, painting an accurate and hopefully attractive picture of the venture. After about an hour, he paused and looked at me for a moment.
“What?” Was this the end of the meeting? A ball of nervous energy settled in my stomach.
“I’m very impressed, Erica. You’ve covered all the bases. I really don’t think I can come up with anything more.”
I clicked my pen nervously. Fessing up about Blake’s involvement now would be better than Max getting wind of it later. “Blake’s been really helpful, actually. He worked through a lot of this with me, so I suppose I can’t take all the credit.”
“Is that right?”
“I can see why his businesses do so well. He’s extremely thorough.”
“He’s not as perfect as you might think.” A frown marred Max’s brow.
“Well, no one’s perfect.”
“Agreed, but Blake’s lucky he’s not rotting in a jail cell right now. Every success he’s had is because of the opportunities my father gave him. He’d do well to remember that.”
I bit my lip, scolding myself for bringing it up. What trouble could have landed Blake in jail? My mind raced through the possibilities. Clearly the two had history, and Blake, not surprisingly, had kept me in the dark despite all our discussions about investing with Max.
I had always thought of Max as Blake’s peer, a colleague. With this bad blood between them, why did they share a place on the board of the company?
“In any case, he missed his chance on this one, I suppose.” He changed again, back to calm, charming Max.
The transformation gave me an eerie feeling, but I tried to ignore it.
“That’s true,” I said. Admittedly, I was confused by Blake’s active interest in not only me, but my company, after such a dramatic review and refusal at the start.
“Let’s make this happen, Erica,” Max said abruptly. “I think there’s real potential here and I’d like to be part of it.”
The ball of nervous energy dissipated as relief and happiness flowed through me. “Wonderful. Where do we go from here?”
“Let me draw up the paperwork. There are legalities we’ll need to work through, but I should be able to have a term sheet ready to review in a week or two and hopefully we can get this off the ground quickly. If it ends up taking longer, I can arrange for rolling funds in the interim so you guys aren’t in a pinch.”
“That sounds great. I’ll follow your lead then.”
“Perfect. Keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll be in touch.”
We shook hands, and I left the building wanting to shout the good news off the rooftops. We did it! All the work, the stress, and the multitasking. God, the multitasking. Being able to juggle school and not give up on Clozpin as a side project had been a miracle in itself. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my numbers, trying to decide who to call.
One name stood out.
I’d been hard on Blake. But would this have gone so smoothly without his help? I called him and it went to voicemail.
“Hey, Blake. I just wanted you to be the first to know that Max is moving forward with the deal. He’s drawing up the paperwork next week. So, great news. Thank you. For everything.”
I hung up and rang Alli next, but the call went to voicemail too. I checked the time. It was nearly eleven a.m., and I couldn’t fight the feeling that Heath was becoming a less than healthy influence on my best friend. Something was off with him, but I needed to get the bottom of it before I could pass judgment. In the meantime, I would figure out a way to visit sooner rather than later.
I switched out of my heels into some flats and walked home, wanting to get some exercise and take advantage of the mild morning that was growing hotter by the hour. Finally, summer had arrived.
* * *
The apartment was silent all morning. Maybe this cohabitation with Sid could work after all. We were on totally different schedules, which made it seem like I had the place to myself most of the time.
I wrote up an organizational chart for positions that we might want to fill in the next six months. A marketing director was a top priority. Getting out of my shell and networking was important and something I fully intended to continue, but I needed to be running the site and overseeing all operations. I couldn’t be responsible for pulling in all the paid accounts, keeping track of finances, maintenance, and now reporting back to Max with our periodic progress. Losing Alli from the team was a setback, but there were hundreds of eager professionals in the city waiting for an opportunity like this. I set to work drafting roles and responsibilities for the job when Blake texted me.
Congrats. Top of the Hub tonight to celebrate. Be ready at 7.
His communication threw me for a loop. Why didn’t he just call me? He was being distant for some reason, but apparently he was still in the mood to celebrate. At one of the best restaurants in the city no less, but not seeing him for a while made me worry about what he was actually thinking. Was it the good night kiss snub? Did he think I was being a tease because I couldn’t stop melting around him and then pushing him away? Stop psychoanalyzing.
See you at seven, I replied.
My focus immediately shifted from ideal marketing director qualities to what I would wear tonight. The irony of Blake implying that seeing someone would be distracting for the venture, when he was now in the very position to be that distraction, was not lost on me. Still, I sifted through the contents of my closet for something suitable to wear. I huffed. I missed Alli’s fashion sense and her ample wardrobe.
I called Marie, hoping she was nearby.
“Help!” I said with mock panic.
“What’s up, baby girl?”
“I got the funding, and I’m going out tonight to celebrate.”
“I knew it. Congratulations!”
“But I have nothing to wear.”
“Honey, that’s a problem we can fix. Do you want to grab some lunch before we hit the stores?”
“Absolutely. Thank you.” After days with techies and suits, I needed girl time.
* * *
The Vine was a beautiful little Mediterranean open air restaurant tucked in the basement floor of a brownstone on Newbury Street, one of the most exclusive and expensive shopping districts in the city. Not surprisingly, it was only a few short blocks away from the new apartment. Marie and I sipped iced tea and shared calamari while we caught up.
“So tell me about your date,” Marie said.
I paused, contemplating how to bring her up to speed on everything Blake had thrown at me lately. “You don’t happen to remember that guy I literally ran into at the restaurant the other night?” Butterflies danced in my belly at the thought of my first chance meeting with Blake.
She stilled, and her beautiful brown eyes widened. “You’re kidding me.”
“Not kidding. He’s the executive director for the angel investment group who is giving us the funding.” I skipped the part about him seducing me in Las Vegas and luring me to live in his apartment building. Marie wasn’t my mother, but she did get protective at times.
“Wow, that sounds right up your alley.”
“Hardly. He’s so out of my league. It’s actually incredibly intimidating.”
“I don’t suppose a busy guy like that would spend time with you if he thought you were out of his league.”
I sighed. I wished I knew what Blake was thinking, but he had me too busy sorting out my business to pry much. “I guess not. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind so I don’t really know what to think.” I poked at my salad. “To be honest, Marie, I don’t know up from down right now.”
“That’s how love goes, baby.” She shook her head with a smile.
Love? Leave it to Marie, the hopeless romantic, to even think it. Blake was a magnificent distraction, but that had nothing to do with love.
I masked a cringe at the mention of the word and asked about her new beau, Richard. She quickly changed course, filling me in the details of their last date. I had no room in my life for love right now.
* * *
I slipped into the sexy, overpriced cocktail dress. Marie had helped me pick it out. Solid black, with a thin white strip along the tulip hem, the garment was dressy but still suited the hot day with tiny spaghetti straps and light layers of chiffon. I paired the outfit with some strappy heels and silver dangle earrings, and I pinned my hair up in a loose bun. We would see what Blake had to say about all this, I thought. I touched up my smoky gray eye shadow. With or without Blake, I felt like a million bucks and I wanted to look great tonight. Alli would be proud.
Sid was rummaging through the fridge when I emerged from my bedroom, my heels clicking loudly across the floor. I stopped at the breakfast bar to wait for Blake. Sid turned and saw me, his eyes wide.
“What?” I said, suddenly concerned that I didn’t look nearly as good as I thought I did.
“Uh—” He averted his eyes. “Nothing.” He bolted back to his bedroom, which required about three strides since he was so incredibly tall, and shut the door behind him.
I had loosely considered inviting Sid to dinner, but a fine dining experience would be lost on him. Now I was glad I hadn’t, since apparently he couldn’t be in the same room with me in this outfit.
Blake let himself in and slowed as I circled the island to greet him. He wore the same gray charcoal suit from Vegas, with a freshly pressed white shirt. A bit of stubble offset the formality of his attire. Damn. I sauntered over, trying like hell to stay steady on my heels, savoring the look of pure carnal appreciation that swept his face.
“Hey,” I said.
“You’re killing me in that dress.”
I bit my lip, never knowing what he might do when we were alone like this.
With a feather-light touch, he traced a line from my cheek to my chin, tipping my face toward him before giving me a slow, sweet kiss that had me trembling with need at the finish.