One Week (HaleStorm) (13 page)

She nodded, seeming relieved that he didn’t push the issue.

They got seated inside, and managed to order food without any further discussion of their non-relationship. Michael decided perhaps he’d taken things too far, too fast. He’d been relaxed for the first time in days—weeks. Months?

He’d gotten swept away. If she wasn’t comfortable moving things forward, he could wait. As he’d said, the project for which he’d hired her would soon resolve and so would his non-marriage.

He’d be free to pursue her.

If it took a million dinners, a million rounds of foosball. He’d do whatever it took for her to admit this was more than just fucking on the conference room table. This time, he wasn’t letting her go without a fight. He’d been too young and stupid before. He wasn’t so young anymore. God willing, he’d also gotten smarter.

While Elise excused herself to go to the restroom and Michael got up for more food, he noticed she had left her phone face down on the table. He grabbed it to slip into his pocket, but not before noticing a multitude of missed calls and text messages.

He presumed family members, calling to wish a Happy Thanksgiving. But....

He looked around before sticking the phone inside his jacket. Elise had mentioned an ex who’d been calling. She kept asking about Michael’s divorce. Was it possible her real hesitation over getting more serious had something to do with
her
having a relationship that wasn’t yet resolved?

He wound up returning to the table with a couple of scattered pieces of fruit on his plate and nothing more. His appetite had gotten up and wandered away, too uncomfortable to be near his muddled thoughts.

“Hey, have you seen my phone?” Elise’s voice came from over his shoulder. “I meant to take it when I got up so I could check on my mom but I can’t seem to find it.”

He pulled it out and handed it over. “I didn’t want to leave it on the table while I was away.” He studied her while she scrolled through the phone. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, my mom called. She’s just been having kind of a rough time.” She gave him an apologetic look. “Do you mind if I step out and call her real quick?

“Sure. I hope everything’s okay.”

“I hope so,” Elise said finally. “But she called three times. That’s not good.” She flipped the phone for a split second, showing a cascade of missed calls. Most of them from “Mom.”

So perhaps he’d worried over nothing. “Why don’t I wrap up everything here, and meet you outside?” He smiled in return. But he glanced at the phone once more when she stopped to dial, and one name slapped him in the face: There were also missed calls on that phone from an Anya Evans.

The
Anya Evans? As in, the vice president of Microstrive? The business world could be a small one, but Michael found himself wondering why Elise would be getting calls from his primary competitor.

On a holiday, no less.

***

M
ichael was silent on the drive back. That alone had worry churning in Elise’s stomach. When he turned toward The Oakmont apartments and not toward the HaleStorm building, the dread crept upward into her chest. “I thought we were going to head back to the office after dinner,” she said. “It’s still early. We could still get some work hours in.”

Michael’s fingers tapped on the steering wheel. “You’ve been working like a crazy person on that documentation all week. Both of us have.”

Not counting the time they’d been making other use of the conference room table. Heat suffused her body. “I’m trying to put together years’ worth of established practices in a matter of days.”

“You said it was coming along well?”

“It is.” She mentally reviewed the spreadsheet she’d spent all day going over. And over. And over. “I still need to see your data center, and I need some information about data encryption. I wasn’t able to find specifics anywhere in your existing documentation files. Other than that I think we’re almost there.” She nudged his leg playfully. “Thanks to the fact that I’m a crazy person. You’re welcome.” She laughed ever so slightly, but it fizzled out when all she got was a flat semi-smile in return.

He blew out a breath. “Should be no trouble. Tomorrow’s Friday. My VP will be back in the office. He oversees the software team. I’ll email him the request later on so he gets it first thing.”

“Great. Thank you.” The vibe inside the car still had a not-so-good feel when he stopped outside their apartment building—
his
apartment building. “Is something wrong?”

He stayed focused on the nothing that was happening in the darkness outside the car. “Why would you be getting phone calls from Anya Evans?”

A chill slithered through Elise’s body. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“You getting phone calls from one of my major competitors is my business.”

A spike of pain drove its way into Elise’s skull. Oh, she didn’t want to have this conversation. Not at all. She should have known it would come up eventually.

“It wasn’t business related.” She ran her gaze over his profile, his clean-shaven jaw clamped so tight he could press diamonds, and the angry working of his throat. She hated that the rush in her blood came from equal parts anger and want. “You know, you’re handsome when you’re pissed-off. But whatever you might be thinking right now, I don’t deserve your suspicion. I haven’t spoken to Anya in months and I can’t do anything about missed phone calls. I’m going to go upstairs now.”

She had barely made it out of the car and around to the sidewalk before he jumped out and caught her arm. “So why the fuck is she calling you?”

The wind had picked up. Snow fell over them. Elise flexed and released her cold fingers, wishing she’d remembered to bring gloves. “We kind of dated, okay? An eternity ago. She got overbearing so I broke it off.” Elise gave Michael a pointed glare. “I don’t do overbearing.”

He rubbed his gloved hand over his forehead. “You’re fucking kidding me.” He paced in a small square. “You had a relationship with a woman. With the vice president of my biggest local competitor.” More pacing. He stopped, started, and stopped again, all while Elise fought the urge to grab him so he would look her in the damn eye.

Elise sighed. “Why do I get the feeling it’s that second part that’s really driving you up a tree.”

The pacing stopped. Michael fixed her with an uneasy stare. “You really haven’t talked to her?”

“No!” But Michael’s grimace made Elise’s stomach sink. “You don’t look like you believe me.”

“I met with her yesterday. Right before you and I....” He waved his hand.

Ew. Really?

He took a step toward her. “She knows about the validation issues, and she’s trying to steal clients. Now, come to find out you and she—” He gestured back and forth but his mouth snapped shut. A mask of anger twisted his face.

“Michael.” Elise’s throat caught. “You can’t seriously think— I hope you know I would never betray your confidence that way. Not any client’s, but especially not yours.”

“Somehow she knew.”

“I didn’t tell her.” Now Elise was the one gritting her teeth, hands clenched inside the pocket of her wool coat. “If you think I would do anything even remotely like that, then we have a serious problem. And if you have a problem with me as your contractor, then you sure as hell have a problem with me as–” She waved her hands back and forth between them. “—whatever the hell we are to each other. Or were.” She turned to go up the stairs toward her temporary living space.

“We are not done here,” Michael called after her. “If she didn’t find out from you—”

Elise turned on the stairs. “You are focusing on the wrong detail. It wasn’t me. There’s no ‘if’. I don’t know how she found out. It doesn’t
matter
how she found out. I told you from day one that you were in hot water over that failed validation and the only thing you could do was fix it as fast as possible. Which I’ve been trying to do for you.”

She drew a deep, stinging breath of icy air. “Correction. I think under the circumstances, it’s best I send you what I’ve done and let you handle the rest yourself. If you want to send a complaint to PermaSolv that I didn’t finish the work, go right ahead. I don’t want there to be any more concerns about trust, and I sure as hell don’t want you worrying about what might happen if I get a look at your encryption information.”

He frowned. “We don’t have to show the actual algorithms.”

“So you’re saying you don’t have to trust me for me to finish the project.” The idea made her insides burn. Elise closed her eyes and clunked her head on the cold brick behind her. It worried her, Anya getting her mitts on those projects. But it couldn’t be connected to Elise. Could it? She hadn’t spoken to Anya in forever. And she refused to take the heat for something she hadn’t done.

He stepped closer, his eyes dark and hard. “I hired you do to do a job. It needs to get done. As we’ve seen, I don’t have the fucking time to handle it myself.”

“Look. You feel like you really need me to finish out the project, I’ll finish out the damn project. I didn’t figure you’d want me to, the way you’re spouting about me leaking secrets to your competitor. But whatever. Either way, I’m not doing it here. I’ve got enough of the framework filled in at this point. I’m going to go home. You can email me the information from your VP and I can send you the spreadsheets to look over before I email them to your client. Good?”

“You’re forgetting the final presentation on Tuesday.”

“That meeting is for the client to get a warm-fuzzy from you. You don’t need me there.”

With that, Elise took one last look at Michael, furious and beautiful in the dim light on the landing. Then, she turned to go inside and pack her things.

M
ichael paced his office. Again and again, he punched his fist against his open palm while Tom laid out the bad news part of their impromptu “good news, bad news” meeting.

“I’m sorry to have to bring you all this information the day after Thanksgiving.”

Michael shook his head. “It’s not as if I had plans. Certainly nothing more important than this.” He looked at Tom. “I’m sorry this is cutting into your time with your family.”

Tom leaned against the bookcases. “It’s a welcome distraction.”

“Things are worse at home?”

Tom pressed his lips together.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said.

Tom nodded. He came closer and handed over a printout. “This is a list of everybody I’ve heard from today, and the dollar value of those projects.”

The tiny hairs on the back of Michael’s neck stood at attention. When he looked at the paper, he nearly lost his breakfast. “This is fucking insane.” He pegged his contract manager, his friend and confidant, with a hard glare. “Tell me this is a mistake.”

“I wish I could. I’m sorry.”

Acid shot into his throat. “Something’s fucked-up. There’s no way this can all be based on one small rumor about our company’s security fitness. Some of these projects are going back years. Some of them don’t even require a clearance.”

“I’ll do what I can do stall,” Tom said.

Michael resumed pacing. “You said there was good news. What do you have?”

“I know you asked me not to, but I did some checking on Elise’s background and her history with Anya. Turns out they met at a conference at the Omni two years ago, were seen together publicly off and on for a few months, and then nothing following a semi-public argument outside of a Microstrive employee party last year.”

“That doesn’t mean they couldn’t have kept in contact.”

Tom quirked his eyebrow. “With all due respect, Elise doesn’t seem the type for spying and theft. Anya Evans? Maybe, and I shudder to think how Elise got tangled in her web. But I also checked with Elise’s boss at PermaSolv. She’s been there for four years. Good employee record. If she were going to use her contract job to scout customers for Anya, wouldn’t it have made sense to keep their relationship hidden?

“Maybe she didn’t think it through, or maybe Anya didn’t put her up to it until after they split.”

“Or maybe you’re grasping at straws. You think I haven’t noticed the weird whatever it is going on with you two? Now far be it from me to pry, but I think you need to pull your head out of your ass and start looking for other answers.” Tom whacked him on the arm with a folder. “I’ll be honest, she made me nervous at first, but I don’t think Elise caused this problem, and we still need a fix.”

Michael clasped his hands behind his head. “You’re right.”

Tom nodded. “You hired me to be right.”

“Sure wasn’t because of the time I had to bail you out of jail for streaking across campus.”

“I did pay you back.”

“Not that you needed to. I ate all your food for two years while we were roommates. It all comes out in the wash.” Michael propped his elbows on the desk and managed to smile.

As they spoke, Michael’s desk phone lit up with an incoming call from a client at the Treasury Board. As he met eyes with Tom across the desk, the canned ringing sounded in his ears. This could not be good. He punched the speaker button. “Barry. Hi.”

“Hale. Good to talk to you. How’s the wife? Ran into her at a benefit downtown not too long ago. Lovely woman. Going skiing again this Christmas?” Barry Infenel, contract rep, chattered in the nonstop way people did when they were uncomfortable. Really not good.

Tom sneered at the phone.

Michael shook his head. “What can I do for you, Barry?”

A puff of air echoed over the line. “Our maintenance contract rolls over at the first of the year. We’ve been evaluating things and we feel like we need more upgrades because the system isn’t meeting our needs. But the money you guys would charge us to upgrade is more than we can handle. I think we’re going to go another way.”

Tom clenched his fists and opened his mouth to say something but Michael held up both his hands. “A new system would be a big undertaking. Now, I respect your decision,” he said to the phone. “We want our clients to have the right solution. Let me just offer you this: next week I’d like to personally get in a room with you and the project manager we’ve assigned to you, see if we can’t offer you a cost-effective resolution that makes everyone happy.”