Page 57 of Heart Strings & Hotlines
“Thane?” Kara’s face is full of pity. The exact opposite of the way I ever want her looking at me.
“Hmm?” Bending down, I pick up Hercules. At least she’s stopped screaming every time I put her down.
“I’m not sure you can really research…love,” Kara says with a tilt of her head that makes me feel like a zoo animal.
“Of course you can. You can research anything.”
Knowing Charlotte isn’t home at the moment, I sit back at my desk and pick up a pen. It has a nice click against my thumb. I’m already late to my meeting with Roger, but something is niggling me about this conversation, and I don’t like it.
“But research is fact-based. It doesn’t allow for emotions or how people react to them,” Rafe says.
“What would you have me do, then?” I toss my pen on the desk to stop myself from clicking the top obsessively.
“Communicate. If you can’t find the words to describe what’s happening inside of you, then use words to describe why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
This is the problem with Rafe knowing me for so long. He understands all too well that, try as I might, identifying feelings, even my own, and putting words to them isn’t something that comes naturally to me.
I’m not even sure when I stopped trying. “I’ll consider it. I’m late for a meeting.”
“Don’t blow this, Brad. I really like her.” Kara jumps down from my bed.
As she walks out of my room, I realize she hasn’t slammed a door once since we’ve been here.
That must be progress.
Rafe follows her out. He knows when to stop pushing. He’s planted the seed, and now he’ll let it fester in my mind until it becomes as invasive as the poison ivy that’s taken over the right side of our yard. Something I only know because of Boone.
I thought Rafe’s name was fucked up when I found out it means wise wolf. But who names their son after a wine cooler?
Hercules wiggles her butt to get comfortable after I shift in my chair to log on to my meeting, and I end up petting her while the screen lights up.
She’s really not so bad now that she’s not honking and screaming all damn day.
“Thane, it’s about time. What’s up, my man? You’re never late.”
“You work on my time, and I’m not now, nor have I ever been, your man. What do you have for me?” It’s none of his business why I’m late.
“It’s the Sinclair deal. I know you said you didn’t want to push, but I think she might be willing to sell now.”
Ice crawls down my spine, vertebra by vertebra. What could he possibly know that I don’t?
He apparently takes my glare for permission to continue. “Her father is suing her for rights to her company, so?—”
“On what basis?” The muscles in my body tense up slowly, one tick at a time, until my limbs are cast in stone.
I must have shouted at Roger because now he’s blustering in front of my screen, picking up sheets of paper and discarding them almost as quickly. I know I have this effect on people sometimes—it’s why I pay more than any of my competitors.
Well, that and it keeps people loyal to me.
“Ah, I had the document somewhere?—”
“Summarize.”
“He’s saying she built her algorithm on his computers. She was in college when she started and was working as an intern at Sinclair Systems. Even though she’s his daughter, she would have still signed the same employee forms, and one of them states everything built on their system is their property.”
“Does it lay claim to anything they create while employed there, or just on their computers?”
I know she’s smart enough not to build anything on someone else’s system or do personal work on company time. But he is her father. Had she trusted him?
