The Guy Next Door (Forbidden Love Book 1)

by Kelly Myers

  “Can you send me calibrated measurements of the fabricated units?” I asked.

  “You’re looking at millimeter differences, Crystal.”

  “We’re looking at a measurable difference that is outside of acceptable tolerances,” I countered.

  “They might not be able to match your required tolerances in manufacturing,” he said. “That’s going to push back your schedule.”

  “No, but I can adjust the line of code to speed up or slow down the sequence. And boom it’s fixed. But I don’t know what the adjustment needs to be until I have a measurement to start with.”

  He said he would get on it, and I started to locate the lines of code that related to that part of the command sequence.

  I had a spreadsheet open and was cranking through numbers to determine what formulas I would need to help me to revise the timing in the program. The alarm on my phone went off. Timing! I was so close, but if I did not leave now I would be late getting Adam, and his daycare charged for late pick-ups.

  I contemplated stopping by Ellen’s cube and thought better of it. Then again, I could follow up with malicious compliance and start telling her every time I had to go to the bathroom if she needed to know where I was every second of the day.

  Pleased that a solution was in sight, I left the building. I hurried down the block to the local daycare. I couldn’t remember ever seeing a daycare in an office park before and thought— not for the first time— how smart to have the daycare near work, and not near home. This way if something happened, I could be there within minutes.

  Once in the foyer, I rang the doorbell. The security they had in place seemed a bit over the top, but I was grateful for it. Everyone entered a secure foyer and then had to be buzzed into another inner office. They brought the children to the front office. Parents were only ever allowed inside for special events, and when touring the facility. The playground wasn’t even visible from the street or the parking lot. It meant they kept my baby safe.

  I couldn’t help but smile when I saw my boy being carried out. My baby boy wasn’t going to be a baby much longer. He was long-limbed for his age. Most people thought he looked like he was going on five, he was barely three. If they looked at his face, they would see his big blue eyes, and the chubby pink cheeks under a mop of almost black curls, they would see he was just a baby.

  I had my arms extended and pulled Adam into my embrace before his caregiver finished saying hi.

  “He’s had a quiet day today,” Sue said. “He’s been a very good listener, but he didn’t want to use any big kid words.”

  Adam wrapped his arms around my neck and squeezed.

  “Thanks, Sue,” I said. I picked up his day pack and carried him back to my car in the office parking lot.

  “Did you have a good day today?”

  He gave me a small nod. No words. That meant my usually talkative guy had a hard day. I had a hard day too.

  “Should we stop and get french fries and chocolate shake for dinner? Was it that kind of day?”

  When he rested his head on my shoulder, I knew it had been a bit harder than he could tell me. It was a chicken nuggets and cuddles kind of night.

  23

  Zack

  I followed the throng of passengers down the concourse, and out to baggage claim. My bag rolled behind me. I had the necessities for two nights. I never stayed for longer than two nights anymore. When the parameters of my job changed and I was on the road almost full time, my admin, Lisa devised a time-saving plan. A week’s worth of clothes and incidentals would be packed in a box and left at the office that she could ship as soon as I called her. That way I didn’t need to carry around more than what was necessary, and fresh clothes were twenty-four hours away.

  The box sat in my office, ready to be shipped to any given location, for at least five months at this point. Maybe longer. I didn’t even remember what was in it, generic slacks, dress shirts, boxers, socks, the usual. After this purchase, I would get to unpack that box. I was done being on the road. Paris had finally agreed, it was time for me to return to the big picture projects. Shingle Click was finally heading back to solar power for maintaining our smart-home technologies. Rollins Tech would be my last purchase, and my next integration project. They had the know how I needed to plug into Shingle Click’s Home Command Center.

  As I made my way out of the airport I saw the big man, just as he described himself. Stacey Rollins said he’d be a good head taller than most, in plaid, with a cowboy hat on. He wasn’t the only one dressed that way. The sign with ‘Noble’ scrawled on it was the real giveaway.

  “Mr. Rollins.” I stopped and held out my hand.

  He engulfed it in his thick-fingered grasp. “Zack Noble, welcome to Austin. Call me Rolly.”

  “I didn’t expect you to pick me up in person. I don’t think I’ve had that happen in all my years of business travel. It’s always been a car service, or finding my own way.”

  I followed him out through sliding glass doors, and eventually, I was climbing into an SUV larger than my first apartment.

  “I thought we could get a jump start on getting to know each other before we got mired in the details.”

  “I’m pretty much here to make a sales pitch, Rolly. Details come later.”

  He scoffed. “It’s all details, Noble. Now which ones you focus on determines your path in life.”

  Hate fate intervened on my behalf? Was I going to be subjected to this man’s philosophies? It would certainly save me time. My plans for the evening consisted of food, if I remembered to eat, drinking probably too much, and researching everything I could find out about Stacey “Rolly” Rollins. If he wanted to hand me the information I needed, I would accept it. Would he give me the secret insight that I would be able to leverage for a purchase?

  “Tell me, Noble, what got you into smart-home technology? Did you see one of those movies with the talking house as a kid?” he chuckled.

  I had seen those movies, and they had not inspired me. Something about this man told me he would not be impressed with my answer.

  “What got you into it?” I turned the question on him.

  “That’s easy, love.”

  I shifted in my seat to look over at the man. Love wasn’t anywhere near the kind of answer I expected. “Love?” He didn’t strike me as the type to be obsessed with technology. His hands looked too rough to be a programmer.

  “Love makes the world go around Noble. I love my late wife, and I love the land. Having smart appliances made her life easier. Anything I could do to make things easier for her I did. And I believe we are stewards of the earth. I adapted solar and kinetic wind power early. I had the means. So, I did. I have wind turbines on my land. Seemed like a smart business decision.”

  I nodded. Love, an interesting driving force. My driving forces were nothing so virtuous. Market share, product development, money, I was told it was in my best interests to take the job. As far as I was concerned love had nothing to do with smart-home technology. It was all money. I was interested in the money, certainly not the technology itself. I could talk a good game, but I had no need for lights that turned themselves off and on. And the thought of a refrigerator that could order my groceries made me nervous. I was the kind of tech industry leader who put black-out tape over the camera on my laptop. The only reason the GPS was turned on in my phone was for when I needed to call a car to my location.

  “I can see how all of that might get you into smart-home tech. But what I’m wondering is how exactly does love for your wife turn into solar-powered smart-home tech for the RV and tiny home industries?” I asked.

  “My Marta loved to camp.”

  Seeing him smile over memories of his late wife felt like an intrusion. I turned my attention out the car window.

  He pulled the vehicle into the parking lot of a low single-story brick-fronted building with a large steel warehouse at the back.

  “I have to pick something up. You want to come in? I’ll show you around
a bit while it’s empty and we won’t get interrupted with questions.”

  “Sure,” I shrugged. I had nothing better to do, and I didn’t feel like waiting around in his SUV.

  The reception area had furniture that had to come from a catalog, I had seen the same pieces in a hundred other office buildings. I waited while he punched a security code into a keypad that let us into the back. The inside of Rollins Tech looked as cookie-cutter generic as any other office building with modular cubicle furniture and filing cabinets.

  “Sales and marketing are up front here,” Rolly indicated.

  We strode past cubes that looked like every other cube in America. Some were stark and efficient. While others were over the top expressions of the personality of the worker who claimed that space, photos, toys, posters.

  “This is my solar department,” Rolly announced with a wave of his arm.

  There wasn’t any visible distinction between departments that I could see. More cubes with more pictures and plants. Not that I was a plant aficionado, but something about a plant in one of the cubes seemed very familiar, especially the pot. I needed a closer look.

  “May I?” I asked with a jerk of my head.

  “Sure, go ahead. I’m sure she won’t mind.”

  The company logo floated across and down, then bumped up and crossed the monitor again like some kind of early video game. I stepped into the cube and wiggled the mouse, grateful I had an excuse to further explore this particular cube. I expected a password prompt, instead, a large schematic appeared on the monitor.

  “That’s one of our newer relays. I think it’s for maximizing storage. Crystal here is troubleshooting something.”

  I froze at the name. My eyes locked onto the planter. It looked familiar because I had given it to a woman in another place at another time. My throat felt like it was swelling shut, and I couldn’t hear anything beyond the deafening rush of blood in my ears. Rolly kept talking but I did nothing. I gasped, my body forced me to breathe. I coughed to cover my inability to function. I looked at the blue glaze and red clay. I reached out and rotated it in place. Henry seemed to be thriving in this office environment.

  “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”

  “Crystal’s one of my newer engineers and programmers. Talented young woman. Worked her way up from receptionist.”

  I couldn’t fall apart now. Crystal worked here. At the very least I needed to pretend I knew what I was doing. I nodded at the schematic. “Aren’t you concerned that I’m looking at proprietary tech?”

  “If you convince me to sell, that proprietary tech will belong to you. Besides, that schematic doesn’t do you any good without the corresponding programming.”

  As he spoke I scanned the cube for photos, anything to confirm that his Crystal was the same woman. Henry should have been the conclusive evidence that I needed, but I wanted more. I needed to see her.

  There, peeking out from behind Henry, the corner of a photo.

  “My office is right up this way,” Rolly said, motioning me to go with him so he could continue with his tour.

  I pushed some papers and books from her desk. “Oops. Let me get these, I’ll catch up,” I said as I knelt to gather the items.

  “I’ll be right up ahead,” Rolly said and stepped away.

  Moving quickly I placed the items back on her desk, moved the plant, and for the second time in so many minutes, I stopped breathing again.

  My heart pounded, and I gulped in air. She was more beautiful than I remembered. In the first photo, she smiled at the camera, a child in her arms. He was entirely too big for her to have had him since I last saw her. Maybe he was a nephew or a friend’s child. I scanned the rest of her photos. They were all of the same child at different ages. He had large blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes. His hair was the fine texture that I associated with babies. If it weren’t for the distinct boy style of the clothes, his pretty looks could easily be mistaken for a girl’s. Realization slammed into my very core.

  That child could very well be mine. What if she hadn’t been sick but pregnant? Fuck me.

  I slipped my phone from my pocket and snapped a few pictures. I confirmed that I saved the images and left the cube to catch up with Rolly.

  “Oh good, you want to see the shop floor? Or want to wait until tomorrow?”

  I couldn’t keep my hand from my phone and its contents. “Tomorrow,” I said, distracted.

  “Manufacturing floors are always more fun when something is going on.” He said, clapping his big hands and rubbing them together. “Did you get the corporate secrets you needed for a hostile takeover?” he said with a laugh.

  I smiled around the lump of uncomfortable emotion that lodged in my throat. “You’d have to be a publicly held company for me to force a hostile takeover. Besides, I’m getting the distinct feeling you are trying to hold yourself back on just handing me the deed.”

  He clapped me on the back. “Of course, I’m gonna make you work for it.”

  Back in the SUV on our way to a ‘properly sized steak’ dinner, I pulled out my phone and sent Paris a series of quick texts.

  “Who does this look like?” I asked as I sent over the photos.

  “Why are you sending me baby pictures, Zack?”

  “Who?” I prompted.

  “That’s you. Why?”

  I laughed at something Rolly said. I had no idea if that was the proper reaction or not. He laughed too, so maybe it was. I heard nothing he said. The loud roar of blood in my ears returned.

  Those weren’t baby pictures of me, but they could have been.

  24

  Crystal

  “Do you know what this is all about?” Charline asked as we stood in the employee parking lot.

  I shrugged. Rolly liked to make proclamations, typically followed by barbecue with lots of smoked meat and all the fixin’s. The grills were smoking, and my mouth was already watering in anticipation. If he interrupted our work time, he certainly made up for it. He was the kind of man who inspired loyalty by taking care of us. Fully tummies made happy employees.

  Rolly was busy talking to a few different people. He was already positioned next to his platform of choice, an open bed pickup, so we would know soon enough.

  Ellen stopped next to me. My insides cringed away from her. I had turned in my findings the day before, and Huan had been able to get the unit to run the revised command sequence. The code had been handed over to a more senior-level programmer to refine.

  “I wanted to say well done on figuring that out, Crystal,” she said.

  I looked at her and tried to keep the surprise from my expression. She had been ready to fire me less than two days ago.

  “Not only did you come at that problem from a different angle, but your solution is also going to save us a chunk of time and a bigger chunk of money. Um…” she hesitated.

  I waited, maybe she was still going to give me the ax. If she did, maybe Rolly could find me a job on the factory floor sorting nuts and bolts. I wanted to keep working for him. I was definitely motivated by good barbecue.

  “I was stressed and spoke harshly. I’m glad you’re on my team.” With that, she gave me a nod and walked off to join another group of employees.

  I released a deep sigh. That was one stressor off my shoulders.

  “Did Ellen just apologize?” Charline asked.

  “Yeah, is it just me, or was that weird?”

  “From Ellen? That woman is never wrong, so definitely weird. You didn’t hear this from me, but apparently she tried to take credit for your brainchild of fixing the code instead of having the manufacturing recalibrated. Huan was there and said it was you who had been pestering him for days, not her. That’s all I know,” Charline nodded at me as if to say ‘so there.’

  Someone had gotten into trouble, and it wasn’t me. My ego needed that extra boost. I needed a good day at work after the hell trouble shooting that pesky unit and its corresponding programming had been.

  Rolly jumped u
p into the bed of the pickup truck. His voice was loud enough he never needed a bull horn or a mic. A man with dark curly hair leaned against the side of the truck, facing the other direction. My heart tripped and righted itself. For a panicked moment, I thought he was Zack.

  I focused on my shoes trying to get my nerves to calm down. I hated it when I thought I saw him, and my body went zing into panic. That guy wasn’t Zack, just another businessman. Lots of them have dark hair and broad shoulders. Besides, Zack had kept his hair super short when I had known him. This guy did not have that tight fade with long hair on top. This guy’s hair was thick and wavy down to his collar.

  Rolly started speaking. “I haven’t said anything to any of y’all until I knew exactly what was going to happen. I didn’t want anyone to worry. So I’m gonna start with I am healthy as a horse, so don’t go thinking I’m doing this for any other reason. Okay?”

  “Crystal.” Charline bumped me in the shoulder a few times. I mumbled something with the rest of the crowd, but kept my focus on a pebble I kicked around.

  “Crystal,” she bit out my name again.

  “What?” annoyance laced my voice. I was still fighting down the fear and anxiety over my split second of thinking that man was Zack.

  She grabbed my arm and shook. “Look,” she said.

  My gaze followed her pointed finger back to the man by the truck. Back to… my knees felt weak, my tongue numb. Breathing required focused effort to suck in air. My stomach vanished in a poof. My skin pricked with uncomfortable tingles seconds before sweat dotted the surface.

  His hair was longer and his sharp jawline was covered with the shadow of a beard. He looked thinner. A little harder around the edges. But it was Zack Noble. I had recognized him from the set of his shoulders.

  I was rooted in place by fear. And something more, curiosity?

  “Shut the front door. Why the fuck is Zack Noble here?” I whispered.

  Rolly kept talking. “I decided last year it’s high time I retired. I’ve got grandchildren to teach fishing to. I’ve got camping to do. And for those of you who knew my Marta, you know she wouldn’t want me working myself into an early grave. I’ve been looking for a buyer who will continue to take care of this company as the family it has become. Zack, get on up here.”