He stopped a few feet away from her, glanced out of the front windows toward the parking lot. “They’ve overrun me, which is a good thing. Business is great.”
“I’m glad that you’re doing well. We’ve needed a change of pace around here.” Violet followed his gaze out of the window and saw nothing. She waved a hand at the red, white, and pink decorations. “Very festive.”
“Yep, the decorators did a great job.” He gave her a closer look. “How are you doing?”
Violet sighed. She didn’t want to talk about it, but he asked so it would only be polite to answer. “Not very well, but that’s the ups and downs of the business.” Her mood took a sudden dive and she was embarrassed to realize that tears were welling in her eyes. She waved her hand in front of her face. “Sorry, long weekends and late nights are a bad combination.” She tried to will the tears away.
“Are you all right?”
Embarrassed, she tried to leave before she burst into actual tears. She was overwhelmed, tired, and worried about the future of the company she had worked so hard to build. Add the complicated relationship between her and Francis and she had reached her breaking point.
Joe pulled out a chair, the metal scraping against the floor. “Vee, sit down. You look exhausted.”
She sat down in the chair and placed her laptop on the table, then put both hands over her face. Nothing like having a breakdown to seal your public humiliation. Joe sat across from her, saying nothing.
Her composure returned a few moments later and she was able to meet his sympathetic blue eyes. “I’m sorry about that.”
“No need to be. You’ve been under a lot of strain. The gaming competition is a tough one. Let me bring you a cup of coffee.” He left the table.
Gaming competition. Joe’s words stuck in her head. Had she mentioned the competition to him? She must have in one conversation or another. Violet snuck a look around the shop to see how many other people had witnessed her ridiculous behavior. Lucky for her, most of the business was takeout.
Joe brought her the coffee, placing it on the table as he sat down.
Violet nodded her thanks and sipped the hot liquid. Though it was dark and strong the way she liked, it would never rival Francis’ hand-pressed brew. For now, it settled her nerves and helped her to focus. “Thanks, Joe. I let things pile up on me and for that one moment, it got a little much.” She sipped some more. “Sorry about the mini-breakdown.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of.” He grinned at her. “Part of the job, although most women in tears aren’t as pretty as you.”
Violet took an extra swallow of coffee to cover her surprise. Could her life get any screwier? One minute she was near tears—in public, no less—and now Joe was flirting with her. Flirting. With her.
She opened her mouth to make a fool of herself when her iPhone rang, saving her from further embarrassment.
“Can you pardon me for a second?” she said, glancing at the number. Penelope.
Joe nodded, leaving the table.
“Violet? Are you busy?” Penelope’s voice was hesitant.
Violet sat up in the chair, her attention focused on her friend’s voice. “What’s up, P? You sound upset.”
“Uh, just walked in the door and then had to have Sam thrown out. Then I get an email from the bank about a transfer. I don’t know what’s going on. You know my bank isn’t user friendly.”
Chuckling under her breath, Violet opened her laptop and tapped a few keys, waited for the wireless connection to connect and brought up the browser. With a few taps on the mouse pad, she was able to see what had happened and with another few taps, she was able to set it right.
“I think I got it. Someone has been trying to access your account. Almost transferred all the bakery’s capital.” Violet bit at her lip, feeling the tears prick at her eyes again. Computers and technology seemed to complicate life instead of make it easier.
“Oh, my God.” Penelope’s voice went up an octave.
“Don’t get your thong in a twist. I canceled it and changed your password. Good that you called me.”
“Thanks, Vee. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Anytime, P. Happy to help.” She hoped the forced cheeriness in her voice would fool her friend. Solving other people’s problems was easy. If she could only solve her own.
“What’s the matter with you?” Penelope asked. “Lemme guess. You and Francis aren’t bumping pelvises anymore?”
“Is ‘bumping pelvises’ a technical term? Or something they teach you in the baking business?” She sighed. “Why is there this sudden interest in my love life? And can you tell me when it became a federal offense to accept a damn cup of coffee? It wasn’t even a large.” She had a sneaking suspicion that Francis was still upset over her first free sample.
Penelope swallowed a giggle. “You’re upset over coffee?”
“A girl needs her caffeine. The earlier the better.”
“I’m in total agreement with that, but it sounds like you need more than java. You need a double shot.”
“More like a double barreled shotgun. Don’t start with me, Penelope. It’s bad enough Moira left a message about washing machine sex.”
Penelope’s laugh burst through the line. “I knew it!”
Violet laughed a little. “I know, I know. Wonder if it was during the spin cycle.” A loud hiss came from one of the coffee pots and she glanced up.
“You’re at the coffee shop?”
“Jeez, P. You don’t miss a trick. Now this bank thing…focus on what’s important.”
“You already took care of that. Now my focus is coffee. You. Upset. Coffee guy must be flirting with you again.”
Violet shifted her weight and rocked back in her chair. Moira and Penelope were so concerned about her love life. Didn’t they realize it was non-existent? “Penelope, I promise if you mention my love life one more time I’ll send your parents pictures from our trip to Mardi Gras. I’m sure they’d love to see those.”
Penelope sucked in a breath and Violet grinned. That fixed her. Beads, sexy men, freshman fun in the Big Easy. She shut her laptop and picked up her cup of coffee preparing to go. Just before she got up, she glanced toward the entrance.
Francis, along with Cammi—with an i—from the design school entered. Violet eased her chair farther back in the corner and winced when it scraped against the floor. If she stayed here, maybe he wouldn’t notice her. “For God’s sake, what is he doing here?” she muttered, forgetting she was still on the phone.
“Who?” Penelope asked.
He and Cammi—with an i— approached two of the design students sitting in the café and after a few calm words, the volume of conversation between Cammi and a girl with pink hair increased. Violet started at the brewing altercation and remembered that Francis had mentioned trouble with a student who was accessing blocked sites during instructional time and overloading the school’s server with illegal downloading. “Oh, this is going to get ugly and fast. I’ll call you later.” She reached for her laptop, planning a quick getaway. “Oh. Wait. You find your mystery man yet?”
“No, but he’s still leaving me gifts.”
“Sweet.”
Pink hair girl stood up, upsetting several plates on the table. Time to go. “Later.”
Violet shoved her phone in her pocket and watched the drama unfold. If she moved, Francis might see her. To her relief, Francis said something to the group at large that seemed to defuse the situation and hurried out alone, his head bent over his phone. Good. He was going upstairs. She waited a few minutes and then scooped up her laptop, gazed at the cup of coffee and decided to leave it there. She slunk along the wall and almost made it to the door when Joe called to her.
“Violet!”
Turning, she waited until he crossed the café to her. The little fracas in the design group had calmed considerably as they were all sitting now, conversation back at a normal level.
“Feeling better now?”
Violet nodded.
His smile was open, like he didn’t have a care in the world. If that were true, she envied him. “Doing a lot better. Thank you.” She started moving again and stopped when she reached the entrance. “I’m going to go back upstairs now and get some work done.”
“Good.” He patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Everything will work out.” He laughed a little. “I sound like someone’s grandmother. But you know what I mean.”
“I know. Thanks, Joe.”
They both turned at the sound of the lobby door. There was a muffled sneeze and the sound of feet on the stairs. Francis appeared, unwinding his black cashmere scarf from his neck.
He stopped when he saw them. Suspicion crossed his face, like an approaching thunderstorm, before he arranged his features into something approximating friendliness.
“Good morning.” His tone was clipped, formal, and arctic-cold.
She pasted a huge grin on her face. “Francis! Hey! Have you met Joe?”
Extending his gloved hand, he bared his teeth in what only a wolverine would call a smile. “Francis Rushmore,” he said in his most formal tone. His eyes glittered. “NorthStar Tech.”
“Joe Costello. Coffee shop.” His good-natured laughter was met with silence.
The two men shook hands.
“A pleasure to meet you.” Francis said.
“Likewise.”
Francis turned to Violet. “You do realize we have a conference call scheduled shortly?”
Conference call? Open-mouthed, she stared at him for a long moment before she was able to form words. There was no meeting. There was only their frantic search for the rogue program that was tearing their software limb from limb and threatening the future of their company.
“Ah…yes.” Violet shot Francis a look of pure venom, which he returned with one of his flat, impenetrable gazes. She turned to Joe, who was trying to be casual, but the tension between her and Francis was too obvious. “Well, Joe, my partner here is ushering me off to a meeting, so I’d better get going.”
“Sure.” His gaze swung back and forth between the two of them, but his tone was easy. “See you soon. Nice meeting you, Francis.”
“Likewise.” Francis didn’t look in his direction. “Let’s go, Violet.”
“Bye, Joe.” Violet waggled her fingers in Joe’s direction, smiling, but inside she was seething.
****
In the parking lot, Rogers stood behind his car, hoping he was out of sight of anyone in the building. He should have parked around the back. Here, anyone glancing out of the windows of the coffee shop or NorthStar Tech might see him. By the time his cell phone rang, he was chilled to the bone. He wished he had taken the time to throw on his coat. But since first call had demanded that he be available in less than two minutes, he thought it prudent to get outside as soon as possible. There was no profit in making these people wait.
He pressed the cell phone to his ear. “Hello.”
“What is the delay?” Female, older, and impatient, the voice on the other end of the line was not one that was used to being disappointed. “I would have expected them to be shut down by now. Over.”
“They’re still working.” Rogers didn’t waste time wondering how she knew that operations were still going on. “They’re trying to make corrections. They have us working—”
“No, that won’t do. I want them shut down. I want the files gone, erased, kaput.”
“I’m working on it. I’m trying to be subtle.”
“Subtlety is not a virtue in this case, Rogers. Shut them down or you don’t get paid.”
The line went dead.
Rogers tucked the cell phone in his pocket and rubbed his cold hands together. That wasn’t the agreement from the beginning, but he couldn’t back out now. He sighed, his breath clouding in the frigid air. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Chapter Eight
“What’s wrong with you?” Violet dropped her laptop on her desk, upsetting one of the pencil jars. She frowned, her emotions in unaccustomed turmoil, and crossed her arms to confront her normally placid partner. “Have you gone insane?”
Francis regarded her without expression as he unbuttoned his coat and hung it on the rack by the door. “What were you doing in the coffee shop?”
“Why are you answering a question with a question?” Violet’s temper ramped up a notch. She itched to smack him.
He gave her a smug little grin. “You just did the same thing.”
Violet balled her fists at her sides and advanced on him, her temper near scalding. He didn’t flinch as she approached, the little smirk on his face making her angrier.
“You should see yourself, Vee, like a little steam engine all puffed up. So cute. Are you going to slap me?”
Her sudden laughter at that image diffused her anger. “Why did you hurry me off like that?”
He shrugged and moved past her. “Why are you wasting your time talking to him?”
Violet tilted her head to the side, watched his back as he walked to his desk. “Why do you care?”
“He’s trying to put the make on you.”
“Again, why do you care?” She followed him, examining him for any changes of expression. “We’re fucking, Francis, nothing more.” The lie was easy, taking no more than a second to trip across her tongue. “Stop making a big deal out of simple conversation.”
He didn’t answer her for a long time as he sat and stared at a spot on the wall behind her. She felt suspended in time, unable to move unless he said something to set her free. Did he think the same thing? That they were just fucking? Feeling outside of herself, she watched him pull off his glasses and begin polishing them, stalling for time.
She waited.
Francis slid his glasses back on and stared at her with an expression of such hopelessness that she was taken aback. Guilt trickled through her but she remained steadfast. Francis could give her that geek-puppy look if he liked, but she knew he could do so much better. She was saving him from himself with her refusal to take their relationship further. However, she should apologize for being so abrupt.
“Francis, I—”
The office telephone rang and he snatched it up, turned away from her. “NorthStar Tech, Francis speaking.” He paused. “Hi, Cammi, is everything straightened out?”
Whatever he wanted to discuss with Cammi—with an i—from the design school, she didn’t want to hear. Violet left the office.
****
Francis tossed the handset into the cradle and ran both hands through his hair. Leaving his desk, he strolled to the windows that looked onto the front parking lot. His cell phone buzzed behind him, but he ignored it. Right now, his total concentration was on how to keep Violet on a permanent basis, software success or no software success.
He had been taken with her impetuousness and her determination and her intelligence from the first time they’d met. Thrilled when she had approached him with this partnership, by the time they had gone to Atlantic City he had been half in love with her.
If he closed his eyes, he could taste the fudge she had eaten as they walked the boardwalk, playing hooky from the evening keynote speaker in favor of enjoying the salty ocean air. Thursday night was the start of the weekend, she’d told him, and given the crowds on the boardwalk and on the beach, she’d been right.
On the way back to their (separate) rooms, they’d discovered the hotel bar was having a happy hour where drinks were free for guests. Several other convention attendees, who were also ducking out of the convention dinner, asked him to come in and have “just one drink.” Not one to turn down a good glass of Dewar’s, he sweet-talked Violet into coming with him.
And, he sighed, the rest was history that they were both struggling with now, but that was going to end. He didn’t know what was going on between the two, but coffee shop Joe might want to stick to his caffeinated blends.
Chapter Nine
Francis dropped a white Party City bag on her desk. Violet poked the bag with her finger but d
idn’t look inside.
“What’s this?” She looked up at him, eyebrows raised.
He made a gesture at the bag. “The bag’s right there. Open it.”
With another questioning glance at him, she pulled the handles apart and peeked in the bag. A huge smile spread over her face and she squealed. No matter how small the gift, a cup of coffee, or a new pencil sharpener, she greeted them all with enthusiasm.
She stuck her hand in the bag and lifted out a fistful of green apple Jolly Rancher candies.
“Oh, my God, Francis, thank you so much!” She jumped up and gave him a kiss on the cheek, her eyes shining. “How did you get them all green? Do they sell them separately? You know I tried to find them like that, but I gave up because you had to buy this huge box and even then they weren’t separate and…” She paused to take a breath. “You’re a magician, I swear, Francis. How did you do this? Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.” Pleased and slightly embarrassed with her absolute glee, he crossed over to his own desk and sat down, a vague ache in his chest. He busied himself with clicking through the new emails of the day as she filled two candy dishes on her desk.
“Don’t tell me you went to Party City and got these?”
“I did.”
“I didn’t know they sold them by color.”
“They don’t.”
“I smell a story, Francis. Give it up already.”
He blew out his breath and sat back in his chair, grinning. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I got an email that Party City has this sale on their candy.”
Violet snorted. “You’re on the Party City mailing list, for real? You throw a lot of parties?” She peered at him over the top of the monitor. “And I haven’t been invited to your happening party pad?”
“I bought my niece’s Halloween costume online and got on their email list. May I tell the story now?”
“Sure, but there’s no guarantee I won’t interrupt you again.”
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