Please Me (Crush Me Book 2)

by Stasia Black

Fuck.

  I look into Jackson’s bright blue eyes, lit up instead of dark for once because of the morning light.

  I should continue arguing with him about this ‘promotion.’ It’s too early for such a move. I never wanted special treatment. I was adamant about that from the beginning. And his words might sound pretty, but if he had no personal interest in me, would he really be promoting a college dropout so quickly, even if that college was Stanford? I should shut this down. I swore I’d make my own way in the world.

  But Gentry… and my little boy. And he is promoting Marcy too. I swallow and turn over on the pillow so I don’t have to look Jackson in the face.

  “Okay.” My voice is small. “When do I transition?”

  Jackson’s hands snake around my waist and his chin nuzzles the back of my neck. “Monday. You won’t regret this, Callie. I promise, this is where you belong.” I can’t tell if he means in his arms or working with him at his company. Maybe he means both. My chest squeezes hard at the thought. Because what if I can’t find another way out of the bind with Gentry? I think of last night and the intimacy we shared. A deep shudder works its way through my body. I was so upset about him keeping a secret from me but…What if I’m forced to betray him?

  “Are you cold? Come here, baby. I’ll warm you up.” I can hear the smile in his voice as he lifts a powerful leg and wraps it around my body, cocooning me even further.

  Instead of suffocating me like I might have expected, it makes me feel safe. Incredibly safe.

  And the question pings through my head again: oh God, what if I’m forced to betray him?

  Chapter 12

  Bright and early on Monday morning, Jackson leads me down the hallway on the floor below his to meet the rest of the team. I fidget with the hem of my fitted blazer before I realize what I’m doing and drop my hand.

  I went home soon after we woke up together on Sunday morning, claiming I had a weekend full of chores I’d been neglecting. That part was true, but mainly I needed space away from Jackson to get my head straight. And, you know, try to come up with an actual plan to juggle the impossible situation Gentry’s put me in without letting down anyone else in my life. But like a Rubik’s Cube, no matter how I turned things over in my head, shifting one element only screwed up another. Sunday night I finally gave up, downed half a bottle of wine and caught up on Inside Amy Schumer episodes with Shannon. She hadn’t forgotten about my strange exit on Thursday and had noticed my off mood all weekend, but she didn’t press it after I brushed off her few questions. Thank God. That Zen boyfriend has actually done wonders for helping chill her the hell out.

  Yeah. Wish I knew that trick. ‘Cause here I am now, being led by a very enthusiastic Jackson straight toward his inner lair. Where he wants to lay all his company’s secrets before me like a buffet table.

  As if sensing my reluctance by my sluggish steps, Jackson turns, his eyebrows dropping. “Is everything okay?”

  I perk up instantly at the note of concern in his voice. “Of course,” I lie smoothly. “Just had trouble sleeping last night. Nervous before my big day on the new job.” I give him my pageant-winning smile.

  He doesn’t look completely convinced, but I nod down the hall. “Come on, I want to see. The sooner you show me what we’re working on, the less anxious I’ll be.”

  This snaps him back to attention and he returns my smile, his dimple appearing. Damn dimple. It does things to me, even right now when I’m so mixed up. I want to push him up against the wall and kiss him until everything seems simple again.

  But I have more self-control than that and it’s definitely not the impression I want to give to my new colleagues—especially if any of us are going to pretend that I didn’t get this job by sleeping with the boss.

  He opens the door and it’s not decorated in the old-world style of executive floor offices or like my previous floor of regulation cubicles. Instead it’s a large lab or some kind of testing facility. It’s a huge open space that must take up half the square footage of the whole floor.

  “If you don’t close your mouth, a bug’s going to fly inside,” Jackson whispers beside me, nudging me on my shoulder.

  Damn him, he’s right, my mouth did literally drop open at the impressive sight before me.

  Nope, here everything is a pristine white and so brightly lit, it almost hurts my eyes. I shut my mouth with a click of teeth. But damn, this place is impressive. People hustle around everywhere. There are different stations dotting the room. Each station has up to three huge monitors, all scrolling data. In one corner, two quadcopter drones circle one another about a foot from the extra high ceiling.

  My eyes continue searching and I eventually find two techs with tablets in their hands that I assume are controllers to guide the drones. In other stations, drones lie in pieces, while elsewhere, I recognize complicated programing code filling the screens.

  Holy shit. This is officially the coolest place ever. I want to go everywhere at once like a kid in a toy store. Jackson drops a hand to the small of my back and guides me to the left.

  I keep looking over my shoulder at the man and woman directing the active drones. I’ve been working on code that seemed so far removed from the actual implementation of the drones, it’s amazing to see the final, working product. Even though that drone obviously requires humans to do the controlling, and I’ve been working on the self-maneuvering AI ones, it’s still fascinating and I—

  “Whoa, look where you’re headed, Miss Cruise.” Jackson jerks me to the side before I crash into one of the computer stations.

  “Oh!”

  Jackson doesn’t let go of me and as nice as it is to be plastered to his side, I reluctantly step away again, careful to avoid any obstacles in front of me.

  “This place is…” I shake my head, unable to keep the awe out of my voice, “… amazing.”

  Jackson smiles before leaning in. “I kind of think so too.” He pulls back but I’m left inhaling the lingering scent of pine. I hold back a sigh. Really, does he have to smell so delicious all the time? If he could just have some really obvious defects, that would come in handy right about now.

  “Let’s go.” His face sobers. “I want to show you what we’re currently working on.” I frown when I notice his eyebrows are drawn and his face is clouded over. He obviously loves this place, but I can tell everything’s not all sunshine and roses here. What is it? Even with all the stuff on my own plate, I immediately want to find out whatever’s wrong and fix it for him.

  He leads me to a glassed-in room that runs along the back wall of the entire floor, effectively creating a very long, narrow room. He swipes his ID card and then pulls open the door. I notice rubber all around the door so that it suctions slightly when it opens and closes.

  There’s even more equipment in this room, and it too is bustling with lab techs, some even wearing white coats.

  “Mr. Vale,” a middle-aged Indian man looks up from his computer and gets to his feet, hurrying over to greet us. “Just on time for the nine a.m. prototype test.” The man’s eyes move from Jackson to me.

  “Amit, this is Calliope,” Jackson introduces us. “She’ll be joining the team to work on Falcon Six.”

  I wait for the suspicious glance or look of disdain, but Amit only smiles and holds out his hand. “Welcome to the team.” His attention turns back to Jackson. “Let’s see if our latest set of calculations made any difference.”

  Jackson nods and both men start walking down the makeshift hallway along the window that separates the room from the rest of the floor. I hurry to follow behind. The men continue talking specifications and I catch what I can.

  “If we use a low-pass filter capture, we can catch large objects on a collision course before they hit. But if we try to use any more complex filters, then the amount of data—” Amit shakes his head and Jackson continues where he leaves off.

  “—Becomes too much to calculate for effectiveness in real-time situations.”

  “Exactly,
” Amit responds.

  “How do the computer simulations do with the new algorithm?”

  Amit waves his hand in a so-so gesture. “Sometimes the drone is able to respond in time.” Then he winces. “Sometimes not.”

  Jackson grimaces. “Let’s see how the test goes.” He turns to me. “Did you follow that?”

  “Your unmanned drone can’t get out of the way fast enough when things are in its way.”

  He smiles, some of the tense edges around his mouth loosening. “Exactly. At its most basic, that’s our problem. This is why we need some new eyes on the project.”

  I shrug. “Just calling it like it is.”

  “Yes, well, maybe that will all change today and you’ll get to join in on an already-successful project rather than a struggling one. Take a seat.” He gestures toward several seats that line the wall by the window. He looks down at his phone and I peek at the time. 8:57. More and more people file into this side of the long room until a small crowd has gathered. Then Amit begins to lead the meeting.

  “You know we’ve been working on releasing a new and improved version of the Falcon Six BIOS. We’re here today to test what we’ve all been working so hard on over the past month. Hopefully we worked out the bugs and have gotten her up to speed.” He lifts a tablet from a nearby table. “Without any further ado. Falcon Six, solo flight directed only by GPS coordinates. Obstacles to encounter will be wind turbulence, a simulated tree branch and a secondary drone that is our stand-in for a bird or other air debris the Falcon might come across in the real world.” He looks down at the tablet in his hand, finger hovering over a button. “And go,” his finger descends and presses the screen.

  At first it doesn’t seem like anything is happening, but then I notice that everyone else’s head is swung toward the far side of the long, rectangular room that runs the length of the building. I squint to see what they’re looking at. At first, I don’t see anything. Finally, I catch movement and hear the slightest humming noise.

  There it is—a quadcopter speeding at a pretty quick clip in our direction.

  Then, all of a sudden, a loud burst of air like the rush of wind turbines sounds in the otherwise quiet room. It startles me so much that I jump in my chair. Damn.

  I notice them now, a large bank of industrial size fans set up about halfway down the long room. They’re stacked three high, five wide, and are each four feet in diameter. It’s a wonder I didn’t see them earlier, but I was too focused on where Jackson was leading me.

  I know from specs I’ve seen that the Falcon’s propellers are about a foot in diameter themselves, but the drone is still blown so far off course by the blast of air from the fans that I worry it’s going to slam into the glass wall partitioning the testing room from the rest of the lab.

  Just before copter blades meet glass, though, the drone course-corrects and continues on at a steady pace toward us. The collective gasp of the group around me is audible. Everyone really wants this to succeed.

  A lab tech at the halfway mark moves into the Falcon’s path and holds up a giant fake bushy branch. Again, the drone alters its course, moving out of the branch’s way with plenty of space to spare. The people around me clap.

  I have to say, it is impressive. There’s no one guiding this drone around the obstacles. It’s all the firmware that’s been programmed to recognize and maneuver itself around objects in its path. Pretty damn special.

  The drone is coming closer, probably still about forty or forty-five feet away when one of the other techs in the group uses a tablet to lift a drone I didn’t see resting on one of the other tables. It rises up in the air with a soft whir and advances toward Falcon Six in a steady path. At first it doesn’t look like the Falcon recognizes it or is going to do anything about it, but when the other drone is still a good four feet away, Falcon Six ducks and flies smoothly underneath.

  Cheers erupt from the people around me, but not from Jackson. He’s still stiff where he stands beside me.

  He walks the few feet and takes the tablet from the young man wielding it. He takes over control of the second drone so smoothly, it doesn’t even dip in its flight path. It does however, pull a U-turn and start heading back toward Falcon Six. It trails right behind the Falcon with no response at all from the lead drone. Then, with a few flicks of his finger, Jackson loops the follow drone out in front of Falcon Six. He doesn’t even immediately put it in Falcon Six’s path. He gives about two feet lead time.

  It’s not enough.

  Falcon Six crashes straight into the second drone, sending them both to the floor in a loud, unforgiving clatter of impacting propellers and hard plastic.

  The reaction from the crowd is similarly audible. Gasps and cries of “No!” as well as a general shift of the group forward, like they could have stopped the calamity from happening in its last moments.

  Jackson stands perfectly still, though, his face completely placid.

  “All right team,” he says, his voice elevated as he steps forward and looks around the room. “We have our work cut out for us. Reaction time is still far too slow. We need real-time-response capabilities if we want a truly autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle…” He pauses and takes time to look each member of his team in the face, including me. “…which is the entire goal of this product. Anyone can make a drone. Hell, you can look up schematics on the internet, order the parts, and build your own these days.

  “We’re trying to break boundaries.” Jackson’s pointer finger comes down on the nearest desk in emphasis. “To do what has never been done before. I should be able to throw this,” he picks up a fist-sized geode paperweight, “at our quadcopter mid-flight,” he mimes hurling it at top speed, “and it should be able to recognize, react, and evade it.”

  He’s captivating. I mean, I knew that I found him intensely appealing, but that was just in a personal one-on-one setting. But now I can see how he made this company such a success. He’s a born leader.

  “So of course it’s going to take us more than a couple of false starts. We’ve already improved reaction time by an incredible amount.” He turns and again his eyes flick from person to person. And again, his perusal of the group ends with his gaze landing on me. “But the real world is messy.” He holds my eyes for a beat before turning to the room at large. “Still, we need our drones to be able to deal with anything life might throw at them. Literally.” He hefts the geode in his hand. He gives his dimpled smile and the energy in the room feels completely recharged. People clap and there’s determined nodding everywhere I look.

  “Let’s get to it then,” Jackson says. “Meeting with the software engineering group in ten.” He makes a shooing motion with his hands and everyone scatters.

  He turns to me. The dimple’s still firmly in place. “Hold onto your pants. We’re jumping straight into the deep end.”

  * * *

  Jackson wasn’t joking. I spent the morning with my new team looking at code and trying to find ways to shave time off the pattern recognition algorithm.

  That’s basically what the problem comes down to. The drone’s taking in too much data at once to process it all fast enough to be able to react in time. To increase the speed, we need more processing power. Two options there, but neither works. We can’t add more CPUs to the drone itself because then it becomes too heavy. And two, we can’t remote access to a supercomputer because it quickly becomes too costly as well as impractical if you’re relying on a cell phone-based system for transmission. There are too many places that don’t get service. It’s a conundrum for sure.

  The real world is indeed messy. And why did Jackson look at me when he said that earlier? Does he sense there’s something important I’m not telling him? Does he guess about Gentry? Shit, only a few days of this and I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin with paranoia and anxiety.

  Except for the fact that Jackson’s drone not working is really only good news for me. This hit me about halfway through the day and when it did, the vice around m
y chest finally loosened so I could breathe easily again. There’s no moral dilemma or Sophie’s choice or whatever the fuck to face anymore. There’s no possibility of me stealing anything and giving it to Gentry because there’s nothing to steal! God, not that I would have done it anyway. Fuck no. But still. Now I don’t even have to stress out about it. Jackson hasn’t figured out the problem any more than Gentry has.

  So when I see Gentry’s burner phone number pop up on my screen while I’m coming back from the bathroom after lunch, I duck into a small alcove.

  Cold. Just be cold and don’t let anything he says get to you.

  “Yes?” I’m proud when there’s only a small tremor to my voice.

  “How’s the acquisition coming?”

  I put a hand to my suddenly churning stomach. It’s a physiological reaction whenever I hear the bastard’s voice. I just immediately want to throw up.

  I brace myself against the wall and swallow hard. You can do this, Callie. You’re safe. You’re in Jackson’s building. Gentry has no power over you except whatever you allow him.

  I swallow down the bile, hating that he knows by my silence he’s getting to me. “There won’t be any acquisition. Jackson doesn’t have his next-gen AI drone working yet. He hasn’t cracked it.”

  This time the silence comes from Gentry. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying.”

  “I’m not!” I only realize how loud I’ve spoken when a woman passing down the connected hallway looks in my direction. Damn it.

  “I’m not,” I whisper again, still with a vehemence I can’t seem to keep out of my voice when dealing with this fucker. “I’m not shitting you. He can’t get the drone to process data quickly enough. I just watched the prototype crash and burn today.”

  “I still want that prototype. And the program.”

  “But I just told you, it doesn’t—”

  “It doesn’t work yet.” Gentry’s slick voice purrs in my ear. “You still have two weeks to—how shall we say?—encourage Vale to iron out those kinks. I expect a working prototype in my hands by the end of our contracted date. Just wrap him around your little finger and then motivate the hell out of him. After all, we both know you have considerable talents in that area.” His tone is so lascivious and full of innuendo that this time I do gag and throw up in my mouth a little.