That didn’t make sense. Tate mulled over the comment. “Someone is intentionally going in there and slowing my sites down. Over and over?”
Mikki nodded. “They’ve tweaked the work we did over the weekend, not as thoroughly as before, but someone’s restricted access for your clients.”
“Fantastic.” Sarcasm dripped from Tate’s voice. “Like, who?”
Mikki quirked her mouth to the side, and shrugged. “One of Jared’s people. Whoever’s got access to your servers, which is all of them. I’d ask if you pissed off upper management, but since you are...”
Could Marge be choking his sites, to force the crowdfunding site to fail? The thought surged into Tate’s head, sounding absolutely ludicrous. This was still business, and even if she didn’t like the idea, it was still surging toward successful, despite the problems.
“Do you want more?” Mikki asked.
V looked at Tate, apology in her eyes. “I’m sorry. After hours, maybe, but she’s got her own work to do.”
“I get it; it’s fine. Thanks for looking.” Tate sank lower in his seat. He needed to get to the bottom of this.
The moment Mikki was gone, V turned back to Tate. “Look, I know Alyssia is everyone’s favorite baby sister. But this is business, and you need to consider shutting her down.”
Tate was getting sick of hearing that. “It’s not just business.” The retort came out sharper than he intended. He needed to dial it back.
“It should be.”
Tate rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I mean. She’s running an animal shelter, and they do good things. This isn’t just about a bottom line. What about all those animals?”
“I’m not heartless.” Vivian’s expression softened. “I’ll write them a check. I’m surprised you haven’t done the same.”
“She won’t take my money. I’d fund the entire operation if I could.”
Vivian raised her brows. “Strictly for the puppies?”
“Of course.”
“If she won’t take a perfectly legitimate donation, maybe Alyssia’s the problem. I hate to say that, and I know you don’t want to hear it. But if you do this emotionally, people are going to get fucked.”
Tate dug his fingers into his leg, and squeezed in frustration. V was wrong. He knew it. He just couldn’t figure out what was right.
Chapter Fifteen
When Tate stepped through the front door to the shelter, a painful sense of déjà vu washed over him. He shook his head to clear out the thought. The boarded up window already had his anxiety cranked to max. He’d been out since after lunch, dropping off paperwork with all their crowd-funding site pilot groups, and the shelter was last on his list. Because Lys’s shift didn’t start until later, of course. No other reason.
Sara’s smile looked forced when she glanced up from her computer. “You might not want to go back there.”
He nodded at the window. “Something I should know first?”
“That was a rock last night. Our friendly neighborhood picketers.” Her usually chipper tone was flat. “But that’s not the problem.”
“Okay?”
“She did a rebuttal piece with the news station last night. It aired about ten minutes ago.”
An invisible hand clenched around Tate’s chest. “Do I want details?”
Sara just shook her head. “I heard some kind of primal-scream-type yelling. She’s not answering her phone, and when I tried to check on her, she told me to go away. You should probably check on her.”
Tate was already moving toward Alyssia’s office, adrenaline pumping through him at a painful clip. She didn’t look up when he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Her attention was on her feet, as she traveled from one end of the office to the other, and then back.
Every impulse he’d struggled to suppress since Monday. The desire to protect her, to keep her safe, to wrap her up and never let go, flooded through him. “Lys.”
She jumped and whirled to face him. Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
Not the reception he’d expected, but it was fair, all things considered. “Are you all right?”
Her laugh was bitter and sharp. “Your powers of perception are slipping if you don’t already know the answer to that.” She shook her head and resumed pacing. “But since it’s not obvious, no. I’m not fucking all right.”
Anger. He could deal with that. It meant she’d talk, and he could find a solution. “Fill me in.”
“Is there something about me that screams stupid? Or gullible?”
“Absolutely not.”
She finally looked him the eye. “In that case, tell me something, and be honest.”
“Of course.” He was losing control of the conversation, and he didn’t like that. But he couldn’t think of any alternative but to go along with things until he uncovered more of the situation.
“Did Sara tell you what was going on?”
The question was too easy. That couldn’t be where things were going. “She gave me a brief run-down. I figured I’d get details from you.”
“How many times since you walked in the front door have you told yourself you’d fix this?” Her lips twisted in irritated amusement. “How many different ways are you thinking you’ll make this better?”
Tate didn’t know what bothered him more—that she’d crawled into his head and plucked the thoughts out so succinctly, or her irritation when she asked about it. “We’ll make it better.”
She shook her head, kicked out her office chair, and dropped into it. “I did what you told me not to. I talked to the news station. That crowd outside gets larger every day, and our numbers have slumped off noticeably in the last few days. I had to do something.”
Tate had to clench his jaw to keep from interrupting.
“And they slaughtered me. Took everything I said out of context. Almost all of their footage was of the people on the sidewalk. What little they showed of me was clipped to make it look like I only do this to make people suffer. I take their pets in, never give them back, and call the police on the people I don’t like. They spun it that way.”
It was Thompson’s TV station. What had she expected? “Call your lawyer. It’s slander.”
She slammed her hands on the desk hard enough to shake the floor. “I know it’s fucking slander. The damage is done. And so help me, if you’re thinking you need to rein me in, and make me calm down, I’ll have Ricco throw you out.”
Once again, he was bothered she’d read him so easily. “You’re not solving anything this way.” He struggled to keep his tone cool and calm.
“You think?” She breathed deep. Her chin quivered, and she clenched her hands into fists several times. She scrubbed the back of her hand across her cheeks and eyes. “None of this is solving anything.” The fire in her voice wilted, faded, and ended in a crack. “Your ideas aren’t exactly batting one-thousand either. If the site keeps taking donations at this rate, it’ll be twenty-fifty before I’ve raised enough for the shelter expansion.”
The conversation with Vivian tickled his memory. “So let me write you a check. I can get that out of the way now, and then we can focus on the legal problems, and setting things right.”
“Let you. You can get. Do you hear yourself? I don’t want you to make this all vanish. Nothing gets better if you sweep your magic money wand over the entire situation.”
“Where’s this coming from?” He’d been cold at the party on Monday, and he owed her an apology for that, but this didn’t seem even remotely related.
“You can’t bail me out for the rest of my life, Tate. What happens when we grow apart?”
The question burrowed under his skin and drilled a hole into his thoughts. A wave of cold passed over him. “Why would we grow apart?” It was a stupid question. Of course they would. He’d just never thought about it before. Not seriously.
She tugged on her hair. “You keep talking about this mysterious Mister Right that I’m going to end up with. Do you think things are going to stay the same
between us when he comes along? That we’ll all be best buds, and our relationship won’t change?”
She was just spitting his own words back at him. Reiterating the future he’d always seen for her. The one that didn’t include him. But hearing her acknowledge it sank into his feet like concrete. He’d never hated an idea more.
“I’m not like you.” She continued. “I don’t like the idea of growing old alone. My life plan has never included not getting attached. I want kids, and a happy marriage, and a house with a big enough yard for dogs and cats. Maybe that does mean I’m stupid or gullible, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping.”
He couldn’t think about her entire statement. Taking it in its entirety jumbled his thoughts. He zeroed in on the bits he could grasp. “I won’t be alone. I’ll have my friends.”
“That’s all fine and good. But it’s not the same.” She stared at him, gaze driving into his soul, as if she searched for something he was certain didn’t exist. “Friends are great. But I want more.”
How had this gone from being a conversation about the shelter, to the rest of their lives? He wanted to switch the conversation back to something more neutral. Bring it back to a place he understood and that didn’t make him ill. Something told him that wasn’t an option. Even though he’d always known her future was somewhere else, even though he’d been repeating it in his head and out loud for the last week, hearing her say it felt like betrayal. It wasn’t fair to tell her that, though. Because she was right, and any other answer was selfish. “You’re right. You deserve that. You deserve more.”
She clenched her jaw, and her entire frame shook. Her eyes grew watery, and she sniffled. “You need to leave.”
He couldn’t. If he walked out now, this would never be better. But his own thoughts didn’t make sense to him. He was contradicting himself, and he didn’t have a response.
“Please. Leave. Have a different project manager contact me.”
She was right, so why did he want to argue? He should be grateful she finally got it. This was the best solution for her, and staying was just him being selfish.
ALYSSIA DROPPED HER face in her hands after Tate walked out the door. She wanted to be pissed at him for just going along with what she’d said—because it was best for her. She wanted to be furious at him for making her think about it in the first place. Most of all, she wanted to get rid of the feeling it would have been smarter of her to hack off her own arm with a butter knife than to pick that fight.
But blame had bounced back and forth in her head all night. Since the news story aired. It was her fault for not listening to Tate. It was his fault for always trying to do what was best for her. It was Jared’s fault for treating her like a baby for so long.
Everyone was to blame, the world sucked, and she didn’t even know if happily ever after really existed. She hated Tate most of all for putting that thought in her head.
If she was going to insist on doing this on her own, she’d better get started. At least it would give her a distraction. Tate’s idea hadn’t worked—a glance at her crowd-funding site told her she wasn’t even five percent to her goal. Her idea hadn’t worked—the news story that night was proof she couldn’t compete with the Thompson’s connections, and he’d put her entire shelter at risk because of it. Or she had. It was time she started taking credit for her own fuck ups.
It was time to explore other options. She should have done this months ago, but it was too easy to let Tate step in. Too easy to convince herself that even though she wouldn’t take his money, she was being self-sufficient by letting him do the work. She’d find an investor group, or wherever money came from when banks didn’t loan it. Where to start?
Search engines were her best friend, and it was time to dig her heels in and either fund her shelter, or make sure she had contacts in other places to send the pets she wouldn’t be able to take in if she couldn’t expand.
Armed with a plan, she banished thoughts of Tate to the back of her mind. Just thinking his name hurt in every inch of her body, but that would lessen with time.
She didn’t have a choice. She’d get over him.
Chapter Sixteen
Tate wasn’t sure how long he’d been driving. Long enough to get him all but lost in the back roads of Northern Georgia, and then turned around and heading back toward the city again.
He couldn’t get the argument with Lys out of his head. Every time he managed to present himself with a logical reason to move on, his brain dragged him back to the fact he wasn’t listening to himself. He didn’t want to see her with another guy. That’s what it came down to at every mental intersection. Thinking of her spending the rest of forever with some random guy—even if he was the nicest dude on the planet, made Tate clench his hands until it ached all the way into his fingertips.
Tate had always told himself he wasn’t equipped to handle a relationship. That sat at the other end of his dilemma. His parents’ marriage was a painful thing to behold. Two people bound by law for business purposes, who had only ever slept in the same bed long enough to conceive him.
So why couldn’t he picture his future without Alyssia? The idea of growing old alone, of drifting away from her, of watching her fall for someone else, crushed him from the inside out.
That was what it came down to. He wanted her in his life. Needed her. Couldn’t do this future thing without her. And he had to tell her.
He turned the car back toward her shelter. At least it was late, so traffic was light. Half an hour later, he pulled into the parking lot. Most of the picketers had called it a night. That was something, at least. He strode through the front door, flashed Sara a smile, and headed straight for Lys’s office. He knocked, and waited.
Several seconds passed. He glanced back at Sara.
“She’s in there.” Sara shrugged. “Not on the phone. At least not the office lines.”
Tate frowned, and knocked again.
“Hang on.” Alyssia’s voice sounded tiny and raw. Several more seconds passed. “It’s open.”
Tate nudged into her office, ill-ease growing inside. His concern spiked when he saw her in her desk chair, knees pulled to her chest, and face pale and drawn. He closed the door behind him. In just a few steps, he was next to her. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, and her chin quivered. She opened her mouth to speak, and a sob tore out instead. Her jaw worked up and down, but nothing intelligible came out.
What the fuck? He didn’t know what was going on, but it was splitting him in two. He held out a hand, and she stumbled forward and collapsed in his arms. Ear-piercing cries echoed through him, gnawing at his calm, flooding him with concern, and a desire to make this vanish, even though he didn’t have a target. He rubbed her back until the sobs slowed to body-wracking, and then tiny sniffles. Her muffled whispers drifted to his ears, and he strained to hear her.
“I didn’t know,” she muttered. “God, what’s wrong with people? I didn’t...” She choked on the words.
It didn’t matter what he’d come there to tell her. This was more important. “Talk to me, Lys.”
She shook her head, and pressed closer into his chest. “You can’t fix this. Jesus, no one can fix this. What the fuck is wrong with people?” She finally met his gaze with red-rimmed, puffy eyes. “I just wanted... I was trying to figure out what to do if the crowd funding fell through. I stumbled on a site with an article about the shelter, going on about all of the lies Thompson’s told. Spewing them like they were truth. And the comments. The things people said about me, about this place...” She swallowed, and nodded at her computer.
He kept her turned away, jarred the mouse, and pulled up her web browser. It took him a moment to register what he was looking at, and when he did his lunch threatened to repeat on him. Videos were embedded in several of the comments. Of animals being tortured. Holy fuck. He closed everything, and slammed the lid shut on her laptop. No wonder she was a wreck. He led her toward the couch, and lowered them both, never
letting go. He couldn’t find the words to ask anything new. Everything stuck in his throat on a surge of sickness.
She curled up against him. “I know people are saying bad things about the place, but I didn’t realize how malicious it had gotten.” She shuddered. “I didn’t expect to find... God, what’s wrong with people, Tate? I couldn’t stop looking, and oh fuck.”
He couldn’t tell her it was going to be okay. Of all the lies he could come up with, that felt like the most insulting. All he could manage was, “I don’t know what’s wrong with people.”
He trailed his fingers through her hair, desperately searching for his own calm and not willing to let her go. He’d stay with her all night if that was what it took. It still wouldn’t give him a solution, but at least they’d both have something to hold onto.
ALYSSIA’S EYES FELT like they’d been bathed in sand, and her throat wasn’t doing much better. She couldn’t think about what she’d seen. She’d known there were sick fucks out there, but having to see it firsthand... No, she wouldn’t go down that path. Digging deep, she summoned the willpower to shove the mental images aside. She sat up enough to look at Tate. “I’m sorry.”
He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “You don’t have to apologize for anything.”
She disagreed, but didn’t have the strength to say so. “Why did you come back?”
He hesitated for the briefest second. “I had a hunch.” He wasn’t telling her everything. She didn’t care. Right now, she was just relieved he was there. “Will you be okay for a minute or two?”
She didn’t know if she’d ever be okay again, but it wasn’t like she could curl up in a permanent ball because she’d seen proof of how ugly the world was. “Yes.”
When he returned a few minutes later, he handed her a cup of water, and a damp washcloth. She let the cold liquid slide down her throat, trying to only focus on the physical sensations, then used the towel to sap some of the heat from her cheeks.
Her Infatuation (Love Games, #6) Page 11
