Sheltering His Desire Page 12

  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.

  He set everything aside. She didn’t like the pity on his face. Or maybe that was just concern, and she was overreacting. Panic surged inside again, and she squashed the visuals it threatened to bring with it.

  He grasped her fingers, and tugged her to her feet. “Come with me.”

  She didn’t have any strength to protest, or even ask where they were going. She couldn’t meet Sara’s curious gaze when Tate led her into the lobby. He reached over the front desk and grabbed something she couldn’t see, then tugged her toward the kennels.

  Most of the dogs were sleeping, but a few stirred when he let them into back room. One animal barked, and seconds later the rest joined the chaos. Her soul shrank from the sound. She wouldn’t react. She loved that sound. It wasn’t a bad sound. She squeezed Tate’s hand tighter, and followed closely behind.

  They stopped in front of Grim’s pen. The dog had recovered wonderfully in the week since they’d taken him in. He still couldn’t do a lot of moving, but he was happy and playful as much as was possible.

  Tate unlocked the pen, knelt in front of Grim, and gestured for her to do the same. He lifted her chin until he was looking her in the eyes. Even amid the barking of a dozen or so dogs, his voice was distinct, and kind. “You can’t protect the world, Lys.” He licked his lips. “Not any more than I can lock you away from everything bad. But what you do matters so much.” He held out his hand. Grim sniffed his fingers, then ducked his head. Tate scratched him behind the ears, and under the chin, affection rolling with the loll of the dog’s head.

  Images from the videos spilled back into Alyssia’s head, and she gasped for breath. Grim whimpered and withdrew. Tate gave her all his attention. “Don’t think about it. Look at me.” His voice never rose. Never wavered. “This is here, and it’s just us and the dogs, which you’re keeping safe.”

  “But, the things I saw—”

  Tate brushed his lips over hers. It wasn’t hungry, or demanding, just soothing. “And the animals you’ve already saved. Like Grim,” he said. “He’s not going anywhere until his doctor says it’s okay, and even then, only with someone you sign off on. Right?”

  She nodded, and forced herself to draw a deep breath.

  Tate scooted closer to Grim, and let the dog rest its head on his leg. Fur and bits of kibble dotted Tate’s slacks. If he noticed, he didn’t care. He never let go of her hands, even while he scratched the dog’s ears and patted its sides.

  As they sat there, the din around them died, and one by one the dogs drifted off to sleep again. Watching Tate with Grim, warmth leaked back into her fractured thoughts, sealing some of the cracks. She really was falling for him.

  The words jarred her thoughts as they formed and solidified. It was a relief to finally let herself admit it. She’d focused on a crush for so long, she’d ignored the actual man behind her infatuation. The realization ached and soothed her at the same time.

  “Come on.” She stood, and pulled on Tate’s hand. “Let the dogs sleep.”

  He locked Grim’s door, followed her into the lobby, and set the keys on the front desk.

  “Everything all right?” Sara looked between them, gaze lingering on the grime on Tate’s suit.

  Alyssia’s jaw clenched, and a response died in her throat.

  “Just playing with some of the dogs.” Tate flashed her a smile. Did she see the tight lines around his eyes? Or was Alyssia the only person who noticed that?

  “Come on.” Alyssia found her voice. “I have some scrubs you can change into. You’re kind of a mess.” Not only was he covered with Grim’s fur, splotches of drool decorated his shirt.

  Tate looked down, and his eyes widened. “Guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “You know where I’ll be,” she said to Sara.

  Back in her office, she grabbed a set of scrubs from a cupboard, and handed them to Tate. “You probably should change. I hope you didn’t ruin your clothes.” The normal conversation helped calm her further, and keep her in the now.

  “They’re pants. They’re replaceable.”

  “I know I shouldn’t ask. But, do you have anywhere to be tonight?”

  He shook his head, and stroked his thumb over the back of her knuckles. “Just here.”

  ****

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Alyssia’s irritated voice dragged Tate from sleep. He winced at the kink in his neck, and sat up. It took him a minute to focus his eyes. She stood in front of her computer, face contorted with fury. She wasn’t back on one of those horrific sites again, was she? Tate’s chest squeezed with concern.

  She pointed to her screen. “What the hell is this?”

  No, probably not. He climbed to his feet, to get a look at what had her so angry. It was a generic landing page from the crowd-funding site. Pretty, friendly—creative had spent weeks on the graphic. The one that said “Sorry, this campaign isn’t running right now. Can we help you find something else?”

  His own ire spiked. Someone had shut her down without his okay. “Son of a bitch.”

  She drummed her fingers on the back of her chair. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.” All of the user agreements allowed the sites to be taken offline without consultation if there were legal or safety concerns. Lys’s site wasn’t either of those things. At this point he’d be tempted to tell her to go with another crowd-funding vendor, if there were enough time to spin her up with someone new, and get her donations in before the clock ran out. “I’ll fix this.”

  “Of course you will.” Her voice held a hard edge. She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m not snapping at you.”

  “You should be. Someone needs to be reamed for this.” He grabbed his phone, and dialed his mother’s office line. It went straight to voice mail. Funny how it hadn’t forwarded to her cell phone. She was either screening him or on the other line. “You can come with me to yell at someone, if you’d like.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know that I’m equipped for that this morning. Call me as soon as you have answers.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Of course.”

  He let his rage soar as he stalked to his car. He was half tempted to go into work dressed in the wrinkled scrubs Lys had loaned him, but that wouldn’t help his case. If he was taking on his mother, he had to be cool, professional, and unflinching. This wasn’t just about Alyssia’s site, though the fact it had been shut down certainly resided at the top of his list. His mother never would have touched one of Jared’s projects like this. Or Vivian’s. This was about shutting his business venture down without conferring with him first. The hypocrisy that accompanied the decision infuriated him. That she thought she could do this to him because he was family.

  For as long as he could remember, he’d yielded, caved, and gone along with her whim because she was his mother, and a parent should know best. It was out of respect and a sense of propriety. Her actions indicated she didn’t hold him in the same regard. He was done being steamrolled, and it was time to put an end to it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tate straightened his tie, assumed the calmest, coolest air he could summon, and strode toward his mother’s office. The door was closed. He w
asn’t surprised. He gave her assistant, Kat his warmest smile. “Is Ms. Foster in?” He was on her turf, so he’d follow her rules of formality regardless of the unprofessional way she was approaching their relationship.

  “Hey.” Kat’s neutral expression shifted to warm and open when she saw him. “I’d let you in if I could, but she’ll be on calls on and off most of the morning. I’ll tell her you stopped by. Ping you if she pokes her head out for more than a few seconds.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He let just enough of his drawl slide in to sound polite. “You know what? I’ll just hang out for a couple minutes, if that’s all right. See if she frees up before the top of the hour?”

  “Stay as long as you’d like.” Kat’s smile grew. “I’ll send her a message and let her know you’re out here.”

  He covered her hand. “Don’t worry about that. I’d hate to make her hurry just to see me. I’ll just hang out for a little while.”

  “Tate.” A familiar baritone snapped through the friendly facade.

  Tate ground his teeth at the sound of his father’s voice, but managed to keep most of the reaction from his voice. He whirled to face the older man. “Mr. Foster.” Calling him Dad in public wasn’t the same taboo as referring to his mother so informally, but Tate was already in that business frame of mind.

  “Can it.” Ben nodded toward his office at the other end of the hall. “Let’s talk.”

  It wasn’t the conversation Tate wanted to have, but it might do. He followed, keeping his mouth shut until the door closed them off from the rest of the world. He didn’t bother with sitting. “Do you have any idea what she did?” That wasn’t how he’d meant to open this conversation.

  “I know what she didn’t do.” Ben took his seat, and leaned back in his chair. “And that’s shut down the shelter’s crowd-funding site.”

  Shock filled Tate. “You? Why?”

  “You made this personal; I made an executive decision. This may be your spin-off, but ultimately it still falls under the Skriddie label. Think of it as an investor getting involved.”

  “This isn’t just about business.” Tate didn’t have to bullshit here, or play sweet. That was one thing he appreciated about his father. “You know what happens to that place if they can’t raise the capital they need.”

  “It is about business. Her business is dealing with bad media. Our business is dealing with bad media for entirely different reasons. If we’re seen supporting her business, ours looks worse.”

  Tate understood the logic. He hated himself for it, but he got it. That didn’t mean he agreed. “So this is all about the bottom line.”

  “Yes.” Ben leaned forward, fingers clasped and arms resting on his desk. “Look. I don’t care what you’ve got going on with Alyssia Tippins. Whether it’s something, or nothing, or falls somewhere in the middle. That’s between you and her, and despite what your mother thinks, there’s no reason to marry you to a senator’s daughter who isn’t even old enough to drink.”

  Tate bit the inside of his cheek to keep a retort from slipping out. He was curious to know where this was going.

  “But that’s personal, this is business. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t understand my decision.”

  “I get it. But I still don’t agree. This isn’t just about return on investment.”

  “That’s exactly what it’s about.” A sharp crack lined Ben’s words. “We’re not a charity. The things we do, we do to make money.”

  Tate didn’t have a retort. He knew he couldn’t win, but he wasn’t willing to back down or give up. “I won’t be in the office the rest of the day.”

  “Fine.” Ben turned to his computer, indicating he felt the conversation was over. “Get this out of your system. When you’re back tomorrow, I expect business as usual from you.”

  Tate was already reaching for his phone as he stormed from the office. He didn’t have a plan, or even the inklings of one, and he wasn’t going to find the answers here.

  A text message from Lys waited for him. How’d it go?

  What the fuck was he going to tell her? He shoved the device back in his pocket, and headed for his car. He’d figure it out.

  ****

  Alyssia lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Every time she drifted toward sleep, horrible images flashed in her mind, muddled with a lack of solutions, and the creeping dread that she didn’t have a way out of this problem. She rolled onto her side, and her gaze fell on her cell phone. She would have heard if it had gone off, but that didn’t stop her from clicking the button to see if she’d missed any calls or texts.

  Nothing.

  “Damn it, Tate.” Talking to the empty room was better than being alone with her thoughts. He was supposed to keep her updated. He’d been so kind last night, and she knew that man was still in there. She also couldn’t shake the feeling he was falling into old patterns.

  Sleep wasn’t going to happen. She climbed from bed, and pulled on some clothes. Maybe she’d have lunch with Jared, use that as an excuse to surprise Tate. That was a stupid idea. She wasn’t being that girl anymore. Jared… Something clicked in her thoughts, chinking and whirring.

  She knew what to do, but she couldn’t do it alone. She grabbed her phone and dialed.

  “This is Mikki.”

  A sliver of progress wormed its way into Alyssia’s thoughts. This would work. “Hey, it’s me. I need a huge, huge favor, and then maybe you can transfer me to Tate?”

  “Like, the exciting, get into trouble kind of favor?” Mikki asked.

  “Probably not. But it’s a challenging kind of thing, and I can’t pay you.”

  “Then yes. But no to the second thing. Tate’s not in today.”

  Alyssia suppressed her disappointment—and that was all it was. No irritation mingled with the feeling. “Tate told me when he set up this whole crowdfunding thing that he rented Skriddie servers because he didn’t have the people to build him a setup.” The way he’d phrased it, it sounded like he couldn’t find the talent. He’d slipped a few times though, that hiring that kind of skill wasn’t in his budget. He’d even placed the hardware orders before his investors—she’d taken that to mean his mother—pulled their funding on the IT budget. He’d sworn he would set it all up once they had the capital. “I don’t even know if I’m saying this right. How long would it take you to setup and configure an entire server array for the crowdfunding sites.”

  Mikki laughed. “Me, personally? Thirty hours. Maybe twenty.”

  “So, asking you to do this means you’d be giving up your evenings for a week or two.” Alyssia couldn’t do that. “Never mind.”

  “What are you kidding? I’m totally in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent. Tell me what we’re doing.”

  Alyssia spent the next half hour laying out her idea, and making sure Mikki had all the right information, before thanking her future sister-in-law, and disconnecting.

  Tate still hadn’t answered her messages. She wasn’t going to waste a phone call on this; it was a conversation that needed to happen in person. She headed to her car, pulled onto the road, and pointed it in the familiar direction.

  Her determination wavered when she drew within sight of his driveway, and confirmed his car was there. Maybe he was just home sick, or sleeping off too many long nights. She should wait for him to return her messages.

  She summoned her resolve, and parked her car next to his. No backing down. It was his decision if he was going to be a part of this or not, but he was going to tell her to her face, and she wasn’t going to let him wrap it in excuses and faulty logic. She rang the bell, and waited, toes tapping inside her shoes.

  The door jerked open more quickly than she expected, and she jumped. Tate stood there, shadows under his eyes, in a battered T-shirt and jeans, and a tired smile. “Hey. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

  He looked good, even exhausted. Concentrate. Remember the plan. Get him to sign on, or walk away. She repeated
the words in her head. “I should be. I couldn’t. Can we talk?”

  “Absolutely.” He stepped aside, and gestured toward the couch.

  She hovered near the entryway. No sitting until she had a better idea of how this was going. “Did you get answers this morning?”

  “Yeah, but don’t worry about it. It’s under control. I’ve got plan—”

  “I am worried about it.” She crossed her arms. “Do you remember yesterday afternoon? You don’t get to have plans about my business without my input.”

  He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know. That’s not what this is. This impacts my entire startup. I need to take care of it.”

  “Tate.” She couldn’t keep the frustration from her voice. “No. You don’t. Is this a lack of respect? Do you not take me seriously? Maybe you think your friends are only there when you’re the one taking care of them?” The words hurt, tugging at insecurities she hated to acknowledge. But she was so tired of dancing around everything when it came to him.

  “No. Not at all.” He reached for her, then dropped his hand. “I swear, that’s so very far from the truth. I have so much respect for you. For everything you do. I’ve never met a stronger person. The things you see, every day, and the fact you still fight for something so good?”

  His words flowed through her head and heart, warming her in a way she didn’t want. What if it was just lip service? “Then what are we doing? You don’t have to take care of everything on your own. You help me, and I do the same for you. It’s who we are.”

  He dragged his fingers through his hair. “I want you to be happy. I want those animals to be safe. I desperately want to tell you I love you. To write you a check, to make this all go away, to move on so you don’t have to deal with it. Not because you’re incapable, but because no human being should have to put up with this shit, especially you.”