Past Midnight (11 page)

He puffed, his nostrils flaring. “She speaks much more clearly to Dominic.”

Which was probably true. Erin herself had never had any problem understanding Cam. Though Vietnamese was her first language, Cam had an extremely good understanding of English, and she spoke quite well. She’d immigrated to the United States when she was ten, had been educated here, graduated from college here, and at thirty-three, had worked in the industry for over ten years. Erin had a feeling that the language barrier was between Atul and Cam only. Atul could be condescending when he thought he knew more about a subject than someone else. He’d wanted the software design job, but he wasn’t an engineer. While Erin believed in allowing people to stretch their capabilities, she’d known that giving him the position would only increase the burden on Dominic. Cam was a few years older than Atul, with the experience and the education that Atul didn’t have. Like Steve, though, they were both good workers. Erin had to figure out how to get them to work together instead of at cross-purposes.

“I’ll mediate,” she said. Which would require Atul to be respectful and Cam to clean up her language, so to speak.

She should have called Dominic in on the mediation, since, technically, they worked for him, but she knew what he’d say. She babied them, not only Cam and Atul, but everyone. She wouldn’t dream of saying they were acting like children who couldn’t get along on the playground. Dominic would simply tell them to grow up. They had very different management styles. She believed involving employees in the solution had a bigger impact on behavior.

“Let’s get together tomorrow,” she said.

“That will be acceptable,” Atul agreed, then left.

She sat down, then clicked on her e-mail to see if there was anything new from Dominic. Nothing. She felt a tick of disappointment. She’d wanted more banter. The weekend’s sex had somehow brought her to life again. She needed more of her drug addict’s fix.

Now, the red high heels and suede skirt? Or all black?

 

 

“HERE’S YOUR MAIL.”

Rachel laid a stack on Dominic’s desk amid all the other stacks of . . . stuff. Trade magazines, schematics, miscellaneous parts, pamphlets and brochures he’d brought home from the trade show and giveaways, pens, Post-its with company logos, key chains, laser pointers. There was even a plastic toothpick holder. He liked the more ingenious stuff people came up with to stamp the company name on. It gave him ideas for next year’s trade show on what he could have made up with DKG’s logo.

“Need a mouse pad?” He held out one with a team race car on it.

“Thanks. That’s nice and colorful.”

Rachel was a pretty woman, but she always seemed to try too hard, as if she were expecting to piss off somebody if every word out of her mouth wasn’t perfectly sweet.

He smoothed a hand over the crap on his desk, spreading it out so she could see better. “You want any of this junk?” In years past, he’d always given Jay first dibs. Jay had loved the freebies. He would have thought the mouse pad was cool.

“No thanks.” Rachel flapped the pad. “This is enough.” Then she left him alone with his junk and his mail.

Most of the general mail went to Erin, but if anything looked vaguely technical, Rachel gave it to him. He opened one envelope after another, junk, junk, junk. Until . . . What the hell was this? He scanned the letter, cocked his head, then scanned it again.

He sat there for five beats, his teeth clenched.

Goddammit.

It was a cease-and-desist letter from WEU Systems for patent infringement. On the through-coat gauge. God
dammit
. WEU stood for Worldwide Excellence in Ultrasonics. The name was a crock, and not merely because WEU was DKG’s direct competitor. Their CEO, Garland Brooks, was an ass. He was a bottom-line man, and ethics be damned. He’d been known to grind smaller companies to dust with the power of his money. WEU manufactured an ultrasonic through-coat thickness gauge, but Dominic and Reggie had checked out the patents from every angle. Yes, there was a patent, but it shouldn’t have been granted because there was clear prior art by two different companies before WEU rolled out their gauge at last year’s PRI show. Prior art meant that someone else had come up with the basic process you were using, but had never gotten the patent on it. Companies did that all the time if they didn’t want to reveal exactly what their process was. Like Coke not wanting to reveal its recipe. A patent was on the process, not the product itself.

Now WEU wanted him to take the gauge off the market, or pay them an outrageous royalty fee. Fuck. Dominic slammed his fist down on the letter, then stood, sending his chair rolling until it hit the wall. Pacing, he shoved his hands through his hair, pulling on the ends.

That goddamn gauge. It had been nothing but a fucking nightmare getting it on the market. He laid his hand over his mouth, closed his eyes. He’d wanted to take it to the last PRI show, didn’t want WEU to outgun him. He pushed it through the engineering, through manufacturing, and when there were issues, he’d spent hours trying to figure out what was wrong. Not just hours, but days, weekends. The day Jay went on that school trip. Dominic should’ve gone with him. He was scheduled to be one of the parent chaperones. But time had been running out; he’d needed to fix the problem. So he let Jay make the day trip without him. There were other parents, teachers. It wasn’t as if Jay was alone out there. That’s what Dominic had told himself.

Leaning over, fists clenched on the desk, he squeezed his eyes shut so tightly it hurt. He thought of all the minuscule decisions that had led to that day. If Reggie hadn’t quit, leaving Dominic in a bind with the gauge’s software. If Dominic hadn’t felt compelled to have the damn thing ready for the trade show just so he could compete head-on with WEU. If he’d decided to pull Jay out of the school trip instead of allowing him to go. If he’d thrown the goddamn gauge to hell and gone anyway, because time with his son was so much more precious. In the end, he hadn’t gone to the show, hadn’t released the product until the first quarter, and that hadn’t cost DKG much of anything.

But it had cost him his son.

A shiver racked his body, trembled in his very bones.
This
was why Erin couldn’t talk about Jay. She could never say she hated him for not being there that day. He didn’t know if he could survive hearing it from her either. There were so many fucking things they couldn’t talk about. He wanted to tell himself the lack of communication and connection was her fault, but he couldn’t say what needed to be said either. Stalemate. All he could do was come up with kinky sex acts to indulge in, a way
not
to think about what really lay between them. Fuck.

They’d have to involve their patent attorney, document the research, send letters, all the while paying an exorbitant hourly fee.

Brooks was probably hoping this would drive them out of business. Dominic would fight him on it. Because if he didn’t, he would lose Erin. No matter what he’d told himself about their recent bouts of hot sex, DKG was the only real glue that held them together.

He passed a hand over his face, suddenly feeling years older.

Then he grabbed his chair, pulled it to the desk and sat down. Screw WEU and Garland Brooks for now. He wouldn’t tell Erin about the letter, at least not today. Let her leave him tomorrow, but tonight, he fully intended to blow her mind.

THE TWINKLING LIGHTS OF SANTANA ROW AT CHRISTMASTIME sparkled on the wet concrete, casting prisms of blue, green, and red. The decorations didn’t upset her; after all, she wasn’t shopping. She had a totally different mission in mind. It had started raining that afternoon, dwindling to a light drizzle by evening. Erin hadn’t bothered with an umbrella, just her full-length hooded raincoat. She hadn’t worn the red suede skirt or shoes so they wouldn’t be damaged by raindrops. Instead, she chose a Lycra top, black and tight, and a black pencil skirt with a slit from shin to mid-thigh. Her black high heels tapped on the concrete.

The small sign for Rudolpho’s blinked in neon blue. It was a bar, not a restaurant, but she’d snacked as she’d dressed—carrot sticks and apples—and wasn’t hungry. Dominic hadn’t come home. He’d worn jeans, tennis shoes, and a black button-down shirt to work. She wondered if he’d show up in that, or maybe he’d cruised the mall, though Dominic had never liked shopping.

She opened the door, warm air rushing over her. The furnishings, and probably the prices, too, were high end, the servers well dressed in black and white, and the lighting dim. Monday night was a big night for whatever reason, many of the tables full; couples, groups, people coming in for a drink after work, even though it was eight o’clock. A young dark-haired man played the piano in the corner, a lilting jazz melody she didn’t recognize. Despite the number of people, the talk and laughter, the noise level wasn’t intrusive. You could hear yourself talk; even think. Erin removed her coat and slung it over the back of a seat at the end of the bar closest to the door, where she could survey the full room. The bar stools were comfortable, with a thick padded seat and a back to lean against. She left two empty seats between her and everyone else.

Dominic had been sending her e-mail instructions all afternoon. He’d tell her to do this, then change his mind, and tell her to do that. She was sure it was part of his plan, to throw her off guard, so she couldn’t guess what he’d really do in the end. His basics were few; she was to wear sexy clothing, sexy heels, sit at the bar, and pretend she didn’t know him when he arrived. Other than that, all bets were off. Maybe he’d send a man to try to pick her up. Now that could be fun.

“What can I get for you?” The bartender had finally made his way down to her.

“Do you have ice wine?” Ice wine was made from grapes that were frozen on the vine. It was sweet, and she felt like something very sweet tonight, but it was only carried in classier places. Of course, it was very expensive, too, but tonight she was splurging.

He grinned beneath his neatly trimmed mustache and beard. “Of course. Coming right up.” He bent to a small refrigerator under the bar, and she noticed the toned muscles of his butt and legs. She smiled to herself. Maybe Dominic would want her to pick up the bartender. He was older, midforties, a smattering of gray in his hair, mustache, and goatee. Very much like Winter except for the facial hair. The bar stool she sat on was high off the floor, but she estimated him to be over six feet.

She twisted in her seat so she could cross her legs, the skirt falling open over her knee and thigh. Setting the wine in front of her, the bartender stood taller, looking over at her bared leg with a smile before he was called away by a waitress. Erin wasn’t one of those who considered an ogle disrespectful. If the way she’d reacted to Winter meant anything, she considered it a compliment. There were perhaps ten stools, most of them filled, all by men. She was the only woman seated at the bar, and the only one seated alone, which, if the glances her way meant anything, seemed to make her fair game.

So, where was Dominic? And what did he want her to do?

She sipped the delicious ice wine, savoring each tasting as she looked over the bar’s occupants. Having given her plenty of up, down, and sideways glances, a younger guy picked up his glass, swirled the ice cubes, then slid off his stool. He rounded the bar to her end, set his glass down right beside her. He wasn’t bad-looking, brown hair, brown eyes, an angular face, but thirty was a little young, especially when she had a preference for the over-forty set. Then he smiled—“Hi, there”—and dropped several notches. The guy desperately needed to see his hygienist.

“Thank you, but I’m waiting for somebody.” She smiled to take the bite out of it.

“I can keep you company until your friend gets here.” He sidled slightly closer.

“That’s not necessary.” She didn’t smile, but blinked slowly, sending a message.

He didn’t get it, and he didn’t leave. “Every lady needs company.”

She drummed her fingers on the bar, a signal of her irritation. She decided politeness was no longer required. “I don’t. Go away.”

The bartender approached. “Do I need to get your tab, sir?”

Mr. Bad Teeth grimaced, picked up his drink, sloshing amber liquid over the lip, and returned to his seat.

“Thanks.” She smiled her appreciation at her knight in shining armor.

He mopped up the spilled drink. “Part of the service, helping out pretty ladies.”

Oh. He was hitting on her. It amused her. What did Dominic expect her to do? Wait until the guy got off work and follow him home? Or maybe Dominic was going to show up, sit across the room, and see if she could get the guy to
ask
her to follow him home as a test of her sexual prowess.

An elbow on the bar, she brushed her fingers along her throat. The position gave him a view of her cleavage. “You’re good at coming to the rescue of damsels in distress.”

“You looked like you were handling him fine.” He shined a clean glass with a cloth, staying to talk as if he didn’t notice the waitress beckoning him from the other end of the counter. She shot Erin an exasperated look.

Erin pointed. “Someone’s waiting on you down there.”

He tipped his head, smiled slightly. “Yeah. Duty calls.” Then he turned back to her. “Are you expecting a fictitious friend or a real one?”

She laughed. It was an odd way to put it. And her real answer would have been just as odd, because she didn’t know who or what she was supposed to be waiting for, so she anticipated what her husband would have wanted her to say. “Fictitious.”

His eyes gleamed. “Don’t go away then. Things will slow down in about an hour.”

Without giving an answer, she watched him. He had a nice rear. She could have him. It felt powerful, as if it were something she hadn’t thought herself capable of. She was forty years old, and yet she’d still turned a head. Two heads. Even more.
That
was what Dominic wanted, for her to see she was still attractive, to Winter, to other men, younger men, to Dominic. Maybe he thought she’d somehow lost confidence in herself. She just hadn’t noticed other men or bothered to see if they noticed her. Yet it was a nice feeling now that he’d opened her eyes.