Page 15 of Nothing to You (Nothing to… #7)

MMM, MORNING. In the heat of the smothering pillow, she almost couldn’t breathe.

But it didn’t matter. She didn’t need to breathe when the bed felt so good.

The pillow might be a melted marshmallow, but the mattress was firm.

The sheets sandwiching her were feather soft, so light they were barely a tickle on her skin.

Morning.

Bed.

Her eyes opened in the same instant she pounced onto her elbows.

Fuck!

Scrambling out of the empty bed, she ran away from the bright floor-to-ceiling drapes to the spiral staircase downward.

“Fuck,” she said, darting across the dormant room to grab up her clothes from the previous night. “Fuck!”

Again and again, she wanted to scream at him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t around. The jerk left her sleeping. Who the hell did that? Who the hell just—what a jackass!

After slamming the front door, she came to a crashing halt. A car, right there, door open. Could he have…? Did he…? She was wearing heels and…

It wasn’t technically stealing if she wasn’t leaving his land, was it? That was on the assumption he even owned the car. Maybe it belonged to a staff member. The keys were on the dash. And there was a note on the steering wheel. “ If it feels good… ”

“It’s allowed,” she said, getting in to gun the engine and speed down to her apartment.

This didn’t excuse him abandoning her. Why was she behind the eight-ball with him all the time?

Not all the time. Since they’d met in real life, that was since when.

She never used to be, but now he was kicking her ass, keeping her off-kilter.

In her defense, she wasn’t prepared like him.

He’d known they were going real world and technically his life hadn’t changed.

Her world was upside down, in a spiral after a few backflips. She lived in a new place. Worked in a new place with new people. Her home, her work, her social life, even her economic bracket had changed. Everything was different.

That was no excuse.

If he wanted to play, she had to raise her game.

In her whole life, she’d never showered and changed so fast. Not that it mattered. She was already late. Seriously late.

It was a couple of minutes past noon when the elevator doors opened on Mosaic’s executive floor. Striding out, she held her head high. No one would see shame. She didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.

The bunch of people in the jerk’s office may not have noticed her, but he did. Their eyes met, and he raised his chin from the fingers that had propped it up.

Without an ounce of hesitation, she extended an arm to flip him the bird. Yep, and she’d leave it there, hanging in the air as long as possible. His lips puckered in a quick kiss and he winked.

What a dick.

Rounding the conference room, she tossed her hair and went inside. “What did I miss?”

“Are you okay?” Myles asked. “We were worried. You’re never late.”

“Were you sick?” Helena asked. “If you’re sick, you shouldn’t be at work.”

“My body’s not even cold and you’re trying on my shoes,” she said, going to drop into the chair at the head of the table. “I ask again, what did I miss?”

“You look good in charge,” Franco said, tripping over his own tongue.

“Are you going to make me say it a third time?”

It wasn’t fair. None of her team had left her lying in bed. None of them had abandoned her sleeping form after ravishing it over and over again.

What kind of guy did that?

Every time she wanted to turn over and go to sleep, he wanted to do it again. She’d reminded him they had work in the morning. Had he cared? No. Now she knew why. This was the jerk’s plan all along.

“We were having a debate,” Guillermo said.

The word titillated her excitement and calmed her in equal measure. “About what?”

“We need an investor,” Johann said.

She frowned. “We have an investor. We’re sitting in his building.”

“We need someone with greater exposure,” Helena said. “Someone to be the face of the program. Someone to draw in others’ support. Maybe someone with a not so perfect past…”

“Because we don’t want to look like we’re preaching?” she asked, taking a shot.

“This could be expensive. It could get expensive fast. We also need…” Franco trailed off as he and Helena made eye contact. The latter nodded, and he exhaled. “We need to spread the risk.”

“So if there’s a disaster, we have pre-emptive support.”

Not a bad idea.

“Huddle Hope can’t make money,” Helena said. “We don’t want it to appear we’re—”

“Cashing in on other’s misery,” she said, nodding.

Had Rourke reached that conclusion on his own?

Was that what he’d meant about monetizing it?

They couldn’t. Well, they could. Plenty of healthcare providers made money from others’ misfortune.

But that wasn’t the point for them. They wanted to be universal.

Available to all. No matter their background or location.

“The larger the pool of connected parties, the wider our network. The more influential people we can reach, get invested in this, the greater the publicity. And we don’t want to be seen as a place for losers and lost causes.”

“We are a place for losers and lost causes, rather people who think they fall into those categories,” she said.

Her phone buzzed. “But I understand what you mean. If we can be a place for the cool kids too, then it’s something people will talk about.

The more they talk about it, the more likely they are to approach.

Acceptance helps Huddle Hope be inclusive. You’re so right.”

“Think that’s the first time you’ve ever agreed with anything without a fight,” Johann said.

She showed him a fake smile and opened her purse to retrieve her phone.

HOTSHOT: Sleep well?

What the hell? She wasn’t even logged into Huddle, how had he—except she was logged in. After witnessing his work with her laptop, his abilities shouldn’t surprise her.

FIREFLY: No. An asshole got me drunk and kept me up all night.

“Political support would be an advantage,” Johann said.

“Rourke has that,” she said, considering what else they might need. “Celebrity endorsement would help with the exposure and recognition.”

“We’ll need medical people too,” Helena said. “Lawyers. Businesses that may link into Huddle Hope.”

“We need someone influential, with contacts. A wide network.”

Her phone buzzed again.

HOTSHOT: I forget, how many times did you come? Six? Eight?

More than that, but she wasn’t going to stoke his elephantine ego. Though she wouldn’t be cruel either.

FIREFLY: We’re on Huddle.

HOTSHOT: I noticed. Impressed?

FIREFLY: That you violated my personal boundaries again?

“We could make some calls,” Helena said. “See if we can get local business interested?”

“We need to do our research first.”

“Do we want local?”

“No,” she said. “Johann’s right, we have to think bigger. Think about someone high profile. Someone not only known in this echo chamber.”

HOTSHOT: Violated pretty much every one of those last night. Coming over tonight?

FIREFLY: No. Because you can’t be trusted.

HOTSHOT: Trusted to what? I didn’t show everyone the naked pictures I took while you were sleeping.

FIREFLY: Not everyone?

HOTSHOT: Yeah. Shared them with three or four sites max.

She laughed, stunning her colleagues.

“Oh, uh… What were we talking about?”

“Collecting backers.”

“You know that’s important too,” she said, pointing at the frowning Myles. “Fundraising will be so much easier the more people we can get logistically involved. One network leads to another and another and so on.”

“What about Zane Dyce?” Franco asked, pepping up the others. “He’s like right on the doorstep.”

She shrugged. “Wouldn’t hurt to ask, I guess.”

“Think he could see us today?”

“Think he’d see us at all?”

“He’s in the Pacific,” she said. “But that’s not prohibitive, video calls are in right now.”

“A guy like Zane Dyce won’t have space in his schedule, probably for months,” Helena said. “Do we know anything about his network?”

“He basically stocks every home and office with every piece of tech they own. People know Dyce Technologies.”

“But not Dyce,” Helena said and frowned. “I can’t even picture what he looks like.”

“Tall, dark, and handsome,” Franco said, rolling his eyes at the other guys. “And super rich. How do the rest of us have a chance?”

“He’s usually only seen at product launches,” Myles said. “Only people who pay attention to that stuff would know him.”

“We need someone more gregarious.”

“Someone who’ll fight for Huddle Hope.”

“That said, we can’t kick Dyce out of bed,” she said. “If we ask, he might lead us to someone else.”

“Good point.”

“But how do we get to him?”

Leaning back in her chair, she turned ninety degrees, craning to look back to the opposite side of Rourke’s office. To the boardroom table he and his cronies sat around.

“There’s one obvious way,” Franco said.

Exactly her thought.

Turning back to her colleagues, she didn’t expect them to be intent on her. “What?”

“No one else will get in,” Myles said. “You went walking in there yesterday like it was no big deal.”

Maybe it had been a big deal. But she’d been following the man, her friend, not their boss. Not exactly.

“We should run it through Leon,” Johann said. “He’s our contact.”

“Supposed to be, but we never see him.”

“He’s dealing with the SIT candidates,” she muttered.

Her phone buzzed again.

HOTSHOT: What you talking about?

FIREFLY: Nothing that’s your business. Give me Zane Dyce’s phone number.

HOTSHOT: What’s it worth?

FIREFLY: I don’t need your permission; you’ll leave your phone lying around eventually.

HOTSHOT: You’d invade my privacy, Radley? You should know it’s against Huddle rules to pressure a user for personal information.

Man had a point. Just what were the rules now? And, shit, who was monitoring them? The guy at the top might be exempt from monitoring, but she wasn’t. And was his profile linked to him? The real him? If it wasn’t and he was “undercover,” monitors would treat him like any regular user.

“Roux?”

Again, she snapped back to the moment. “Hmm?”

“What do you want to eat?” Myles asked, rising from his seat. “We’re going to get some food and do some research. Narrow down the list of people we want to approach.”

“Smart,” she said. “Get me a—”

“Club hold the bacon, light on the mayo, and a strong black coffee,” Franco said, proud of himself.

“Yeah,” she muttered. Was that guy okay? “Whatever. Let’s get to work.”

Okay, so it was kind of rich of her to say that when she’d been the one to walk in hours late. But she was there, and that was what counted. Now they had to lock down the money and influence. Piece of cake.