Page 77 of Soul Mates: Hercules Valentine and I

He’s watching me with concern. I must look as flushed as I feel. He thinks it’s Orion who’s making me uneasy. I’ll let him believe that.

I fake a confident smile as I shake my head. “I’m not nervous at all. And you shouldn’t be rattled by the presence of Mr. Valentine…” I set my confident smile on Hercules. “Orion Valentine, that is. If he wants to take this company out of the red and into the black, then he’ll see what we have to show him and then get on board with it.”

Hercules’s eyes smolder. “That’s what I like to hear from our director of product development.”

I nearly trip over my own feet while looking at his lips.Gosh, this is embarrassing.I hope nobody saw me. I'm not even going to look and see if Hercules noticed.

My team has just demonstratedthe full use of the new game’s software to Mason, Hercules, and Orion. Even Lilith has shown up. Whenever it was my turn to talk, I avoided Hercules’s stare like the plague.

There’s no way I can be at the top of my game and focus on him too. I’m so in trouble with him being around. I have no idea how long I can keep up the ruse. However, I don’t want to leave VTI. I don’t want to make a life far away from him ever again.I’m in trouble. I’m in big trouble.

“This is great,” Lilith says. “How long will it take to get this product to market?”

“But it’s just a video game,” Orion says. His tone rings with objection.

“It’s more than a video game,” I say before anyone else can speak.

Thanks to Max, I know how to handle naysayers like Orion Valentine. I’ve been pitching ideas to Max since junior high. And he’s shut me down most of the time, unless what I give him is a real winner.

“Gorgeous, you’re going to have to explain that to me, because all I see is your team playing with a goddamn video game. And we’re not a video-game company.”

“Watch yourself, Orion,” Hercules barks.

Everyone appears stunned by his outburst. Smirking, Orion winks at him.

“It’s not the game itself,” I say loudly enough that both brothers can put their focus back on me. “It’s the technology. The depth of interaction is novel. And the reason we were able to create this sort of user experience is because of VTI’s existing compression technology.”

“I put a rush on the copyright,” Mason adds. “It should be approved before the weekend.”

I flip my thumb up. “That’s great.

Orion’s mouth opens and then closes. His eyes narrow like he’s pondering everything I just said.

I set my focus on Lilith. “And to answer your question, I see no reason why we can’t make a big push to—”

“Compression technology, huh?” Orion says, his voice strongly filling the room.

“Yes. VTI’s existing compression technology is a cut above the rest.” I explain how I was able to modify it here and there to make it more flexible.

Orion folds his arms. “Meaning?”

“Enough!” Hercules roars. He’s on his feet and has his hands up, motioning me to halt. “You were not invited to this meeting, Orion.”

Orion shakes a finger at me. “Adjust your attitude, Herc. You and I are on the same page for once. I like what she’s saying.”

“Then when we’re ready, we’ll set up a meeting with you.”

Grinning, Orion snorts facetiously. “I bet you will.”

Hercules glares at him as if he wants to rip his head off. There’s a lot of subtext going on between them—and I’m not the only one trying to figure it out.

“Miss…” Orion booms, and he narrows an eye at me. “Davenport. What do you think about flying cars?”

That’s odd—the way he says my name. Similar to Hercules, Orion’s eyes command a person’s complete attention, and he certainly has mine.

“What about them?” I say, almost sounding robotic.

“What do you think about producing those instead of video games?”