“Being with you is fun, but it sounds like you’re going to be busy. How about we meet up after? The car can take you first, and then drive me home. Deal?”
Benson smiled so sweetly, it tugged hard at Luka’s heart. “Okay, that is definitely a deal.”
“Good. I suppose we need to dress.”
“We need to shower first, I think,” Benson said, sniffing the air in the room. “Yeah. Shower.”
They showered together, and Luka tried to hurry them along, unwilling to have Benson get into trouble, then he was told, like it was the first time he’d heard it, “I own the company. They can’t start without me.”
“Right. I forget because, well, you aren’t like a big boss like that.”
“Thanks. I try not to be one of those pricks.”
Luka kissed him again as the three huge showerheads poured water over them. It felt like they were in the middle of a jungle, under a waterfall, where no one could reach them.
Unfortunately, they weren’t. The phone began ringing again, and Benson growled. “I swear she’s relentless.”
“She’s looking out for your best interest. I mean, she seems to be.”
“She is, but sometimes, I wish she’d take a break from it. I didn’t want work to be my entire life. I don’t want it for my employees either.”
Luka turned off the shower and grabbed his hand, pulling him to the thick rug. “Work today, rest tomorrow. Or the next day, but if she’s being this insistent, she must have a reason.”
Benson held him after he’d gotten the towel around his waist. “You’re very sweet. She doesn’t deserve my constant bitching about her, but she could lay off a bit.”
“Talk to her.”
“I’ve tried. Anyway, I guess we’d better get dressed. The sooner we’ve gotten out of here, the sooner we can see one another again.”
“Yes. I like the way you think.”
Chapter Nine
BensoncouldthrottleJoycefor tearing him from Luka, but when he got into his office, and she was there, he didn’t have the time. “He’s doing it. He’s willing to merge.”
By him, he assumed Joyce meant George Regal, the head of his biggest competitor. If they were to merge, he’d corner the market on computer security. “Wow, really?”
“We’ve beat him. We’ve done it. Now, you can buy him out and crush his company.”
Benson shook his head, as he did not know what she was talking about. “He wants to merge, Joyce. How does that translate to killing off his entire company?”
Joyce’s eyes were frenzied, like a shark sniffing blood in the water. “The computer security system, the best and only one. This company will be bigger than either of us ever dreamed!”
“Joyce, no,” he said, then smiled as Luka’s face passed through his mind. “It’s not the day to kill off anything. Let me talk to the man. There’s got to be something we can do, so he can keep his dignity, and his employees can keep their jobs.”
As her eyes narrowed to slits, she whispered, “What the fuck, Benson?”
It was true; she’d mentioned something about it before, but Benson never took her seriously. He never in a million years thought Regal would sell. He’d been the biggest name in security for twenty years, a name trusted by home computer owners and entire companies.
Sure, if they were wiped out, it was likely Benson’s company could take those slots, but why? They were already huge. Government contracts, big businesses too. And his share of people’s personal computer needs as well.
Besides, the thought of tearing something down instead of building something was foreign to him that day, what with the sweet feeling of Luka still all over him.
“What the hell are you smiling about? What’s happening here?”
“I’ve met someone, Joyce, and…and I am too happy right now to think of putting hundreds and thousands of folks out of a job. I think we can do better. We can always do better.”
He could see her fuming, how she’d had it all planned from the second she heard the company was in trouble. He wouldn’t back down, not like that. Not to hurt families just a couple of months from the holidays.
