“I appreciate that.” If there was one thing Gunnar could guarantee, it was when Nemesis sent someone their way, shit would fly, and lately the reasons behind it was a woman in trouble. Gunnar refused to acknowledge the parallels between Nemesis Inc. and him. He and Dalton Knight had a friendly rivalry thing going on. It kept things interesting. “Whatever he needs, give it to him,” he told Dory. “Keep a log of everything so we can bill Nemesis.”
“Yeah, I’ll be sure to tag on some extras.” Dory snorted. “If only to see Dalton’s face for carbon tax and shit.”
“Ha.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on over there?” Of course it was too much to hope that Dory had forgotten about his attitude. “Or do I have to ask Zorro, because you know he’ll spill and embellish shit up the waazoo?”
Fuck!
“No need to ask Zorro for his opinion on shit. Remi is working on it.” Most of the time he loved having people who knew him so well working for him. Today, not so much. He couldn’t hide anything from the nosey bastards. “It doesn’t affect Morocco. If it becomes a thing, I’ll let you know.”
“I think my feelings are hurt,” Dory muttered to him before Gunnar yanked the phone away from his ear as his friend yelled to one of his guys, “Hey, Mojo, are my feelings hurt?”
In the background, Gunnar heard a yelled response to Dory’s question. “Boss, what kind of shit are you smoking? That was a fucking earthquake, not a damn emotion.”
“Earthquake?” Gunnar’s ears picked up. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, we’ve been rocking and rolling with some minor quakes for the last couple of days,” Dory replied. “Nothing to worry about, just some boundary strain fixing itself from some shit further along the line. There’s no damage here, and none in town that I’m aware of.”
“If something happens in town, throw everything we have into helping the locals,” Gunnar ordered. “Those people help us out all the time. If they need something and we have it or can get it, just do it. Paperwork and shit can be sorted later.”
“Roger that, bro. I knew you’d say that which is why I didn’t bring it up in the first place. But for now, we are good.”
“Good, I’ll call Nemesis and see what’s going on.” That would keep him out of the war-room and Jorja Buchanan’s orbit for at least another half an hour. Maybe by the time he was done talking to Dalton, she’d have forgotten she was pissed at him. He scribbled a sticky note reminder and stuck it to the edge of his computer screen so he’d see it first thing in the morning and glanced at the clock. “It’s almost midnight. If there’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow, I’m gonna go shut shit down for the night.” He hadn’t forgotten that Remi was running on too much Monster and too little sleep. Come to think of it, he had no idea if Jorja was rested enough to be working either. That bothered him. “I gotta go.” He hung up on Dory before the other man could respond and got to his feet. Kidnapping, and yes, she was right, technically what he’d done could be classed as kidnapping, was one thing. Being a complete and utter dick was another altogether.
He strode through the kitchen, into the courtyard, and to the war-room door. Remi and Jorja were just as he’d left them a little while ago. Both still had their backs to him, working on their computers. Gunnar leaned one shoulder against the frame of the door, just watching the ease between his brother andthatwoman. He tramped down on the weird feeling which urged him to cross the room and pull her away from Remi’s side. He refused to acknowledge what that feeling was. He wasn’t fifteen, and fits of jealousy over a woman were not and should not be in his wheelhouse. “Shut?—”
“Shit.” Jorja jerked, sending the wine glass she had just lifted to her lips flying. “Jerk, don’t sneak up on us.” She reached for the rag Remi kept next to his computer for thesame reason and dabbed at something in front of her, probably the keyboard. “You could make a little noise.”
Remi must have known he was there as the little shit didn’t do anything but snicker. Jorja turned and walloped him on the shoulder. That in itself didn’t surprise Gunnar. What did was Remi didn’t jerk away from her touch. That wasn’t normal. Remi didn’t like people touching him much. That he allowed it from Jorja was… interesting, to say the least. Gunnar made a mental note to think about it later. “Is that urgent?” he asked Remi, “or can it wait until the morning?”
“What I’m running can wait,” Remi replied. “George?”
He was shortening her name already? Fuck. Remi had better not be getting ideas about hiring the delectable Ms. Buchanan. Just having her on the property for a few days was disturbing enough. Gunnar knew having her here wasn’t something he wanted to deal with long term.
Hell fucking no.
Not happening.
We are not keeping her or employing her.
I’ll kick his ass first.
He knew Remi well enough to know how his mind worked. That he allowed her into the war-room in the first place was different enough, but allowing her to access a computer, even a ring-fenced one which wasn’t connected to their computer systems, blew his freaking mind.
“I can’t do much until my bot gets the code we need,” Jorja replied to Remi. “That could be anything from five minutes to five hours.”
“And will probably happen the second you walk away from the screen.”
“Right. Why does that always happen?”
“Because computers are finicky creatures, and they like to be babied.”
“Truth.”
They appeared to have forgotten he was there at all. Gunnar cleared his throat loudly and opened his mouth to speak.
Jorja tossed an irritated glare his way, stopping him from speaking. “What?”
