Sheltering His Desire by Allyson Lindt Page B

to
confess. “He’d probably blow a fuse. Good thing we didn’t.”
    Vivian raised an eyebrow.
    “What?” Tate didn’t like the defensive
mechanism kicking in. “I’m not stupid. I’ve known her a lot longer
than you have, and I know she’s not a one-time kind of girl.”
    Vivian shrugged. “She wouldn’t look at you
during lunch, she barely said two words after you showed up, and
she clenched her jaw every time the waitress showed up. Something
happened, at least as far as she’s concerned.”
    He didn’t want to snap at V, but the last
thing he needed was her voicing every argument his mind was already
tossing at him. “Were you this bad with Jared and Mikki?”
    “Considering they’d hooked up, and you two haven’t ”—she made a show of clearing her throat—“I was about
fifty times worse. But my reasons with Mikki were different.”
    Of course they were. Because no matter how
much she liked Mikki, or respected Jared, she still felt like he’d
betrayed her by falling in love. Tate would have bet big that
Vivian had never completely gotten over Jared, but as long as the
two of them were still single, she could pretend it would be that
way forever. He kept the thought to himself, not interested in
picking a fight. “I’ve known the two of them for ages, I understand
what a bad idea that would be—and that doesn’t even matter because
there’s nothing going on with Lys.”
    “Right.” Vivian’s tone was flat. “Because if
there were, you’d know eventually you’d have to pick a side.”
    “Did that a long time ago.” He just had to
remember that. Jared was his best friend, and Alyssia was a client.
Vivian’s reminder just cemented he needed to put as much emotional
distance between himself and Lys as possible.

Chapter
Seven
    Alyssia leaned against the frame of her home
office door. “It's okay, really.” It was true, two days ago, she
had been irritated with Jared for insisting she upgrade her home
network hardware to be more secure.
    Now, that seemed like an eternity ago. A
flutter raced across her skin, and her gut churned at the
reminder.
    “If you didn’t do so much work from home...”
Jared sat at her desk, fingers flying across the keyboard, rarely
pausing even as he spoke. “Nah, that’s just an excuse. You needed
the upgrade.”
    “Really?” She kept a teasing tone. “So you’ve
already upgraded everything in your house, and needed someone else
to techify?” Even though she was trying to keep her attention on
the conversation, it kept dancing with the one name she’d been
doing her best not to think of since she left the Skriddie offices
that afternoon.
    Not that she’d succeeded. Every unoccupied
thought, and even some of the occupied ones, were interrupted with
Tate. Had last night been a mistake? It had taken her this many
years to get used to how he flirted without shame with pretty much
every waitress, hostess, anyone. Then today at lunch, watching him
with their server had almost devoured her.
    Still, the memory of what she had Tate had
shared, the way they’d clicked, and the things he’d done, she
wouldn’t give that up for anything. She would stick to her promise
that what happened between them was just physical. A one-time
event, and all that. Which was why, when he’d asked if she wanted
him to just email the promo video to her for approval, and launch
the site without her, or if she wanted to be there for all of it,
she’d invited him over.
    His dropping by for whatever had never been a
deal in the past, and there was no reason for that to change. The
faster things got back to normal between them, the better.
    “Hello?” Jared’s insistent voice shattered
her wandering thoughts. “Earth to Alyssia. You in there?”
    She shook away the mental clutter and focused
on her brother, who apparently had finished what he was doing, and
was watching her. “Sorry, too much going on everywhere. What?” she
asked.
    “You’re all done.” He held up a