Chapter 32
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
SOPHIE
On the way to the station my phone rings again. This time it’s Donald.
“Ah, Sophie. We were wondering if you were free to come in to meet us,” he asks.
“Actually, I’m on my way to the station right now.”
“You are?” He sounds strangely happy about that. “Good, good. Come straight to the boardroom. We’ll be waiting for you.”
“Did you hear that?” I ask Liam. He looks strangely amused.
“I did.”
“Did you call him?” I ask, suspicious. I know he was aching to.
And maybe I would have let him after a while. I certainly can’t be angry at him for wanting to help me.
“I really didn’t,” he says. “I might have folded eventually, but I haven’t yet.”
At least he’s being honest. He’s also driving like a maniac and manages to cover the distance between my apartment and the station way too quickly. He parks and we hurry over to the station entrance, where all my friends are waiting for me.
Madison and Lisa are there, along with Dan and Ray and Lorena. Nearly everybody I know at the studio is standing on the sidewalk.
Some of them have even painted banners. It brings tears to my eyes. They surround me, telling me they’re on my side, that it isn’t fair, that they’ll protest for as long as it takes.”
“I need to go see Donald,” I tell Lisa, who’s looking almost Amazonian in her anger. “He’s asked me to meet with him in the boardroom.”
“Hopefully to give you your job back,” she says grimly. “Because otherwise he’s going to lose this station.”
I lean forward to hug her. “Thank you,” I whisper. “I know you’re responsible for this.”
“Not just me. All of us. When I told them you’d been sent home we all agreed we had to do something.”
The crowd parts and I walk inside, Liam holding my hand. “You want to stay here?” I ask him.
“I’ll walk up there with you. Wait outside.
” The way his eyes are narrowed I’m almost certain somebody’s going to get hurt.
You can only push a man so far. “Okay, thank you.” We take the elevator up to the top floor and I point at a chair he can sit in while I walk over to the boardroom and knock on the door.
“Sophie, come in.” Donald stands this time as I walk inside. The lawyers are still there but no HR, Michael, or Rhian. There is a guy in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that I think I recognize from our IT department.
“Please take a seat,” Donald says, and a sense of déjà vu washes over me. I do as he says, and look at him expectantly.
“First of all, I want to tell you that your job is completely secure,” Donald says. “I was, ah, a little rash sending you home earlier. Please accept my apologies.”
I blink. “Okay.” Surely Liam must have called him.
“This is Finn,” he says, pointing at the man in jeans. “You may know him from our IT team.”
“Hi,” I say to Finn. “I think I’ve talked to you about the website before.”
He nods back.
“Finn found something interesting when he went into our email servers a little while ago,” Donald tells me. “Your email finally bounced back.”
“What?” I ask, confused.
“Maybe Finn can explain,” Donald suggests. I turn to look at him and he nods.
“There’s ah… different kinds of bounces. Soft bounces and hard bounces,” he says. “Hard bounces usually get sent back to the server right away. You’ve probably seen them before. You’ll get an email undeliverable message in your inbox.”
“Yes, I’ve had some of those. But I didn’t get one for this,” I tell him.
“No,” he agrees. “Which is weird, because it’s actually a hard bounce, but it came through like a soft bounce.”
I’ve no idea what he’s talking about or what this means for me, but I nod anyway, encouraging him to continue.
“A soft bounce happens when the recipient’s inbox is full or the server is down.
Either way, we get information explaining why something bounces.
” His eyes light up, as though he’s talking about his very favorite thing.
“It’s called an SMTP reply but you probably don’t need to know that.
” He smiles, embarrassed. “It tells us why something bounces, and then our servers can use that information to decide whether to resend or to block that email account.”
“So my email bounced?” I say. “Does that mean that BTV never received it?”
“Pretty much.” Finn nods. “But I’m still confused because it looks like a hard bounce acting like a soft bounce.”
I’m still clueless. So is Donald and the legal team by the looks of it, but this is good news, right?
“Does that mean that BTV doesn’t have the email?”
“That’s correct,” Finn says. “It’s as though it never arrived. Which I guess it didn’t if it’s a hard bounce.” He frowns. He’s confusing himself.
“So what happens now?” I ask.
“Well obviously the email is deleted so our server will never try to resend,” he says. “But BTV definitely has some kind of problem, because their email server is whacked. Emails shouldn’t act like that.”
I can’t really bring myself to care about the competition’s email server. Not when their failure means I haven’t given any of our secrets away. “That’s good news, right?”
“It’s wonderful news,” Donald says. “Obviously that means we’d like you back at work right away.” He clears his throat. “And maybe you can let the crowd outside know that you still have your job.”
I let out a mouthful of air. “So that’s it?” I ask. “It’s over?”
“Well, I’ve also managed to get ahold of the person responsible for receiving the weather hub submissions. They’ve agreed to look at ours if you email it over before the end of the day. Can you do that?”
“Yes I can.” I nod. “I’ll just need my laptop.”
“Monica left it in your office. In your top drawer.”
“Thank you,” I say gruffly.
“Well that’s it,” Donald says, standing. “It’s been a long day and I’m sure everybody would like to get home. Finn, Charles, Robert, thank you for your time.” They shake my hand and file out, leaving me and Donald in the boardroom alone.
“Ah, while you’re here, I’ve had some reports about the weather team being extremely understaffed,” Donald says. “I’m going to look into that tomorrow. I wonder if you’d be available to talk about that as well as a possible restructuring of the team?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good, good.” He holds his hand out. “Thank you. And if you could make sure everybody comes inside before it’s time for the evening broadcast I’d be very grateful.”
He walks out and I follow him, but he comes to an abrupt halt when he sees Liam standing there.
“Well hello,” Donald says jovially, shaking Liam’s hand like he’s his best friend. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for my girlfriend,” Liam says.
Donald blinks, looking from Liam to me. “Sophie’s your girlfriend? Why didn’t you say? You could have come in with her for the meeting.” He presses two fingers to his temple, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Or you could have called me. We could have talked this through.”
“Sophie prefers to fight her own battles,” Liam murmurs, looking at me. “Is everything okay?”
I nod. “Everything’s fine. More than fine.”
“Sophie’s a valued member of the station,” Donald tells us. “I just wanted her to know that.”
Liam’s lips twitch.
“We should have lunch soon,” Donald says to Liam.
“Sure,” he replies smoothly, still looking at me. “Let’s do that.”
Donald nods and walks down the hall, leaving the two of us alone.
“So it’s all okay?” Liam asks me, pulling me into his arms. I melt into his chest. This is my favorite place to be.
“The email bounced,” I tell him. “From BTV’s servers. It’s like it never got sent.”
“Is that right?” he asks mildly. “That’s good.”
I step back, giving him a quizzical look. This time he won’t quite catch my eye. “Did you have something to do with it?” I ask.
He lifts a brow. “Something to do with the server of one company bouncing an email back to another company, neither of which I have anything to do with?” he asks.
I notice he doesn’t say no.
LIAM
It feels like a minor victory that I could do one thing for her to make it better. She’s going to have to learn to accept help but I’m a patient man. I can wait.
Decades if I need to.
I linger back as she walks outside to tell her friends about her reinstatement and the email and that they really should come inside and get back to work. This is her victory and she deserves it.
And I want her to realize I’m not the only one on her side. They all are. Every one of them with the exception of Michael, her boss. And I’m kind of certain he’s not going to be her boss for much longer.
I’m almost certain she’s going to grill me about the email later. And I’m here for that. I’ll be honest with her, the way I’m always going to be honest with her.
And maybe she’ll meet me in the middle occasionally. Let me help her, protect her, not tell her everything because I know she feels uncomfortable in gray areas.
It all boils down to one thing. She needs to trust me. And I need to earn it.
The door opens and Sophie walks back in, followed by her friends and colleagues. Her face is glowing and when she sees me waiting for her she gives me the sweetest smile.
And I know I need to get her home and soon. I want the making up part right now.
“I’ll be five minutes,” she tells me. “I just need to go get my laptop and send that email.”
“Double check the address,” I advise her. She rolls her eyes at me.
And I’m here for that, too.
They walk into the hallway that leads to the offices and I follow them idly, deciding that she might not be in such a hurry if she can see that I’m happy waiting.
I still feel guilty about that email. She was crazy busy that Friday thanks to my late nights with her and having to get away for my mom’s party.
When she reaches the office with Weather Dept written in blue lettering above the door my teeth grit because I can see her boss in there. He doesn’t move despite her attempt to duck around him.
My fists curl. Don’t push me, asshole.
“You got lucky,” he tells her. “If that email hadn’t bounced you’d be out of a job by now.”
My jaw tightens.
“Don’t be stupid,” she tells him. “It was a mistake. A genuine one. And I don’t appreciate the way you seemed to be enjoying my pain.”
She gives him a look of disdain and pushes past him, causing his arm to bang against the door jamb.
“Hey, that hurt.”
She ignores him.
The problem is that I can’t. I want to. For her sake mostly because I know she doesn’t like confrontation. But I love her and I want to protect her and this asshole is hurting what’s mine.
So I walk over to him and grab him by the collar, then I pull him out of the damn doorway and into the hall. I must take him by surprise because he doesn’t resist, just moves those tiny shiny feet until I push him against the wall.
“Remember our last talk?” I say to him.
“Um… yes?”
“That’s funny,” I tell him. “Because you’re not acting like you remember it at all. Lucky for you I do. Every word. And I think I told you that if you talked to Sophie like that again you’d lose your job.” My lips curl. “Oh and that I’d hit you.” I can’t do it, I know that. But I want to.
He blanches. “You can’t do that. I’d sue.”
From the corner of my eye I see Sophie’s friends watching us. I think about hitting him anyway, but it wouldn’t be a fair fight.
And I like my right hand. Although I’m hoping it will get a bit less use in the future.
“Let me just say this,” I say, leaning forward until he can feel the heat of my breath on his face. He tries to cower back but I don’t let go of his collar.
“You’re hurting me,” he complains.
“I’m not going to threaten you with violence this time,” I tell him. “Or your job. Because I don’t think you’re going to have it for much longer anyway.”
His bottom lip starts to tremble.
“You’re all seeing this, right?” he calls out to the people behind me.
“Seeing what?” Sophie’s friend, Lisa asks. “Does anybody see anything here?”
“Nope,” the guy next to her says.
“Me either,” the female news anchor whose name escapes me adds. “Actually, I think I see Michael Rimmer being a bully to his staff. Maybe we should report that.”
I let go of his collar and step back. He keeps himself pinned against the wall like he’s unable to move.
“We’ve got this,” Lisa says. “Haven’t we, guys?”
“She’s safe here always,” a mountain of a guy standing next to her says. “He steps out of line and he’s toast.” He walks forward and shakes my hand. “I’m Ray and if you want to send more shellfish in for lunch I won’t complain.”
I grin. “I’ll remember that.”
“Thank you.”
Sophie walks out and sees us all standing there. Her brows knit for a moment. She shoots me a ‘do I want to know about this’ look and I shake my head.
I’ll tell her later. Hopefully, much later.
“You good?” I ask her.
“Yep. All done.” She bites into her juicy bottom lip and I hold my hand out for her. She takes it and I immediately feel grounded.
“Come on then,” I say to her. “Let me take you home.”
“Your home or mine?” she asks, her eyes on mine.
“Both are home to me.” It’s the truth. Home is where she is. It’s where I want to be. And I know I need to prove myself even more to her. I need to show her she can trust me. Even if it takes the rest of my life I’m okay with that.
Her expression softens. She steps closer, placing her hands on my shoulder. “I’m sorry I left,” she whispers. “I won’t do it again.”
“Good,” I tell her. “But even if you did I’ll always follow you.”
Her lips curl. “I’m counting on that.” She moves her hands up, until her fingers are curled around the back of my neck. She’s on her tiptoes and I automatically reach down to hold her hips to keep her steady.
“You know the good thing about both our homes?” she asks me.
“What?” I tip my head to the side, feeling so damn lucky to have this girl.
“They’re empty. No family, no friends. Just us.”
“Hallefuckingluhah,” I say, because even though yesterday feels like forever ago, the need to be alone with this woman is still coursing through my veins. I love her. I adore her. I’ll cross oceans and climb mountains for her.
Hell, I’ll do morally dubious server raids, or at least ask my right hand woman to do so, just to save this beautiful girl’s ass.
“I love you,” she tells me, as though she can read my mind.
“The feeling is mutual, West,” I say, my throat tight. “I love you, too.”
“Then take me home.”
And I do.