Page 50 of Cocky Tech God
Lucia
Thursday morning, I waited discreetly by the valet booth in front of the hotel. Several conference attendees, including Brett, who didn’t see me, walked in the direction of the conference rooms. For the first time in over a day, I felt relief. My team had worked around the clock after the breach and finally found a solution. I was grateful that they had taken on the issue as if LMS was their own company. In a way, it was. That’s how I’d created the LMS environment. It belonged to the LMS family. One of which I really needed to expand. This first breach was an eye opener to why companies may have passed on LMS before. A company as large as Hansen’s could fix a security breach in no time. My client who had the breach was under no obligation to keep it to themselves. Though, I hoped they did. Mia would be handling that meeting later this morning.
So, for the time being, things were moving along, and I was confident again in presenting my demo to Morgan Financial Holdings on Friday. I told Mia that I’d be unavailable for a good part of the day, and I’d given my developers the day off to recoup from the over twenty-four hours of work they’d done. Everything was calm again, so I felt good about going with Hansen.
I needed to relax. The breach had brought out new levels of stress that I’d not felt before. And the decompression would renew my energy levels to network. I was excited to enjoy the day with Hansen away from eyes that knew us. Our agreement would end soon, and our relationship would revert back to what it was.
I paused, listening to the thrum of my heartbeat. I didn’t think it could go back to what it was before. Maybe at least we could be more than colleagues. Friends, maybe? Friends helped each other with security breaches, and he did that without any expectation. My breath stalled in my throat with the implication that I just realized. He’d done that for me and didn’t expect anything in return.
He really did care as he’d said. It all was crystal clear. Hansen was so much more than I thought he was.
The second I looked up, a black Range Rover eased around the valet line where I stood, my thin, white summer dress bellowing from the breeze. My heart surged, and I glanced up. The shiny SUV stopped in front of me, the engine humming low. It was the epitome of utility and luxury. Very Hansen. In fact, back in New York he drove a Range Rover. Actually, his driver drove the Range Rover.
The passenger door on the left opened by Hansen’s hand. I slid in the high-profile seat and closed the door. “This ride has your name all over it, Holte.”
“Don’t forget your seatbelt.” He winked at me and put on his aviator sunglasses. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
Little did he know, it had already been a bumpy ride with him.
“Since you’ve been here before, I’m assuming you know how to drive on the opposite side of the road.”
“You assume right,” he said, his eyebrows waggling.
I laughed and buckled in. Charming Hansen was too hard to resist. It’s amazing how I’d uncovered faces of him that I didn’t expect he was capable of. And the truth was, I felt safe with Hansen at the wheel—opposite side or not.
Hansen accelerated down the hotel drive toward the connecting road that led to a juncture. Left or right were the only options. I’d never felt so alive sitting there in that rented SUV, about to go out of the cage that was The Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Everything outside the bounds of the hotel didn’t exist. No failing business. No breach issues.
Hansen stopped at the juncture. “Do you want to be right or do you want to be left?”
“Right, obviously.” I chuckled.
“Right guess.” He turned, accelerating again.
We came upon a main road, the Caribbean Sea glittering before us in the morning sun.
“The water is unbelievable.” I squinted to see clearly through the curtain of daylight. “I’ve never seen water so blue.”
Hansen purred low, clearly feeling my sentiment. “Have you never been to any tropical islands?” He turned left on West Bay Road, the main road following the curve of the shoreline.
“No. Can you tell?” My gaze still latched on to the view beautiful enough to be on a postcard. Growing up, vacationing on a tropical island anywhere was a pipe dream. My grandmother didn’t have the money. She’d barely had the money for basic needs. The thought flickered some sadness in me. She’d tried her best. I always knew that.
“I’m reliving my first time in Grand Cayman through your eyes and enthusiasm. It was much the same. I thought I’d found paradise.” Hansen’s soft words contrasted the quick, aggressive speed he gained down the road.
I brushed thoughts of my youth away and focused on my now with him. Hansen, a guy who clearly lived in a high-tech, modern world of conveniences and sleek design, seemed a little out of place for a tropical island that had a laid-back, analog feel to it, with old structures and spotty Internet. “How many times have you actually been here?”
The air conditioning buzzed lightly in the brief space of silence. I turned my gaze to him just to see his jaw clench and soften, tugging at my heart strings. Had I asked a bad question? Why? I waited, not pushing. Our conversations had started to get more…honest…so I expected he was looking for an honest answer. I held my breath.
“I practically lived here every summer during grad school.” His mouth curled up for a moment. “I met Anais here when we were just college kids.”
My heart stopped. “Oh…”
He glanced at me, and I wanted to see his eyes more than anything. He said, “She was from these islands. From Cayman Brac, actually. The medium sized of the three islands, but she worked on this one. I met her when I booked a deep-sea diving excursion at a resort on Seven Mile Beach.”
I wanted to reach out to him and hold him. The memory of my miscarriage came to me, and I felt the loss that I knew he felt in that moment. For one impulsive second, I wanted to tell him about my miscarriage, but I didn’t.
As if he knew what I was thinking and feeling, he reached out to touch my exposed thigh, his skin sparking me with electricity straight to my core. For once, I didn’t block the feelings I’d developed for him, and I made a realization that left me winded. I didn’t want our agreement to end on Sunday morning. I wanted something real with Hansen. And though it scared me because wanting more meant being vulnerable and potentially being hurt, I wanted to see what would happen with him, where we’d go, what we could be.
He put his hand back on the wheel, and I was left wanting. When he slowed down to a stop at a traffic light, I stroked his cheek just to reconnect with him. Speaking about Anais must have been hard for him. The Hansen I knew would never speak of such sad things. But this was a different Hansen, and I imagined the Hansen he’d hid for self-preservation, which I totally understood. He leaned into my palm, dropping a kiss on it before he pushed the gas pedal again.