Heating Up the Help Desk, a novella

Chapter Eighteen

*Kenneth

Kenneth paused for the barest second at Reese's comment. He considered the implications and dismissed them in the blink of the eye.

Yeah, the CEO would be mad to know he was tinkering with the internal com system, but in the grand scheme of things, this only proved his point that security was less than optimal.

He had to take a second to gather his thoughts. Reese was more beautiful wielding a laptop like a club than she had been on his doorstep offering him a bottle of wine. She was more striking with her electronics than Venus rising wet and naked from the sea. He stumbled mentally on wet and naked.

Synaptic transmission fired through his neurons. He remembered why he was there.

"I know," he said, speaking in a rush, "which is why I'll only take five minutes of your time. Did you get the requests from the blog readers? Have the gamers reached out to you?"

"No," she said slowly. "The gamers have not reached out."

"But did you get requests for coaching? Have the emails come? I posted a message to my gaming community—as promised originally. As part of the deal."

"Nope. Nada. Nothing."

Her phone buzzed in her bag with an incoming message. They froze, silent for a heartbeat. Frowning, she glanced at him and then back to her bag, but shook her head. "In addition to the presentation, I have an invitation to go for drinks. I'd like to be drinking peacefully with my girl-friend as soon as possible. I'm sure you can relate."

"I hate to interrupt, but I'm going to anyway," piped a voice. Clem popped her head over the partition and nodded vigorously. "Tonight is drinks and babes, but no blondes or PhD graduates."

Blondes and PhD graduates. An inkling of possible understanding came to him. If his hypothesis was correct—

"This is all about the worksheets, isn't it?" he asked Reese.

Hot pink spots glowed on her cheeks.

Another head popped up. The motherly coworker without a sense of personal space. "Everything all right here, Reese? Do you need us to do anything? Intervention, referee calls?"

"No, we're fine, Barb," Reese said.

Clem puffed her breath, skeptical. More heads were rising out from the depths of the cubicles, surveying.

"You're right," Reese said. "I read the worksheets and did some soul-searching. I'm not the one for you. I'm calling it off now instead of later to save us both a lot of heartbreak. But I didn't think you would stoop to infecting my files, endangering my position here."

"Reese, if it comes to that I'll take the fall and make sure the blame goes to me."

"You—" She froze. "You would do that for me?"

"And more. Anything I have to do. Listen to me." He took her hand. "I'm holding your documents hostage only because I didn't know how to ask you to hear me out. I've come to say, I want to take a leap of faith. With you."

Kenneth's voice caught in his throat as he said the words leap of faith. He could face an auditorium of five hundred and not blink. But this close to Reese and his gut clenched, his mouth dried up, and every nerve buzzed painfully. She was breathtaking.

If he could convince her that this relationship was not doomed from the start, and even if it was, to hell with it; that Reese and he had a chance together. The answers to his worksheets were wrong—fluff and filler he hoped would help him get on track.

Perhaps he wasn't the expert on chemistry, but he understood wiring and electricity, and he recognized amazing when he saw it.

He was taking his leap of faith now. If he didn't, he would always regret it.

Her reams of advice ran through his head. Stand tall, shoulders back, be proud, meet challenges head on. Her gaze went to his chest, and it occurred to him suddenly that she had also given instructions on ties and suit jackets.

Wear them? Yeah. Something like that. He cleared his throat, standing proud.

"Reese, it's too soon to make a clean break. We might not seem like the perfect match on paper, but I believe we have chance. If we both make that leap for the other person, we meet halfway. Maybe that's where we will find common ground."

Her desk phone rang. She made a strangled little cry and answered. "Hi, Melanie. It shouldn't be but a minute or two more. The help desk guy is here looking at it. Yes. Very quick. See you soon."

*** Play it safe or take a leap of faith? What to do??? ***