Love Bytes by Dahlia DeWinters Page A

chest.
    Francis stood in front of his desk, staring at her, his white shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow as usual, the watch she’d given him gleaming silver on his wrist. She let her gaze roam over him, taking him in. Navy sweater vest, no tie, tan khakis.
    “Did this whole…”  He made a helpless gesture with his hand. “Did this mean anything to you? Or is your emotional strangulation so complete that it’s nothing but a lark?”
    Emotional strangulation ? Violet stared at him, wanting to answer, wanting to tell him that, of course, he meant everything to her. That she wasn’t emotionally strangled at all. But she dropped her gaze from his, tongue-tied, unable to form the words that would close the chasm that had opened between them.
    Someone knocked on the door. “Francis, are you available?” It was Rogers.
    Seizing her chance to get away, Violet eased toward the door and opened it.
    Rogers gave her a look of near disgust and pushed past her. “Francis, what’s going to happen? With the firm and all.”
    “Give me a second, would you?” Francis snapped at Rogers. He called after her. “Violet!”
    She turned around, raised a hand, and gave him a fake smile. “I have to go, Francis. You handle it any way you feel is proper. I pulled the numbers up on my computer. You’re free to take a look and make any decisions you need to make. I have to go.”
     

Chapter Fourteen
     
    Violet concentrated on the road as she drove, thankful for the light late morning traffic. As she pushed open her back door, the tight feeling in her chest persisted, despite the deep breaths. She tossed her keys and messenger bag on the kitchen table, watched them skitter across the polished wood surface to rest next to the wooden fruit basket. The apples had gone bad who knows how long ago and there were clouds of fruit flies congregating around the rotting fruit. Two tears ran down her cheeks and she swiped her hand across her face, angry at herself. She never thought of herself as a cruel person, but her words to Francis were just that. Yet, as much as she yearned for that connection with him, she was so afraid that if he got any closer, he wouldn’t like what he saw.
    The whole situation was so trite it was laughable. She was scared of Francis, scared of commitment, scared of making herself vulnerable to someone, giving them the power to snap her in two. She was a mouse, scurrying back in her hole at the first sign of danger, hiding from the world.
    Emotional strangulation indeed.
    Violet tossed her coat in the general direction of a living room chair and marched down the hallway to her bedroom where she threw herself on her rumpled bed. There hadn’t been much time for housekeeping in the past two weeks. Dry-eyed, she stared at the ceiling, following the cracks in the paint. Everything had crashed and burned. No software, no business, and no Francis. The thought of losing him made her chest heave and she grabbed a pillow and squeezed it in a tight embrace. What a fuck-up she was.
    Her skull felt like someone was knocking on it with a rubber mallet and her eyes were hot and blurry. Enough of this pity-party.
    Violet pushed herself off the bed and went into her office, her bleary-eyed gaze falling to the stack of bills piled next to her laptop.
    “Damn it to hell,” she said, her voice creaky and tired in the silence. Might as well look at them now. She could handle the cold, hard reality of bills and money. 
    Violet sat down at her desk, retrieved her letter opener from the top drawer, and picked up the first envelope.
     
    ****
     
    Using the figures that Violet had left on her computer, Francis assured the three programmers that they would be paid through the end of March. No further projects were planned as of yet and if any were, he’d keep them informed. Meanwhile, they might want to start dusting off their resumes.
    He spent the next few hours chasing down the beta testers and letting them know what happened. In between