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the privacy that a build out would afford, and in the end, I was grateful Blake had honored that wish with his secret remodel. I felt secluded enough to do my work in peace but still connected enough to tap into whatever Sid and his crew were up to. Plus, Risa would be joining us soon, and we’d likely have a lot more regular communicating to do. At least we spoke the same language.
    When their informal meeting ended, I Skyped Sid to come talk to me. He came in, his tall frame towering over me at my desk. He settled into a chair across from me.
    “What’s with the attitude, Sid? We’re on the same team here.”
    “I realize that, but I’m getting really sick of patching holes in a sinking boat.”
    “We’re sinking?”
    He sighed. “No. But constantly patching vulnerabilities and fixing shit they’re breaking while trying to roll out new development is becoming pretty fucking tedious, Erica.”
    I sat back, stunned. Sid rarely swore, so his nerves were frayed. When my nerves were frayed, I cried in the privacy of my room or channeled my anger into being obsessively productive. When Sid’s nerves were frayed, everyone suffered.
    “What do we do? I want to help. I just have no idea how, Sid.”
    “Talk to your boyfriend. Doesn’t he have all the answers?”
    “Most of the time he does, yeah. But he doesn’t have a magic pill for this. I’m at a loss.”
    Blake’s strategy thus far had been to simply make the site completely impenetrable. Because I’d refused to let his team of programmers take over the site, the responsibility fell squarely on Sid. Now Chris and James shared the burden.
    “On the ground-level, there are improvements I can make to the site. At some point, we’ll need to redevelop it anyway to accommodate large-scale growth. The only thing I can think of is to work on that instead of doing these upgrades. Then at least we’re working with a more solid foundation, since clearly we’re going to be under attack for the foreseeable future.”
    “Sid, you’re scaring me. Rebuild the site from the ground up? There has got to be another way. We’re coming up on a critical marketing push.”
    “I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear. I suggest you talk to Blake. Whatever he did to bring this on, he should know how to fix it because this isn’t what I signed on for.”
    Sid’s response punched me in the gut.
    “Okay, how about you get the guys squared away with their work for the day and you can take the day off. Come back refreshed, and hopefully I’ll have some answers tomorrow.”
    I tried to keep my voice steady even though I wanted to tell him to grow the fuck up. Work was full of challenges. I had taken on the brunt of the ownership responsibilities, leaving him with the task of focusing on only what interested him—the development. Yet he marched around like the entire world was plotting against him. True, a small faction was in fact plotting against us, but he was being a little dramatic.
    He huffed and left my pseudo-office. He mumbled some things to the guys and slumped back into his chair.
    I smiled. Deep down, Sid was just as obstinate about giving up as I was. We had that in common.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    Alli brushed on some bronzer while we got ready in my bathroom. She let me borrow a tight leopard-print skirt that fit like a glove. She took the liberty of pairing it with a black off-the-shoulder top. I had a feeling Blake might be stripping this outfit off me with his teeth in a few hours. God, I wanted him to.
    After two days of dedicated girl time, Alli was venturing out to get dinner and drinks with some friends so Blake and I could catch up. My skin was crawling from missing him so much.
    We’d survived brief periods of separation before, but usually those were colored by me being totally pissed at him, which helped stave off the unbearable attraction I had toward him. All I felt toward Blake right now was epic longing, especially after the mind-bending sex we'd