I want You Deeper

Heath couldn’t stop thinking about Vanessa.

She’d stayed on his mind all night as he tossed and turned and waited for his bedside clock to tell him it was time to get up. Thoughts of her had haunted him as he’d gotten out of bed and put on the bland clothes Josea had given him to wear on the second full day of the trade show. And now, as he watched Vanessa sip her coffee while listening to Josea describe her look for the day, it was impossible to deny his attraction to her.

Which was ridiculous. She’d established last night she stood for everything he was against. Fame for the sake of fame, the pursuit of attention, and the shallowness that existed just a few hours down the coastline from where he lived.

Yet something just didn’t fit with Vanessa. She had depth. They’d spent a full half hour discussing politics, technology, and his ideas for new businesses. It was almost impossible to reconcile this person who claimed to be fixated on fame with the Vanessa Gilbert he saw otherwise.

And all only contributed to his growing fascination with her.

“It’s a little tight.” Vanessa spun around, showing off the fit of the skirt she was wearing. What she had going on today, though, was a very professional look. She wore a knee-length black skirt with a white buttondown blouse. There was something classy about the look Josea had given her, and Heath appreciated it.

In fact, he couldn’t seem to stop appreciating it.

“Sit,” Josea ordered, indicating the seat Heath was still in. Talk about awkward.

“If you’re finished with me, I’ll go on down to the exhibit hall.” Heath stood, walked over to the mirror and took a quick look, and tried to cement in his mind that he was now Mac Sutterfield, not Heath Hardcastle. Not an easy thing to remember.

“See you down there,” Vanessa called after him.

Heath winced, heading to the elevator, and realized he wasn’t really all that excited about going down there alone. Which was silly, considering he’d spent most of yesterday in the booth by himself. He might not even realize it when she finally did show up since she’d be wandering the floor.

As he neared his booth, he didn’t see the person standing in front of it. His attention was fully focused on his screen as he rushed to respond to an urgent client request. But the big camera was hard not to see. He caught it out of the corner of his eye as he approached.

The camera guy had set it up on a tripod today, maybe as a way to rest. He was standing, staring at Heath. Oh, yeah. He and Vanessa had ditched him the previous night. Heath had forgotten all about the fact that he’d have to eventually face the two guys today.

“Sorry, man,” Heath said with a shrug. “I just needed a timeout.”

The guy shook his head. “Whatever. Just pretend I’m not here.”

He was a man of few words. Not just him, but the other guy as well. Heath wondered if maybe that was part of the job. The two of them were supposed to blend into the background, capturing the action. Seen and not heard. Heath could totally respect that.

Shrugging the whole thing off, Heath headed into the booth, finishing the email he’d been sending. Nothing interesting to capture here. He was just going to stand here until someone came up, then give his best sales pitch and hope it was interesting for the cameras.

“Hi.”

Maybe he’d spoken too soon. At the sound of a woman’s voice, Heath looked up from his screen. It was the woman from last night-the one that Vanessa had said was dating Justin Travers. Also known as Vanessa’s roommate.

“Hi.” He pocketed his phone and stepped forward to greet her. He had no idea why she was here, but he figured he’d better be polite. “Mac Sutterfield, Hardcastle Exhibits.”

He held out his hand for a handshake, just as he had for every person who had approached his booth yesterday. If he could keep this professional, he’d stay safe. She wouldn’t figure out he was actually the person who’d been accused of stealing her boyfriend’s app code.

“Yeah.” The word was accompanied by a slight tilt of her head and a frown. She was studying him. Not a good thing. “I’m with TravTech. Brooke Alexander.”

He had a strange moment where he wanted to impress her. Not because she was dating and working for the person he was trying to one-up. That had nothing to do with it. He wanted to impress her because she was Vanessa’s roommate and closest friend. Strange reaction, but okay.

“Nice to meet you. How can I help you today?”

She was still studying him, and it was making him doubt his decision to pretend he had no idea what was going on between TravTech and Hardcastle Enterprises. It wasn’t too much of a stretch. He figured a new sales team member like Mac Sutterfield would have no idea what was going on at the top. He’d just care that his paychecks didn’t bounce.

“Your boss is focusing on exhibit stuff now, I assume?” Brooke asked.

Suddenly, he saw the agenda behind this friendly visit. She wanted to dig for information on his boss.

“My boss?” He forced himself to stay in character, furrowing his brow in confusion. “I was hired by a guy named Steve. I met with him and a few others once, but I don’t really know what the focus of Hardcastle Enterprises is. I just know I was hired for Hardcastle Exhibits. Does that make sense?”

Too late, he realized he might not have sounded professional when he said that. He had a chip on his shoulder, and there was really no reason for it-not as Mac Sutterfield. His voice needed to match what he was saying. He didn’t work for Heath Hardcastle and didn’t even know him.

“So, what’s the story with the cameras?” She pointed to the camera that was next to her, tripod and all, and was no doubt capturing every word of this conversation.

“You aren’t supposed to acknowledge them. They can’t use any footage if you do.”

“Don’t we have to sign a release for you to use it, anyway?”

“There’s a sign on the main doors,” the camera guy said in answer to her question.

Heath raised his eyebrows. Camera Dude was getting feisty. He kind of liked it.

“One of those ‘If you enter this area, you could be captured on camera and entering is your consent’ signs?” she asked. “I see.”

Heath decided to answer her original question. “They’re doing a documentary on the tech industry. They’re following us this week, but it’ll be someone else next week.”

That was the fake story the production director had told him to go with if he was questioned about the crew following him around. He had practiced it enough that he was pretty sure he sounded convincing.

Her eyes widened, indicating he’d succeeded. “Hmm. Maybe I should talk to my boss. I think he’d love to be a part of something like this.”

Really? Knowing what she knew about the situation, she was suggesting putting Justin on the same documentary. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t a documentary about a guy finding out his code had been stolen and doing absolutely nothing to clear up that it was an overseas team, not a colleague. If they’d wanted a documentary like that, they would have said so.

But, of course, he said none of that. He was Mac Sutterfield, not Heath Hardcastle. He shrugged.

“They don’t seem to be following the head guys around.” Heath held his hands out, indicating he was the prime example of what he was saying. “They’d be more likely to follow you around, or so it seems. They want the people who actually do the work, if you know what I mean.”

He gave her a conspiratorial smile. She knew what he meant. The people who did all the work, like coming to trade shows like this one, while their bosses were back in Silicon Valley, sitting around a conference table talking about the work they were going to make other people do.

But if he’d thought that would get Brooke on his side, he was wrong. Now she seemed to really be studying him. She was actually squinting at him as if that would somehow help her figure him out.

Good luck with that.

Suddenly, she seemed to snap out of it. “Well, I’d better get back to it. Nice to meet you. If you need anything, I’ll be over there.”

She pointed toward the main entrance, but there was a lot going on between here and there. Rows and rows of booths. He wouldn’t need anything from her anyway, but her general directions would be useless if he didn’t already know exactly where her booth was.

“Nice meeting you, too.”

He pulled his phone back and pretended to go straight back to work. But really his mind was reeling. Why did he have the eerie feeling this Brooke person was onto him? It had to just be paranoia, but he felt unsettled, anyway.

“Miss me?” Vanessa asked, appearing from out of nowhere. It was so soon after Brooke’s exit, he found himself looking up to make sure she wasn’t still lurking nearby. Fortunately, she was nowhere in sight.

“Sure.”

He was aware he sounded distracted, but his mind was spinning. Should he tell her that her roommate had been standing in that exact spot only seconds earlier? The camera had captured it, so it wasn’t like she wouldn’t find out about it later.

“What’s wrong?”This content belongs to Nô/velDra/ma.Org .

Oh, great. Now she was directly asking him about it. He needed to either confess or get himself together.

“Nothing. Just… Work stuff.” He held up his phone to demonstrate. “Any prospects out there?”

He nodded to the general area behind her, being vague just as Brooke had been when she’d described where he could find her. Vanessa followed his gaze, looking over her shoulder, even though there was really nothing back there to see. It was still early. He assumed people hadn’t had time to grab their coffee and head this way yet.

“None.” She walked around to enter the booth, turning to lean against the not-so-real counter. In fact, he worried for a second whether it was sturdy enough for leaning. “I figure I’ll stand outside the booth and draw people over. Once it gets busy, I’ll go in search of potential clients.”

He nodded. Sounded like a plan. He hated how happy he felt that she would be staying nearby. In fact, he was half-hoping that nobody would show up and they could just hang out all day.

Which was one hundred percent what he was not here to do.

“I’ve been thinking…”

He looked up from the phone screen he’d been staring at without really seeing it. She was chewing on her bottom lip, apparently nervous about something. He waited patiently for her to continue.

“Excuse us for a second,” Vanessa told the camera guy. He didn’t budge, of course, but Heath knew she wasn’t asking him to leave. She was about to break a rule, and the camera guy was just going to have to get over it. “I think we need to stop and ask ourselves where you want to go from here. This shoot ends soon, right?”

“Well, there’s a whole part where I reveal who I really am to my staff and what I learned by working here.”

“What did you learn?”

Heath glanced over at the camera guy. This felt wrong, but why was he so worried about it? It wasn’t like he could be fired from the shoot, and if he were, so what? Besides, Vanessa made a good point. He hadn’t stopped to think through what he wanted to be portrayed on the show-not since the shoot had started, anyway.

So, he answered her question. “I learned that this is hard work. I learned that businesses want elaborate, showy booths that beat the competition. In fact, that’s probably the biggest thing I’ve learned. These people are competitive.”

“Tech companies, competitive? Imagine that.” She crossed her arms over her chest as she watched him, that full mouth tilted up at one corner.

She was amused.

“You think I’m competitive?” he finally dared to ask.

She laughed. It was a dry, one-off laugh that sounded like she was enjoying an inside joke. He got the message all too clearly. She saw his issues with TravTech as some sort of competitive thing. It wasn’t at all about that, but that didn’t matter. If Vanessa saw it that way, the people watching at home would see it that way, too.

“The tech community is at its best when we work together and support each other. I think most of us in Silicon Valley get that. Sure, there’s competition, but the real competition is with ourselves.”

Vanessa nodded, studying him similarly to the way her best friend had just minutes ago. As if the cameras weren’t intrusive enough, now he had to deal with Vanessa and her friend studying him. Analyzing him. Seeing through the facade he thought was solid.

“Come with me.” She stood up and gestured for him to follow. Heath resisted the urge to glance at the camera as he left the booth with her. Where was she taking him? To show him something?

People were starting to slowly drift in, which made him a little nervous. He should be at his booth. What if someone came along who wanted to work with him? He really should be getting back-

It hit him, as Vanessa slipped through the main door, gesturing for him to keep following, that he was getting a little too involved in his role as a salesperson. Normally, he’d be sipping coffee in his suite, letting that Jeff guy who’d gone to the bathroom and never returned handle everything. But, suddenly, he’d become the hands-on guy who wanted to talk to anyone and everyone who might do business with his company.

It would be hard to go back to being the guy who delegated this to someone else. Maybe he never would.