“Don’t let him con you. He has a wild side and is an experienced escape artist. Bars and fences don’t hold him back for very long. I’ll put a barrier up so he can’t get under the railing,” Pedro promised.
“Maybe I could put it up on the far side of my space? That way, he could come over if he wanted to visit?” Belinda proposed spontaneously. She’d already fallen in love with the sweet boy.
“We can try that if you’d like. When he becomes a pest, just block him in to my area,” Pedro suggested.
This time, at the sound of his voice, Tinkerbell twisted his body to look at his owner, one paw reaching out toward him.
“Looks like he’s ready to go back to his daddy,” Belinda said, reaching over the railing to hand him over. Instantly, Tinkerbell changed his mind and dug his claws into Belinda’s thick robe, refusing to be separated from her.
“Rascal. Here, let me unhook his talons,” Pedro said, immediately going to work to free Belinda without snagging her clothing. As he leaned over the rail, his towel caught on the railing and unwound itself.
She caught a quick glance of taut buns and gasped. Belinda immediately looked up at the clouds to keep herself from peeking. As Pedro held the cat steady so he could free Tinkerbell, Belinda felt his fingers brushing over the lapels of her robe. He didn’t panic or release the cat, just continued to extract Tinkerbell’s claws methodically from the material.
“Almost there,” Pedro said reassuringly.
Belinda didn’t know if he was talking to her or the cat. Her lips twitched upward, and she tried to keep herself from being amused. Who would have ever imagined that she could be this close to a naked Pedro Morales in public in her robe and fuzzy slippers?
“Are you laughing, Little girl?” Pedro said in that deep voice that sent shivers down her spine.
“N-no!” She tried to control the giggles that threatened to explode from her.
“Got him.”
Automatically, Belinda looked down to see Tinkerbell curled up happily under the dynamic man’s chin. When her eyes began to slide down his torso, Pedro commanded, “Eyes on mine, Little girl.”
“Sorry!”
She slapped her hands over her eyes and peeked just a little as he set Tinkerbell down and picked up his towel. He wrapped it back around his waist and tucked it securely in place.
“You can look now,” he assured her.
“Sorry…” Belinda had no idea what to say after that.
“I guess we have to be friends now, Belinda. I’ve seen your slippers and you’ve seen my…”
That was the final straw. Belinda lost it. When his low chuckles joined her delighted laughter, she looked at him and shook her head. “I’m glad to have meet you, Pedro Morales. You’re not what I thought you’d be like.”
“That’s a good start,” he smiled.
“A start?” she questioned as she pulled herself together.
“Go get ready for your day, Little one,” he instructed without answering her. “I’ll see you soon. Comfortable shoes.”
“Good idea,” she agreed as she picked up her glass and walked back into her apartment.
Replaying their encounter as she ate a bowl of cereal, Belinda hoped she hadn’t made a fool of herself. He’d seemed as amused by the turn of events as she had. Surely, he hadn’t said Little girl and Little one deliberately, right? It wasn’t possible that he was a Daddy. Not possible at all.
* * *
“This isthe server area for all the Edgewater Industries buildings. There is a dedicated team that is on call twenty-four/seven to maintain and protect access to these.” Belinda forced the image of his naked buns from her mind for the millionth time and struggled to focus on equipping the expert with the knowledge he needed.
“You don’t have any outside consultants involved in the infrastructure's management?” Pedro asked.
“We don’t. Easton likes to have his own Edgewater staff in charge. Take your position, for example. Easton could have contracted with a large cybersecurity company with a ton of resources and an extensive knowledge depth. When I stepped into the chief technical officer’s role, I did some number crunching and presented my findings to Easton for a variety of technology support systems. In the end, I agreed. It was a bit more expensive to maintain our own staff, but we have trusted employees who are dedicated to Edgewater Industries and trained in our system’s features and quirks.”
“How do you keep that team up to date with new technology?” Pedro asked.
“I have a training rotation. I keep my eyes open for new programs or roadblocks and the employees can submit areas they would like to expand their training. For example, on our server team, Mike recently received training for a new data warehousing system.”