Erin didn’t have time to think about it. “Why now?” she asked Dominic. “WEU only just realized we were selling a through-coat gauge?” Yesterday morning, when Dominic showed her the letter, she hadn’t been in the correct state of mind to consider it. And last night, well, they didn’t talk at home.

“Because we’re small potatoes to them.” He stood in her doorway, arms folded across his chest. “Until they noticed their loss in market share. It’s just bottom line.”

“We should send them a letter and tell them our bottom line; that they don’t have a leg to stand on.”

Dominic shook his head, his mouth grim. “The letter isn’t a legal threat. It’s a shot in the dark. We’re not engaging them in a pissing contest. We’ll let Hansen do the legwork. That’s what we’re paying him for.” He held his hand out for the check.

“I don’t like it.” She should have insisted on talking to Hansen with Dominic.

“This is the best way to handle it,” he reiterated.

“All right, fine. Just don’t leave me out of the loop this time.”

He bared his teeth. “Yes, Erin.”

Yeah, she’d sounded petulant. But he was dictatorial. And she had work to do. She’d gotten through the mediation with Atul and Cam yesterday afternoon. They’d smiled, nodded their heads and agreed they’d work better together. She hadn’t believed them for a minute, but she’d give them a chance to prove her wrong before she took it another step. She hadn’t dealt with Matt, though. He’d gone home sick before she had a chance.

So she went in search of him. DKG’s factory was one big room with polished concrete floors, work benches set apart by cloth partitions, shelving equipped with bins for parts storage, and a roll-up door at the far end for shipping and receiving. Heaters hung from the ceiling.

Matt hunched over his bench. She didn’t think for a minute that he was so engrossed he didn’t hear her. He was a skinny, lanky kid with big ears, and he didn’t smile much, but he’d been a good worker until the last three months when his girlfriend moved in with him. He’d said it was to share expenses, but Erin had a feeling it was more about his girlfriend wanting to take the next step and Matt not knowing how to say he wasn’t ready.

“Let’s grab a smoke,” she said. She didn’t smoke, but if someone else wanted to, it was up to them as long as they did it outside and didn’t toss their butts on the ground. The picnic table sat in the middle of a grassy area between their building and the one next door. Thankfully it hadn’t rained and the bench was dry. Facing out, she crossed her legs. Matt sat next to her. The sun warmed her. Monday and Tuesday had been rainy, but today was in the low seventies. The Bay Area was like that; every day a surprise.

“Spill,” she said, “and don’t tell me nothing is going on because I checked Steve’s report and he’s turning back three out of every four units you work on.”

Matt lit up and blew smoke in the opposite direction. “I’m not happy.”

She wanted to laugh. Who the hell was happy? “You’ll be a lot unhappier if you don’t have a job.”

He grimaced. “She just never lets me have anything my way.” She used to have a name, which had been said with a dreamy, boyish sigh. No more.

“Are you making any compromises on your end?”

“On everything. She even makes me smoke outside.”

“I make you smoke outside.”

“But she smokes, too.”

“Maybe she doesn’t like how the smoke gets into everything, the curtains, the couch, the carpet.” Not to mention the ashtrays and the burn marks on the coffee table.

“Whatever.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “There’s other stuff.” He pulled on his earlobe, a nervous habit.

“What else?” she prompted. It wasn’t her business, but from experience, she knew Matt had to get things off his chest before he’d start making changes.

“She put slip covers on the sofa and chairs. Even the dining room chairs. Like I’m going to get them dirty.”

“And?” It was best not to say that Matt’s jeans did look pretty dirty.

He tugged on his other lobe. “She makes all the decisions, like what we’re going to have for dinner”—she wondered if his girlfriend did the cooking, in which case, she had a right to decide—“and what we’re going to watch on TV, and I hate shows like The Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars and all that crap.”

She did not laugh. Because it was what every couple did, fight about stupid crap. Until you weren’t talking at all.

Until you were so far apart you couldn’t even talk about your child.

Erin stuffed down the thought. “Why don’t you tell her you’ll watch her show if she watches one of yours?”

He stubbed his toe on the grass beneath the picnic bench. “She doesn’t listen to me.”

“You have to take the bull by the horns, Matt, and tell her what you want, make sure she hears. Maybe you’ll find out there are things you’re not listening to either.”

He made a scoffing sound in his throat.

“Sometimes you have to figure out what it is they want and give it to them. Once they’re happy, you get what you want.”

“Uh-huh,” he agreed, though he clearly didn’t get what she was saying.

Fine, whatever, he needed to think about it for a while. “Only you can fix it, and only you can fix your work performance. We can’t have this kind of failure rate.”

He stabbed his cigarette into the ashtray next to the table. “I know, Erin. I’ll do better. Thanks for listening.”

He was easy to please, though she wasn’t sure she’d done a bit of good. His work would improve, at least for a few weeks, but if he didn’t do something about his home life, she’d be having the same talk again. She didn’t want to have to fire him.

She stayed in the sun after Matt returned to work. Figure out what they want, give it to them, then you get what you want. Her problem was that she wasn’t sure what she needed. She wanted Dominic to handle his end of the business, but when he did it his way, she got pissed off over the results. It hadn’t always been that way. She used to butt out of his stuff, but now she’d developed her own dictatorial side. It wasn’t all him.

But he sure could make demands when he wanted to.

With her eyes closed and the sun’s warmth on her legs, images that had nothing to with Matt played across her eyelids. Dominic had been the one to set up all their dates, telling her what to do, what to wear, where to meet him, calling all the shots, giving her the orders. A stray thought made her smile, a naughty little idea. Maybe Dominic needed to be taught a lesson about his dictatorial side. Maybe he needed to be on the receiving end of a few orders. Just the thought made her hot. The irritation that had swept over her was vanquished by the lick of sexual heat. Sure she was trading one emotion for another, but this one was better, more powerful than anger.

Dominic needed to be punished. And that could be so much more satisfying.

“I will book a hotel room for you on Friday night.”

A room for just him? Dominic knew better than to question good fortune. Erin wanted to play a game. She had forgiven him. He typed back. “Okay.”

“You will arrive at seven o’clock. You will shower and lay on the bed naked.”

Wednesday. He had two days to wait. He didn’t know if he could make it. He wanted to ask her to book the room tonight, but he couldn’t risk spoiling things. She’d made a date. She’d engaged him. She wasn’t coming along for the ride; she was directing. He’d thought it would take weeks to get her to that point, especially after her blowup about the patent. Christ, she’d been furious. Now this. Another sample of her changeable moods and rocketing emotions. But this had to be a good thing.

“I’ll be there.” He didn’t ask where, hitting the keypad so fast he got some of the letters wrong and had to retype.

Then he read her swift reply. “You will do everything I say, no questions asked. Do I make myself clear?”

He smiled. His blood heated. He would do anything. For her, he had no limits. It was as if they were newly married again, hot for each other, as if he’d never fucked up their lives.

He could never hope she’d forgive the unforgivable. But he could live with pretending.

“You need to tell Erin,” Rachel said in a soft voice.

“No,” Bree answered without turning.

“You’re going to have to tell her sometime.”

“I won’t need to say anything.” Bree’s voice was a little stronger now.

Rachel knew it was none of her business, but really, she couldn’t ignore Bree’s tears. All she’d done was walk into the office and point out that the address wasn’t complete on one of the checks. Running everything through the mail machine was Rachel’s job, and she double-checked the work.

“You can’t avoid it forever.” She was becoming a mother hen, telling Erin not to blame herself for everything that went on at DKG, now offering Bree advice. It wasn’t like Rachel had her life in order. She barely made enough to cover the bills even with child support to help.

“Oh, yes, I can.” This time Bree was adamant. She flipped her long black hair over her shoulder, turned. The only thing left of her tears was a small smudge of mascara below her eyelashes. Her dark eyes were clear. “I’m sorry about that. I just had a bad moment. It won’t happen again.”

With that, she shut Rachel out, pulling her chair away from the desk and sitting down to tap on the keyboard. “I’ll correct the address in the file right now. Thanks for showing me.”

Rachel backed out the door. She couldn’t help Bree if Bree didn’t want it. Turning, she took three steps and almost collided with Yvonne. How long had she been standing there? More important, how much had she heard?

“Everything all right?” Yvonne asked. Suspicion flickered in her brown eyes.

“No, no. Everything is fine. Just a wrong address on a check.” Rachel flapped the envelope as evidence.

“That’s not like Bree to make mistakes.” She glanced past Rachel to Bree’s open door.

Rachel wanted to shake her head. All she’d tried to do was offer help, but she’d made a mess. Now Yvonne was trying to put her nose in Bree’s business, too. “It was just a missing number on a ZIP code, Yvonne. No big deal.”

“Excuse me for worrying about people,” Yvonne snapped.

Rachel realized she’d hurt her feelings, thought of something to make it up. She forced a lighter tone. “Hey, Yvonne, are we going to decorate the office, maybe organize a holiday lunch?” Christmas was only two weeks away.

Yvonne’s eyes widened in horror, then she shot a stark look at Erin’s office. “Don’t even mention that,” she said, her voice dramatically low. “We’re not celebrating Christmas at DKG.”

Then Yvonne turned, moving with amazing grace for a woman her size, and reentered her office, sitting down behind her desk with a huff.

The roundhouse was empty. In her office, Erin’s phone rang, and she answered in a quiet voice. Rachel had forgotten. When she’d asked for the week off between Christmas and New Year’s, Erin had merely nodded. Rachel hadn’t connected all the dots, but of course Erin wouldn’t want to think about Christmas.

Rachel puffed out a breath. DKG was becoming a minefield she was having trouble negotiating.