Free Intimate Caresses (The Love and Danger Series) by Elizabeth Lennox

Brock last night.  That was in the past. 
    Earlier that day, she ha d walked down to the basement of the police station and spoken to Joe, the head medical examiner.  He’d taken a q-tip like thing and rubbed it around the inside of her mouth, then said they were all done. 
    Hannah had then taken her out side and the two of them had conversed for several minutes about…stuff.  Nina smiled at how Hannah, with her brown curls and her incredible smile had instantly made Nina comfortable.  The woman was a dynamo!  By the time they’d gone their separate ways, Hannah had already convinced Nina to meet her after work for a drink.  And Nina had grasped onto the invitation immediately.  Not just because she instantly liked Hannah, but also because it was an excellent excuse to not be home tonight when Brock came looking for her.  And she knew he would.  He hadn’t said anything about tonight, but she suspected that he already had plans to ambush her again tonight.
    She actually smiled as she anticipated foiling his plans.  Yes, this was a battle of wills and she was going to win this war! 
    Her e-mail pinged, letting her know she had a new message.  With resignation, she opened the message from the strange e-mail address.  Wary, worried about a virus, she read through the message.
    When she finally understood the gist of the message, she almost screamed with her fury.  “How dare he ?!” she said out loud, gripping the handles of her chair so she wouldn’t start throwing things.  “How dare he even try something like that?!  Or even ask me for help!  That man can just rot for all I care!”
    One of her co-workers stuck her head into Nina’s office.  “Are you okay?”
    Nina looked up and tried to clear her expression, but she was just too furious.  “Just a message from my ex-husband.”
    The woman immediately understood.  “I’m with ya, honey.  My ex just bailed on his kids again this weekend.”
    Nina relaxed, realizing that at least her problems with her ex-husband didn’t include any children.  Just residual trust issues as a result of his cheating, stealing, black hearted personality.  “That’s worse than what I’ve got going on.” 
    The woman continued back to her desk and Nina was left re-reading the message.  “Steven, you little weasel!” 
    Apparently, the reviews on the computer game they’d built together, the very same game that he secretly went out and copyrighted behind her back, claiming as his own work, had bugs.  Who would have thought it!  Well, she’d told him about those bugs!  She’d explained to him in very minute detail how he needed to fix that part of his code before they went live with the game.  He’d argued that the bugs weren’t in an essential part of the game and people wouldn’t even notice them.
    She switched over from her e-mail to a new screen and did a search.  Sure enough, reviews of “his” game were horrible.  The critics had found every one of those glitches and were bailing on the game, trashing it online. 
    She sat back in her chair and smiled, feeling vindicated in a small way.  She and Steven had worked on that game for months, collaborating, brainstorming and working on it at different times.  In the end, she’d suspected they were really close to a great game.  There were several tweaks she’d suggested, some additional twists and turns that could add more marketing appeal.  But Steven had been too eager to get it out to market.  He’d argued that they didn’t need those tweaks in the initial version.  She’d pulled back and urged him to slow down, that the game wasn’t marketable yet.
    Well, she’d just been proven right!  If he’d listened to her about the bugs and taken her suggestions, they would be selling millions of copies of this game.  But he’d had to be too eager.  Too quick to the draw.  Just like a lot of things, she’d thought, thinking of their sex life.
    Ugh!  That only brought Brock back