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“Just think about it, maybe?” she whispers. Then she gestures with her hands. That animated passion leaks into every word. “Being able to monitor these animals would make it so much easier to really help them.”
I don’t let myself leap at her idea, so I just nod again slowly, clutching my cards to my chest.
“I’ll run it by Rachel when she returns from leave. Perhaps we’ll set up a cross-department conference with Lyndon, my research head.”
“Please do. It could have huge effects, and it would work freaking miracles with marine life. Underwater conditions are so harsh on the equipment, and the investment just hasn’t been made into improving it.”
She’s right about one thing—with niche-level profits there’s niche-level motivation to develop more durable research tools.
As I’ve discovered, most conservation groups aren’t billion-dollar corporate conglomerates, either. They don’t have the money to pile into new inventions when they’re busy in the field or begging for the few scraps they do get from their wealthy benefactors.
It would have to be sustainable, too, but also affordable enough for individuals and organizations.
“Oh, and I was thinking,” she goes on without giving me time to think through the implications. “You recently announced a prototype for the first silent civilian drone, right? The one coming in the next quarter or two?”
“Youhavebeen busy, Miss Lancaster,” I say dryly.
My eyes flick down her body.
My blood heats viciously at the thought of her undressed and hunched in bed with her phone, reading my stupid bio and company history.
A young woman wasting precious minutes of her life onme.
“Obviously.” She smiles sheepishly. “I like to know what I’m getting involved in.”
And who,she doesn’t add.
Fuck.
She has me by the balls.
I’m sincerely impressed, no matter how grudgingly.
“What about the drones? You have ideas, don’t you?” I have to ask.
“Well, I was thinking... they could beinsanelyuseful for tracking endangered species without scaring them.”
“They’re not designed for remote surveying, but perhaps.” I look down into her face, trying to ignore her glowing excitement. She really is disturbingly attractive. “What are you suggesting? Be bold and say it, Miss Lancaster.”
“A new line of business,” she says immediately. “Maybe even a new product line? You’d be filling a gap in the marketandcontributing to conservation.”
It might be a market gap, yes, but it won’t be a highly profitable one.
Most conservation efforts operate off grants, donations, et cetera. I’d have to essentially give the damn equipment away for any of these groups to deploy it.
And judging by the way she’s already framed this whole idea, she’s bitterly aware of that.
It all comes back to what she said before in my office, about how money should be used.
We both know I have enough of it.
I’ve also never been brutally profit driven at the expense of all else—and it’s not like Home Shepherd isn’t profitable.
I can afford to take a loss on a single project, particularly if it’s billed as experimental.
In other words, her suggestion has merit. It could be viable.
Still, I have no intention of telling her on the spot, even if I’m impressed by the fact that she’s come up with this after less than two hours in the building.
