The red flush across the back of his neck and the intensity of his stare clued her in to who might have been responsible for security. His crisp white polo shirt accentuated the deep tan he sported. Liquid blue eyes surveyed her coolly, without a doubt, measuring her worth.
She shrugged. “Your protection wasn’t adequate. A virus planted itself into your system and when someone logged on to the bank’s system, secured information was inadvertently uploaded as well. Enough data to let someone from the outside know how to access your accounts.”
Jesse gave a curt nod to Nick who would need to know when to include the police in the matter. “You’re sure this was on purpose? Someone stole it?”
“Absolutely.” Eden stood. “I don’t have the details yet, but I’m getting there. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make like a bloodhound.”
Kevin looked up from his BlackBerry where he had been typing using two digits. “You’re going to what?”
“I’m gonna track that sucker down.”
“I’ll come with you.” Lawrence rose from his chair and hurried to her side.
She glanced back at Jesse before leaving the room. Worry framed his eyes. She wanted to soothe away the crease above his brows. Maybe when this was over…
As he caught her gaze, Eden winked at him and hoped it would be enough for now.
* * * *
“So what makes you think it was done from the inside?”
Eden looked up from the monitor, but her fingers continued to fly over the keyboard. “Because in order for me to get past your firewall, I had to get access to an actual on-site computer. Whoever did this would have the same problem unless they were very, very good. I doubt that’s the case, fortunately, because I was able to track the virus so easily. A true expert would have hidden it better or made it tougher to crack.”
“Seems pretty expert to me to get this far,” Lawrence said.
“Maybe. But I’m better than he is. Just watch.”
It was slow going, but Eden went line by line through the code, pulling out the bits that struck her as inconsistent or odd. Based on some of it, the virus appeared to have been uploaded in pieces, dating back a couple of months. To her chagrin, she realized their hacker possessed a little more cunning than she originally gave him credit for. Still, she could handle it. She paused long enough to crack her knuckles and kept typing.
Crap. He really was good enough to make her life miserable though.
“You need to eat something, Eden.”
Blinking to ease the dryness in her eyes, she glanced in surprise at the owner of the sentence. Jesse held out a deli bag and a bottle of water. She swiveled in the chair and winced as a twinge of pain raced down her neck and across her shoulders.
“You have no idea how long you’ve been sitting there, do you?” he asked in an amused voice.
She took the outstretched bottle and swallowed half of the contents down. That’s when she noticed Lawrence’s absence. Her stomach growled loudly at the same time. She had eaten this morning, right? And what freakin’ time was it?
“It can’t have been that long,” she responded.
“Honey, it’s been four and a half hours since we last saw you.” He pushed the bag toward her. “There’s a turkey sandwich and some chips inside. Lawrence tells me you’ve stopped the flow of money. If all you’re doing is tracking down where the virus originated, now’s a good time for a break.”
Her stomach rumbled again, almost begging for a reprieve from starvation. Sighing against defeat, she took the bag. “Thanks.”
He waited until she started eating before he leaned comfortably against the chair. He scanned the monitor and looked back at her. “I don’t know what you’ve done or said to him, but Lawrence is very impressed with you.”
She swallowed some of the sandwich. “Oh? I thought I must have bored the pants off of him.” Pointing to the empty chair, she chuckled. “You can tell by the way he stuck it out.”
He smiled with her, but it didn’t reach his eyes. His face became serious after a moment. “I really like you, Eden. Why did you do it? You never said and I want to hear it from you.”
The change in topic caught her off guard, but when her mind finally caught up, she acknowledged to herself he deserved to know. In a brief moment of panic, she almost considered making up some complex story because it seemed so stupid now.
Instead, she blew out a breath and hoped he would understand the truth. “Gavin’s the third GL Kingsley, you know,” she said pointedly. “When his father divorced my mother, I came along a year later and man, was GL the second pissed. She’d denied him a second child, only to end up pregnant by the man she married after him. He has it in his mind that had they remained together, I would have been a boy.”
Jesse nodded in understanding, as if he knew the type of man who wanted only boys as offspring.
“Long story short—I won’t bore you with the details—I am not good enough to step foot onto GL Kingsley business property, much less run one of its branches. Even back when I had my brother’s support, I’m technically not family. Or, at least, not family enough. I started my consulting firm to show them both that I could run a business successfully, and that I am smart and capable.” Her voice tightened. “But that wasn’t enough either. One day, I got this crazy idea in my head that if I could prove to Gavin’s dad my worth, he might change his mind. So, I broke into their offices…”
“This sounds familiar,” Jesse replied dryly.
She nodded. “Yeah, I moved around some files. Got access to some money I shouldn’t have been able to access. And got busted doing it.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “By whom?”
“My dear big brother.” The words tasted bitter. “He decided that my skills would be best put to use if I utilized them here. Either agree to that, or get sent to jail for espionage.”
“For Christ’s sake…”
“From the second I actually did what I set out to do to you, I regretted it. And when I got to know you even further...I’m so sorry, Jesse. You have no idea.”
Jesse pointed to the remains of her sandwich and waited until she lifted it to her mouth again before he spoke. “In a perfect world, people are hopped up on scruples and never do anything wrong,” he said. “To get where I am, I’ll be honest, I had to do some things that were borderline legal.”
She chewed automatically, not knowing where he was going with his confession.
“In the end, I have to ask myself, was it worth it? If I had to do it all over again, would I? Almost every single time, I have to answer yes.” He studied her face. “Now you tell me—if you had to do it all over again, knowing what you know now, would you?”
Eden didn’t have to think about her answer, but her stomach tightened as if the food she’d just ingested disagreed with her. “If it’s the only way that we would have ended up together for this short time, then yes, I would.” Her voice and gaze dropped. “Even if it meant ultimately losing you.”
There was a long pause where her pumping heart was the only sound in the room. Finally, in a strangled voice, he said, “I’ll let you get back to work.”
She didn’t look up when Jesse stood. When the door softly shut closed, she turned back to the keyboard and began to type.
A moment later, she wiped away the tears that blurred her vision.
Chapter Ten
Jesse brushed past Scott on the way to his office. Although their shoulders touched, he could barely pause long enough to apologize. His mind whirled.
The fucking gall of Gavin Kingsley.
How could Eden’s own brother blackmail her into setting up Jesse’s company to fail? If she’d refused, she would have gone to jail. If she’d succeeded, but had been caught, she’d still go to jail. Of course, there was nothing stopping Gavin from blackmailing her even further had she succeeded and not been caught. The blackmail might have gone on for years until everyone her brother saw as a threat had been eliminated.
He c
ouldn’t imagine being in her shoes. Nor could he imagine the guts it must have taken her to confess to him. Her hands shook as she talked, and she could barely look him in the eye. She did it though. He had nothing but respect for her because of it.
He collapsed into his chair, the weight of what to do with the information keeping him in place. Earlier, for a split second, he thought she hadn’t told him the entire truth. He almost believed she might have done more damage than she was willing to confess. Watching her present to his officers, seeing how hard she worked in front of the computer, eased the doubts one by one.
She worked like a fiend to reverse the damage. She also seemed genuinely perplexed by the timeline of data in the code she reviewed. If her actions really precipitated the events, nothing should have occurred before about a couple of weeks ago when she started trying to hack into Englund Multimedia. The data, however, indicated someone implanted the virus coding over the course of months. Long before she stepped into the picture.
That made him think.
Jesse pulled his chair into place in front of his desk. With a few clicks of his mouse, he opened files that were duplicates of the ones she reviewed and corrected. It took him a few minutes to reorient himself to the computerese he’d long since abandoned. Once he started to recognize the long lines of commands and prompts, he smiled. He cracked his knuckles, positioned the keyboard in place, and began to type.
He hadn’t become the CEO of a multimedia company without a few skills of his own.
* * * *
“Thank you for agreeing to see me.” Jesse smiled, then proffered his hand.
The resemblance between Gavin and Eden could not be hidden. Their distinctively shaped eyes and facial structures announced their relationship to anyone who knew them both. If in his past, he’d seen Gavin more than once every other year or so, he would have recognized the similarity immediately.
The tall man wore a polo-style shirt, the sleeves pressed so crisp they looked like they could cut paper. Designer khaki slacks meant to look casual instead identified his affluence. The gold luxury watch flashing on his wrist didn’t shake the image, either.
“Of course,” Gavin replied as they shook heads. “I admit I’m a bit curious about why we’re meeting at a restaurant on a Saturday, especially so late in the night. But,” he shrugged, “it did seem a bit urgent.”
The errand Jesse had been on earlier took longer than expected, but the results were worth every extra hour.
“Yes, I’m sorry about that.” He waited for Gavin to sit before joining him. The waiter hovering nearby caught his attention and he inclined his head, beckoning him over. “I’m having a Scotch on the rocks. Would you care for something?”
“The same.” Gavin’s fleeting glance at the waiter was dismissive. Jesse mentally reminded himself to unclench his jaw. The sheer arrogance wafting from his rival could not be his concern at the moment.
Jesse dropped his voice low, as if wary about having someone from another table overhear their conversation. “Listen, I’m just gonna cut to the chase, if you don’t mind. Over the past couple of days, my company has run into a bit of financial trouble.”
Gavin’s eyebrows rose. “Oh? I’m sorry to hear that.”
Jesse wanted to roll his eyes. Instead, he shook his head as if saddened. “We’ve lost a great deal of money. Enough to seriously jeopardize our future.”
A gleam appeared in Gavin’s eyes. He leaned toward Jesse, the methodical slowness of his movement making it seem as if he wasn’t eager. But Jesse saw right through him. The man positively vibrated with enthusiasm.
“That doesn’t exactly explain why we’re here, Jesse,” he said. “Every business has its ups and downs…”
“I’m seeing your sister. Did she tell you?” he interjected.
Gavin stiffened, but nodded. He sat back in his chair, once again putting distance between himself and Jesse.
“I like her, man,” Jesse continued. “Besides being beautiful as all hell, she’s smart and funny. Real genuine, you know?”
Jesse watched him process the conversation’s flow. He knew what Gavin should be thinking if he were in his shoes. First, Jesse comes to him with tales of business woe. Then he brings up the fact he’s dating his sister. As his fiercest competitor, and a CEO of a company in excellent standing, Gavin would be in a position to offer a charitable handout. Jesse, not to mention Eden as his current love interest, would have no choice but to be grateful. Grateful enough for a little tit for tat, as it were. Maybe shareholder or profit sharing grateful.
Oh yeah. He knew exactly what Gavin would be thinking.
“My sister’s good people. But I’m still not quite getting why I’m here.”
“Not just genuine, either.” Jesse kept the ball rolling. His attention unfocused, as if he searched for just the right words. “I mean, I think she must like me too, because she’s honest…”
“Jes—”
He flashed the other man a look of disdain. “Honest enough to tell me about her part in my company’s potential demise.”
Gavin stilled. “What do you mean?”
The waiter arrived at that moment to drop off the amber liquid Gavin ordered. Jesse picked up his own glass, and took a long swallow of the contents. Warmth spread down his throat and into his belly. The same sensation that flowed over his extremities had nothing to do with the drink, though. Gavin Kingsley looked like he would pass out at any moment.
Jesse waited until they were alone to answer him. “She told me about stealing two and a half million dollars from me. Money she did eventually return.”
It took him a moment to reply. If Jesse didn’t know better, he would have thought Gavin wasn’t aware of that last part.
“I don’t know what to say. Her behavior is inexcusable.”
“She also told me that someone’s loaded a virus into my computer system. One bad ass enough to send our finances scurrying.” They locked stares. “Fortunately, she’s so damned good at what she does, she’s working like a demon to scrub it out of our system.”
“I still don’t know…”
“The thing that got me,” Jesse continued as if Gavin hadn’t spoken, “is that the virus had been loaded long before Eden came into the picture. So, I did a little investigative work of my own. Why don’t you take a guess at what I found?”
Gavin’s mouth tightened into a thin line. After a moment, he ground out, “I wouldn’t know.”
“I’ll give you a hint. Not only did I find out how the virus was uploaded, but I also found out who paid to have it done.”
Jesse had no sympathy for his former employees. The trail they left behind had been confusing because of the use of multiple log-in IDs and computer terminals. As Eden told Lawrence: They were good. Fortunately for Jesse, not quite good enough.
When he visited them at their home, the husband and wife team broke down almost immediately after he accused them of uploading the virus. Their employment termination inevitable, only their transcribed and notarized confessions that implicated Gavin saved them from being handed over to the FBI.
The look in Gavin’s eyes was murderous. “What do you want?”
“First, drop the attitude. Mister, my relationship with Eden is the only thing saving your ass right now.” He lowered his voice, the venom dripping from every word. “For her, you and I are putting this whole thing to bed. The entire thing…the espionage…Eden’s blackmail…everything. It goes no further. You never come near my company again, got it?”
“That’s it?” Derision danced on the short question.
“That and the fact Eden never hears of this arrangement. Ever. You tell her you’ve had a change of heart. That you’ve seen the light. Whatever you have to say, but I don’t want her to know what a fuckup the brother she still looks up to really is.”
Gavin blinked in surprise.
Jesse started to stand, but paused at the look on Gavin’s face. “You mean, you really didn’t know that woman worshipped the g
round you and your father walk on? Why do you think she tried so hard for your approval?” He smiled grimly. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. You just make certain you and I have a permanent understanding.”
Based on Gavin’s return glare, Jesse had just made an enemy for life, but he had no doubt they definitely had an understanding.
Chapter Eleven
“You did it, baby” he whispered to her sleeping form.
Jesse bent down, slid his hand over her back, and gripped Eden’s shoulder. Then he positioned her legs over his arm and stood. Lifting her from the uncomfortable position she slept in at the computer desk didn’t take much effort. She roused for a moment and then settled against him.
His chest tightened as he breathed in her familiar scent. Pressed tightly against him, she felt so good—so right—in his arms again. The fact that she was honest with him, was willing to sacrifice herself for him and his company, endeared her even that much more to him.
For a moment, he considered where to take her. At two in the morning, he was exhausted, his eyes gritty, and the mere thought of driving home seemed an insurmountable task. The couch in his office slept one person easily. Two people would be laughable. No matter where they ended up though, it needed to be someplace private for the two of them. Of that much, he was certain.
As he waited for the elevator, he glimpsed movement from the corridor. He turned and faced a startled Kevin whose gaze roamed from Jesse’s face to Eden in his arms, back to his face again. Jesse waited patiently for what he would have to say. He would let him get it off his chest, but Jesse would not explain himself. Friend or not, Kevin didn’t have to understand what he was doing. He knew without a doubt.
The elevator chimed its arrival and Eden shifted. Keeping his attention on Kevin, he nuzzled her neck softly, cooing gentle words, until she stopped moving.
The older man watched without comment. When Jesse stepped into the elevator, Kevin gave him a curt nod. As the doors slid closed, Jesse returned the acknowledgement with a nod of his own.
The Price of Pleasure Page 6