He’s stealing more than her heart…
Whiz kid Liv Altman is working on Internet anti-piracy software that could be huge. It could also be dangerous. And someone wants it badly enough to blackmail only the very best hacker—the infamous and reclusive Jonathon Crestwell—into stealing it…
Liv usually has no trouble ignoring the computer geeks she works with every day, but her new corporate consultant is definitely not easy to ignore. He’s tall and dead hot, with deep blue eyes that make Liv think the naughtiest of HR-violating thoughts. When she finds him unexpectedly in her office one evening, things take a turn for the sexier. But come morning, Liv will discover the truth about her new employee...and what he really wants.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Discover the Sleeping with the Enemy series… Tempting the CEO
If you love sexy romance, one-click these steamy Brazen releases… Stealing his Heart
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Naughty Little Wishes
Her Forbidden Risk
One Night of Sin
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Angela Claire. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Brazen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC. For more information on our titles, visit www.brazenbooks.com.
Edited by Marie Loggia-Kee
Cover design by Heather Howland
Photography by Shutterstock
ISBN 978-1-63375-184-2
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition March 2015
To my fabulous sister CEG for all her invaluable assistance and encouragement.
Prologue
Jonathon Crestwell stared at the woman on the video display. The screen was one of a dozen or so lining the walls of his control room, but at the moment it happened to be the only one with a person on it.
A person.
Nice try at keeping it objective there. Liv Altman was a green-eyed blonde with lush curves rivaled only by her brains.
The man next to Jonathon cackled. “I thought she was your usual tech geek, right? Then I managed to plant the spyware in her computer—which was no easy task, let me tell you—and it’s in there for like an hour before she detects the threat and deletes it. But in the meantime I get this. Turns out she’s got a shower next to her office, so when I go through the feed, this is what I see.”
Ms. Altman was unknowingly stripping for the hidden camera. Her shirt was the first thing to go. Pulling the plain tee over her head, she threw it onto a pile of clothes in her office closet and twisted her long hair into a messy bun on the top of her head, revealing the slender shape of the back of her neck and shoulders. She stretched her arms high above her head, undoubtedly to get the kinks out after sitting at a desk all day, and he saw flat abs and a tapered waist that had been lost underneath clothes designed for comfort, not fashion. Then, in just her bra, she paused, leaning toward the camera, examining something on her computer screen, but giving the eerie impression she was looking right at them.
Jonathon glanced at Rudy Dickinson with disgust and flicked the monitor off.
“Hey!”
“You said you had something to show me. Was there a point to that, other than you getting your sick kicks?”
Rudy licked his lips almost comically and adjusted the crotch of his too-tight plaid pants. “Oh, come on, Crestwell. You got to admit that was cool. Tell me you haven’t done something like that once or twice.”
“No, I haven’t, you pervert, and no, it’s not cool. It’s twisted and illegal, by the way, and I’m not going to watch it.”
“What’s the problem? Chicks show more skin than that on the beach. Besides, her bra was that clunky white cotton,”—he gestured with a chubby hand at the now dark monitor—“not even lace. And we didn’t get to the part where—”
“If that’s what you wanted to show me, get out. Peep show’s over.” Jonathon reached for a beer from the fridge by the console, his throat suddenly way too dry, and took a swig of the brew, barely tasting it. “You said it was urgent. I never should have taken you seriously to begin with.”
And he wouldn’t have, except for the threatening emails someone had been sending him. Cryptic, but full of warnings that he’d better do what was asked of him when the time came. His email address was private. Intensely private. So he wasn’t sure where the threats were coming from. They were untraceable, sent by somebody who knew what they were doing around computers. And disturbingly, the last one had included a picture of his little sister, Julie. So when his old classmate, Dickinson, contacted him and said it was imperative they talk, Jonathon thought it might have something to do with the emails.
“Okay, okay,” Rudy said. “I’ll get down to it. So you know who that chick was, right?”
“Liv Altman? Yeah. She’s head of research at Lincoln Computers.”
In tech circles it was bandied about that Altman was working on a software program that her company had euphemistically labeled “anti-piracy.” A lot of people, Jonathon included, thought the product itself had the potential to be a lot more dangerous than that. It could end up not only making sure that people didn’t illegally download copyrighted material from the Internet, but completely muzzling the Internet while it was at it. Only “authorized content” allowed, approved by the powers that be. No safe haven for dissidents to criticize dictators or innovators to share ideas. No Arab Spring, where anti-government protestors joined together via social media. No last defense against censorship. By developing a technological tool to control the Internet in the name of property rights, Liv Altman could be wiping out all that was good about the web being uncontrolled in the first place. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
In other words, Jonathon wasn’t much of a fan.
“So what? What does Liv Altman have to do with me?”
“You’re going to be working with her.”
Jonathon scoffed. “Hardly.”
He hadn’t worked with—or for—anyone but himself since he had graduated from MIT at eighteen.
“Before you make up your mind on that, I got another tape to show you, Crestwell.” Dickinson pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and swiped a few screens. “You won’t want this one up on the full monitor, so I’ll just preview it for you on my phone.”
“More dirty pictures? No thanks. I think I’ll pass.”
Dickinson held out his iPhone, and for a second Jonathon didn’t register what was going on in the miniature video, all groans and pink flesh. But then he did, and saw a familiar dark brown ponytail bobbing up and down, a woman turning so her face was clearly visible to the camera. He snatched the phone away from Dickinson and threw it against the wall, shattering the plastic case. “You sick fuck. Where the hell did you get that crap?” He grabbed the man’s collar and slamme
d him against the wall. “Tell me.”
Dickinson cowered away. “Hurt me and that video will be all over the Internet, I promise you.”
Jonathon took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, knowing how easy it would be for the creep to carry out that threat. He let go and took a step back, emboldening Dickinson to stand a little straighter, puffing his chest out, straightening his jacket. A sneer returned to his face.
“How old is Julie now? Nineteen? Your little sister sure is pretty, isn’t she?”
“How much do you want?”
“Did you recognize the guy she was, er, well, sucking off? Not the others waiting around for their turn but the one in the hot seat, as they say. I think he’s a friend of your dad’s, a certain senator from the great state of—well, whatever. Julie with all her daddy issues liked him just fine, and the senator arranged that little powwow. Eye opening for her, I’m told, but she liked it.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Jonathon kept his voice level but his pulse was racing and rage pounded in his head. “Name your price. I heard you were hurting for money these days, dickhead, but I didn’t think you’d stoop to blackmail.”
“All a means to an end, buddy. And it isn’t money we want. Not yet anyway.”
“We? So I have you and whoever to thank for the emails I’ve been getting?”
“Just warming you up.”
“Get on with it then. I’ll give you the cash right now. How much do you want to make that tape of Julie disappear?”
“I said we don’t want money from you.”
Jonathon waited, his fingers itching to get around dickhead’s scrawny little neck. But he knew that wouldn’t help his sister.
“We want Altman’s program,” Dickinson finally said, “the one she’s working on for Lincoln. You know, the anti-piracy thing. And so we’re asking the best programmer we know—you—to steal it.”
“Asking.”
“Okay, more than asking. You figure out how to get that program and deliver it to us, and you don’t have to worry about your sister’s extracurricular activities making it onto TMZ. And don’t worry, it was just once. So far,” he added.
The phone, screen cracked and disgusting image frozen thereon, lay a few feet away, and purely for cathartic release, since he couldn’t figure out what the hell else to do, Jonathon stomped on it a few times, then ground it into the hardwood floor with the sole of his heavy leather boot.
“Don’t insult me, Crestwell. I obviously have backup for the video. It’s on a cloud that you’re never getting into unless I say so.”
“Julie’s just a kid,” he said between clenched teeth. A confused kid who had taken their mother’s death and their father’s relentless ambition hard. She had turned to drugs and eating disorders, both of which Jonathon thought she had beaten through therapy. Now he realized this video meant she must be experimenting with something else to feel loved, at least once. And dickhead and his friends had recorded it, had it primed and ready to be launched into cyberspace, never to be reeled back.
If Dickinson followed through with his threat, who knew what Julie’s reaction to the messy scandal would be, especially in view of their father’s predictable rage when he found out. “You set her up, I’m assuming?”
“Well, we couldn’t exactly incentivize you with money, could we?”
Dickinson looked pointedly around at Jonathon’s control room, the expensive computer equipment totaling in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions. And this retreat in the woods of upstate New York was just one of Jonathon’s houses. He was pretty good at keeping a low profile these days, but Rudy was no slouch at ferreting out information, as he’d just proven. He probably knew Jonathon’s net worth better than he did. Or at least everything outside of the Swiss bank accounts. Sometimes, Jonathon fantasized that he’d just disappear into the Swiss Alps and leave this fucked up society, and people like Rudy Dickinson, and his father, far behind.
But he could never leave Julie.
“Your sister’s your weak spot, Crestwell. Anybody who knows you knows that.”
“You don’t know me. I shared the bathroom down the hall with you for a semester in freshman year. That’s it.”
“With the way you keep to yourself, that probably makes me just about your best friend in college.”
“Who are you working for? The senator?”
“That old fart? Please. He was just exercising the seamy side of his appetites while his wife was away with the kiddies. Politicians so rarely get the opportunity to do that these days, what with snoopy reporters around all the time. Luckily, he was in a safe place. But we don’t want anything from the senator. Your sister was the star of that little show.”
Jonathon ignored that, because if he allowed himself to focus on it he would beat the shit out of Dickinson. “What do you want Altman’s program for?”
“We want it to protect the Internet. First amendment and all that shit.” He paused dramatically. “Nah, just kidding. What do you think we want it for? We’re going to market it ourselves. It’s worth a fortune. But don’t you worry about that end of it. You just figure out how to get it. The spyware I put in her computer didn’t last long, like I said, so now we need an actual spy, on-site. One who’s as good as Ms. Altman and can crack her security precautions and get what we need.”
Jonathon glanced at the blank monitor where a few moments before, Liv Altman had been. “So why show me that video?”
“The nudie of her? Why not? Shows you how we tried to do this the easy way, but now it’s time to go to Plan B.” Dickinson popped his flash drive out of Jonathon’s master computer, as if just remembering to do so. “Besides, I like to watch it. I got quite a nice show out of Plan A, let me tell you. A little something to whack off to on cold nights.”
Jonathon held his palm out for the flash drive. “I want both videos back. Julie’s and that one.”
He didn’t owe Altman anything. He didn’t even know her. But that didn’t mean he wanted her subjected to Dickinson’s lurid peeping any more than he wanted his sister to be.
He knew what he had to do. He was left with no choice, really. And whether Lincoln Computers had the anti-piracy technology or someone else did made no difference to him. He never exactly played by the rules.
Dickinson shrugged and handed over the flash drive. “Okay. As long as you deliver, I’ll give you the original of the sexy geek strip and of your sister’s video.”
Somehow Jonathon doubted Altman would thank him for it.
Chapter One
Liv Altman dragged her hands through her blonde hair, unseating a clip in the process, and looked up from her desk at the stubborn, interfering woman in front of her. “I don’t know what you have in mind, Jen, but I already have a secretary.”
“You don’t have a secretary. You have a doddering old maiden aunt who likes to reorganize an obsolete Rolodex and needs to call the helpline every time she wants to turn on her computer.”
“Cecily’s not my aunt.” Liv didn’t bother to deny the rest of the charges since they were, after all, true. And Jen, her oldest friend and current human resources representative, would be quick to point it out.
“Well, you treat her like your aunt. She’s an employee, Livvie. You can fire her.”
If Liv didn’t love this woman who was like a sister to her, she’d hate her. Jenny Sealy had been bossing her around since they’d met in the first grade, back home in Northwest Detroit. Twenty years later, in Manhattan, she was still at it. An MBA along the way only enabled Jen to do it more efficiently.
“When have I ever steered you wrong?” She added quickly, “Career wise?”
“I can’t fire Cecily. She’s a sweet old lady.”
“She’s done something with her computer. It sends me fake messages from you that blow up into obscene cartoons when I open them. Then IT sends me a memo saying I’m violating policy. She’s a disaster.”
“How do you know she did it?”
“IT knows
these things. You of all people should get that. You went to MIT, not me.”
“Maybe it’s a bug in her computer.”
“I had them check on it. It’s not the computer. It’s her. And she’s so muddled. If you really won’t fire her—and how did I know you were going to say that?—then promote her instead.”
“That makes a lot of sense.”
“It’s done in corporate America all the time.”
“Is that how you plan on making it up the corporate ladder?”
“Ouch,” Jen deadpanned, not letting the insult stop her. “Peterson is looking for a new secretary and he does absolutely nothing. I’m not even sure he has a computer. She’ll get more money working for somebody higher up the chain and will have to do even less actual work.”
“Why are you so anxious to get rid of my secretary anyway?”
“Other than this latest fiasco?”
“Yeah, other than that.”
“How about that she can’t remember to give you a phone message to save her soul?”
Liv liked that Cecily didn’t give her phone messages most of the time. There was nobody she really wanted to talk to anyway. Except maybe Jen. But she just showed up in Liv’s office eventually anyway.
As for everybody else, even if the old gal did manage to give her the messages, Liv could always pretend she hadn’t. An absent-minded secretary provided plausible deniability.
“Really, Liv, if we’re both going to move up the Lincoln ladder like we planned, then you’re going to have to start letting me help you on a few of these things. I know what I’m doing.”
She had to admit that the pull Jen had exhibited by getting Liv one of the rare offices at headquarters with a shower in an adjoining bathroom did impress her.
“The only point of a secretary these days is to show you’re important enough to have one. Stature. And Cecily does not say stature. Oh, why can’t I get these things through to you? God knows I’ve tried with your wardrobe!”
“Fine. I give up. Yes to whatever you have in mind.” Once Jen got going on Liv’s wardrobe, or lack thereof, it would waste an hour at least. Best to fight her battles where she could. “But what about poor Cecily? I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
Tempting the Corporate Spy Page 1