by Ravenna Tate
When Madison made the decision to confront Viggo, she’d only been trying to find out if she hadn’t inadvertently taken a job in a snake pit. If HCS and the Weathermen were covering up important information the public needed to know about the hackers that wasn’t right. She didn’t want to work for people who played games with everyone’s lives.
They had all been underground for eight years now. Madison wanted to go home as much as everyone else did. She’d stupidly thought she’d stumbled onto the secret of the century, but realized now that all she’d managed to do was jump the gun.
Worse than that, she’d managed to piss off one of the Weathermen. And now if she didn’t have sex with him tonight he’d probably get her fired. So much for her budding career at HCS. The two Weathermen left who weren’t either engaged or married were notorious for being players. They all had been like that, once. And she’d fallen right into Viggo’s trap.
She read the tabloids online. Viggo Ingram and Blaine Parker were photographed with different women every week, all of them looking sleek, pampered, and confident. She wasn’t the kind of woman Viggo took out on dates. The only reason he wanted to have dinner with her was so he could seduce her, quietly, secretly, and then she’d slink away and leave him alone. Otherwise she’d be out of a job.
Her plan had been impulsive and not well-thought out. Absolutely true. But that didn’t mean she deserved to be blackmailed into having sex. She wasn’t going to let him get away with it. She’d go over there tonight only to tell him she wasn’t going to become one of his conquests. Let him call Ralph’s supervisor. She’d call him herself and tell him everything she’d heard Ralph say on the phone. If she was going down, at least she’d do so with a clean conscience.
****
Viggo didn’t find anything in Madison’s background that gave him any reason to suspect she’d shown up this morning for a different reason than she gave him. Her family had not survived the move underground, like the families of so many people he knew. She’d been born in a small town close to San Francisco, had graduated from high school with a high grade point average, but hadn’t been a standout in any sports or other activities.
She was only twenty-five now, which meant she must have been forced to move underground the year she’d graduated. He couldn’t imagine what life had been like for an eighteen year old kid in the midst of that chaos. She was a strong person to have made it this far on her own.
She’d found work at a fast food place and earned both her undergrad and graduate degrees at CentralWest university, having finished the MBA just last year. This job at HCS was the first job she had outside the food service or merchandise retail industries. She didn’t even have any traffic tickets.
What little he could find on her family hadn’t turned up any criminal activity. Her mother had been a registered nurse, and her father had worked in construction. She was an only child, and he hadn’t been able to find much on her extended family, but he did find a job application for a clothing store at the mall here in CentralWest where she’d listed no living relatives that were known.
That wasn’t uncommon, either. Plenty of people he knew had lost track of family members once they’d moved underground, and had spent the past seven or eight years trying to find them without any luck. So many records had been lost in the aftermath, online included. Small towns that had once existed and didn’t routinely back up their records online had been decimated, and the paper records had gone with them. Online servers had crashed and data was lost. Madison’s story wasn’t much different from countless others, and he had no reason to think it wasn’t true.
The more he read, the more uncertain he became about what to do. If he called Ralph or his equally moronic supervisor and told them what this girl had done, she’d be out of the only decent job she’d ever had. Not to mention he had every reason now to suspect Ralph was in touch with someone at HCS who had betrayed them.
Her story about why she’d done it and the resulting confusion she’d exhibited once he’d hammered away at the reasons behind her actions made more sense now. This wasn’t a question of her searching for fame or glory. She’d been trying to make sense of her idyllic perception of HCS, versus the reality she’d been hit in the face with, courtesy of Ralph. He’d have to tell the others about Ralph, but only after he learned more from Madison.
Which brought him back to the present.
What the hell was he supposed to do about tonight? Sure, he could seduce her, but to what end? She was too young for him, for one thing. Eighteen years between them was a lifetime. She’d want something stable. Something permanent. Marriage and children. Not a month or two of lavish parties and having her picture taken everywhere they went before she became too clingy and he broke it off.
The women he usually dated wanted one thing from him. His money. They talked a good talk, but when it came down to it, they only cared about what he could give them in terms of material possessions or comfort.
He was so fucking tired of it. It had been fun at first, mainly because there had been so many of them. Now, it was like listening to the same song again and again, and realizing while you may have once loved it, now you fucking hated it.
Viggo pushed back from his desk and rubbed his eyes. He was tired today. Too tired. Forty-three wasn’t old, but on days like this he felt twice that old. Something in Madison had called to him—no doubt about it. But why? She was very pretty, and she had the kind of body he loved to hold. Curvy and lush. It hadn’t only been her looks, though. He loved the nerve of her coming here and thinking she could expose some scandal. That took guts.
What she’d done today had been borne partly of naïveté concerning the agency she worked for, but she also had survived horrible conditions and been forced to move underground without her family at a tender age. Despite all that, she’d worked her way through an MBA and had landed a job with the top government agency in the country. That meant she had brains and talent. Brains and talent that he could use here, if it came to that.
Viggo chuckled and shook his head. One minute he was threatening to make sure she lost her job if she didn’t fuck him, and the next he was considering offering her a job himself. He was either getting soft or he needed more sleep.
He turned his attention back to HCS and who Ralph might have been talking to. That bothered him more than anything. Because Madison had said Ralph mentioned Dave Perry and the warehouse, it had to be someone who either believed every word that damn article said was true, or someone who knew what was really going on. He needed to find out which it was.
Madison could find out. She was there with Ralph five days a week. She’d mentioned blackmail. Asking her to do this wouldn’t be blackmail, but she’d see it that way. He was in a bind. Ralph would no sooner tell any of them the truth than he’d actually do the job he was paid to do. This might turn out to be nothing, but Viggo would feel better if he knew that firsthand.
Because if someone else had found out what they were up to in Central, they’d be in more hot water with the media. They had fewer allies than before at HCS, thanks to the backlash from that fucking article. People were beginning to believe the outlandish rumors. It had been almost eight years since everyone had been forced underground, and the public was tired of it. Viggo and the others had read all the negative press, and it left a bad taste in their mouths.
If the Weathermen knew who the hackers were, why hadn’t anything been done about it? What were they waiting for? Why hadn’t the government stepped in and done something about it? Why were the Storm Troopers still on the surface if all they did was collect data? Why wasn’t this data being used to stop the program?
Viggo was sick of it, and so were the others. It took them each more time than ever now to try to explain what they were doing and why. Their PR sites got more hits than all the other areas of their company websites combined. And most of the information they now had could never be shared publicly. People would freak out.
His instincts were rarely
off, so he decided that whatever Madison had overheard needed to be further explored. For all he knew it might turn out to be nothing more than a rehash of what they already had, but if it turned out to be something bigger and he chose not to act on it now, he’d never forgive himself.
He glanced at the clock on his laptop. It was time to go home and get ready for her arrival. Whatever happened tonight, he had a reputation to maintain. This dinner had to be perfect. Maybe once she was in a different atmosphere she’d remember more details, and she’d be open to keeping him informed on what Ralph said during future phone calls?
Either way, he had to get to the bottom of this. He owed it to himself and to the others. And if he was able to have an enjoyable few weeks with a pretty girl while he ferreted out the information, well, why not? He wouldn’t apologize for being a man who appreciated beautiful women, and Madison was someone he wanted to get to know better. Much better.
Chapter Four
Madison wore jeans and her favorite sweater, which was neither red nor royal blue. It was bright yellow with black trim, and she loved it because one of her former coworkers had given it to her as a birthday present two years ago.
Madison had been talking about how much she missed hearing bees buzz, and the conversation had evolved into the black and yellow stripes on some of them. Madison had told her coworker how much she’d always loved the contrast of those colors.
She wore matching earrings and a necklace she’d bought with her employee discount when she’d worked at the mall, and paired the ensemble with short black boots. Screw him and his red or royal blue clothing. She even wore black underwear, not that she intended for him to see it.
Right. Just keep telling yourself that.
She arrived ten minutes after six. He was waiting for her when she got off the elevator, and laughed when he saw how she was dressed. “You look like a bumblebee.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Care to help me make some honey?”
Oh, fuck a duck. He would give her a sexy grin and make a sexual joke about it. Her damn traitorous body responded by sending a gush of wetness to her pussy. She averted her gaze and brushed past him into the apartment, where he collided with the back of her as she stopped dead in her tracks to gawk.
“Sorry. You stopped so suddenly I couldn’t.”
Why were you following me so closely? She mumbled something about it being fine. Good lord. This place looks like a palace. Crystal chandeliers, marble tables, and gold tiles on the ceiling. Actual gold inlaid tiles. How much freaking money did this guy waste on shit?
“What do you think?” The pride was evident in his voice.
“I think you have a lot of cash to throw away.”
She’d said it without thinking, and when he didn’t respond, she turned around to face him. She’d already pissed him off. Why was she throwing more fuel on the fire? “I’m sorry. That was rude.”
His quick smile seemed genuine. “I suppose I do have a lot of cash to throw away, but I don’t actually do that with it.”
She swallowed hard, unsure how to respond.
“Even though you’re late, dinner will be about fifteen minutes yet, so we have time for a quick tour if you’d like one.”
“Sorry about that, too. I had wardrobe issues.” This was insane. She was the one apologizing for everything, when clearly he was trying to blackmail her! “Why am I here?”
“I told you already.”
“I know what you said, but why am I really here? You don’t mess with women like me.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means I’m not tall, thin, or dressed like I stepped off the runway in Milan.”
He gave her a look she couldn’t quite interpret, then sighed. “Okay. Can’t argue with your height, but that doesn’t matter to me. As for your weight, it’s perfect in my eyes.”
His gaze roamed slowly over her sweater, down her jeans to her boots, and back up again. Shivers ran down her spine, and she tried to keep her face neutral. What was it about this man that turned her on so much? He was an arrogant jerk. She should hate him.
When his eyes met hers again, he smiled knowingly, as if he knew how aroused she was. “And as for the clothing, although it’s not what I asked you to wear, you look too damn adorable.”He looked pretty damn fucking adorable, too, dressed in a suit and tie, but she wasn’t here to flatter his ego. Still, it seemed rude not to at least acknowledge his compliments. They sounded sincere, and there was nothing on his face to suggest he was bullshitting her. This man had the power to get her fired. He probably had the power to get Ralph fired, too. Either way, it would still mean a job loss and she didn’t want that.
“Thank you, Viggo. You look very nice, too. And you smell great.” That last bit had slipped out before she could stop it, but it was true. Whatever cologne he wore was sultry and heady. Cologne was rare in these cities, but he had money. He could get anything he wanted.
He grabbed her hand, startling her, but at the same time another jolt of electricity like the one she’d felt earlier shot up her arm. The effect was not unpleasant. Not at all.
“Come on. I’ll give you that tour before we eat.”
Her mind reeled with the sheer size of this place. There was a home office, an indoor pool, a media room that could easily seat twenty people comfortably, a cozy living room, a great room with another big-ass video screen on one wall, staff quarters, a laundry room, and a kitchen the size of Colma, where she’d grown up. And that was just on the main floor.
“You must entertain a lot.”
“I used to. Not so much these days.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “We’ve all been pretty busy the past year.”
As he led her up the stairs, she decided his answer was the perfect segue into the multitude of questions she still had. “Is that because you really do have the hackers?”
He gave her a grin. “You know I can’t tell you any of that. Company secrets.”
“But I work for HCS. These are cyber crimes. It’s our territory.”
“We’ve been over that before. The cyber crimes angle with HCS, I mean.”
The stairs opened into a loft that looked down over the great room. A gallery flanked the remainder of the perimeter, with doors along three sides of it. He pointed toward them as they walked. “These are all guest rooms. Each one has its own bathroom.”
“How many guest rooms do you have?”
“Four.”
Who the hell needs four guest suites in one apartment? “What did you mean by saying you’ve been over all that before?”
“I mean the other Weathermen and I have reached an agreement with key people at HCS in Central, and that’s all I can say.”
“Does that mean us lowly satellite staff have no say-so?”
He stopped walking and eyed her, the grin gone now. “I would think if you or Ralph had a need to know, you would have been told.”
“Then why did it sound like Ralph knew?”
“I’m hoping you can tell me that.”
She narrowed her eyes as she detected the slight change in his voice. “Why is it so important you know?”
He averted his gaze. “Come on. We have time to see my bedroom suite before dinner.”
He began to walk again but she didn’t, so he stopped once more.
“You didn’t know that Ralph knew all this, did you? Not before I came to your office this morning. It bothers you. Why?”
“You have no right to be asking the questions, Madison. You barged into my office pretending to be someone you’re not. You don’t hold the upper hand here, or haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“I’ve figured it out, but here’s the thing. If you try to get me fired, I’m calling Ralph’s supervisor and telling him the things Ralph does all day when he’s supposed to be working, as well as what I heard on the phone. So that’s fine. Call your friend Ralph and tell him what I did, but he’ll go down with me. I can ass
ure you they do not know in Central what little he does all day long, but once I get finished, they will.”
“Ralph is not my friend.”
“Then why are you doing this? Why do you care that I overheard a conversation and wanted to find out what was going on?”
“It’s not quite that straightforward. You also wanted to play superhero and uncover a scandal. For all I know, your next move would have been to demand money to keep quiet about what I told you.”
“Excuse me?” She pulled her hand out of his grasp and took a step back. “I would have done no such thing. Let me tell you why I was in your office this morning. I was eighteen when the world imploded. My entire family died in that massive earthquake that struck the Bay area. Were you living in this area before you moved underground? Do you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Well I wasn’t here when the big earthquake hit. I was visiting friends in Colorado with three other girls I graduated high school with. It took me two weeks to get home, and when I finally did, everything was gone. Gone, Viggo. My home, my family, everything. If I’d been here I probably have died, too.”
He gave her such a tender look she almost stopped talking, but the floodgates had been opened and she had to get this out now.
“I was told to move underground. I had no one to turn to for help. I lived in a shelter for six months even after I found a job. That’s how long it took to wade through the paperwork that would allow me to rent the apartment where I still live. I couldn’t even bury my family members. I had no time to grieve, and no one who gave a shit whether I did. I served burgers and fries to people just like me, searching for their loved ones, for over a year before I finally was able to start college.”
“I’m sorry. I really am. We all went through horrible things. That’s why my friends and I are trying to stop this.”
“Then why keep it such a damn secret? Do you know the rumors that are floating around about the twelve of you?”
She could see the internal struggle on his face, but that wasn’t her problem.