by Sophie Stern
“Who is this?”
“Hey, it’s Allison.”
“Allison? Why are you calling me from this number?”
“It’s my boss’ number.”
“Are you at your boss’ house?”
“No, I’m in his office. Listen, you’re having dinner with Mom and Steve tonight, right?”
Allison was counting on the fact that her sister always came to Sapphire Island early. She lived less than a 20-minute ferry ride away, so she just came over on the lunch ferry most of the time.
“Yep. You’ll be there, right? Oh, please tell me you’ll be there. I don’t know if I can handle dealing with them alone. They’re going to ask me who I’m dating, and I just can’t even deal with that right now.”
“You’re still fighting with Frank, huh?”
“Yeah. I am.”
“Sorry. That sucks.”
“Yeah, well, it is what it is. Anyway, what do you need?”
“I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor.”
“Okay, that sounds ominous,” Yvette said.
“I’m in my boss’ office and I’m totally naked. Can you drop off some clothes for me? Like, now?”
“What happened to your other clothes?” Yvette snickered.
“It’s a really, really long story.”
More importantly, it was a story that Allison just really, really didn’t want to tell again. She was already totally embarrassed at her royal screw-up. She’d sneaked around the office and tried to be some sort of brave Wonder Woman, but she’d messed that all up.
Instead of solving the mystery of what the hacker was after, she’d gotten soaked, and she’d made out with Christopher again, and she’d upset him to the point that he ran off to Declan’s. Wasn’t that just perfect?
“Sure, I’ll bring you clothes. I can leave in five, which will put me there in about half an hour, okay?”
“You don’t need to come up to the office. Just leave them with the receptionist on the first floor,” Allison said. “She’ll get them to me.”
“Sounds good. There’s a cool coffee shop next door I’ve been meaning to check out, anyway.”
“Thank you,” Allison said. “You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea,” Yvette chuckled. “Do you want me to go by your place to get stuff? Or should I just drop off something of mine?”
“Something of yours works.” Yvette and Allison were close enough to the same size that nobody would notice. Now all she had to do was sit back, close her eyes, and wait for the clothing to appear.
HALF AN HOUR PASSED, and Christopher didn’t reappear, but McKenzie did, along with the first-floor receptionist, Harper. They knocked on the office door, and Allison hurried over and pulled the door open carefully. She peeked her head out, and only her head.
“Yes?” Allison asked.
“Package for you?” McKenzie said this like it was a question, and she held out a little bag.
“Thanks, McKenzie. Thanks, Harper.”
“Was that your sister that brought it?” Harper wanted to know. She smiled curiously. Then she tried to peek into the office. Allison was slightly irritated at this turn of events. She had figured that Harper would just bring the package upstairs when it arrived.
She didn’t know McKenzie was going to get involved or that she’d have a nosy audience wondering what was going on or why she was in Christopher’s office. There was no hiding the fact that she was naked, after all. She was very obviously wrapped in an ugly quilt.
“Blonde girl with glasses?”
“Yeah.”
“Yep, that’s my sister.”
“She seemed...”
“Nice?”
“In a hurry,” Harper said.
“Yeah, she wants to get some coffee from next door,” Allison explained.
“Well,” McKenzie said. Then she just stood there, staring at Allison.
“Well,” Harper echoed McKenzie.
“Do you need something else?” Allison asked the two women. She knew that as soon as Harper and McKenzie walked away, the office was going to be filled with stories. Awesome.
Just so awesome.
“Is Christopher still there?”
“No, he left,” Allison said.
“I didn’t see him leave.”
“Well, he left out of the window,” Allison said.
McKenzie gasped. Harper brought a hand to her mouth in surprise. Okay, so much for fending off gossip. This was definitely going to spread around the office like wildfire. Allison could practically see the headline.
THIS JUST IN. DRAGON BOSS STRIPS NUDE IN FRONT OF STAR EMPLOYEE.
Well, maybe she wasn’t quite a star.
“He’ll be back,” Allison said lamely.
“I’m sure he will,” McKenzie seemed flustered, and she left quickly with Harper following close behind.
Allison was thankful they left promptly so she didn’t have to come up with anything else to say. She took the clothing back into the office, dropped the quilt, and put on the clothes her sister had brought. Apparently, Yvette had a sense of humor because she’d packed a simple pink dress without any bra or panties.
Awesome.
Now Allison got to spend the rest of the day feeling breezy and nervous, and hoping she didn’t walk anywhere with air conditioning. The last thing she needed was for everyone to see her nipples poking through the dress.
Well, except maybe Christopher.
Allison wouldn’t mind that at all.
She shoved her wet clothes into the bag, folded the quilt, and then took one last look around the office. Maybe she should tidy up the clothing Christopher left when he shifted and ran, but she didn’t need to.
She just needed to...
Well, she needed to get back to work.
Allison stepped out of the office, closed the door, and paused for a moment. She needed to lock it, but she didn’t have the key. Well, wasn’t that just awesome? She wasn’t about to go back to her own office while leaving Christopher’s unguarded. That was low, even for her.
Allison was standing in a small area where McKenzie’s desk was located. She kind of served as an assistant slash secretary for all of the dragon brothers. Brian and Declan’s offices were across the hall.
“McKenzie?”
“Yes?”
“Do you have a key to Christopher’s office?”
“I do not.”
Well, shit. What was she supposed to do now?
“I have a key,” Brian appeared beside Allison, and he held out a key. It dangled from his fingers. “Now, why-oh-why do you need the key to my brother’s office?”
“I just wanted to lock it.”
Brian paused, raising an eyebrow. Allison knew what was coming next even before he spoke. She cringed.
“And why, little human, were you alone in my brother’s locked office?”
“Well, if you must know, I came to him with a...problem...and after he helped me with my...problem...he flew off. I think he went to Declan’s.”
Brian seemed amused. He also seemed like he wasn’t buying it. He looked at her carefully, considering her.
“Come into my office for a moment, Allison.”
He reached around her, locked Christopher’s door, and then went back into his own office. Allison followed glumly, unhappy with this turn of events. She really, really wanted to get back to her projects and work. She didn’t want to deal with Brian or Christopher anymore. She certainly didn’t want to deal with the nasty look that McKenzie was giving her.
As soon as the door in Brian’s office was closed, he turned to her and crossed his arms over his chest. This was the part where he was going to do something stupid or mean, she knew. This was the part where he was going to fire her. Wouldn’t that just be awesome?
She’d been working her ass off to help solve the great hacker-man mystery, yet Brian was looking at her like she totally sucked! She closed her eyes, bracing he
rself. She could handle it. Even if he fired her, she would be able to get another job. Oh, it wouldn’t be as wonderful as this one, and it wouldn’t be as comfortable, but she’d survive.
Only, he didn’t fire her. He had something else to say.
“Don’t hurt my little brother.”
Her eyes flew open.
“He’s not your little brother. You’re triplets.”
“He’s little to me. Don’t hurt him.”
“I’m not going to hurt him!”
Wow, this guy was being annoying. Had Brian always been this obnoxious and bossy? Yeah, he kind of had, and it was probably one of the reasons their company was so successful.
When you had a guy that was totally driven and completely wild like that, he could do great things. That was what Brian had done for the company. He was the face of it, really. He kind of kept everything running.
“I’m serious, Allison.”
“Dude.”
“Dude?” Brian wrinkled his nose, as though he couldn’t believe she’d been so casual with him. Well, she had. She’d do it again, too.
Out of all of the people in the world, Allison was the least likely to hurt Christopher. If anything, she should probably tell Brian not to be so damn hard on him. He was always pushing Declan and Christopher to be better, but it kind of stressed them out. Like, a lot.
She could see that, so Brian probably could, too, if he wanted to.
“You heard me,” she nodded.
“Look,” Brian’s face softened. “I just don’t want to see him get hurt.”
“I’m not going to hurt him. I don’t know why you’d think that I would.”
“You were naked in his office.”
“Because I was wet, and he was...”
What was he doing?
He wasn’t really warming her up, now was he?
Oh, it might have started that way, but whatever it was they were doing had spiraled wildly out of control. They’d both gotten worked up, and she’d seen him naked. During her time at the company, she’d never seen any of the Monster brothers naked, but she’d especially not seen Christopher.
He’d looked good, too. He’d looked good enough to lick. That was what she’d wanted to do. She’d wanted to lean forward, stick out her tongue, and taste the dragon boss. She hadn’t, though, because she liked to think of herself as a lady. She liked to think of herself as being prim and proper even if she wasn’t.
“If you’re thinking about Christopher, stop.”
“What?”
“I can smell your arousal, human,” Brian lowered his voice to a growl. “So, stop thinking about my brother, and tell me why you were with him.”
“I was wet.”
Probably not the best way to describe her reason for being with Christopher. Luckily, Brian seemed to know she wasn’t talking about her levels of horniness.
“Why?”
“Because I got caught in the sprinklers.”
“What sprinklers?”
“The ones in the file room.”
That was interesting to Brian. Instantly, he was alert and paying attention to her. Oh, great. That was what had gotten his attention.
“What file room?”
“Okay, Brian, let’s skip the bullshit,” Allison said. “I’ve known you for a long time, and you know I’m trustworthy.”
“I don’t know a thing.”
“Shut your mouth and listen,” she snapped. She’d never talked to her boss like that before, and she knew perfectly well that Brian would be well within his rights to fire her for such a speech.
To his credit, he didn’t fire her on the spot, though. He just closed his mouth and looked at her, listening carefully. Okay, she could do this. It was time to do this.
“There have been some problems lately,” she said.
“The hacking.”
“Yeah, the hacking. We know someone has been breaking into personnel files, but that’s kind of useless information.”
“Why?”
“Because those files don’t really contain a lot of information.”
“They have lots of information.”
“Let me revise my statement,” Allison said. “They don’t contain information I can’t easily get online.”
She prided herself on her ability to find anything about anyone. She could do it fast, too.
“So, someone has been hacking files they don’t really have to. They’ve been scouring your files and documents, but nobody knows why, and nobody knows what they’re looking for. That means we have two options.”
“I’m listening.”
“Either someone is looking for specific information or they want to plan specific information.”
“Meaning what?”
She shrugged. She hadn’t really figured it all out, but she knew she was close. The hacking situation had been messy. Dirty. Wild. Whoever was doing this was really all over the place.
“Maybe they want to find some information about an employee, or maybe they want to alter an employee’s information.”
“Why now?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“We don’t have a lot of new people.”
“It’s just James,” Allison agreed. “Well, and Zoa.”
“I don’t think Zoa is behind this,” Brian said.
“No, but I bet Declan’s behind her,” Allison snickered.
Brian just frowned.
“Come on, no sex jokes? Really? They spend every lunch together at their house.”
Allison might not have a lot of experience dating dragons or sleeping with them, but she knew a couple in love when she saw one, and Zoa and Declan were crazy about each other. There was no way to deny it.
“You’ve left out a possible option,” Brian said.
“What?”
“Maybe someone isn’t actually trying to hack us at all.”
Suddenly, Allison realized that Brian had been letting her talk. He’d been trying to figure out how much she knew, and now she felt like she was missing something pretty big. Well, damn.
“What are you talking about?”
“Have a seat, Allison.”
Brian gestured to the chairs in front of his desk, and she walked over and sat down. She felt naked in her sister’s clothing even though she knew she was perfectly well covered. If she’d been with Christopher, she would have been excited. With Brian, she just wished she still had the ugly blanket to cover herself.
“When I saw that the alarms in the file room had gone off, I realized I’d been notified through an alert on my computer.”
“Okay.”
“Usually, McKenzie comes rushing in here at the first sign of any problem,” Brian said. “She always tells me before I have a chance to find anything wrong.”
“Sounds like she’s a good assistant.”
“I think she’s nosy,” Brian said.
“Um, okay.”
“When I noticed the sprinklers going off, I pulled up security footage,” Brian said. He spun his laptop around so Allison could see the screen, and her mouth dropped. There was Allison, stumbling out of the file room. She was soaked, and she had water in her eyes, and she was trying to wipe them off. She stepped, walking down the hallway, scurrying off-screen.
“Sorry about the water,” Allison whispered.
“Just keep watching.”
A moment later, a small bird flew out of the file room. It flew in the opposite direction that Allison had run. A second later, security arrived to shut off the water.
“The bird was a shifter,” Allison realized. It was likely the person who had tried to go cause trouble in the file room.
“The bird was a shifter,” he agreed. “Now, look at this.”
He showed footage of the bird flying into a closet on the second floor of the building. A moment later, McKenzie emerged. She was fixing her hair and adjusting her clothing. Obviously, she’d dressed in a hurry.
“It was her,” Allison whispered.
&nbs
p; “I assume she had backup clothing stored in that closet,” Brian said. “When the sprinklers went off, she was probably caught unprepared just as everyone else was. While you ran away in your wet clothing, she stripped out of hers and took off.”
“What happened to the wet clothes?”
“Oh, there’s more to the story.”
He pressed another button, and they saw McKenzie appearing outside of the file room. She was speaking with the security team and she went into the room. She emerged a few minutes later with a small bag. Then she walked away hastily, keeping her head down.
“She was out of breath when I walked by her desk,” Allison said, remembering.
“I believe she shifted in the closet, put on her dry clothes, ran up here to save face, and then, after leaving you with my brother, she went back downstairs to get her wet clothing from the storage room. The timeline fits.”
“Sounds like she was busy.”
“It also explains why she didn’t tell me about the file room break-in,” Brian said. “It didn’t exactly go as planned.”
“But what is she looking for?”
“Nothing.”
“Then what’s she trying to hack?”
“Again, nothing.”
“Brian, you aren’t really making any sense.”
Allison felt a little dumb admitting it, but she had no idea what he was talking about.
“McKenzie has been in love with me for a long time. Unfortunately for her, I have no romantic interest in her. Each time any sort of ‘hacking’ occurred, she called me. We would spend hours together just trying to sort out what happened.”
“So, you think she was doing this for attention?”
“Yes.”
“Brian?”
“Yes, Allison?”
“Do you think she was trying to shift the blame to James? I feel a little bad, but I definitely suspected him.”
“He’s one of the only new people we have here,” Brian said. “I think it’s safe to say that yes, she tried to blame him.”
“What’s going to happen to her?”