“If you had a usual man candy it would be bland vanilla. I’m the whipped cream, sprinkles, and cherry on top of your sundae. Now play along,” he chided her. “We’re a couple, remember?”
“Since I’m playing the gainfully-employed role in this relationship, I’ll buy the beer.”
She had a quick sense of humor, another well-hidden quality that fascinated him. He watched her cross the promenade to the bar, those curvy hips swaying with an unconscious but very erotic allure, bringing vividly to mind the striptease she’d done for him. It had been…memorable. No one would ever believe it of her.
Not unless it had been caught on camera.
He went to get the bowling shoes. While he waited for the attendant to find their sizes, he checked out the crowd. There had to be easily fifty people from Irina’s workplace, although he had no idea how many might belong in her actual department. Most of them had already divided up in teams and were occupying lanes. Since he couldn’t imagine Irina insinuating herself into a group of people she didn’t know well, he was going to have to decide which one they’d join.
She reappeared with two bottles of beer, squeezing between two men who were standing with their backs together and talking to different people, oblivious to her passage behind them. She popped free, then traded Kale one of the bottles for a pair of shoes.
“That’s it for me and beer, babe,” he said as they made the exchange. The bottle was a prop. He didn’t plan on drinking when he still had concerns for her safety. “I’m the designated driver. You might want to take it easy too,” he teased her. “You’ve already proved you’re a lightweight.”
She made a face at him and took a healthy swig, just to be contrary. He commandeered a seat on a low wooden bench and kicked off his sneakers. He patted the empty space beside him, indicating for her to sit down. She crowded up next to him, so close they were touching, and he lifted an eyebrow at the sudden about face. She’d spent the week keeping her distance. Only moments ago she’d chastised him for getting too far into character—not that he planned to let that stop him. Teasing her had the added benefit of taking her mind off worrying over how the evening would progress. She thought things to death.
“What happened to circumspect?” he asked.
“I hate things like this,” she muttered, her eyes reflecting anxiety. “It’s noisy and chaotic, I feel underdressed, and I don’t know what’s expected of me.”
None of this came as any great revelation to him. If not for the fact it really was a work event—for them both—he’d encourage her to have a few more drinks and loosen up.
“You’re expected to have fun and mingle with people. Think of it as a networking event without the suits and ties.” He nudged her with his shoulder. “And by the way, you look beautiful. As usual. I already told you those clothes are completely appropriate. This isn’t the Oscars.” He bent his head to whisper in her ear. “Although for what it’s worth, I’m expecting an Oscar-winning performance from you.”
He tied his shoes, waiting while she dawdled over lacing up hers. He’d already figured out which group they should join. Seven women were having a very good time at lane number five. They ranged in age from early twenties to late fifties. One was Christine, the admin assistant Irina had introduced him to. Two others looked as if they might be serious bowlers. The rest appeared more interested in enjoying themselves. With any luck a few of them were executive assistants. EAs always knew everything that went on in a company.
He took Irina’s hand. “We’re bowling in lane number five.”
The women’s reactions ranged from guardedness to speculation and outright surprise as he and Irina approached them.
“Hi, Dr. Glasov. Kale,” Christine greeted them, her blond ponytail swinging as she stooped to pick up her ball from the return system. “I’m so glad you both made it.”
Irina, cool and polite, slipped immediately into her professional persona. “I hope no one’s competitive. I can’t guarantee my performance.”
Christine’s smile faltered. Inside, Kale winced. Irina needed to learn how to separate her two personalities when she was outside of the workplace. The dig at him about her acting abilities, he could admire. That really was clever. But remaining professional didn’t mean she had to keep a giant stick up her butt all the time.
He slid an arm around her waist and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Not to worry, babe. I’ll help you out with any performance issues you have.”
Irina’s face reddened and everyone laughed, breaking the ice. They had so many double entendres flying around now, it was anyone’s game.
A tall, fiftyish woman with short platinum hair, graceful figure, and a commanding presence shook her head. “I think we’d better put you two on opposite teams. Dr. Glasov will bowl with Christine.” She held out her hand to Kale. “Hello, new teammate. I’m Meghan.”
Once the introductions were made, and Kale established that Irina was going to be OK on team Christine, he took a seat beside Meghan.
“So how do you and Dr. Glasov know each other?” Meghan asked.
Kale dodged the question by countering with one of his own. “Does everyone here call her Dr. Glasov?”
Meghan’s eyes twinkled. She drew in her lips, rolling them over her teeth as if biting back whatever she really wanted to say. “Her reputation at the office is somewhat…formidable.”
While Irina was all soft and feminine at home—pink sofas never lied—she did seem hung up on the importance of being Dr. Glasov in public. In his head he ran through all the possible ways he could respond to Meghan’s comment that might help make Irina appear less stuffy before deciding to let it go. Rome wasn’t built in a day and he wasn’t paid to be her social advocate. “Do you work in her department?”
The older woman laughed. “Good lord, no. They put all the smart people in the computer science and systems design department. I work for the executive vice president.”
Just as he’d hoped, he’d found his primary source of information. If anyone knew anything about any unusual interest in Irina stemming from inside the company, it would be Meghan. “I’d imagine your EVP hires only the best and the best don’t always own IQs that start at 145.”
“My IQ, whatever it is, appears to be adequate for everyday function. I’m assuming yours is good too.” She slid him a sly, knowing look. “I can’t see Dr. Glasov being interested in a man strictly for his…appearance. She’d get bored. Eventually.”
We both already know this isn’t going anywhere.
Irina’s words echoed, emphasizing the uncomfortable amount of truth to Meghan’s statement. He shoved it aside. “I don’t know about that. I’m awfully pretty. And not to brag, but I’m a pretty good time.”
Meghan laughed again. “I’m sure you are. Let’s hope you’re also a good bowler, handsome. You’re up.”
Kale had never played candlepin bowling. The ball was small, without any holes, and the fallen pins remained in play. Nevertheless, he acquitted himself reasonably well with a strike and a pair.
Next up after him was Irina. He could let her make the first few attempts on her own, but what would be the fun in that?
He positioned himself behind her and cupped her hand—the one clenching the ball in a death grip—with his much larger palm. He loved the soft scent of her, a combination of vanilla and a subtle undertone with a little more bite. It summed her up nicely. The sharp inhale of her breath as his fingers danced across her ribs had his own breathing suddenly unsteady.
“Hey! No consorting with the enemy,” one of the women on his team protested, although her complaint was good natured. A chorus of agreements from the bench, also all in good fun, backed her up.
He could feel Irina start to tense. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, on the lane.
“Ignore them, babe,” he said. “I know my priorities.”
“Are you sure about that?” she murmured.
Her quiet, faintly accusing question and the loads of meaning behind it
drew him up short. He wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Not when it came to her.
He stepped away from her, his hands in the air. “Ladies, you’re absolutely right. There will be no more consorting.”
Irina turned out to be the worst bowler ever, sending the first two balls down the gutter and the other women into fits of hysterics.
“I can’t take it,” Meghan said to Kale, shaking her head. “If you won’t consort with her, I’m going to have to.” She walked over to Irina and took the ball from her hands. “Honey, try putting more hip into it and a little less hop. The ball’s not supposed to bounce off the lane like that.”
The other women were quick to offer their advice too. As soon as Irina began to relax, so did Kale. She even looked like she might be enjoying herself.
For his part, he spent the rest of the evening ferreting out information. He got nothing useful from Meghan. No, he didn’t have any competition for Dr. Glasov’s affections that she was aware of. No, she didn’t know what Dr. Glasov was working on, and neither did anyone else—it was top secret. Yes, she made all the travel arrangements for senior management, including Dr. Glasov. No, she had no idea what Dr. Glasov’s favorite flower might be, but lilies were usually safe. Roses were too cliché.
The men hovering at the bar weren’t a whole lot more help. The company had hired good people who were disinclined to talk about their work with strangers, particularly when the questions involved Irina—or rather, the illustrious Dr. Glasov.
By the end of the night he no longer believed she was being targeted by someone inside the company—or at least the possibility was bumped several slots lower. While he’d hardly met everyone, he’d gotten a reasonable sampling of employees from several departments and at multiple levels of authority within them. She simply wasn’t part of any loop. She worked on her own and kept to herself. There were no coworkers to know or be jealous of her successes—exactly as she’d tried to tell him, right from the first.
He had to be on the wrong path.
Frustration ate at him all the way home. He’d given her the keys so she could drive since neither of them had had more than the one beer. It kept her occupied and gave him a chance to think about what to do next. If he didn’t get some sort of lead soon he was going to have to step up his fact-finding approach. Unfortunately, he had no idea what more he could do other than continue to observe. Dan had tied his hands as far as the use of any government resources he might otherwise have drawn on. He and Irina were in this alone.
He’d already made a really big mistake over that surveillance camera. She also didn’t know that CSIS wasn’t openly investigating whoever was cyberstalking her. If she ever found out about either of those things she’d never forgive him. He’d dug himself a hole and any second he could be buried in it.
He began picking apart her earlier comment about his priorities, trying to figure out if she’d meant what he thought—that she was as frustrated as he was and about the same thing. Meghan had said Irina would get bored with someone who couldn’t stimulate her mentally as well as physically, or words to that effect. Was that why Irina had been so agreeable to keeping things casual between them? Why she’d gone all Dr. Glasov the morning after? He was good in bed, but otherwise no challenge for her?
He’d love to show her he was more than just a pretty face. Unfortunately, in this instance, he wasn’t so sure that he was.
Chapter Nine
She’d had a good time. Much better than she’d hoped for. Irina wasn’t sure, however, that Kale had learned anything useful.
She set up her laptop on the kitchen table so she could respond to a few time-sensitive, industry-related emails she hadn’t been able to address earlier at the bowling alley because she didn’t have access from her phone to the necessary data. She never stored important information in any cloud.
Her laptop was taking too long to load. She stared at it, a sinking sensation that was becoming all-too familiar twisting her stomach.
“I’ve got a problem,” she said.
“What is it?”
Kale had been on the other side of the kitchen, staring into the shadowy backyard through the patio doors. He came to where she was sitting and placed a hand on her shoulder, bringing his cheek close to hers as he bent forward so he, too, could look at the screen.
He couldn’t seem to help himself. The man was a toucher.
She forgot everything else. All evening he’d been friendly and charming, the perfect Norse god to take on a date. The women they’d bowled with had been completely bowled over by him, and why wouldn’t they be?
She wasn’t immune to him either. Not by a long shot. But she couldn’t for the life of her figure out the signals he sent.
She tried to focus on the screen and not the incredible sensation of his thumb absently massaging her tense rhomboid muscle. Oddly enough, his touch settled her stomach and nerves. “The botnet is back, which likely means at least one of my contacts was already infected before I could shut it down and it’s spreading through all our personal networks.”
“Great. Now we’re getting somewhere.” She could practically hear him rubbing his hands in his head. The pressure on her rhomboid increased in direct proportion to his enthusiasm.
“In what way?” For her, this wasn’t a reason to celebrate.
He kept his eyes on the screen and his hand on her shoulder. “If whoever’s behind the botnet is the same person—or people—responsible for your pop-ups at work, then they’re looking for specific information. If the botnet is spreading through your contacts it’s because you have something in common with at least one of them. I wonder if anyone on your contacts list is having the same pop-up problems you are?”
Her chest muscles tightened. He was shifting the focus of his investigation from her current workplace to her external contacts and that wasn’t good. “You don’t think the weapons systems design project I’m working on is the real target, do you.”
“I’m not dismissing the possibility of it just yet, but I do think you know enough geeky science people around the world that I should have been looking at your broader connections long before now.” He tapped a link on the screen. One of the emails popped open. He breathed in and out a few times. His tone conveyed awe. “You know this guy?”
“We shared the same advisor in grad school.” He was a nuclear physicist currently consulting for NASA, but they’d taken a master’s program together when she was seventeen. He’d been twenty-nine and infinitely patient when it came to her shyness over public presentations, helping her to get past it.
Kale canted his head to the side and looked at her as if she were a new species that he couldn’t quite comprehend. She’d seen that particular expression on people’s faces before and didn’t like seeing it on his. It never failed to make her feel like a freak. He was probably relieved his boss had told him that sleeping with her wasn’t professional. She couldn’t even talk dirty in bed like a normal person.
Her fingers automatically went to the keyboard. “I’ll send out a group email to let everyone know they’ve been infected.”
He caught her wrist. “Not just yet. Can you print off a copy of your contacts list for me? I want to fax it to my boss in Ottawa to see if he knows of anything going on in the world that might involve one or more of these people.” He shook his head as if unable to contain his disbelief. “This reads like a roster of mad scientists working toward world domination.”
Irina was immediately defensive. “None of the scientists I know are mad. They aren’t interested in world domination. They’re dedicated to research.”
Blue eyes sparkled with sudden humor. Dark blond eyebrows shifted upward. “Oh my God, Irina. Do you realize I talked Dr. Glasov—a world renowned computer scientist who has friends in high places at NASA—into doing a striptease for me?”
Heat unfurled at her hairline and prickled her scalp. If she were to draw a picture of him at that moment, she’d place a light bulb over his head. Her defensiv
eness escalated. She wasn’t a robot. She had more going for her than any artificial intelligence. She had emotions. Not to mention physical needs that had gone unmet all week.
“Do you think I’m so caught up in research that I can’t make up my own mind about what I want or don’t want to do and with whom? That I’m not normally interested in sex, but have to be coerced into it?”
His expression turned cautious, the look of a man approaching a minefield with no hope for retreat. He hooked a chair leg with his foot and twirled it around so he could sit facing her. One arm rested on the table. “Let’s get back on track. What I need to figure out is why, out of this list, you were targeted. Or if you were the target. Or if you were the only target.” He tapped the corner of her keyboard. “Can you tell me a little about each of these people?”
She chewed on the inside of her cheek. Kale might come across as funny and kind on the surface, but he was CSIS. He looked for trouble, pinching it off before it became an international concern. Giving these names to him would be the same as offering him an open invitation to invade their private lives. It could potentially damage their careers. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone let alone colleagues and friends. CSIS was serious business.
So, however, was the botnet. She didn’t see that she had any choice.
She gave him a brief rundown of each individual. The list was a long one.
“I’ll send it to you electronically,” she said when she was done.
The chair creaked as he shifted his weight. “I’d rather have it in print.”
She secured a stray strand of hair that had come free and was tickling her neck, working it back under the elastic with her fingers. “My laptop’s already been hacked,” she pointed out. “The information is out there in the world. If anyone plans to do something with it, it’s too late to worry about it.”
“I’d rather fax it to Ottawa, just to be safe.”
Her Spy to Hold (Spy Games Book 2) Page 11