by Joyce Jordan
Seduction
Book One by Joyce Jordan
Copyright © 2013 Joyce Jordan
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in ay form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
To contact the author:
[email protected]
Table of Contents
Chapter_1
Chapter_2
Chapter_3
Chapter_4
Chapter_5
Chapter_6
Chapter_7
Chapter_8
Chapter_9
Chapter_10
Chapter_11
Chapter_12
Note_from_the_Author
One
Did she really want to do this? Yes. No. Maybe she should give it more thought. Ana had been tormenting herself over the last couple of days, going back and forth about what to do. The doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of their pizza.
“I’ve got it,” shouted Ana as she rushed to the door. She paid for the pizza and brought it to the coffee table. She went to the kitchen, grabbed some plates and drinks then sat down to eat. What a day.
“Are you sure about tomorrow?” her best friend, Kelly asked and joined her on the couch, helping herself to some of the pizza.
“I don’t know. But I am sick of second guessing myself. I’m not ready to take on any new clients right now, especially big ones. At least for the next thirty days or so. I don’t want to start something that could potentially derail our well laid out plans. This Hawaii vacation needs to happen as currently planned.”
“This has been eating you up since that guy called you. I know you said you’ve worked with him before and have a great working relationship and that he begged for your help,” Kelly stated. “But it’s not too late, you know. You can always refer them to someone else.”
Shaking her head, she replied, “No. I’ve already tried that. But at least I don’t have to make a commitment until I meet with them tomorrow.”
She and Kelly were planning to go on a vacation to Hawaii. They had about a month before it became a reality. A week on the beach. Oh yeah. They had been dreaming of this vacation since their college days, and had planned to make it a reality within a year of their move to New York. It had now been eight months and while she could just take off, Kelly had to earn her time at the private hospital she worked at.
“Okay, just don’t let them force you into something that you will regret. I know sometimes you take on too much then have to work long days to meet your obligations. Promise me that if at all you take the job, you will at least give it twenty four hours before saying yes?”
Laughing, Ana promised. Kelly was such a worry wort. But that’s what made her such a good friend. Nobody, other than her family had ever worried much about her until she met Kelly. Kelly Andersen – her best friend.
They met by accident. They were celebrating their birthdays which happened to fall on the same day. November first. They laughed so hard, each one questioning, ‘What are the chances?’. And so from that day on, they became friends, best friends. In their second semester they had rented a house and moved in together. They were so different, yet very much alike in many different aspects. In short, they just clicked. The nerd thing probably helped too.
Finishing their pizza they settled in to watch their movie. Somehow, even Bruce Willis didn’t catch her attention tonight. She wasn’t sure if the man she had an appointment to see tomorrow would be one of those arrogant jerks. It could go either way. Ana had met her share of clients who had reservations about her ability to do her job. But in the end, she always won them over, although it was a pain not to be taken seriously at first.
Tired of second guessing herself, Ana stood up and cleared the coffee table of the remaining pizza and dirty dishes. She bade Kelly good night and went to her room to try and sleep.
After tossing and turning for two hours, she realised it was futile to try and think she would be able to sleep. She got up and went to her office to work on a software program she was trying to finish. There were just a few kinks that she needed to straighten out before it was ready. She made good progress then finally went to sleep.
At five thirty she woke up, she had only managed to grab a few hours of sleep. Ana didn’t think she could go back to sleep, so she got up and changed into her gym gear. It was still dark, but luckily their apartment was just a block away from the gym and there was enough traffic to make it safe enough to walk outside. Deciding that running was the best way to avoid too much thinking, she walked over to the treadmill section and chose a treadmill machine that was next to the wall. She started off with a nice leisurely walk and was soon at a full run. She ran for a solid thirty minutes then slowed down intending on doing something else. Instead of getting off and choosing another machine, she decided to go again on the treadmill. She did another thirty minutes then decided she was done.
As she walked back to grab her jacket from the changing rooms, she dropped off the towel she had used to wipe the sweat from her face and neck, with the other used towels in the towel bin, before walking back to her apartment. Ana loved the cold weather and tried to walk on most occasions rather than use the subway or taxi. By the time she made it back, Kelly was just leaving to go to work.
“Good Luck,” Kelly shouted as she ran out the door.
“Thanks.”
Just as Ana was closing the door, it opened and Kelly hugged her. “Knock them out,” she said and then rushed out again.
Locking the door, Ana went to her room and walked into the adjoining bathroom. She stood under the hot shower spray for a good half an hour relaxing her muscles before she reached for the bodywash.
∞∞∞
Ana loved New York City, the smell, the people, the mixed cultures, there was just so much to love. She had visited once, with her parents, as a little girl at twelve years and vowed she would live in the city when she grew up. And now here she was, at twenty two and living in Manhattan. Part of it had to do with her friend Kelly who had also wanted to come and live in New York too. With the high cost of living she may not have been able to make it alone in the same neighborhood they had found. But sharing costs with her friend had made it manageable. Also the last couple of years that she had been putting more hours into her work, while finishing her MBA and waiting for Kelly to finish her degree had helped her make a name for herself and start earning money that made the move to New York easier. But what really clinched the deal was the clientele that she was now servicing. If she could maintain them for at least another ten years, she would be able to really save money and live a comfortable life. She didn’t want to overgrow because then she would not be able to give her clients her personal touch, but neither did she want to lose any. She was glad she had a range of small time clients to major big time clients, so work for her was never boring and never the same. Although she was known as a professional hacker, Ana liked to keep her fingers in lots of pies and did a good share of basic computer work especially for the smaller guys. She never wanted to forget about her humble beginnings. She was also into software, games and apps which helped bring in a steady monthly income. These days, however, most of her clients came to her by word of mouth. Others had just somehow landed on her lap. She was glad she had never really struggled,
somehow things had just worked out at school and now was able to help her parents have a better life too.
Her parents hadn’t been able to pay the entire amount she needed for her college but with her working part-time and her programming on the side, she had managed to avoid any student loan debts. Kelly was fortunate to have parents who could afford to pay for her medical school. And therefore they were both able to afford living in a nice apartment without worrying about paying student loan debt. Eight months into their stay, they both didn’t regret their move.
As Ana hailed a taxi she couldn’t stop thinking of her upcoming appointment. She always hated first meetings. She was more comfortable behind a computer than in front of people. Unfortunately for her, since she had decided to be self employed, part of the job was to meet clients. Today she was meeting Gabriel Boyd, the force behind Boyd Industries. She paid the taxi fare and walked into the building.
As she walked in, she was struck by the beauty of the entrance - marble floors, marble walls, the whole front of the building was clear glass from the bottom all the way up to the top floor. If this is what it looks like at the entrance, I wonder what the offices will look like, she thought to herself. It wasn’t until someone bumped into her that she realised she had stopped walking and thus had stopped the foot traffic. “Sorry,” she apologised then moved away.
Ana walked to the security desk to sign in. She told the security guy that she had an appointment with Gabriel Boyd. Jeff, as his badge said, made a phone call to confirm her appointment. I guess one could never be too careful especially when visiting the big boss. They probably got a lot of people coming without setting appointments. And she probably didn’t look like the usual clientele that frequented Mr. Boyd’s offices. She had dressed like the total geek today. Sometimes it helped when she dressed the part.
“Your name, ma’am?” he said as he made the call.
“Ana Summers,” Ana replied.
Jeff spoke into the headset, then she heard him say, “Ms. Summers? Please follow me.” He led her to the bank of elevators and picked the one at the extreme right. “This will take you straight to the penthouse. That is where Mr. Boyd’s office is,” he told her with a smile. He inserted a little card into a slot she hadn’t even noticed. Sleek.
“Thank you Jeff,” Ana replied smiling back. The ride up was fast and short, not giving her the time to get rid of her nervousness. This was the part she hated, at least most future interactions where done via phone or e-mail, which suited Ana just fine. She had tried to get out of this job, but Rafe Sullivan of Sullivan & Sullivan had kept calling until Ana relented, but Ana had pushed the meeting to as close to the end of the week as she could. And hence she was at Boyd Industries, on a Thursday morning, instead of finishing the coding she was currently working on.
When the elevator opened, Ana gaped at the luxury before her eyes. The glass wall theme continued. No streaks on the glass walls. They surely must have someone dedicated to cleaning the wall every few hours. The glass police? She stepped off the elevator and walked into an office she assumed was for the secretary or assistant. Not some little cubbyhole tucked into the corner. It was impressive.
“Ms. Summers?”
“Yes,” Ana responded.
“I’m Andrea Stanton. Mr. Boyd’s assistant,” the owner of the office said while extending her hand.
“Please take a sit. I’ll let Mr. Boyd know you are here,” she told her.
“Thank you.” Ana sat down and hoped she didn’t have to wait long because the butterflies were back again. Playing with her phone usually helped, so she took it out, deciding to keep her fingers busy.
‘Just arrived…so much luxury around me…no chance of stress in your life if you work here’. She sent the message to Kelly.
Two
Gabe had been in his office for a few hours when he started hearing life outside the door. He had been working on these damn spreasheets for a couple of weeks now and still he was losing money every day. Bleeding. He never went through the daily figures, but had to for the last two weeks. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on what was wrong until he had asked his head of IT to double check if everything had gone well after conversion. He had thought that the hotels he had purchased recently may not have have had their old systems converted correctly to the new system.
The news he had received from his Head of IT had not been good. So he had brought in the big guns, his friends and brothers, Nate and Rafe Sullivan who owned a tech company, and would be able to look into the issue without alerting his employees of what or whom they were looking for. That had been almost ten days ago, and a few days later, he had received even worse news. It was worse than they had originally thought. Someone had been tempering around and managed to hack into their network. The person had covered his or her tracks very well and now his best way to find the hacker, to hire a professional hacker for the job. Rafe had worked with just the person he knew would be good for the job. That had been a week ago when he got the recommendation, but this kid Rafe refered to had originally declined the job. She had finally agreed to at least meet with the client before making her final decision. He was expecting her in about thirty minutes, and hoped she was as good at her job as Rafe said she was.
Five minutes later, Rafe walked into his office. “Hey bro, still at those spreadsheets?”
“As depressing as it is, I still need to watch the figures. That kid of yours better be as good as you say she is.”
“She is the best, otherwise the cassino bosses wouldn’t be fighting for her services. Your job is to make sure she agrees to take you on as a client,” Rafe replied and helped himself to a cup of coffee from the side table. “She only takes referrals and can afford to pick and choose her clients. Some of them actually keep her on a retainer type of basis.”
They were talking about the events of the previous weekend when his office phone buzzed. It was his assistant, Andrea was letting him know his eleven o’clock was here. He looked at his watch. Punctual kid. He hoped this meeting wouldn’t take long. He had a lot to do before the weekend. He asked Andrea to send her in.
“Ms. Summers?”
Ana looked up and realised this wasn’t the first time her name had been called. She had been so engrossed in a game she had developed years ago and had been playing on her phone. She was hoping to launch the second version of the game in another few weeks time.
Pushing her glasses up, she stood up while responding, “Yes.”
“Please come this way. Would you like coffee, tea or water?” Andrea asked as she led Ana into an inner office.
“Tea will be fine. Black, no sugar.”
Ana had seen Gabriel Boyd a handful of times in the newspaper, online and on television. According to the media, he didn’t give interviews and thus was rare for him to appear in any type of media. His life was very private. And since they didn’t run in the same circles, there was never a possibility that she would ever meet him face to face. But today because of business she was meeting the man himself. Self made billionaire. In the flesh, he was a total hunk. His pictures didn’t do him justice. Ana was ‘star’ struck for a moment.
OMG!
Was it even legal to look that good – handsome - drool worthy - gorgeous - magnificent - scumptious and with that jet black thick hair. Move over McDreamy. When he stood, Ana noticed that he was lean and on the tall side.
A nerd she might be, but she did lift her head from her computers and other gadgets from time to time and didn’t find anything wrong with appreciating beauty. She hadn’t realised she hadn’t moved, until a gorgeous voice was speaking to her. His voice. Wow. She could listen to it all day. This could be a problem, hopefully she wouldn’t embarrass herself during the meeting.
“Ms. Summers. This way please,” he said while pointing to a large conference table that was sitting at one end of the office.
“Right. I’m sorry,” Ana responded and quickly walked in.
“Gabriel Boyd,” he said while ext
ending his hand.
“Ana Summers,” she responded and shook his hand. Was that static electricity she just felt?
“Hey kid. How are you?” Rafe greeted her.
“Rafe. I’m good. And you?”
“Great now that you are here. Thanks for coming.”
“Rafe. You’ve been calling me everyday for a week now. I figured it was less hassle for me to agree to the meeting than to change my number.”
“What did they teach you at that college anyway? You are still a brat.”
Andrea interrupted saying her tea was on the table. Andrea had been talking to Gabe Boyd while she and Rafe had been conversing. Now Gabe moved to the table and both she and Rafe followed.
Ana slipped her laptop bag off her shoulder and when she removed her coat, she found Gabe behind her taking her coat. She caught the zing again, like when they had shaken hands. A quick and breathless ‘thank you’ was all she could manage before she quickly sat down.
She powered on her laptop as Rafe spoke. He talked about how his company had been contracted to run some tests after certain irregularities had been noticed. They had done as much as they could, but now needed the bigger guns to step in and assist, someone who could get results faster than they could, someone with better equipment and better software who could make quick work of the problem at hand. His company would probably never be able to get some results, and they were working against time and money, thus Rafe had called Ana.
“Has the authorization form I e-mailed you been signed?” Ana asked. She had sent it to Rafe, who had agreed to forward it to his client before the meeting. “Once I have that, I will need Mr. Boyd to walk me through some of the irregularites he saw.”
“Call me Gabe. And here is the form you requested,” he answered as he passed the form to Rafe who was sitting closer to her, although both men were sitting opposite her.
“Thank you.” Ana checked to make sure everything looked okay on the form. She always made sure that her clients understood what she would do on a first meeting, and made sure thet they gave her permission to hack into their network without being held liable for any type of misconduct after that.