by Joyce Jordan
Interesting. The man had a way with words. Ana read the letter a second time as she made her way to her office. Sitting she quickly drafted a response, and made sure she printed it on her letterhead too. She called the same messenger service he had used and requested that it be delivered within the hour.
∞∞∞
Gabe spent the rest of that morning on pins and needles. Their history, short as it may be, had shown that Ana could not be counted on to respond, and if at all wait until the last possible minute. As much as he was hoping she would respond, he didn’t expect her to do so until the end of the day.
He wasn’t sure if she would quote the ‘no contact’ clause of their verbal agreement, although he was sure she would understand that this was a business matter. She would probably be pissed, he thought smiling. He couldn’t help but admire her. She wasn’t threatened by him, and defied him at every turn. Annoying as it may be, he enjoyed it, but would never admit that to her.
She was a challenge that he was prepared to take on, both personally and professionally too. And now that they had an agreement of sorts in their personal life, it was time to pursue her professional side. He wanted her in his life in every way possible. She had invaded his life and he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Even in his dreams, Gabe could not escape her.
Last night he had been mad when she had snubbed his offer of a ride back to her apartment and chosen to take a taxi instead. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so concerned about someone’s welfare in that manner except for his family. New York was a dangerous place and a woman walking alone at night was not safe. He had hoped she was not making any stops on the way. He was out of his mind with crazy thoughts when he had called her apartment and she hadn’t arrived. Thinking he may have to arrange a search party he had been relieved when Kelly had said she was home.
Gabe couldn’t understand this new feeling he was feeling for Ana. He had never felt the need to be protective for any of the women he had slept with over the years. So why now? And why this one? Was he getting soft in his old age? Not that thirty two was that old? But then most of his friends had married ages ago and had houses full of kids. Not that he intended in following their footsteps. Even his mother had given up and was now putting the pressure of marriage and grandkids on his brother, Manuel. In another year, she would probably move on to their sister, Evelyn.
Just before ten thirty, Gabe was surprised when his assistant, Andrea walked in with a response from Ana. Opening the letter like a kid unwrapping a christmas present, he almost tore the letter in his haste. Later he would think of the letter opener on his desk. Short, polite and to the point. The letter didn’t even cover half the page, yet Gabe turned the page over thinking he may find more words there. She had other commitments and there was no way she could squeeze a company as large as his into her schedule in the near future. She after all was a one person company.
Any other person or company would have killed to take on the job, but not Ana. While Nate and Rafe had indicated they could try to use Ana’s referal, he had balked for now at least. He was sure whoever that person was was good, but would never be good as Ana and that it would probably take someone like Ana half the time it would take her peers. And right now everyone was a suspect until he or she was ruled out. No one was sure if it was someone within the company or an outsider.
How had things gotten to this stage? People hacking and trying to steal secrets or identities. Gabe had not allowed anything to stand in his way since he started trying to build his empire. His single minded focus and dedication to business had brought him so much wealth, even he didn’t believe it at times. Now in this technological world things had changed a lot. Despite the fact that he thought it was time he slowed down a little and have his trusted second in command take more responsibilities, that did not mean it was time for marriage and grandbabies. His mother would have a better chance with his younger siblings.
He felt foolish dictating a one sentence response to his assistant. She looked up expecting more, and when he said that was all, she took it in stride. It had been a long time since his assistant had been shocked or surprised by him. After the first few months of getting used to him, she had been a rock to him and he hoped he would never lose her. She was one of the most efficient people he knew. And very trust worthy too.
He had listened in to her calls as she had talked to Ana the day before. It had been interesting listening to Ana’s exasperation at him while talking to Andrea. If only she had known he had heard every word she had said, she would most likely have directed her responses to him and told him off. He knew she suspected. Her coming here had been bittersweet on every level. She still insisted and refused to help. He would have to end up calling Nate or Rafe and asking for their help with Ana. Rafe seemed to have a way with her. As mush as it galled him, that may end up being the only way.
He asked that the letter be delivered within the next hour, knowing she would receive it around noon. He knew he wouldn’t be getting a response that day, and couldn’t wait for when he picked her up for her overnight stay at his penthouse.
He was hoping she had come to terms with their attraction and not fight it anymore.
This had been an extremely long two days. Maybe he should have stuck to his one day. He hoped the extra day of torture would be well worth it. He was planning on giving Ana pleasure like she had never been given before. He intended on enjoying her delectable body until he got tired. Not that he thought he could ever tire of her body. But at least while he pleasured her, he would be the only one to do so.
Down boy. If he was aroused at the mere thought of Ana, how much more would he be when he saw her later on, and when he finally had her in his bed. He had to make sure he asked Andrea to move his morning appointment to later that afternoon. He didn’t plan on rushing to work the next morning, not after his fist night with her. Again he thought about the extra day he had agreed to. If he hadn’t been so willing to grant her that much more time, he could have spent last night in bed with Ana.
∞∞∞
Ana wasn’t surprised to receive a response from Gabe. What did surprise her was the one sentence on the sheet of paper. All the letter said was that the President and CEO would agree to meet with Ms. Summers referal if she supervised the project. Not surprising. But Ana didn’t intend on falling for that trick. They had already gone over this with both Andrea on the phone and Gabe in person. Her being part of the deal still didn’t change anything. Ana knew she didn’t stand a chance of refusing him once she was near him. In his presense, she could hardly think straight, her mind seemed to blank of everything except the man next to her, her skin became so sensitized that any and every touch sizzled, frying her brain. In short, coherent thought was next to impossible. It was a wonder she remembered her name. The further she stayed away from him the better, although her time would run out this evening. But since that was personal, she would refuse to deal with business related matters. Keeping the two separate would be a challenge, but it was necessary that she made that an absolute requirement. Besides business and pleasure never mixed very well in the long run.
Not bothering to respond, she however, replaced the letter back in the envelope, and wrote ‘undeliverable’ on the front. Ana called the messenger company and made arrangements for someone to pick up her letter in thirty minutes.
The rest of the day passed by calmly enough. Ana did a lot of catching up on her work. She kept herself busy and only caught herself day dreaming when she took some much needed lunch break. Kelly was working night shifts for the next few days after her shift today, and so had to sleep during the day. Hopefully Gabe would stop this harrasing otherwise he would only be disturbing Kelly. She would have to tell him when she saw him tonight.
Ana knew Kelly meant well, but Ana was new to her feelings of Gabe and didn’t know how to describe what she felt towards him, so how was she going to describe to her friend? She had had boyfriends before but none that had ever made her feel t
his way, and none that had ever given her an orgasm so strong, with just their mouth or fingers. Come to think of it, none of her boyfriends had ever gone down on her and a good thing neither had she.
Ana was finishing a call on her cell with a friend, who had called just to say hi, when she heard her business line ringing and rushed in to answer the call before it went to voice mail.
“Ana, thank God I found you.”
The voice was familiar but she couldn’t place it. “Who is speaking?” she asked.
“Sorry, this is Nate. Nate Sullivan.”
“Mr. Sullivan, how are you?”
“I feel old. Just Nate, please.”
Laughing, Ana went on, “Sorry Nate it is. How can I help you?”
“I need your help, can we meet in the next thirty minutes?”
Silence. Was Nate with Gabe? And using Nate to arrange a meeting with her?
“Ana, are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here.” Sighing, “What’s it about?” she said. Ana didn’t want to be rude, but she needed to know she was not walking into a trap. This could also be unrelated to Gabe’s issue at hand.
“I would rather say it in private. Please. We can meet anywhere you want? My office, your office, a coffee shop.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, but give me a few minutes. Fifteen tops. And it would have to be closer to my apartment if you don’t mind.”
“That is fine with me,” Nate replied. “I can be there in about ten minutes or so.”
Ana gave him the name of a coffee shop just a block from her apartment. She took her coat and added her scarf and gloves to keep warm. As she left the apartment she walked checking her surroundings. She walked the block to the coffee shop and made sure she didn’t spy a Bentley hiding in wait.
When Ana got to the coffee shop with five minutes to spare, she found Nate already sitting at a table facing the street. She ordered a coffee and went to join him. He stood as she neared, greeted her and waited until she sat before he sat down again. They made some small talk until Nate brought up the subject of their meeting.
“Please hear me out.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Ana said.
“Well, you left hurriedly last week, the day I met you.
Flushing, she looked away. “I had something I needed to do.” Hopefully he would believe her.
“I understand. But I need your help with the issue with Gabe’s network.”
“Why? You have a team of people you can put to this and they will find the individual in no time.”
“Easier said than done. As much as I may have a lot of people to put on this, none of them are as good as you are, or as fast as you are. Besides our business is not hacking, so we are greatly challenged in that area.”
“But…”
Holding his hand up, “Please let me finish,” he said.
“Okay. Go on.”
“We do have some software that we can use which may never guide us to the culprit. But as you showed us that day, you and I know that you have better software at your disposal, methods that even I dream about knowing and using to do this job. All I have ever heard in the last ten or so years is a cyber-genius called Zeus. I always thought Zeus was male, because of the name, no offense. And older too. Again, no offense.”
“None taken,” she answered and smiled at Nate. That had been intentional. She preferred that people assume Zeus was a male.
“Looking at you now, you were probably about thirteen when you started roaming the net. A mere teenager. I know your identity is supposed to be a secret, so don’t worry about me telling anyone. Unfortunately, I had to tell Rafe though.”
“Thank you.”
“I am afraid that by the time we find out who is behind this, it may be too late, and more damage would have been done. We managed to place additional security features but who knows how long it will take this person to hack again. While my team continues to look for this person, I would appreciate it if you could help me nailing this SOB, and then we can make sure he or she doesn’t end up stealing some person’s identity or worse. My team can continue digging into this, but it would be better if that money were used somewhere more productive. Right now our biggest challenge is not knowing if this person works for the company or just some geek having fun.”
“I have already told Gabe I cannot help him. I have a lot of commitments at the moment and I wouldn’t like to let my current customers down.”
“Yes, he told me. But I was hoping I would be able to persuade you to change your mind. He is willing to pay extra since you would need to work longer hours to accomplish this. He is not too keen at using someone who is second best to you.”
“Did he send you?”
Looking at her, “Not exactly,” he replied. “But I offered to talk to you.”
“Where is he?”
“I left him in his office.”
“Excuse me. I will be right back.” Ana stood. And Nate stood as well, his face full of questions. None that he voiced. Entering the bathroom, Ana locked the door, brought the cover down and sat down. Was she crazy to turn this job down, or was she crazy to take it on? Was she crazy to let personal feelings cloud her judgment and scare her away from a challenging job, one that she knew she would enjoy, a lot. Either way she was crazy, so which crazy was better than the other? Not that she necessarily needed the money per se. Because of her current clients, she had enough money coming in to live a comfortable life. She wasn’t sure how long she was in there, and was wondering if she would find Nate gone. Even though she hadn’t used the bathroom, she still washed and dried her hands. As she walked back she found Nate still at their table. His relief was so evident on his face when he saw her coming back. Ever so much the gentleman, he stood up as she neared and only sat down once she was sitted.
“I will think about it. Give me a couple of days and I will get back to you. But if I decide to help you. I will only work directly with you and Rafe. I report only to the two of you. If Gabe has questions, he directs them through you. No one else. Anything I need, I get, no questions asked. I work at my own pace, in my own time. When I am ready I will start, and when I am done, I will give you the results. You won’t get to rush me, or call me asking for status updates. After that our business is done. I get paid upfront. No negotiating on my fee. Take it or leave it. Any questions?”
“No,” he said with relief.
“Aren’t you going to ask what happens if I don’t find the culprit?” she asked smiling at him.
Smiling back. “I don’t doubt for a second you won’t find him or her.”
“You have that much faith in me?”
“If I didn’t know you were Zeus, maybe I would have some doubts. Besides, I have heard first hand reviews from one of our clients in Atlantic City. The one you worked with together with my brother. At the time I had no idea who you were, because they only mentioned your company, Zen Technologies, but now everything is starting to add up. How many people know Zeus?”
The ringing of her phone prevented her from responding. “Excuse me,” Ana said to Nate and answered when she looked at the caller id. “Calm down, Ray,” she said after hearing his panic through the phone. “I am on my way. Give me five minutes and I will call you back.”
Standing Ana took a napkin from the table and asked Nate for a pen, wrote down a number, folded it and handed the napkin to Nate. “This will be my fee, if I accept. Once it has been wired to an account I will provide, I can officially start. Now I have to leave and put out some fire. I will be in touch.” With that she left.
And as she raced out of the coffee shop, she called Ray back. “Listen, I will be on the next flight out. Don’t touch anything.” When she arrived back at the apartment, she went online to see if she could get a flight to Dallas. Fortunately there was one leaving in about three hours. Another in an hour and half, but she didn’t think she would be able to make it to the airport in time for that one. That gave h
er just enough time to pack a small bag and get a cab to the airport. Writing a text for Kelly, she pressed send and rushed out of the door. With traffic in the city you never knew if you would be caught in it or if you would be lucky enough to escape it. The cab made it with fifteen extra minutes to spare and she caught the nonstop flight to Dallas. She had made it in time to catch the one leaving earlier, since it had been delayed by thirty minutes.
She rented a car at DFW airport and drove straight to Ray’s bakery. Ray had been her first boyfriend, the boy next door. When they broke up, they had remained good friends. When he started his own company, a bakery, she had helped setting up the software, which he used at the check out counter and also for his accounting. As the years had gone by, Ana had kept the upgrades to the software and it usually took a couple of tries before he was confident and familiar enough not to mess up. She trained both Ray and his wife Alicia, and any employees they had on hand, they in turn trained new employees who came after the software was in place. But she had also entrusted a small tech company to act as support and gave them the rights to sell to other small companies. She only acted as backup if they couldn’t solve the issue, but unfortunately, all their agents were out of town and Ray had been left stranded and thus her trip to Dallas.
By the time she arrived at Ray’s bakery, it was after eight. As she was getting out of the car, her phone rang. Thinking it was Ray checking up on her, she answered without looking at the caller id.
“Ray, I am right outside.”
Silence.
“Ray, are you there?”
“Who is Ray?” he shouted.
Oh, my! Gabe! He must be livid. “Gabe?”
“I am glad you remembered my name. Not that you seem to have remembered our date.” Yes, Gabe was livid. She could hear it through the phone.
Crap, she had totally forgotten. Although she had meant to call him before she left, she had forgotten and had just been glad to have made it to the airport. And then had told herself she would call after she landed. “I’m sorry Gabe. I need a raincheck.”