Secret Intentions

by Caitlyn Nicholas

  “You have acquired an unfaithful wife perhaps, or a cheating girlfriend. No, don’t tell me, you have lost your beloved pussy and you need me to track it down.” Karl laughed at his own dubious wit, displaying crooked, nicotine-stained teeth.

  Humouring him with a thin smile, Corbin schooled himself to be patient. Despite his outward appearance, Karl Crushenski was the best in the business and could be relied upon for both his persistence and his prudence. “No. You can leave your long-distance lens at home for this one. It’s not along the lines of your usual case. More in the region of industrial espionage.”

  “Oh really?” Karl became instantly serious, and Corbin hid a smile. He thought that might cut the crap. “It sounds intriguing…”

  “No, not intriguing, quite straightforward.” Assuming a relaxed demeanour, careful not to show any hint of emotion, Corbin idly stirred his coffee with a teaspoon. “Confidential information about a game that Sunberri has developed is appearing on the Internet.”

  Karl quickly grasped the seriousness of the problem. “You think someone within the company is selling it?”

  “I can’t think of any other explanation,” said Corbin shortly. “If I don’t find the source of the leak then the company could be placed in serious jeopardy. The share price is volatile at the best of times. This sort of thing would send it plummeting straight off the edge.”

  “So you want me to find out who?”

  Corbin nodded. “I’ve got my suspicions. The culprit could only be one of a few, but I’ve no evidence.”

  “Don’t worry, leave the evidence to me,” reassured Karl.

  “Find out why, if you can.” Corbin slid a thin folder across the table. “That contains the dates and times that the information appeared online, as well as a list of people who could have accessed it.”

  Karl glanced at the few sheets, nodding in approval. “Good.” He displayed his horrible teeth again. “Leave it with me, G’uvnor. I’ll be in touch.” He rose abruptly, and with a grace that belied his broad girth, wove his way out of the café.

  Corbin sat for a few minutes and finished his scalding coffee. The meeting had left a sour taste in his mouth. He expected loyalty from his staff and hated to call on the services of someone like Karl. For the thousandth time he justified it. If he didn’t find the source of the leak then he could find himself in the company of over fifty unemployed people. Karl was the only answer.

  Having fruitlessly examined the computer files, finding nothing but endless legal agreement and memos about restructuring and financial planning, Zani began a methodical search of the office. As neither Paul nor her father had been able to give her a clue about what exactly she was supposed to find, it swiftly became as pointless and frustrating as the computer.

  She rang Paul in his sumptuous office, just down the hall.

  “Corbin’s gone out, and I’m searching for stuff now, but all I can find is reams of paper on marketing strategies and techno-babble that makes no sense at all.”

  “Just keep looking. There has to be something there. And for Christ sake don’t ring me again. We don’t know each other, remember?”

  “Paul, this is stupid. Look, you come up here and have a look, I’ll stand guard. You’d know what to find. I can’t stay. I have to go to Finland. The Baltic 147 needs me.” Zani strove to be patient and reasonable.

  “Oh, don’t be fucking ridiculous, Zani. What if someone saw me? It’d be my job,” Paul snarled. “Keep looking and don’t call me again.”

  He hung up.

  Zani stared at the phone in her hand, desperately wanting to pound the thing on the desk over and over until it broke. She calmly replaced it on the hook. It instantly rang. Convinced it was on a mission to give her a stroke, she pointedly ignored it.

  She’d been unsuccessfully checking for concealed compartments in the 17th century fireplace in Corbin’s office when an irritated “Hello!” drifted in from her office. She jumped guiltily and busied herself rearranging the awards that decorated the fireplace mantle. A second later a grumpy looking middle-aged man appeared in the doorway. His expression cleared as he saw Zani, and he gave her a none too subtle once over.

  “Hi, Phil from IT. You’ve got a computer problem logged.” He squeezed out an insincere smile. Zani looked at him blankly then remembered about the login.

  “Um, we did, but I fixed it.”

  “You did? Well, aren’t you a clever stick. Perhaps I’d better take a look at it anyway.”

  Zani supposed she deserved to be patronised, but loathe to expose herself to Phil’s scorn she decided not to admit that the only problem had been her own muddle. “No, really, it’s working fine now.”

  “Suit yourself.” Phil shrugged. She waited for him to leave but he seemed inclined to dawdle.

  “Out of the office, then, is he?” He gestured toward Corbin’s empty chair.

  “He’ll be back soon,” said Zani, hoping he’d take the hint and leave. Instead he treated her to a view of sweat stained armpits as he rearranged his hair.

  “Going to be here long? Anita, the lady you replaced, now she was an old battleaxe, never a smile for anyone. I must say you seem much nicer. You’d better watch out for that French froggy idiot, though. Reckon he has an eye for the ladies. I never trust these foreign types.”

  Unsure of what response was expected, Zani merely kept a disinterested smile in place, at the same time thinking what a horrid little man he was. Unperturbed, Phil continued. “But I don’t suppose you’re his type, really. Only ever see him in the magazines and suchlike with leggy blondes. I doubt he’d go for someone with… What colour would you call your hair anyway?”

  “Dark blonde,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Oh, mousey brown, then, is it?”

  Zani gave him her best glare. The one that was usually enough to make her brother pause. Phil was merely amused. “Oh you girls, always so touchy about your hair!”

  With horror it dawned on Zani that he was flirting with her.

  “I really must be getting back to work,” she said, flushing slightly when her dismissiveness bordered on rudeness. Unfortunately, the thick-skinned Phil was not going to be hurried.

  “You should write a blog about it,” said Phil. Zani gawped at him, wondering what on earth he was talking about, and then realised he was trying to steer the conversation back to himself. “I write several blogs, you know. Mostly about IT stuff. You should take a look. It’s pretty interesting stuff.” Zani seriously doubted it. “I also write one about ladies.”

  “Ladies?” said Zani weakly, frowning in trepidation.

  “Yeah, The IT Guy’s Guide to Picking Up Sexy Ladies.”

  Oh God. “I do need to be getting along…”

  To Zani’s eternal relief, Phil’s mobile phone began to ring. It took him so long to get it out of the holster he’d attached to his belt that it’d gone through to message bank by the time it got to his ear.

  “Right, I’d better be off. Who knows what disasters have occurred whilst I’ve been away from my desk? Good to chat. I’ll email you those blog addresses. See you later.”

  Phil left, pausing to wipe his nose on his sleeve as he exited the room. Zani watched him leave, glaring at his departing back. A truly unattractive individual. She jumped out of her skin when he suddenly reappeared. “Say, if you’re ever down in the basement, do pop in for a coffee.”

  “Oh I will,” she said with an insincere smile which she kept plastered on her face until she was sure he’d well and truly gone. As she resumed her search of Corbin’s office, Zani resolved never, ever to go down to the basement.

  The minutes ticked past. Having given the desk a thorough once over, twice, Zani began to look for more places to search. The office was suspiciously filing cabinet-free. Used to designing storage in the oddest nooks and crannies of yachts, she began to wonder if there might be something inbuilt that she hadn’t noticed.

  She frowned, carefully scrutinizing the walls. Sure enough, one
of the panels looked a little odd, slightly out of line with the others, and on closer inspection she could see signs of wear along one side. She pressed, and the panel swung silently open to reveal a small room, packed to the ceiling with filing cabinets and boxes.

  She couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. First frustrated that she’d nowhere to look, she now had the opposite problem.

  “There is no way on the face of the planet that I am ever going to get through this lot,” she muttered to herself as she scanned the shelves and wondered where to start. Time became irrelevant as she methodically began to search.

  Corbin arrived back at Edes House. Even he had to admit his head ached and he hoped it was just because of the meeting with Karl, and not the precursor to one of the migraines he occasionally fell victim to. Setting a private investigator onto his staff left him feeling deceitful and uncomfortable in his skin. Rather than return to his desk and the demented temporary secretary who was doing God-knew-what to the computer, he fetched his gym gear from his car, and headed up to the small rooftop gym to spend an hour getting rid of some of the frustration caused by the latest leak and showing his headache who was boss.

  Stripping off his suit and shirt in the deserted changing room, he shook his head over the temp again. That awful, scraped back hairdo and the panicked green eyes behind thick glasses. Still, something about her full pink lips and wide smile made his fingertips tingle. As he stepped onto the treadmill he reminded himself that it was obvious she’d lied about her qualifications, and the tug of desire disappeared as quickly as it’d come.

  An hour later he returned to his office. Usually exercise made him calmer, but now he just felt horrible. The back of his throat was raw and scratchy, and his nose tickled, making him reach for a handkerchief.

  The sight of Zani distracted him from grudgingly admitting he might just be a tiny bit sick. She was in the small filing room. Standing on a pile of phone books, she’d reached up to the very highest shelf of one of the filing cabinets. Her long, dark jacket was gone and her fitted white blouse tightened against her breasts. The short shirt had crept so high that Corbin’s mouth went dry.

  She hadn’t heard him arrive.

  “What are you doing?” He injected as much anger as he could into his voice.

  She yelped in fright, then as she turned toward him, her foot slipped sideways and she began to topple over.

  Intent on finding out what was in a black folder that lurked on one of the top shelves, Zani was completely oblivious to the fact that Corbin had arrived back in the office. One minute she teetered on a stack of phone books, practically dislocating her shoulder trying to reach the folder. Then, all at once, Corbin appeared, the books slipped sideways and she twisted on the heel of her shoe. She gasped in fright, grabbing for a handhold, but only managing to clutch at a box which helpfully emptied its contents over her as she fell ungracefully toward the ground.

  It came as something of a surprise to be scooped up into a strong, warm, masculine embrace. The tantalising scent of freshly washed male and the subtle aftershave she’d noticed before made her senses react as Corbin’s steadying arm wrapped around her waist. She blinked, meeting his eyes uncertainly, her nose inches from his.

  His dark brows creased into a frown, though the silence stretched between them. Zani let out a slow breath. A sensation of rightness made her want to relax into the embrace and slowly but deliberately kiss the curved lips that hovered teasingly close to her own.

  Shattering the moment, Corbin slid her to the floor. She stepped away from him, coming up hard against the filing cabinet. The tiny room seemed even smaller with his six-foot presence taking most of the space.

  “What are you doing?” he asked again. He sounded casual, though his accent seemed more pronounced, and Zani fumbled for an excuse.

  “Mice.”

  “Mice?” He stared at her incredulously.

  “Yes. I heard rustling and thought there was a mouse. So I came in here to check.”

  “There’re no mice in this office.” Disbelief was written all over his face.

  “Oh.” Unable to get out of the small room without pushing past Corbin and starting to feel claustrophobic, Zani again cursed her father and brother for putting her into this situation.

  “Do you normally stand on phone books to look for mice?” he asked with a mild, enquiring expression, as if he was asking her if she wanted sugar in her tea.

  “Er.”

  “And the box—” He gestured to the sheets of paper scattered on the floor. “Was the mouse in the box?”

  “Sorry. I’ll um…” Zani bent to tidy up the paper, trying to buy herself time and think of an excuse.

  “Leave it,” he snapped. She straightened abruptly. His face was a picture of suspicion and anger.

  Dammit. She took a steadying breath.

  “I heard a sound, a rustle, like pages falling, so I came into your office, couldn’t see anything, noticed this room, wondered if something had fallen in here, came in, noticed the box at a strange angle and was trying to straighten it,” she rattled off, frantically wondering what expression she should have. Angry defensiveness? Offended affront? Affronted offense? Just don’t look guilty. She tried a confident smile, but it came out weak and nervous.

  There was an awkward pause, the silence broken only by the distant ringing of a telephone.

  “I’m sorry. I was only trying to help.” She pushed her glasses back up her nose and realised her hand trembled slightly. Trying to hide it, she folded her arms across her chest. Corbin followed the gesture, so she forced herself to let them relax by her sides. Avoiding his eyes, she fiddled with her hair. The tension in the air was palpable. “I’d better go.” Zani made a move toward Corbin. He hesitated for a split second, then quickly backed out of the small room.

  “After you,” he said, his mocking tone not lost on Zani as she passed him. It was all she could do not to run for the door. He followed her back to her computer.

  “I think it’s time you went home.” Zani tensed, and she wondered if he was firing her. “It’s past five,” he continued, and she relaxed infinitesimally.

  “Well, yes.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “Goodness. Um. I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” It was more of a question than a statement, and she hated the breathless note she couldn’t seem to get out of her voice.

  “Indeed.” He seemed to be staring at her watch and she glanced at it, wondering what he saw.

  “Tomorrow, then.” With a sigh of relief and feeling more tired than she’d ever been before, Zani shrugged into her jacket, grabbed her bag and hurried out of the room.

  Corbin closed the door behind her, hating himself for watching her as she almost ran down the corridor to the stairs. Anger and irritation warred with exasperation, and he sneezed into his handkerchief. He supposed she could have heard something and taken it upon herself to investigate. Perhaps it was just curiosity that led her to the filing room. Sucking in a deep breath, he shook his head. He’d be an idiot if he believed that.

  Then there was her watch. Since when did temporary secretaries wear a Cartier watch? Gift from a rich lover, perhaps? He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and glared at it without reading. She didn’t look the sort to have a rich lover. The watch was most likely a fake. He returned the paper to the top of the teetering stack on his desk. The crumpled packet of painkillers which Zani had waved at him earlier sat on his notepad. He fingered the packet, leaning back in his chair.

  “Fou,” he muttered to himself. Fool. He popped two pills out of the packet and washed them down with the half glass of tepid water that sat on the desk.

  But he couldn’t settle. Mice. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. Despite himself, he went and checked the filing room. He hated mice with their beady eyes and horrible tails. Give him an enormous spider or even a cockroach any day. She must have been imagining things. He settled back at his desk. One corner of his mouth turned up in a brief smile as he remembered how she’d felt in
his arms.

  Secret Intentions

  Chapter Two

  That night, after cancelling plans which included dinner with the eternally keen and everlastingly dull Sebastian, Zani did as instructed and presented herself at her father’s house for a family meeting.

  “Did you have to bring that animal with you?” snarled her brother when he answered the door.

  “Get over it, Paul,” she snapped, brushing past him.

  “That dog is vicious and should be put down,” he said, slamming the door behind her. A surge of anger, which was almost ever-present when around her brother, made her want to turn around and smack his spoiled, handsome face. Why did he always have to be so revolting?

  “As I’ve disrupted my entire life to sort out your sodding mess, I would have thought you might manage to be remotely polite,” she growled. “Ignore him, Fang,” she muttered to the small spaniel who trotted at her heels. Dropping her rain speckled coat on a chair in the hallway, she hurried through to the library, silently vowing that this time Paul would not get under her skin.

  Her father sat in a leather armchair, sipping a pre-dinner drink in front of a crackling fire. He didn’t glance up at her entrance. Fang made a beeline for the cheery blaze, and Zani followed.

  “Dad, how are you?” she asked brightly when it became clear he wasn’t going to acknowledge her presence.

  “What?” He shook his head as if wishing away his own thoughts. Tearing his gaze from the dancing flames, he gave her a jovial grin. Zani blinked in alarm.

  “Tell me, Zani dear, how did it go today?” he asked genially. She was instantly on guard. Her father was neither jovial nor genial and never called her dear.

  “Not so well. I managed to search his office, but I’ve found nothing so far. You know, no folders marked Corbin de Villiers’s Plan for a Management Buyout or anything. Ha, Ha. But I don’t really know what I’m looking for. Paul was no help at all.” She spoke quickly, trying to say as much as she could whilst he listened. But she needn’t have bothered. The moment she’d said things hadn’t gone well, he’d gone back to staring at the fire. A familiar dizzy, invisible feeling made Zani bite her lip and glance down at Fang. The dog’s solid presence leaning against her leg was a comfort. At least someone in the room liked her.