by Unknown
“When I graduated with an MBA, I thought I’d finally made it. Put the past behind me.” She got a faraway look in her eyes. “I was sure I had everything I needed. A dream job, a cool apartment, a new car, enough money to more than cover my expenses, student loans and still be able to help my family out each month and then…
“I was laid off from my marketing position at Clickznos at the beginning of the year.”
“One of the buyout casualties.”
She nodded.
He squeezed her hand.
“I’d recently been promoted and gotten a big raise.” Her voice sounded almost wistful. “I suppose the signals were there, but we were working too hard to notice them. We assumed things were okay, that we’d be taken care of, but all but a handful of us soon found ourselves on the street with a ‘thanks for your hard work’ goodbye and a pitiful, almost insulting severance package.”
He placed his arm around her. “That had to be tough.”
She nodded. “I had a savings account, but I also help my youngest sister pay for college and my mother with her medical insurance so the money didn’t last long. I had college and grad school loans to pay for. Bills started piling up fast. I did what I could while I searched for a comparable job. I downsized and moved into this place. I sold my car. But I couldn’t wait any longer for the perfect position to materialize. I needed a paycheck so I took a job that under normal circumstances I would have never considered.”
Her worried eyes watched him. Waiting.
So this was what she’d been keeping from him. Relief flooded him. That explained why she didn’t mind him not discussing his work. She hadn’t wanted to discuss hers either.
He remembered what he’d checked on her profile. “You’re in sales?”
“Kind of…sort of…but not really.” She blew out a puff of air. “It’s complicated.”
“Life is complicated,” he said. “We can work through anything if you believe we can.”
A beat passed. A clock ticked.
“I have a job.” She cleared her throat. “It’s just not a job I’m particularly proud of.”
“Nothing wrong with flipping burgers.”
“Except when it doesn’t pay.”
He stared at her. “Then what…”
She stared at her lap.
Lap dancer? Okay, that was a leap from fast food, but she had the looks and the body. Plus the money was good.
Bryce smiled. Not exactly the job he’d imagined his girlfriend doing, but he wasn’t about to judge her, especially under these circumstances. “You found a job that worked at the time. I could never hold what you do against you.”
“Sure?”
“You’re more than your job, Dani. More than what’s on the outside. I like your tenacity, your character. I care for you.”
Relief filled her eyes. The tightness disappeared from around her mouth. “I really needed to hear you say that.”
He kissed the top of her hand. “So what do you do?”
She straightened and took another breath. “I’m marketing director for Hookamate.com.”
Bryce flinched. He let go of her hand as if it were a grenade with a missing pin.
Lines creased her forehead. “Bryce…”
He looked away, trying to come to terms with what he’d just heard.
I’m a spy.
Hookamate.com.
Everything clicked into place.
He swallowed. “I don’t believe this.”
Her gaze implored him. “You said my job didn’t matter.”
“That was when I thought you might be a stripper.”
She stiffened. “A stripper?”
“Or lap dancer.”
“That’s so insulting.” Her chin jutted forward. “I really thought you were different from other guys, but you aren’t. You think I can only use my body to make a living, not my brain.”
“You really think James Richardson hired you to be one of his lackeys because of your IQ?”
Her mouth tightened. “I’ve made a difference at Hookamate.com.”
“Oh, yeah, I’d be real proud of the results of your spying on me.”
“You?”
Bryce ignored the confusion in Dani’s eyes. He pretended not to see her lower lip tremble. He focused on all the problems Blinddatebrides.com had been having with scammers. Problems he should have been investigating instead of wasting his time with her. “I used to work with the guy. He’s had some sort of vendetta against me since I left.”
“You worked with him, so that means you’re…?”
“Bryce Delaney.”
Her face paled. “The founder and CEO of Blinddatebrides.com.”
He nodded once.
She slumped against the futon. The hurt in her eyes told him that she’d had no idea who he was. At least she hadn’t been using him to get information. The realization didn’t make him feel any less betrayed.
“You knew about me this entire time.” Disbelief and anger dripped from each word.
“I didn’t know why you were on the site, but a chat filter picked up the words I’m a spy.” He kept his voice cool, calm. “We’ve been trying to figure out what that meant ever since.”
“We?”
“My security team and me.”
She winced. “So all of…um…our dates…”
“An investigation.”
Who was the one who was lying now? Bryce didn’t care.
Dani bit her lip. “So while I was spying on Blinddatebrides.com, you were spying on me.”
“Investigating you,” he countered.
“Without my knowledge.”
“Yes.”
She sat only two feet away from him, but the space felt insurmountable. He liked her. Or had liked her. He wasn’t sure what he felt now.
She glared at him. “Guess that gives new meaning to your user name.”
“Don’t put this on me.” He stood, not wanting to be drawn into an argument. “You’re the one who broke the terms of service. Everyone’s wondered why Hookamate.com’s traffic ranking has been up for the past four months. Now I know the answer. Were you there to steal content or was hacking and sabotaging the site part of your job description, too?”
“None of the above.” She rose and walked to the opposite side of the room. “I gave James screen shots, but I never stole anything. I used the site to get ideas and create new content for ours. Traffic is up because I was doing my job. And a damn good job at that.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “And I never did anything else on your site. No hacking. No sabotage. I might have broken your TOS, but I followed every other rule, especially when another user contacted me. That’s why I turned down dates. It wasn’t fair to lead them on when I had no interest in dating.”
“I find it very hard to believe you.” His words sounded harsh to his own ears. Suddenly, he didn’t care about remaining in control. “What did you say that night after your date with Gymguy? ‘Players and liars are everywhere.’ Guess you spoke from experience.”
“You, too.” She drew her lips into a thin line. “You admitted following Hookamate’s traffic rankings. Every company checks out their competitors. It’s irresponsible not to. Yes, I crossed the line when I joined the site, but I was only doing my job.”
“Your job?” Bryce’s temper flared. “Joining a community, making friends, going on dates so you could spy. Having men fall…”
Damn her. He’d known about the red flags, yet he’d wanted to believe she was on the level.
So much for taking care of his Web site, customers and company. He was no smarter than those suckers who got conned out of their hard-earned money by responding to foreign spammers’ e-mails asking for money to be wired overseas.
Still curiosity got the better of him. “Why did you go out with me?”
“James wanted me to put together a clientele profile and see what clients really thought of Blinddatebrides.com. I only went out with you and Gymguy. No one else contacted me after that.
”
“I turned off your participation in the compatibility matching program and site search engine.”
“Why?”
“The investigation,” Bryce admitted. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t a troublemaker and trying to cause problems with clients.”
She pursed her lips. “You didn’t want me going out with any other guys.”
A beat passed, and another. “Maybe not.”
Definitely not. And, from the expression on her face, she knew it.
“That night at the restaurant. You knew I’d be there with Gymguy.”
Bryce nodded once.
“How?” she asked.
“Your e-mail.”
“And you’re upset over what I was doing?” Her eyes darkened to a midnight-blue. “Reading e-mail is an invasion of privacy. It’s—”
“Part of the terms of service you agreed to when you signed onto Blinddatebrides.com.”
“It’s still not right,” she said. “We’ve both been keeping secrets but, except for telling you about my job and why I joined the site, I was open and honest about everything. I never lied to you or invaded your privacy.”
“I was doing my job.”
“And, as I said, I was doing mine,” she countered. “I had misgivings over doing it, but it’s still part of doing business on the Internet. I’m sure there are other competitors who signed up at Blinddatebrides.com, too.”
But he hadn’t just kissed them passionately or wanted to kiss them again. “If I find out about them, I’ll kick them off. I want Blinddatebrides.com to be a safe place.”
“Safe doesn’t exist, Bryce. You just proved that to me by saying my job didn’t matter when it does. At least I was honest about my feelings for you, unlike you.”
“I’ve been honest.”
“If that’s your version of honesty, I’d hate to see you being dishonest.” She pressed her lips together. “I’ll admit what I did wasn’t right, but neither was what you just did to me.
“And, just so you know, I didn’t want to join your site or go on dates, but James threatened to fire me if I didn’t. I couldn’t afford to quit.”
“You’ve thought about quitting?” Bryce asked.
“Every single day since I signed up for an account on Blinddatebrides.com over six months ago.”
The sincerity in her voice clawed at his heart. Everything he believed people capable of—misrepresenting themselves and lying—was right here in the room. He was guilty of it himself which made this all the more confusing.
He didn’t know what to say or do.
Everything they’d experienced, everything they could share together in the future, was unraveling. The way they were arguing reminded him of his parents fighting. A part of him wanted to walk away and not look back. Yet another part couldn’t imagine never seeing her again. Never kissing her.
Blood pounded at his temples. A headache threatened to erupt. He squeezed his eyes shut.
When he opened them, she was staring at him.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone. That’s why I wrote the profile I did. So guys wouldn’t want to go out with me. I’m sorry if I hurt you. That wasn’t my intention.” Her eyes glistened. “I’ll cancel my account tonight.”
Bryce hated feeling the way he did, but he also hated seeing Dani so upset. “What about your friends?”
“We know each other’s personal e-mail addresses. There are other places on the Internet where we can chat and send IMs from.”
“What about your job?”
The truth was clear in her eyes. She expected to be fired. “Why do you care?”
He shouldn’t care. “Because you told me what drove you to take the job in the first place. I’m not the bad guy here.”
“No, you’re just the hypocrite telling me one thing and doing another. I trusted you. I believed what you said. But you used my falling for you to set a trap.”
She’d fallen for him? Bryce wasn’t sure what to think or believe right now.
“I just wonder what your reaction would have been if I’d been a stripper. I doubt you’d have been so understanding then, either.”
Her criticism stung. The disapproval in her voice made him feel like a jerk. “Don’t cancel your account until you find another job.”
Her shoulders sagged for a moment, then she straightened. “I’ve been trying to find a job for months with no luck so that might take a while.”
“As long as you work for James, you can use my site for e-mailing and chatting with your two friends. Nothing else.”
“Will you be checking up on me?”
Bryce’s jaw clenched. “What do you think?”
Blinddatebrides.com is running sixteen chat rooms, forty-seven private IM conferences, and 7305 members are online. Chat with your dating prospects now!
Private IM conference #28 (3 participants)…
Sanfrandani: I feel so bad.
Englishcrumpet: Don’t worry, Dani. We can find another place to chat if we need to. The main thing is we don’t lose touch.
Sanfrandani: I agree. At least he didn’t kick me off the site right away, but I’m sure that’s coming.
Kangagirl: Have you heard anything from Bryce?
Anger surged. Granted, Dani was the one who’d joined the Web site under false pretenses, but Bryce had had no reason to set her up so she’d spill her soul to him and then have him turn on her the way he had.
Whatever they’d shared before no longer existed. She wondered if a connection ever had.
Sanfrandani: Nope. It’s been a week.
At least she’d apologized for her part in the mess. Telling her she could stay on the site didn’t count as an apology in her book.
Englishcrumpet: What about your job search?
Sanfrandani: Still nothing. It’s like my résumé disappears into a black hole every time I send one out. It’s really frustrating. James keeps asking about my dates. I’ve been putting him off, but I’m going to have to say something to him soon.
Englishcrumpet: A job will turn up.
Kangagirl: Fingers crossed.
Englishcrumpet: Are you going to contact Bryce?
Sanfrandani: There’s no need. We’re over.
Englishcrumpet: I’m sorry.
Kangagirl: Me, too. I know you liked him.
Sanfrandani: Thanks, but I’m more angry than sad. I’ll survive.
And she would.
She’d just wanted to believe there was a man out there she could trust and love. She’d wanted that man to be Bryce.
“Check this out.”
In his office, Bryce turned the monitor on his desk so his coworkers could see what he’d spent his days and nights working on this week. He’d needed something to focus his attention on so he wouldn’t think about…
Dani.
Grant stared at the HTML page displayed on the monitor. His smile widened. “That is one sweet honeypot.”
“Where?” Peering over Grant’s shoulder, Joelle adjusted her plastic-rimmed glasses. “I don’t see anything except code.”
Grant continued reading the screen. “That’s because you’re a non-techie, Joelle.”
“A non-techie who makes sure you receive a paycheck.”
“Look right here.” Bryce highlighted lines of commented-out code that gave clues of how the internals of the site were implemented. “When a hacker tries to exploit the code he’s found, he’ll think he’s hit gold, except what he’s really found is fake user info on an isolated network. We can then hunt him down. It would feel good to actually catch one of these losers trying to mess with the site.”
“And if you can’t catch them?” Joelle asked.
“The data we get can help mitigate our risk,” Grant said.
Bryce leaned back in his chair. “I just hope someone takes the bait.”
“I’m sure they will,” Joelle said. “You’re really good at setting traps, boss.”
She’d meant the words as a compliment, but they echoed Dani’s
a little too closely.
I trusted you. I believed what you said. But you used my falling for you to set a trap.
And that was exactly what he’d done.
He’d misled Dani by saying one thing, then doing another.
The same way he’d built the honeypot into the code to catch hackers.
Dani hadn’t been honest about who she was. Neither had he.
His intentions had been good. Hers hadn’t.
But she’d been honest about her feelings. And he…
Bryce sighed. He owed her an apology.
The only question was, after their fight, would Dani even want to listen to one?
To: “Sanfrandani”
From: “Bigbrother”
Subject: Pot. Kettle. Black.
I’m not Colonel Brandon, but I’m not Willoughby, either. I owe you an apology for setting you up the way I did. It wasn’t intentional.
How does meeting at Crossroads before work tomorrow to discuss sound? My treat.
-b
To: “Bigbrother”
From: “Sanfrandani”
Subject: RE: Pot. Kettle. Black.
Well, no one would ever mistake me for Marianne Dashwood.
Open to discussion, but busy in the morning. Free for lunch. Anytime from 11:30 to 1:30. Let me know.
-d
To: “Sanfrandani”
From: “Bigbrother”
Subject: Lunch
See you at noon. Just look for the black pot.
-b
Uncertainty filled Dani as she sat in her lonely cubicle rereading Bryce’s e-mails. She stirred in her chair, unsure what meeting him would bring. Still a kernel of hope remained.
Hope that Bryce meant what he said about apologizing for his part in their fight.
Hope that he forgave her for her part in all this.
Hope that maybe he was different from other men and things between them might not be totally over.
At twelve o’clock, Dani entered the café. Lunch customers packed the place. Conversations from the crowd filled the air.
She spotted Bryce sitting at a table not far from the one they’d occupied the first time they’d met. He wore a gray suit with a white dress shirt and a yellow tie.