The Wrong Kind of Compatible

by Kadie Scott

  “Do you love him?”

  Cassie just twitched her shoulders in a semblance of a shrug, unable to lie, but still too upset with him to admit to her feelings. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Her mom stood and pushed her chair in. “I’m not so sure. A man doesn’t look at a woman the way he looked at you unless it’s love.”

  Cassie’s jaw dropped. Was her mom taking Drew’s side? “He’s an undercover agent. He can fake love.”

  Her mother delivered a haughty stare. “I happen to be an eminent psychologist. If a man looked at me that way…” She fanned herself.

  “Mom,” Cassie protested.

  Her mother tossed a superior smile in Cassie’s direction. “I was once young, too, you know. The things your father made me feel—”

  Gross. “I get the point,” Cassie rushed to head off any further comments on this topic. “But that’s not what’s happening here.”

  “You’re right. He was an asshole to sleep with you believing what he does. But don’t forget you did the same, despite your suspicions. And given that he’s FBI and not a criminal hacker, think of the tough position that put him in.”

  “He slept with me for his job.”

  “And you’re sure it wasn’t something more?”

  Cassie snorted. “I’m sure.”

  Her mother sighed, but quit the topic. She pointed at Cassie’s screen. “Figure out the cyber crime issue. I have a feeling that once that’s out of the way, things with Drew will fall into place naturally.”

  Whatever that meant.

  The FBI might always get their man, but Cassie couldn’t claim the same. Besides, her mother might be an eminent psychologist, but that distinction had not given her much insight into her own daughter, at least until today. Cassie decided not to bother getting her hopes up where Drew was concerned. The best outcome here was she cleared her name, avoided jail, and never saw Drew Kerrigan again.

  Maybe, one day, she’d convince her heart that was best. Until then, she’d let her head do all the talking. Decision made and goal in sight, Cassie tuned out the world and her own thoughts, and put her head down to work her corn nuts off.

  …

  Almost twenty-four hours, very little sleep, and gallons of coffee later, she had what she needed. Still, she reeled from the shocking discoveries she’d made—vacillating between righteousness at proving herself innocent, fury at how her work had been used, crushing disappointment in someone she’d trusted, and deep sadness at the implications for Data Minds.

  Still, the right thing to do was obvious. She ran up to her bedroom and fished out her cell phone, which she’d turned off and tossed in her backpack before hopping on the train to come to her parents’ house.

  Checking the number, she hit dial, not sure if she’d get sent to voicemail given how they’d ended things. When a voice answered, she didn’t bother with preliminaries. “I have information you might be interested in hearing.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cassie sat in her cube bright and early Monday morning, sat being a euphemism for fidgeted. The day—clear blue and perfect—did not reflect her roiling mood. A nice, violent thunderstorm would have been more appropriate. If her life had been a movie, that’s the weather they would’ve played for this scene. Along with some kind of anthem song from the eighties that was all about girl power and stuff.

  Last night, she’d passed on her information and had been told to behave as though nothing was happening. Go into work and…work.

  What did they think she was? Artificial intelligence? Because only an emotionless robot could sit here and work like they didn’t know a huge, impactful, wipe-the-planet-out kind of secret. Besides, given her open nature and quirky habit of muttering her thoughts out loud, she was a walking, talking time bomb. Not blurting out exactly what was going on in her world was a feat of titanic proportions.

  “I should’ve called in sick,” she muttered. She had a legitimate excuse. Given the way her stomach tossed around like a seasick sailor’s, she could be violently ill any minute now.

  “Where’s Drew?” Marnie paused by her cube to ask, interrupting her slow degradation into panic.

  Cassie pulled out one earbud—her useless version of distraction. “What?”

  “Drew’s not in yet, and I have a question for him. Do you know where he is?”

  Not wanting to think about where he was, Cassie shook her head. “Ask Kevin.”

  Marnie gave her an odd look. “Okay.” She turned away.

  Feeling bad about her abruptness, Cassie called her back. “Anything I can help with?” Drew wouldn’t be available to help Marnie anyway. Ever.

  Marnie shook her head. “It has to do with the Washington account.”

  “I see.” A new account Cassie had nothing to do with. Drew had taken point from the beginning.

  The urge to step in and start fixing had to be stamped out. The account would likely land on her plate—that was, if they kept the account after her findings were brought to light. But she couldn’t start fixing yet. She was supposed to act as though nothing had changed. As if her faith in Data Minds hadn’t been rocked to its foundations. What was that proverb about building glass houses on sand?

  “If he comes in, I’ll send him your way,” she forced herself to say.

  Then, before any more words could escape her, she popped her earbud back in, letting the pounding music try to take her mind off the situation, and faced her monitor. But, no matter how she tried, she couldn’t force herself to focus on the work.

  Holy mama cow, how had Drew done this every day? Pretended to be something he wasn’t and work on projects that he might never finish, all the while knowing what he knew? A small amount of sympathy and understanding crept into her heart for the position he’d been in. Except for getting her being a criminal wrong—not to mention the whole sleeping with her mid-investigation thing—she’d bet he was good at his job.

  She, on the other hand, would suck as an undercover FBI agent. She’d go into fashion design before she contemplated undercover work.

  Just when she was about to gather her things and blow this popsicle stand, telling Kevin she wasn’t feeling well, a small commotion arose from over by the elevators and front desk. The low rumble of several voices grew louder as more voices joined the fray.

  “What’s going on here?” Lou’s exclamation floated over the top of the noise. His shout had Cassie, and everyone around her, standing up to gaze over the top of the cubes and see what was going on.

  Despite knowing this was coming, Cassie still sucked in a gasp. A group of men and women had gathered to the left of the front desk. The FBI had arrived at the office, Drew in the lead wearing his navy jacket with FBI emblazoned in yellow across the front.

  God, he was hot.

  “Drew, what’s this about?” Lou asked as he threaded his way from his office, through the cubes, to where the FBI, and Drew, waited.

  Drew held up a badge. “Lou Markinson, you are under arrest for illegal data theft.”

  “What?” Lou exploded, his face turning a fascinating shade of puce. She hadn’t known skin could turn that color. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  His protests landed on deaf ears as two of Drew’s team took Lou into custody, slapping cuffs on him and everything. Drew summoned more of his people and, after a quiet word she couldn’t catch from back where she stood, sent them through cube land to the offices by the conference room. Probably to arrest more people.

  While Drew organized things at the front, beside the printer, Cassie had the strangest sense of déjà vu. They’d come full circle from the first day they met.

  Drew scanned over the people who watched in stunned silence, until his gaze landed on her. Unlike the first day she saw him, today she didn’t blush or duck back into her cube. Cassie could only stare back, trying to decipher his steady expression. Was he trying to figure out what she was thinking as well?

  As they stood, watching each other, the other two partners,
Jason and Malcom, were both fetched from their offices and led to the elevators in handcuffs.

  “You can’t do this. I’ve done nothing wrong!” Kevin’s screech pierced the entire building, coming from the direction of his office. She wouldn’t be surprised if people ten stories down walking by on the street heard his yelp. His potbelly jiggled as he struggled against his cuffs and the two agents dragged him out, attempting to escort him from the building. “Cassie Howard is the one you want.”

  Gazes swung her direction, but Cassie just shook her head. Of all the evidence she’d uncovered yesterday, finding out Kevin had been the one trying to frame her had hurt the worst. She’d loved being his employee, had trusted him, felt supported by him, worked her ass off for him, and ultimately given him the tool to take down the company.

  Turned out he’d used her code to first steal proprietary data from most of their competitors, then applied her algorithm to analyze the data, compare the resulting analytics to those competitors’ results, and debunk their best work in order to secure large government contracts for Data Minds. Exactly what Drew had said when he’d been hurling accusations at her in his apartment, only she hadn’t been the one to do it.

  Kevin stopped resisting as he came up to Drew. He didn’t even bother to appear surprised at finding out Drew was with the FBI. Had he found out and told Lou? Had that been what that weird meeting with them had been about? Clearly, his dumping all his files onto her drive had been part of the frame-up, an attempt to set her up to take the fall, but he’d been sloppy about how he’d done it, leaving footprints. So she’d hacked his system, finding evidence pointing not only to Kevin, but the three partners as well.

  “Tell them I’m not the one they want,” Kevin insisted. “You know Cassie’s the only one in the office smart enough to do what these people”—he glared at the agents holding him by the elbows—“say I did.”

  Drew lifted a single eyebrow. “We have the right man.” He jerked his head, and the agents led a still-protesting Kevin away. His shouts of innocence only cut off when the elevator doors whooshed closed.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention.” Drew already had their attention, but now every eye was on him, and the mumblings around the floor ceased, leaving a screaming silence behind.

  “As many of you have probably figured out, I am an agent with the FBI Cyber Crimes division. I have been investigating Data Minds. At this time, I can’t divulge more details. We will be interviewing each and every one of you before you leave here today. Data Minds will be shut down for the foreseeable future. Please stay in or return to your cubes. I promise we will try to get you out of here as quickly as possible. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  The stunned silence lingered for a long moment as everyone absorbed the announcement, then noise buzzed as everyone started talking at once. Cassie wasn’t sure if they were more surprised about what happened or the fact that Drew was an FBI agent. Or maybe they were just worried about losing their jobs.

  He wound his way through the maze of cubes to where she still stood, his gaze never wavering from hers. And then he actually knocked at the door, like she didn’t see him there. Was he nervous to talk to her? Butterflies the size of prehistoric bugs took flight in her stomach. She had no clue what he was thinking, or feeling, now that he knew she was innocent. Had she merely been a pawn? Or had he cared?

  Cassie raised her eyebrows when he didn’t say anything, just stood there watching her with that intense blue gaze that sent heat rushing all over her body.

  She folded her arms across her chest. She had no intention of making this any easier for him.

  Drew clenched his jaw. “I didn’t think you would.”

  Damn it all. She should’ve kept her earbuds in.

  He searched her face, and, perhaps not finding what he was looking for, straightened, going all professional on her, and held out a hand to shake. “I want to thank you for the lead.”

  What was she supposed to say? Her phone call providing him the information she’d found may have saved her from jail, but her company was kaput. She, and all her coworkers, were out of jobs and could potentially have difficulty getting hired elsewhere having now worked for a criminal organization. A black mark on their resumes rather than a point of pride. Cassie took a leaf from Drew’s book and kept quiet as she shook his proffered hand.

  He cleared his throat and tried again. “I was about ten keystrokes away from blowing the whole case wide open, but as I should have expected, you beat me to it.”

  She raised an eyebrow at that. “I was already onto them, I just didn’t know it until you told me where to search.”

  Drew’s eyes shadowed as he glanced away. “I’m so sorry, Cassie.” He shook his head and returned his gaze to her. “I knew you couldn’t have done it. I was already working at proving that when you called.”

  He’d been trying to help her? Even had faith that she wasn’t the bad guy he took her for? Could she believe him? Her heart hopped around chanting yes, but her brain was still in charge and did its best to snuff out the hope rising inside her. His believing in her didn’t mean he cared about her.

  It helps, though. Her heart, sucker that it was, just wouldn’t give in.

  …

  Drew cocked his head, studying Cassie and trying to figure out what the hell she was thinking. When she’d called him last night, he’d hoped… But she’d kept it professional and so had he.

  Today was a big day for him, closing the case. And not arresting the woman he loved. That was huge. Now all he could think about was closing the case with Cassie. He needed to convince her—somehow—that he cared. That she hadn’t just been an op. Not to him.

  Or had he irreparably fried the connection between them with his dishonesty?

  Say something, you moron, his brain screamed at him. He’d been standing there, drinking in the sight of her. And for once, Cassie’s mouth remained shut. A closed book.

  “You’re a kick-ass analyst. Have you ever considered a job with the FBI?” Great way to lead in, Kerrigan. Remind her about your real occupation. Not that she could miss it with the giant letters on his jacket.

  Cassie laughed, the husky sound rasping over his nerves, and lifted her chin. “I think you’d be out of a job if I ever applied. You might want to rethink that plan.”

  Ouch.

  He grimaced. “I guess you’re right.” Although they’d made a terrific team here at Data Minds. “I have another offer, then.” For once, the words came out as he intended, and she must’ve caught the sudden need in his tone, because her eyes widened infinitesimally.

  She angled her head, curiosity shining at him from her stunning eyes. “Oh?”

  Needing to touch her, to reassure himself she wouldn’t run away screaming until he’d put his heart out there, he reached out and took her hand in his. “I’d like to take you home to meet my mom. She’s dying to meet the girl worthy of my buying flowers.”

  While she didn’t pull away, she didn’t react either. He wasn’t getting through to her. How could he make her see?

  Go big or go home, Kerrigan. He closed his eyes, preparing to metaphorically throw himself under the bus. With an audience. But it’d be worth it if Cassie believed him.

  “I need you to know…” He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “What was between us was real for me. Losing you would be like losing a part of myself. We fit together like all the components of a computer, only coming online when each piece is snapped into the right slot. Please tell me I haven’t lost you for good?”

  …

  The chattering coming from the nearby cubes went silent. And then, because of course they would, what felt like half the office broke into applause. Everyone might’ve lost their job, but being part of an only-in-the-movies grand gesture was apparently too ripe to resist.

  Cassie couldn’t help herself. She grinned. Her crazy, hopeful heart knew exactly how hard that had been for Drew—the man who didn’t share is emotions or thoughts ea
sily with anyone. And yet there he was, turning twenty shades of pink as their coworkers cheered. She cleared her throat and attempted a serious expression. “I think that’s officially the most words you’ve spoken to me in one breath. And in front of all these people, no less.”

  “You’re worth it.”

  Desire and need shined from his eyes. She felt it in the warmth of his touch. But, most of all, the tension radiating from him told her what she needed to know.

  She was important to him.

  My big bad FBI agent is hopeless. She clapped a hand over her mouth as she realized thoughts had once again bypassed her brain and gone straight to her mouth.

  His frown faded and his lips hitched up in a half smile. “I know I’m hopeless, but love does that to a man.”

  The world quieted around her as his words struck home, healing the large crack in her heart left by the accusations they’d flung at each other Friday night. Cassie slowly lowered her hand from her mouth. “You love me?”

  He squeezed her other hand, the one he still held. “Yes. And I’ll do whatever I need to prove it you. Be whatever you need. I’d even quit my job if that proves how serious I am.”

  She weighed his confession, tapping her finger against her lips as she stared him down. Drew didn’t move—he just waited, his gaze equally intense, but steady. His heart apparently ready to accept her and all of her quirks.

  She sighed, a smile tugging at her lips. “Nah. I love you just the way you are. FBI badge and all.”

  Drew yanked her into his arms, a relieved breath feathering her hair. “Thank God,” he muttered before he closed his lips over hers.

  Cassie’s soul sang as he gave her long, desperate kisses that told her just how scared he’d been to lose her. She melted into him, holding him close, and trying to tell him with every reciprocated brush of her lips that he didn’t need to worry any more. She was his.

  “Enough of that,” a masculine voice muttered behind them.

  Then someone smacked Drew on the back of the head, making him bump noses with her. He turned to glare at their assailant, though he kept his arms around her. “Way to ruin a moment, Max.”