“Max, I—”
He shook his head, and though he kept his voice low enough to foil any eavesdroppers, the words still struck like lashes on AJ’s skin. “You know what he did to John Beckett. How that affected Aidan. How it affected me.”
Liam’s voice was tight. “I bought information that was offered to me.”
Max spared him the barest glance. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“You seem to have something to say about me, though, and I’m not going to stand here while you assassinate my character in front of AJ.”
“She deserves better than you, Kearney. All I’m doing is stating facts, and if your character can’t withstand the truth, maybe that’s something AJ should be aware of.”
“Stop it. Both of you. Don’t talk around me like I’m not here. I don’t need either of you deciding things for me. I make my own choices.”
Max’s gaze slid to Liam, then back to AJ. “Obviously you do.”
Before AJ had recovered from that, his eyes turned hot with rage. “I swear to God, AJ. If I find out you’re the one who hacked me...”
“Watch it, Whitfield.”
Liam stepped forward, coming to her defense, and for a second, AJ thought they might actually trade blows, but Max iced over again. “I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction. If you’ll excuse us.” He and Emma headed for the French doors that led to the main ballroom.
“Max, wait.” AJ hadn’t managed a full step before Liam caught her hand.
She looked down at their fingers before meeting his eyes again.
“AJ...”
She knew what he was asking. He wanted her to choose him. To stay. To take a chance on the unknown.
But the unknown had never been good to AJ.
Max represented the status quo. Safety. She knew how to live this life, the one she’d painstakingly cobbled together so the pieces wouldn’t shatter out from underneath her again.
She looked at Liam, willing him to understand. “I have to. I owe him an explanation.”
AJ tugged her hand free, and the second she did, it was like the tentative thing between them, whatever it was, whatever it might become, cracked in two. She saw it in Liam’s eyes.
A sense of loss that she hadn’t let herself feel in a really long time started to well in her chest, but she pushed it down through sheer force of will. It helped when she turned away from Liam. It helped more when she hurried toward the doors that led into the ballroom. Distance. Distance always helped.
She scanned the ornate room, catching sight of a woman in a green dress and a raven-haired man heading toward the front entrance.
AJ dodged through the hoity-toity crowd as best she could in her silver gown, desperate to catch up to her boss, to explain, to erase the look of betrayal that had crossed his face when he’d seen who she was with.
The doorman dragged an ornate door out of her way, and AJ skidded to a halt on her stilettos outside, but it was too late. The valet was already stepping away from the vehicle Max used for business and personal events alike.
She called his name, a last-ditch effort that proved fruitless as the sleek black town car pulled away.
* * *
Liam leaned against the stone balustrade, staring down at the pool. He hated this fucking house, though he’d never been inside it before. He’d thought seeing it as an adult might make it more palatable, overwrite his teenage memories of the way Cynthia had looked down her nose at him when he’d rung the doorbell, when she’d chosen Henry Mitford and handed him that goddamn check as a parting gift.
For the first time since she’d walked out on him, Liam wished he’d given Cynthia exactly what she wanted and declined the invitation to the party.
In this case, it seemed, Mother really did know best. The irony wasn’t lost on him.
He should never have brought AJ here, although he supposed there was no more fitting location for her to choose Max over him.
“Hey.”
As if her name had conjured her, she appeared beside him. Despite everything, his body stirred at the sight of her, clad in silver.
“Hey.”
“I’m... I had to take care of that. I had to try.”
“Sure.”
The word came out a little testier than he’d intended, and he felt her grow tense beside him, saw the way she set her chin in defiance.
“What, are you jealous? He’s my boss, Liam. And my friend, okay? The only one I have.” Her bluster faded when she exhaled. “Max believed in me and gave me a chance when most people would have turned me in. He fronted me the money to take Troy to court. He gave me a life. And I owe him.”
“Bullshit!”
AJ flinched at the anger in Liam’s voice, but he couldn’t help it.
“Stop selling yourself short, okay? You don’t owe him anything. Do you understand how good you are at what you do? Max is a lot of things, not all of them complimentary, but one thing he’s not is stupid. He recognized your talent, and he did what any good businessman would do—he hired you. He didn’t put Troy in jail—you did that.” Liam raked his hand through his hair. “You say Max gave you back your life. But what kind of life is it?”
She glared at him. “Stop making it sound like I’m a prisoner. Max doesn’t keep me under lock and key.”
“I didn’t say he was the problem.”
The words detonated. AJ looked shocked by the force of them, but Liam couldn’t stop.
“You run and you hide. And Max is just one more way for you to stay where you’re comfortable. You do just enough to convince yourself you’re doing okay, and he lets you. He doesn’t challenge you. And you know why? Because unlike you, he’s got a real fucking life!”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that he’s running a company. He’s dating Emma. He’s spending time with his sister, attending parties, being out in the world.” Frustrated, Liam pulled a hand down his face. “Look, I honestly don’t give a shit if you’re friends with Max. I’m just saying that you can’t keep acting like he’s the only thing in your life, because you’re sure as hell not the only thing in his!”
They stood in the shadows, together and miles apart.
“I’m leaving.”
“Of course you are. Just like always. Serves me right for falling for a woman who equates closeness with hostage situations.”
She rounded on him, eyes bright with fury. “Fuck you.”
“Fuck me?” Liam laughed. “Jesus, AJ. You won’t even do that unless you’re sure there’s an escape hatch. I have to beg you to be in public with me. And even then you’ve always got one eye on the door, so you can run before things get too real.”
“Oh, that’s something coming from you! You want to keep things real, Liam? Real like throwing lavish, glittering parties that you hate? Real like the playboy reputation you cultivated by serial dating models who mean nothing to you? Just because you hide in plain sight doesn’t mean you’re not hiding.”
Liam frowned at the accusation, watching as she crouched down, lifting the hem of her silver gown enough to expose one of her strappy shoes. After a couple of tugs, the buckle came loose, and she kicked it off, before doing the same thing with her other shoe.
She grabbed them both in one hand before she straightened up to her full height, three inches shorter than a moment ago, and yet more formidable for it.
“Did you ever think that maybe the reason I’m always looking for the exit is because you keep trying to lock me in? Yachts, and gated mansions, and security fences. Everything you have, everything you build, is to keep people from leaving like your mom did. But none of it’s going to make me stay.”
It was a debilitating punch. The kind that bruised deep and made it hard to breathe. But AJ wasn’t quite done with him yet.
“And just so we’re clear, this
isn’t me running. This is me walking the fuck out.”
As far as parting shots went, it was a knockout. But going down for the count wouldn’t hurt enough, so Liam made himself stand there and watch her leave.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AJ STARED OUT the window of her condo at the concrete jungle below, watching cars glide by, people scurrying around. People living their lives as though the world hadn’t tipped off its axis a week and a half ago. Like nothing had changed.
But everything had changed.
She couldn’t sleep. Barely ate. And there was a dull ache in her chest, like a piece had been ripped out. She’d let her guard down a little, and now she couldn’t get it back up.
Work, she decided. Work always focused her, keeping the thoughts she didn’t want to deal with at bay.
AJ got up and pulled the phones out of her safe. The ones Max had given her because they contained Cybercore spyware, which had been the reason Liam’s name had jumped to the top of the suspect list in the first place. Without these phones, she would never have ended up in Liam’s mansion, in Liam’s office, in Liam’s bedroom.
Her heart cracked a little at the thought, as though there was a jagged fault line down the middle of it, but she ignored the fissure. She needed to keep her mind occupied. Focus on the code.
Grabbing the phones Max had asked her to look into, she set them in front of her on her desk. As she always did when approaching a forensic hack, she took a moment to lay out the facts as she knew them.
On the left, the silver phone that Aidan Beckett had purchased from Liam with the intent of spying on Whitfield Industries. The Cybercore-issued phone contained Liam’s impressive spyware, the same program she’d tweaked and tried to use on the man himself the night she’d crashed his party. Aidan had used it to remotely install said spyware on Kaylee Whitfield’s cell.
AJ turned her attention to the black phone on the right. Kaylee’s phone had been given to her by none other than security dickwad in chief, Wes Brennan. According to Kaylee, it had started glitching the same day she’d received it, which coincidentally, was the same day Aidan had installed the malware.
Problem was, the Cybercore malware was clean. She analyzed it a dozen different ways and it always came back the same—straightforward, elegant code, with a dash of Liam’s trademark charisma. Built for one thing. Built to do its job. Built to bring the target—in this case, Max—to his knees.
Logic said that meant Kaylee’s phone was the snarled one. The one that had caused the problem. And maybe, just maybe, those glitches had nothing to do with the Cybercore spyware at all.
Working that hunch, AJ plugged the black phone into her computer, and subjected it to her newly developed analyzing program, but instead of investigating the spyware again, this time she scrutinized the phone itself. She’d expected it to take a while. She’d expected a slog. But that wasn’t what she got.
AJ’s spine snapped straight as the issue revealed itself to her. It couldn’t have been more obvious if it had flashing arrows pointing at it.
There was another bug, built right into the phone.
The exact line of junk code that was etched into her brain from her forensic hacking marathon at Liam’s stood out starkly on her screen.
Holy shit.
Sloppy gets you caught.
If it meant what she thought it meant, then she’d just blown this case wide open. All she needed to nail the perpetrator of Max’s hack, of Liam’s hack, was some corroborating evidence. The final puzzle piece. And she knew exactly who could help her with that.
AJ’s hands shook as she grabbed her phone. Her heart was in her throat when she hit Send on the text she’d composed.
And now, she waited to see if Liam would answer.
* * *
It took forty-five minutes before there was a knock on the door.
She ignored the rush of...something that flooded through her at the sight of Liam. He was handsome as ever in his black pinstripe three-piece suit and a red tie.
“Driving the Corvette today, huh?” It was a dumb joke. An olive branch. Something to remind him of their history, but it fizzled.
Liam dropped his gaze to the floor, and AJ’s heart fell with it. “You said you needed this? It seemed kind of urgent.”
She accepted the computer he handed her and forced a smile. “That depends. Did Jesse upgrade the virus protection software like Wes told him to?”
Liam shook his head. “No, we haven’t managed to connect on that yet.”
AJ sighed with relief. She’d kept her text vague, hoping to intrigue Liam into answering the summons. A rational person would have asked about the virus protection upgrade in the text. So that Liam didn’t have to drive all the way over if there was nothing for them to find.
But there was nothing rational about how much AJ wanted to see him.
“Well, in that case, yeah. It’s urgent.” She let the tease hang there for a moment as she opened his laptop and placed it on her desk. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, Liam stepped inside her loft and shut the door. She held her breath as his gaze skated around the exposed brick walls and dark wood floors. “This is where you live, huh?”
AJ managed a nod. Normally she would have called him out on such an obvious question. But this was what they’d been reduced to now. Banal small talk. Besides, she was still adjusting to seeing him here. Around her stuff. Her first houseguest. The only person she’d actually given her address to.
“It’s nice. I wish you’d invited me under different circumstances.”
So did she, but there was no time to dwell on missed opportunities and regrets.
Obviously, Liam felt the same way, as he was much more brusque and businesslike when he joined her beside his desk. “So, what does this have to do with the software update?”
“Yeah. Business.” She nodded. “Let’s do it.” AJ motioned toward her desk. “Max gave me two phones to analyze—the one you sold Aidan was clean, but guess what I found on the one Wes gave Kaylee Whitfield?”
Liam’s gaze snapped to hers. “The garbage code.”
AJ nodded. “And that got me thinking about how Soteria Security is the one link that Cybercore and Whitfield Industries share.”
“Whitfield Industries has been using Soteria for years.”
“Sure, but that just makes it even more conspicuous that after you consider using one of their products for the first time, both Whitfield and Cybercore end up with leaks involving your competing products. And you said Wes was eager to upgrade your software protection, right? Sending Jesse after you to the point of annoyance? It’s one thing to offer great customer service, but what if there’s another reason he’s pushing this upgrade so hard?”
“What are you thinking?”
“I hacked your party and broke into your bedroom to drop a backdoor into your main server so I could poke around later. What if Soteria’s security program has a backdoor built right in?”
Liam swore. “Sell me the software to score Cybercore as a client and then collect again by peddling the specs for The Shield to some overseas counterfeiter.”
“And that doesn’t even count all the extra hours they’ve been putting in at Whitfield Industries since the hack. Cause the security breach, and then rake in the cash when your clients order you to fix it.” It was brilliant. And unethical to the extreme.
“Swoop in with a bunch of upgrades, but really all you’re doing is removing the backdoor once you’re done with it,” Liam offered.
“Yes! Wes sends someone in to do a little spring cleaning, before sloppy gets his ass caught.”
Liam pulled off his suit jacket and started rolling up his sleeves. “It’s worth a try.” She could feel the excitement radiating off him at the possibility. She was brimming with it, too.
They fell back into the rhythm of the days they’d spent worki
ng together side by side, just like this, at his house. AJ realized how much she loved digging into this stuff with him. She’d always worked alone, but there was an energy to having a partner, someone to bounce things off of. Someone brilliant. And handsome. And...this was not the time, she reminded herself.
It took the two of them less than an hour to isolate what they were looking for. A backdoor, just like she’d hypothesized. AJ couldn’t stand still. She was too hyped. They’d just uncovered a cybersecurity scandal of epic proportions.
Liam shook his head, double-checking their results. “Why would he put the exact same string of code in the exact same place? It’s almost like he was trying to get caught.”
AJ couldn’t wipe the grin off her face. “Well, I guess he got his wish then, because we just nailed Wes Brennan! Who’s sloppy now, bitch?”
Liam laughed, and the sound rumbled through her.
“What’s so funny?”
“Asks the woman whose extreme gloating includes the phrase ‘Who’s sloppy now, bitch?’”
“I’m not gloating. I’m...reveling in poetic justice.”
“Oh, is that what it was?”
Liam got to his feet, and AJ stopped in front of him.
“You’re damn straight! I just took down the dickwad who caught me five years ago. If I can’t revel now, then when?”
“Touché.” He smiled down at her, and AJ was swamped with a pang of longing so deep that she couldn’t breathe for a second. He was too close. Or she was too close. Either way, the familiar thrum of attraction started up between them as they stared at each other. And she wanted it. Wanted to lose herself in the heat of it. To forget all the shit that hung between them. All the obstacles that stood in their way.
She made herself say the words that she knew would pop the bubble of intimacy that seemed to engulf them whenever she and Liam were around each other.
“We have to tell Max.”
Liam’s smile dimmed, but he nodded, stepped away under the pretense of grabbing his suit jacket from the chair.
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