She stared at her office after they were gone. She could feel the paranoia she’d lived with most of her life creeping back softly. Closing her eyes, she willed it back in the background. She was not going to live that way anymore.
“Miss Conran, are you okay?”
She blinked and refocused to find Rusty looking at her with concerned eyes. Taking a deep breath, she got hold of herself.
“Please, call me Hope.” If they were going to be working so closely together, the Miss Conran thing was sure to grate on her nerves after a while.
He nodded.
“We’ve created a desk for you in the IT room,” she said in a tone that was friendly, yet professional.
“Negative.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, walking round to the other side of her table. She dropped her purse on the floor before sinking into her chair. She was exhausted. Plus she needed to process what was happening with her life.
“I’ll be working out of your office.”
She sat up. “Negative.” At his raised eyebrow, she decided to take another tack. “Listen, I’m going to be having lots of meetings here and I don’t think it will be conducive for you. You do want to dig into our code here, don’t you?”
He tipped his head to the side and studied her. She could see the speculation in his eyes and kept hers as bland as possible. His lips quirked in a facsimile of a smile.
“My number one priority here is you,” he stated in a voice that made her heart miss a beat. “I’m here to keep you safe. That’s my primary assignment. Digging into your code is secondary.”
Hope wanted to scowl. She wanted to scowl badly. Instead, she kept her smile on her face, even though she was beginning to feel the strain. “Alright then, I’m sure we can come to a compromise. My office is out of the question, but Derek’s office is right outside my door. I could introduce you to the staff as my new assistant.”
“That might work,” he conceded.
Hope nodded, then picked up the phone. “Derek, could you get in here for a moment.”
When Derek walked in she motioned for both men to sit.
“Derek, you mentioned the other day that while you could do most of my work with one arm tied behind your back, there were some limitations.”
Derek opened his mouth to refute her statement, but she held one hand out and he remained silent.
“Now, as I was saying, your comments made me think and I decided to hire Rusty here. He will assist me, but with the tech side of things.”
Derek cast a once-over at Rusty and took in his large frame.
“You’re kidding, right?” he asked in disbelief.
Hope shook her head at him. “You shouldn’t judge a person by their looks. You of all people should know that,” she said in gentle reproof.
Derek’s face filled with color and he lowered his head. “You’re right,” he said, lifting his gaze to Hope’s. He turned to Rusty. “Welcome to the team, Rusty. She’s a slave driver, but you’ll be okay.”
Hope watched Derek leave. She wished she had not made reference to his past, she’d never had to before. But she knew where he was coming from and if she and Jared had not decided to take a chance on him, it would have been a different story. She shifted her glance to the man seated across from her and their gazes met. It took her back to that moment at the club when he had snubbed her, making her feel like trash. She struggled with the feelings of anger and humiliation that burned inside as she worked to make sure what she was feeling was not reflected on her face. She was determined to keep this professional, even if it killed her.
After a while, the silence turned awkward. She cleared her throat and opened her mouth to say something. Anything.
“Does he know that the hacking was most likely sabotage?”
She shook her head. “I’d like to keep this on the down-low. We’ve got enough to worry about; I don’t need us losing any more subscribers.”
“I can understand that,” he said thoughtfully. “So who else knows about this?”
“Just Jared, that’s my business partner. My technical team are aware that our servers were hacked, but since I’m the one who found the offending code, they don’t know about that either and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Her phone beeped and she searched beneath the papers on her table for it. She lifted some magazines on programming and was getting impatient when she remembered that she had slipped it into her purse when she stepped out earlier. Muttering to herself, she reached for the purse where she’d dropped it by her chair and fished out the phone before dropping the purse back on the floor. There was a message from Jared. He’d flown back to New York City to meet with their content providers once again.
I know you are in great hands with the Silver Shield people. He ended the message.
She scowled, she did not feel like she was in great hands with that man sitting there, looking at her like he wanted to read all her life’s secrets on her face. She could feel the intensity of his gaze right from where she was seated.
Wish you didn’t leave now. Come back with that contract and all will be forgiven.
She waited a beat and the reply came: Brat.
She threw the phone on the table. When she looked up, she caught him staring at the phone with a slight frown.
“What’s the matter?”
He glanced at her. “What?”
“You were frowning at my cellphone.”
He shrugged. “I’m just wondering why you don’t have a cellphone holder.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I take it you do?”
“Several.”
“That’s as nerdy as a pocket protector.”
He eyed her coolly. “I have those too.”
Hope threw her hands up and rolled her eyes. “I rest my case. Now if you don’t mind, I need to get back to work, if there’s anything else you need…” she left the rest of that statement hanging as she fired up the main computer on her desk.
“Do you still have the message that was embedded in your code?”
“I cleaned that up. Fortunately, I took a screenshot, which is right here on my computer. I could send that to you.”
Rusty got to his feet and walked over to her side of the table. Hope reared back, blinking her eyes at him. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I would like to see the image if you don’t mind,” he said.
With a sigh, she pulled it up and gestured to the computer. “It’s right here.”
She made to stand up, but suddenly found herself trapped. Rusty had moved to the back of her chair and was leaning over it, his attention on the screen. Unless he took a step back, there was no way she could stand up without brushing her body against his, which for some reason she was reluctant to do. She thought about asking him to take a step back, but it would look like his closeness was bothering her. And it wasn’t. Okay, that wasn’t exactly true.
She could feel him just behind her and if she were being honest to herself, his nearness was affecting her in a way she did not want to examine. She tried to relax but could feel the tension slowly building up. She took a deep breath and her senses were instantly awash with the scent of him. Her body immediately went on alert, making her shift uncomfortably.
“Are you okay?” he murmured the question.
She glanced up at him and saw that he was still focused on the screen, a thoughtful frown on his face.
“Hmm,” she replied. She needed him to back up and was about to ask him to step back when he did just that.
“This is interesting,” he said, walking around to the other side of the table.
“What is?”
“The code mirrors yours. It looks like something you could have written, which is why your team did not find it at first.”
Hope was impressed. The fact that the code had so closely resembled hers had bothered her in a way she could not describe. It had been the first thing she’d noticed and she had not expected the man to pick that up.
He shrugged. “I study the codes of master programmers and you are one of the best out there.”
She just stared at him. It wasn’t what he’d said had surprised her—she knew she was a damn good programmer. It was the way he’d said it, so simply.
“Were you able to make anything from the screenshot?” she asked, changing the subject slightly.
“I don’t like it. Whoever is behind this might be closer than you think.” He brought out his phone and tapped on it as he spoke. “I’ve ordered a background check on everyone that works here.”
Hope stared at him openmouthed, then she glared at him. “Hell no!” she said, getting to her feet. “You are not going to do that to people that I’ve formed a bond with and worked with for years.”
His eyes flew up in surprise. “Hope—” She cut him short.
“Damn it! I trust my people. I’m not going to let you invade their privacy like this.”
He faced her squarely, his jaw clenched. “Really? You trust your people?”
“Damn right I do.”
“Yet someone got close enough to you to plant not one but two bugs in your office.”
Hope felt some of the fight leave her, but she was not ready to give in. “It doesn’t matter. These are good people and I’m not going to let you go digging in their past.”
He folded his arms and she could not help noticing how built he was. “What are you afraid of, Hope?”
She shot him a glare filled with bile. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Is this about their past or about yours?”
Hope had never hated another human being the way she hated him at that moment. Well, not in her adult life anyway. She pointed to her door. “Get out of my office.”
He raised his hands up, his phone still in one hand. “I will, but since we’ll be leaving under the same roof, we need to come up with a cover, that’s if you don’t want everyone knowing you got a bodyguard.”
Hope sank to her chair. “Jesus,” she groaned, cradling her head on one hand. She could feel a headache slowly building up at the thought of having to deal with this infuriating male constantly.
“You do realize that I’ll be moving into your house, right?” he asked, sinking into the chair with a smile that looked more like a smirk.
She lifted her head. “Is there a way around this?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“You could be a down-on-your-luck friend from way back and I’m giving you a break till you find your feet,” she suggested, leaning back against her chair. It sounded good, even to her ears.
Rusty shook his head. “It’s not going to work,” he stated.
“And may I ask why?”
“While you might give me a job and even a place to stay, it would seem kind of odd if I’m going everywhere with you.”
She thought about it and had to admit he was right. “So what do you suggest then?”
“If we really want to provide a realistic cover, I’d say live-in lovers would be our best bet.”
Hope could not help herself, she laughed.
“Care to share the joke?”
She saw the steely look in his eyes and brought herself under control. She shook her head. “It would never fly,” she said at last.
“I’m not live-in lover material?” he asked with a small smile that said he knew otherwise.
She took a sweeping glance over his body and swallowed a sigh. She really liked what she saw and if things had been different, she would not have minded getting her hands on that body. However, things were what they were and she could never bring herself to get physically intimate with a man that judged her before he even knew her, no matter how attractive he may be.
She sobered up. “First of all, we work together and I never sleep with those I work with. All my staff know that so it would seem odd if I’m suddenly shacking up with my new assistant. Secondly, I do not do live-in lovers. I value my space too much for that.”
What she did not add was that she never did repeat performances. She was the queen of one-night stands. She did not need a lot of sex to function and her dildo helped her take the edge off. But when she needed the real thing, which was about four times a year, she always picked a different person. The thought of her having a lover living in her house, waking up to the same person each day was so ludicrous, she almost laughed again.
“I’m sorry, that just…” she shook her head. “It’s not gonna work.”
“You need to think of something then,” he said, all humor gone out of his eyes.
Hope thought about it. She was Hope Conran. Their dating site was doing very well. Actually, it was doing better than well and their financial advisors were already putting pressure on them to go public. Hers was a name that was easily recognized, much to her dismay. She got a ton of fan mail, some of them really weird, like the dude who had sent her his penis cup, athletic protector thing. She hadn’t even known that was a thing.
With that in mind, she did not think it would be out of place for her to hire a bodyguard. That could be easily explained away and folks at the office would buy it.
“I’m thinking that having a bodyguard may not be such a bad idea,” she said at last.
“I disagree. It would alert the person behind this and we don’t want to do that.”
“Hear me out. Lately I’ve been receiving some weird shit in the mail so it won’t be hard to spread the story of a stalker.” She could instruct Derek to subtly ensure that the story went round the office.
“What kind of shit?”
“Just the other day I got some guy’s athletic cup.”
“Seriously?”
“Sadly, yes.” Hope said in amusement. “So Yeah. With the intruder the other day, it shouldn’t be hard to spin things so it looks as though I’m being stalked by a crazed fan.”
Rusty nodded thoughtfully. “That could work.”
“Sure is a damn sight better than the live-in lover idea,” she said dryly.
His lips twitched in wry amusement. “You really do a lot for my ego.”
“Yeah, well…if that’s settled, I really need to get back to work.” She was not going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole. His ego was healthier than that of the average male. In her opinion, he thought too much of himself and needed bringing down a peg or two.
But something else bothered Hope. It was how easy it had been to laugh with him. Sure there was a bit of tension, and they’d butted heads over some stuff, but that was only natural since they were both strong personalities. She had enjoyed his company, and that disturbed her a lot.
She met his gaze as he stood to his feet. His amber eyes were cool and distant. He’d received the message she’d passed.
“I’ll need to know your itinerary,” he said.
Hope nodded and watched him stride out of her office. Once the door was closed, she reached for her phone to confirm her appointment with her therapist. Once that was done, she thought about checking in on Jared and giving him an update on the meeting with Rusty, but on second thought, she decided to hold off. She needed to stop being so dependent on the man. Still, he was the only family she had. Apart from him, she had no one else. Even the friends she’d made in college had drifted off after a while.
With a sigh, she put her phone away. The newsletter for the week needed to go out later that night. As soon as it was ready, they would schedule it. She had noticed a problem with the new design of the newsletter and needed to sort that out before the end of the day.
For the next few hours, Hope forgot about the threatening message that was embedded in her code, she forgot about the handsome, if infuriating, bodyguard she’d just acquired, forgot about everything else as she focused on the User Experience and User Interface of the newsletter design. This was her life. It was who she was. And if she sometimes got lonely or felt a little unfulfilled, she was not going to dwell on that.
Chapt
er Seven
Rusty sat in the office just outside Hope’s and lost himself in the code that was the company’s site. He knew he could not get more than a cursory glance at the backend, he would take the time to comb through it later that night. If there was one thing Rusty knew for sure, it was that hackers often left a trail. No matter how hard they tried to cover up their trail, it was impossible not to leave one. The really clever hackers tried to manipulate things to make it look like someone else had done the hacking.
He had received priority access from Hope and was deep inside her code. His focus was the area that had been breached. It was a low level area, but he knew that with time, it could be used to gain access to other high level servers. He needed time to be able to find exactly what he was looking for.
“Hi, I got you some coffee.”
He looked up to find Derek standing beside his table with a cup of hot coffee.
“Thanks.” He hadn’t been expecting that.
Seeing his surprise, Derek smiled ruefully. “Don’t get used to it; this is just my way of saying I’m sorry.”
Rusty lifted a brow. “Ah, for what exactly?”
“You know, seeing all your biceps and that badass thing you have going, I didn’t think for one moment that you could actually be a programmer. I should not have judged you that way and I’m sorry.”
Rusty saw the sincerity in the other man’s eyes. “Nah, it’s cool. I know I don’t look like your average programmer and that’s because I was in the army.”
Derek nodded. “That explains it. So are we good?”
Rusty smiled. “Sure,” he said and watched the other man walk back to his side of the office.
It wasn’t a large office, but it was spacious. There was roughly ten feet between his desk and Derek’s and then a waiting area for guests. Although he’d noticed that there was a coffee room as well as a number of coffee dispensers within the building, Derek had his own espresso machine because “I don’t do bourgeois coffee.”
Rusty went back to his work, but his mind was no longer in it. Derek was the closest staff to Hope, in proximity at least. So it would be a great idea to have him close and if he was an enemy, it would be easier to track his activities. “Can I tell you something?” Rusty asked, getting to his feet and moving over to Derek’s table.
Silver Shield Security Box Set Page 80