Boss's Plus-One Demand
Autorzy
Louise Fuller
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15,3K
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10
CHAPTER ONE
‘IF YOU’D LIKE to follow me, Ms Truitt. Mr Carver is waiting for you in the members’ lounge.’
The man in the suit turned and Sydney Truitt followed him. She had no idea where she was. She had been picked up at the airport and then driven by limousine into an underground car park. But this must be some kind of private club, she thought as she followed the man in the suit along the wood-panelled corridor.
He stopped in front of a door, knocked briskly and then opened it and took a step back to allow her to pass. ‘Mr Carver will see you now.’
At first she thought the room was empty, but then she saw him.
As Harris Carver rose to his feet and walked towards her, she felt her shoulders tense. Up until now, most of her clients had been smaller businesses, but there weren’t many businesses as big as HCI.
‘Ms Truitt.’ He held out his hand and she shook it. ‘Thank you for meeting me here, and for signing the NDA. I know it must all feel a little “cloak and dagger” but, given my position, it’s best, I find, to err on the side of caution.’
She smiled politely. ‘Of course. And thank you for considering me for the contract, although I’m not actually sure what it is I’m being considered for.’ The phone call had been brief and vague enough that she had been slightly afraid that they had called the wrong person.
‘It’s a short-term contract. Just three days but you will be handsomely rewarded for your time. Take a seat.’
‘Could I just ask why you’ve approached me? It’s just there are bigger and better-known people who do what I do—’ She could think of at least two firms of white hat hackers here in New York who could carry out a legitimate ‘attack’ on HCI to find and fix any possible security issues within its network, and yet he had chosen her.
He shrugged. ‘I had a shortlist of suitable candidates. Everyone was on a par skill-wise but it was your background that gave you the edge.’ He hesitated and then he smiled, a predatory smile that made her whole body grow still and tense. ‘You see, I need someone who is not just technically capable but who is, how can I put it?’ He paused. ‘Ah, yes, ethically flexible. Growing up in your family would suggest you have that quality.’
‘My family?’ She frowned. This wasn’t how these conversations normally went. ‘What do you know about my family?’
He held her gaze. ‘This contract is sensitive. I needed to know that you would be fit for purpose, so I had my people take a closer look. Don’t worry. They’re thorough but discreet.’ Still holding her gaze, he paused, his face expressionless. ‘Unlike your brothers, who seem to have made quite a name for themselves with the local law enforcement in your home town.’
He was right. All three of her brothers had followed the same well-trodden path as their father and uncles. Only, that was the problem. They had the wrong role models and even before they could walk or talk, people had made assumptions about them. But they didn’t know them as she did. Just because they had criminal records didn’t mean they were bad to the bone, because they weren’t. Far from it.
‘My brothers are not—’ she began, but he held up his hands placatingly.
‘I’m not judging, just stating the facts, which are that they have broken the law and are now facing the consequences. I’m sure you must be anxious to help them, but help is so expensive, I find. The good kind anyway. The kind that delivers the required result. Which is why I think you’re the perfect fit for this job.’ He paused again, his grey gaze sweeping over her assessingly. ‘I think you are someone who can help me.’
She swallowed. ‘Help you do what?’
‘It’s a business matter. Tiger McIntyre has stolen something from me. A piece of intellectual property. I want it back. I need it back so that I can prove he did what he will undoubtedly deny doing. Which means I need someone on the inside. Someone who can pose as an employee while she hacks into his server.’
Harris Carver’s voice faded and thinned, swallowed up by the heavy, persistent thud of her heartbeat. He wanted her to pose as an employee? Was he out of his mind? Tiger McIntyre had a reputation for being as fearsome and ruthless as his namesake. And as beautiful. Her pulse accelerated. Not that she had met him, but she had seen his picture often enough that she could almost picture his sculpted face and arresting gaze.
‘It will mean crossing a line so I understand if that’s giving you pause for thought.’
Harris Carver was leaning forward slightly and she blinked, trying to refocus her mind.
‘You’re a very wealthy, powerful man, Mr Carver, so I wanted to give you the chance to pretend that I misunderstood what you were suggesting. Because it’s not just crossing a line, it’s illegal.’
He held her gaze for a few uncomfortable seconds and she had to clench her jaw to stop herself from looking away.
‘Something which your family knows all about.’
She got to her feet unsteadily. This was not who she was. It was not even who her brothers were, deep down. Only explaining that would mean revealing more than she was willing to do, had ever done, because even just thinking about it still had the power to make her shake inside.
‘But I’m not my family so I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline your offer because if I get caught it would ruin my reputation—’
‘Then don’t get caught.’ She felt her muscles tense as Harris Carver typed something onto his phone and then held it out so that she could see the numbers flashing on the screen.
‘Just so you know how appreciative I would be.’
Her eyes widened. That was a lot of money.
‘Very appreciative,’ he said then, and he touched the screen of his phone lightly.
She blinked. Okay, that was a lot of zeroes. It was more money than she had earned in the last year. For a couple of days’ work. It would pay for a good lawyer. Actually it would pay for the best lawyer in the country, she thought, her stomach knotting fiercely with relief and hope. It would mean she could keep her brothers from a life behind bars and how could she not want that? They had freed her from a different kind of prison, and yet this was a line she had never crossed or wanted to cross,
She shook her head. ‘Even if I didn’t get caught, I wouldn’t be comfortable with what you’re asking me to do.’
‘Why?’ There was a note in Harris Carver’s voice that she couldn’t place. ‘Tiger McIntyre is no angel. From the outside, he looks like a winner but winning comes at a price. Yes, he’s smart and determined, I’ll give you that. He works hard but he also breaks the rules. Cuts corners. Crosses those lines that you’re being so squeamish about. There is nothing he wouldn’t do to get ahead. No one he wouldn’t trample over to reach his goal. If you don’t believe me, just read the Internet.’
He was telling the truth, she thought slowly, picturing Tiger McIntyre’s intense, challenging gaze. McIntyre had a reputation for sidestepping laws and using any number of dubious tactics to get ahead. He took what he wanted and he got away with it because of his looks and his wealth and his power. Unlike her brothers, he never had to suffer the consequences of his actions. But maybe it was time he did.
‘You don’t need to feel bad about this, Ms Truitt. Believe me, this isn’t the first time Tiger McIntyre has taken something of mine. But it will be the last,’ Harris Carver said, leaning forward, and such was the venom in his voice that she had to press herself deep into the seat to stop herself from flinching.
Steadying her breathing, she cleared her throat. ‘You said this was business, Mr Carver, but it’s sounding awfully personal to me.’
There was a short, pulsing silence as he leaned back languidly against the cushions. ‘Oh, it’s personal, all right. You see, I know McIntyre is a thief, but he’s picked the wrong person to steal from this time. So, first I want you to find what he stole, and get it back for me.’ The grey eyes had narrowed on her face. ‘And then I’m going to ruin him.’
‘So what was your gut feeling? Did we get it or not?’
Shifting back in his seat, Tiger McIntyre let the question from Nathan Park, his head of research and development, hang in the air. He knew the answer, of course. He always knew the answer. It was one of the reasons he had risen so far and so fast, turning his father’s failed business into one of the front runners in the race for off-world mining.
It was a growing industry now, the exploration of the moon, but McIntyre was leading the race. Not just leading. Its AI-powered robots were lapping its rivals. Or all but one of them.
He tilted his head to let his gaze drift up past the endless blue of the stratosphere. Sometimes he dreamed about living on the moon. Of course, there would be negatives. But up there he would be able to just stop and pause for a moment, sit back and enjoy the view, because surely the demons that drove him ever onwards would be unable to follow into space.
But until then—
‘On balance, yes.’ He turned back towards Park, a slight smile pulling at his mouth. ‘We have everything they want. Everything they need.’
In truth, there was only one other serious contender for this historic and extremely lucrative contract with the space agency. HCI. No surprise there, he thought, his lip curling. He and Harris Carver had been rivals for more than a decade now and their ongoing duel looked likely to extend into the foreseeable future and off-earth.
But then Harris had all the credentials. The college education, the astronaut father, the intergenerational cosmic bond. Whereas he had nothing.
Now was not the time to let Carver take up any more of his thoughts. In fact, he didn’t want to think. Big meetings always made him horny as hell. It was that mix of adrenaline and testosterone. But currently he was in the usual state of being single so sex was out of the question, unless he could face calling one of his exes.
‘Excuse me, Mr McIntyre.’ It was the steward. ‘Just to let you know that we will be landing in roughly twenty minutes so if you could fasten your seat belt.’
He nodded, but instead of buckling up, he reached for his phone and scrolled down the list of numbers. When he was younger, it had been different. Back then he had been happy just to casually hook up with women when he wanted sex.
He let his gaze drift back towards the window. Of course, that was no longer an option. He was too wealthy, too high profile. His security people would have a meltdown. So these days it was simpler to have a long-term but impermanent girlfriend. Although the friend part was a little inaccurate. He didn’t do friends, female or male, not since college when he and Harris had fallen out big time and he had realised that trusting anyone, even someone you thought of as a brother, was riskier than firing a rocket into space. Although, truthfully, Harris had come late to that particular party. Watching his father’s car crash of a love life over the best part of two decades had made it clear to him that the downside of relationships, particularly the romantic kind, was too high a price to pay.
But he was always upfront about what he wanted, which was exclusivity coupled with an understanding that the relationship was never going to end with an exchange of rings in front of witnesses.
And it worked. Okay, he only really saw them for sex and special events, but as his ‘girlfriend’ they got an entrée into his world and, besides, he always made his intentions clear from the beginning. It wasn’t his fault that they assumed he would change or that it would be different with them.
Sometimes they got clingy, wanting him to meet their family or to get a place together, and that was a signal to end things. Other times, they would lose patience or their temper and break up with him. Either way, it wasn’t a problem.
Usually.
But sometimes the timing was bad. Like now.
His hand tightened around the mobile. This year had been insane, in a good way. The business had doubled its profit in the first quarter and tripled it by the third. He had more than earned a vacation and typically he would head off to Italy, to his private island in the Venetian lagoon, and, in his opinion, September was the best month to visit. Temperatures were still warm but the summer glut of tourists had mostly left and Venice reverted to being the elusive, poetic city he loved.
And then there was the Regata Storica.
The regata was the social event of the year in the billionaires’ social calendar. Coming hot on the heels of the Monaco Yacht Show, it started with a spectacular pageant on the waters of the famous lagoon and ended with the Colombina masked ball, which was the biggest charitable fundraising event in Europe. Graced by monarchs, heads of state, A-list celebrities and the top one per cent. It would be unthinkable not to attend, particularly as this year he was sponsoring a boat.
But to go alone would be even more unthinkable. For a man like him, a beautiful woman was as essential as an expensive watch or a pair of handmade shoes. It wasn’t an ego thing. He didn’t want or need anyone’s approbation. It was more that perfection was intimidating. It kept people at arm’s length and that was how he liked it.
Which left him with a problem.
Alexandra, the latest in his string of ex-girlfriends, was still seething at his decision to unceremoniously end things a few weeks ago. Frankly, though, he couldn’t imagine asking her or any of his other exes anyway. Usually, he just asked whoever he was dating at the time, but if he invited them specifically then they would inevitably misread his intentions whatever he said.
What he needed was a woman who would behave like a girlfriend and then just walk away uncomplainingly. In other words, an escort, except he hadn’t ever and would never pay a woman to be his date.
Face it, he told himself. The woman you need doesn’t exist and there is no point in hoping you’re going to find her.
She was a creature of fantasy and, unlike his father, he was a man who dealt in facts, not feelings. And as he started to fasten his seat belt, he wondered once again if life might not be simpler on the moon.
Glancing up at the bank of clocks mounted on the wall opposite her desk, Sydney felt her heart accelerate. All of them showed different times. It was seven p.m. in Moscow, midnight in Beijing and five p.m. in London. Here in New York, it was only midday but the fact remained that she was running out of time. This was her last day working for the McIntyre Corporation and if she didn’t deliver her end of the bargain to Harris Carver then she wouldn’t get paid, and if she didn’t get paid...
Her shoulders tensed against the back of her chair.
She could still hear the panic beneath the bravado in her brother Connor’s voice when he’d called her from the police station. ‘It’s bad, Syd. They’re saying it could be one to five years for all of us.’ He paused, then cleared his throat. ‘Including Tate.’
Selling and buying stolen car parts was not the worst crime in the world. But it was not her brothers’ first offence. They had been in trouble since the day they could walk, always stupid stuff, avoidable stuff that made their mates laugh.
Until that day when she had called Connor on the phone she had stolen from ex-husband, Noah, and they had driven to Nevada to rescue her and ended up getting arrested for assault. They hadn’t hurt Noah. They had wanted to, but, in the end, it was she who had pushed him. She was the one who had punched and kicked him. And in his fury and spite, he had accused them of assaulting him because he knew that would hurt her the most.
And she could have saved them then. She could have gone to the police and told them the truth, but she had been so ashamed of her bruises, so ashamed of her weakness, and her brothers had felt so guilty that they hadn’t protected her, that they’d admitted to something that wasn’t true. Which meant that thanks to her all three of them had a record for assault.
One to five years in jail. Connor would probably be okay. He was the oldest and knew how to handle himself. Her middle brother, Jimmy, had a smart mouth but he made people laugh so he might get by. But Tate...
Suddenly it was hard to breathe past the lump in her throat. Tate was the youngest of her three brothers. Just ten months older than her. They had been in the same year at school and she knew him inside out. Knew definitively that he wouldn’t survive prison. All her brothers were magnets for trouble and not given to deep thinking, but Tate was softer than the others.
He couldn’t go to prison. None of them could. And it was her responsibility to make sure they didn’t. They had rescued her, saved her, in fact, and she was going to save them. But for that to happen, they needed a lawyer and not just the usual run-of-the-mill sort assigned by the court. She needed someone fierce and smart, which meant expensive. And that wouldn’t be the only cost. If they managed by some miracle to avoid prison time, they would all be facing hefty fines.
Which was why she had taken this temping job at McIntyre.
Her gaze dropped to the ID badge hanging around her neck.
For her the hardest part wasn’t having to live a lie. She had done that when she was with Noah. Kept the big secret of their marriage. It was just there was so much more riding on this than any other job. This was about more than money or her reputation as a white hat. It was about giving her brothers a second chance.
And you can do this, she told herself again. It was what she did every day for other businesses across the country. Tiptoeing her way around their cyber-security systems, using reverse-engineering malware to break down lines of code so that she could figure out how a virus worked and how to stop it.
Self-taught, she had worked hard to break into the industry and her business, Orb Weaver, was growing fast, and she wanted it to keep growing, which was why she had agreed to meet Carver in the first place.
And now she was working for the two biggest fish in the pond, only neither job was what she had imagined herself doing.
Gazing across the office to Tiger McIntyre’s empty office, Sydney shivered. She still wasn’t entirely sure that she had made the right choice. But she was here at the McIntyre headquarters off Fifth Avenue legitimately employed as an administrative assistant called Sierra Jones. And once she found the IP and returned to Carver, she would be paid. Far more money than was legitimately due for her services.
But then what she was doing wasn’t exactly legitimate.
‘You okay, Sierra?’
Her colleague, Abi, was staring at her uncertainly. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
She pasted a smile on her face. ‘I’m fine. I just remembered I forgot to eat breakfast,’ she lied.
Abi rolled her eyes. ‘I always forget to eat lunch when he’s in the building. I just get so nervous I’m going to mess up.’
There was no need to ask who ‘he’ was. He was the boss. Tiger McIntyre. Christened Tadhg but given his nickname because of his ferocious, single-minded pursuit of success, he was a man who had never encountered failure.
But Carver was right. He wasn’t a good person.
She had done her research. If Tiger McIntyre had been Connor or Jimmy or Tate, he would have faced far stricter penalties and public censure for a whole bunch of things he’d done. Like when he’d failed to divulge the purchase of shares in a rival company within the required legal time limits. It seemed trivial until you realised that the delay saved him millions. Or, to put it another way, it cost the stockholders whose shares he’d bought that same amount.
Time and time again, McIntyre had got his way with regulators and officials through bravado and intimidation, often backed by his numerous supporters who made their allegiance known en masse via social media.
So how did he get away with it? Pursing her lips, Sydney tipped her head back slightly to gaze up at the ceiling so that the huge glass-walled office belonging to the CEO was no longer in eyeshot.
Easy. He was rich and powerful. He had people at his disposal who could spin the story so that all those boring regulators and boards with their incomprehensible titles were not gatekeepers of fair play but fussy, hair-splitting enemies of progress.
And now she was one of the people at his disposal.
Not that she had ever met Tiger McIntyre in person. That was the one positive. He was out of the office breaking rules in Zurich or London or Beijing and wasn’t due back until after she left.
‘Hi, Sierra.’
She looked up, glad for the distraction. This time it was Hannah. She was holding a tray with a covered plate, a glass and some cutlery wrapped in a napkin.
‘You need to take this to him.’
‘Him?’ Sydney frowned. ‘Who?’
‘The boss, of course.’
The boss! Her stomach went into freefall. Later she would wonder whether it was stress or stupidity that made her question Hannah because obviously there was only one ‘him’. Then again, it was an understandable mistake to make. Surely it was reasonable to expect some fanfare if Tiger McIntyre had arrived in the building?
‘Sierra?’ Now Hannah was frowning. ‘Are you listening? Mr McIntyre is back and he wants you to take him his lunch, so if you wouldn’t mind—’
She held out the tray.
Sydney stared at her, her heart rate picking up like one of her brothers’ souped-up cars. He must know something. A man as important as he wouldn’t ordinarily even notice someone like her. Or was having to lead a double life just making her see threats where there were none? It was hard to say. All she knew for sure was that with every passing hour she was feeling more on edge, like an antelope leaping out of its skin every time it heard a twig snap.
She cleared her throat. ‘Why does he want me to take it in?’ It was one thing working here, quite another to walk into the lion’s den.
‘What?’ Hannah frowned. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he can see how busy the rest of us are? Just put it on his desk.’ She jerked her head towards the towering drinks fridge. ‘And take a bottle of mineral water in too. Still, not sparkling. Get one from the back. He likes it well chilled.’
‘Should I say something to him?’
Hannah looked horrified. ‘No, absolutely not. Oh, and don’t touch anything.’
There was no escape, and during the short walk to Tiger McIntyre’s office her panic intensified, not helped by the glimpse she caught of herself in the glass of his door. She looked flustered and nervous.
Not that it mattered. It wasn’t as if she were here to seduce McIntyre. Wasn’t looking to seduce anyone, period.
Taking a breath, Sydney tapped lightly on the door and pushed it open. At first, she thought the huge office was empty, but then she saw him. He was standing at the window, reading something on his phone, and as she stared at his back, her breath caught in her throat and she felt a ripple of panic and guilt scuttle down her spine in the same way it did whenever she saw the blue and white flashing lights of a police car glide past her family home.
But why should she feel guilty? Okay, legally what she was doing was dubious but in essence she was righting a wrong. For all his fancy tailoring and handmade shoes, this man was a bigger criminal than her brothers. All she was doing was helping to expose that.
Keeping her eyes focused straight ahead, she walked swiftly across the room. She slid the plate onto his desk, and then, holding her breath, she unscrewed the bottle and poured out a glass of water.
‘We haven’t met, have we?’
It was a simple enough question, but Sydney felt the back of her neck prickle at the sound of the deep, masculine voice, and she turned sharply towards its owner.
For a moment, all she could do was stare. Her heart beat in her throat and her skin seemed suddenly too tight and hot, because Tiger McIntyre was no longer just a photo on her laptop, he was here in the flesh, all six feet three inches of him.
‘No, we haven’t. I only started two days ago.’ She watched mutely as he began to walk towards her.
‘What’s your name?’ he said, pocketing his phone.
‘Sierra,’ she said quickly. ‘Sierra Jones.’
As if to expose the lie, the name, which she had chosen because it shared the first syllable with her own, crackled like popping candy on her tongue and her stomach fluttered as he looked at her closely, narrowed eyes appraising her in a way that made her feel as though he were looking beneath her skin, seeing into her soul.
Under any other circumstances it wouldn’t have been a comfortable feeling.
But she barely noticed because she was still reeling from the shock of his beauty. Although it shouldn’t have been a shock because she already knew what he looked like. Even before she had done her research, scouring the Internet for stories of his unscrupulous and line-blurring behaviour, his face had been familiar, but she had assumed the pictures she’d seen of him had been edited to flatter or that the camera had caught him on a good day.
But the truth was that none of the images she had seen did him justice. His face was arrestingly, astonishingly beautiful with a clean jawline and high sculpted cheekbones that would grace the pages of any Renaissance artist’s sketchbook. And those eyes—
On her laptop, they looked light brown, but in person and up close, they were gold like the sun, only they lacked the sun’s warmth. Instead, they were hard and glittering and unreadable.
Her own eyes skated across his face. Everything about him was hard, uncompromising, even his mouth. And yet for some reason there was something undeniably sensual about the shape of his lips, so that even though they were currently set in a line she could imagine them softening to fit against hers. The thought made her heart jerk forward and, to cover her reaction, she held out her hand.
‘I’m not permanent. I’m covering for Maddie.’
As his eyes locked on hers, she swore silently. What was she doing? She was supposed to be keeping her head down. Not drawing attention to herself.
‘I see,’ he said slowly, taking her hand in what must surely be a reflex action, but as his fingers wrapped around hers she felt a sharp shock like electricity and she jerked free of his grip.
‘Sorry, it’s static,’ she said quickly. ‘I get it sometimes from the keyboard.’
He stared at her for so long that she thought she had missed his reply, but then he said in that same smooth, deep voice, ‘Are you enjoying working here?’
‘Yes.’ Smiling slightly, she nodded, because it wasn’t a total lie. She liked her colleagues and, if things were different, she might have enjoyed being Sierra for real, aside from the heels. Walking in them required the use of muscles she hadn’t known she had and it was a miracle she hadn’t broken her neck. But like the manicure and the designer handbag, they were part of her Sierra costume. And she would be glad to go back to being herself. Leading a double life was giving her sleepless nights. Frankly, she would be happy when five o’clock came and she would be able to put this chapter of her life behind her and get her life and, more importantly, her brothers’ lives back on track.
She owed them that. Owed them her freedom, and a life lived without fear.
She nodded. ‘Everyone here has been very kind and helpful.’
Two tiny lines formed a crease in the centre of his forehead and his burnished gaze got more intense. ‘You’re a long way from home, Ms Jones.’
Her stomach lurched sideways like a boat hit by a rogue wave. ‘I’m sorry—’ She tried to keep the panic out of her voice but she felt it wash over her anyway.
‘California, isn’t it?’
How did he know that? She lifted a hand to her suddenly pounding heart, feeling the trap snap shut.
His mouth tugged up minutely at one corner. ‘We have a research and development test site up in the hills so I’ve spent a lot of time there and I recognised your accent. I’m guessing San Francisco.’
As relief flooded her, she managed to make her smile stay in place. ‘Los Angeles.’
‘Ah, the city of angels,’ he said slowly. ‘Ever visited New York before?’ As she shook her head, his gaze moved past her to his desk and then back to her face. ‘May I?’
His grip didn’t hurt but when it came to physical contact she liked to be in control. Only she was still dizzy and off balance from this sudden breach of her invisibility, so when he took her elbow and steered her towards the window, she didn’t pull away the way she normally did when someone touched her without warning or permission.
She could feel the calluses on his fingers, so that story about him working in the mines was true. For some reason that surprised her. She had thought it was just spin, propaganda designed to reinforce his status as the ordinary working man made good.
‘This is the only way to see New York,’ he said softly, and then he let go of her arm and she felt suddenly confused and angry because for the first time in years she hadn’t minded being touched. On the contrary, she could feel herself leaning into his orbit, and her skin was quivering, itching to feel the warm, firm grip of his fingers again.
And not just on her arm.
Her pulse was a smooth, dizzying drum roll of panic and something else. Something deeper, more dangerous. Something she couldn’t name. But it didn’t need a name, apparently, to make her breath back up in her throat and her mind go blank as if everything she knew were gone, lost, forgotten, irrelevant. As if this was the moment when her life started. And although she knew that was absurd, she also knew it was true.
‘So why did you leave LA? Was it a whim or did you have a particular reason?’
Yes, she thought. His name was Noah and he had almost broken her. He had taken her away from her family and friends. First to a flat and then to a tiny, isolated house far from any neighbours.
Far enough that nobody would hear her screams.
She still had the scars from their time together, although his cruelty had not been restricted to physical violence, so some were not ever visible. The bruises from when she had exhausted his patience and he had twisted her arm until she’d thought it would snap, they had faded. The hair he had pulled out had grown back.
There was one burn mark on her arm that had faded to a dull sheen and, of course, the implant she wore to replace the tooth he had knocked out, but it was the scars beneath the surface that had lingered longest and had left the most damage. That quiet rage that was always with her. Rage and a stifling shame at having been that woman. There was fear too that it could happen again. That she hadn’t seen the signs then or had wilfully chosen to ignore them. And not understanding why she had let that happen meant that it could happen again.
Noah and the fear his name provoked was the reason she hadn’t dated in five years.
‘No, not really,’ she lied. ‘I just wanted a change of scenery.’
For a moment, his molten eyes rested on her face and she had that same strange feeling that he was seeing inside her head, and she felt a rush of panic. She had never planned on meeting Tiger in person, but now she was in his office, making polite chit-chat with him while lying to his face and stealing from him. It was both surreal and nerve-racking. Every word felt charged, and she was terrified she was going to give herself away.
‘Well,’ she said stiffly after a taut, electric moment she didn’t understand but felt everywhere. ‘I should probably be getting back.’ But she didn’t move, didn’t look away from him even though she knew that she should because it was this man, it was him, Tiger McIntyre. He was making her feel this way. Making her drop her guard, making her ache—
‘Of course. Don’t let me keep you from your work.’ He was already turning away. ‘Oh, just for the record. My preference is for undressed.’
‘Sorry.’ She blinked as his gaze arrowed in on her in a way that made her body feel taut and loose at the same time.
‘The salad. They’ve put dressing on it. I prefer it without.’
Her heart had somehow shifted to her throat, and she stared at him, trying to breathe around it. Was this for real? Did he actually care about his salad? Or was he just making conversation to keep her here? She felt another flicker of panic. Focus, she told herself. Focus on why you’re here. Who you’re doing it for.
‘Sorry, I didn’t know. Would you like me to get you another one?’
But before he could reply, his phone started to ring and he retrieved it from his pocket and switched from English to what sounded like Japanese. His eyes shuttered and he turned away and, recognising dismissal, she turned and walked swiftly out of his office.
For the rest of the day, she kept one eye on her computer screen and the other on the door to Tiger McIntyre’s office. Throughout the afternoon, there was a revolving door of suited executives arriving and leaving his office. Occasionally she would catch a glimpse of the man they had all come to see and she would force her gaze back to her computer.
At some point, Hannah had come over to show her the pictures from her wedding-dress fitting. Staring down at the slideshow of frothy white dresses, Sydney had suddenly felt her skin on her face warm without reason and, glancing up, she had almost bitten the inside of her cheek as her eyes had collided with the shimmering gold gaze of Tiger McIntyre and she had felt that same jolt as before, only this time he hadn’t even been touching her.
Not her, Sierra, she’d told herself quickly. As Sydney, she disapproved of Tiger. His behaviour. His abuse of privilege and power. As Sydney, she would never feel that strange, ungovernable pull of yearning or wonder.
After that she had kept her focus steady on her screen.
Not that it had mattered. It appeared that quietly and without her permission something inside her had turned itself towards him.
She was switching between screens now. The first was for the work she was doing as Sierra Jones, but she had a second incognito screen where she was working through the list of images, searching for the digital fingerprint that Harris Carver had sent her of his IP. It had taken her less than five hours to bypass the firewalls, but the fingerprint had offered not one image but nine hundred and fifty-three.
It was fine. She had come up with a workaround that had reduced that number to just under two hundred. So, assuming there was no other glitch, she would be walking out of here at five-thirty p.m. Then all she had to do was hand over the flash drive to Carver. It was a bit old school but it would leave no trail. Or not one that could be traced back to him.
Glancing up, she scanned the desks. The office was surprisingly empty this evening. Yesterday and the day before there had been quite a few people hanging around but tonight it was just her.
And Tiger McIntyre.
Her pulse twitched as she glanced over at his office to where she could just see his outline dark against the fading light. It was as if her eyes were being pulled to him by some magnetic force and, gritting her teeth, she glanced back down at the computer and switched screens again. Please be done, she prayed silently. But there were still ninety images to go.
Why was it taking so long? Her hands were clammy and her fingers felt fat and clumsy as she picked up her phone and her water bottle and slid them into her bag.
How much time did she have left before she had to be out of the building?
When she glanced up again, her heart stopped beating. Just stopped.
Tiger McIntyre had left his office and was walking towards her and there was something purposeful about him, an intensity of focus that made her pull out the flash drive as a tiny flicker of foreboding snaked down her spine. In one smooth movement, she pocketed it, shut down the screen and got to her feet and, stomach somersaulting, she made her way between the desks to the elevator.
‘Come on, come on,’ she murmured, her heart a dark thud against her ribs, pressing the button frantically. But it was too late. A shadow blocked the light and she turned to find Tiger McIntyre standing beside her, the dark gold gleam of his gaze rooting her to the spot.
‘Sierra, I need you to come with me.’ There was a warning edge of steel to the softness in his voice and she couldn’t breathe for a moment. ‘You and I are going to have a little chat.’
To his left, she could see the exit sign for the staircase and it was almost impossible to stop herself from ducking under his arm and making a bolt for safety.
Not that there was such a thing for her any more, she realised in that moment with a shiver. Once an apex predator caught its prey, the chances of escape were somewhere between remote and zero.
‘Is there a problem?’ she said, trying not to sound as panicky as she felt.
He didn’t reply.
He didn’t need to. The hard curve to his mouth and the two security guards hovering discreetly against the walls did it for him. Instead, he jerked his thumb in the direction of his office. That was the last place on earth she wanted to be but what choice did she have? And after a moment she turned and began to walk back the way she had come, only this time with Tiger following a pace behind, his golden gaze boring into her back, muscular body moving with the smooth, silent, slow-motion grace of his namesake.
