Hate to Love You Strong Brothers #4)

by Ajme Williams

  I stepped in her path to block her way. I worked to keep my tone even. "Where are you heading?"

  She stopped short, looking at me with those dark eyes. "I'm not sure."

  I cocked my head not understanding her meaning. Over my shoulder, something caught her gaze. I turned to look. Marcus Chen was walking towards us.

  Anger flared. "You're supposed to be working," I said.

  She pursed her lips and got that fiery gleam in her eye that in the past had charged me up. Now it just pissed me off.

  "I am working. He's a part of this business."

  "What are you some sort of Mata Hari? You can get information from him through pillow talk." Even as the words left my lips, I knew they were heinous, but I couldn't stop myself.

  Andi didn't slap me, but I knew she wanted to.

  Instead of giving me that well-deserved slap, she put on a sweet smile for Marcus as he stepped up to use.

  "Ms. Walker, you look like you're ready for an adventure." He took her hand, bringing it to her lips. I had to shove my hands in my pockets to keep from punching him in that smarmy polished face.

  "Yes, I'm eager to see the sights. And please call me Andi." She said with extra sweetness in her tone. Did she really prefer this guy over me? Was all this a show to get under my skin, or was she really into this man?

  "Noah, how are you today?" Marcus asked, extending his hand out to shake with mine. It didn’t escape my notice that he called me by my first name and Andi by her last. It was disrespectful and designed to make me feel small. Was he doing that because of Andi, or because I was the youngest, least involved Strong in the family business?

  The reason didn’t matter. I could hold my own.

  He winced slightly as I gripped his hand tightly. "I’m doing good Marcus. Thank you."

  I thought about pulling rank and preventing her from going out with him, except I had to consider that maybe she really was going to pick his brain about who would want to sabotage us. I hated her seeing him, but she’d always been committed and loyal to Gran. I had to trust her if my grandmother did.

  "How's your hacker investigation going?" Marcus asked.

  I narrowed my eyes at him, but held back the comment that he was on my list of suspects. Instead, I decided to give him a little teaser and see how he'd react. "I'm getting close."

  His expression didn't reveal anything. "I have no doubt that you'll find out who's behind all this. Sooner or later."

  I tried to avoid frowning because that last part of his comment made me stop. Sooner or later? Did that mean something? At some point was the hacker going to reveal himself? When he did, would it be too late for us to do anything about it?

  Andi strung her arm through Marcus's and plastered on that fake smile of hers. "Marcus is going to show me Hong Kong. Since you've already seen it, and you have other work to do, I figured you wouldn’t want to join us."

  Once again, I considered mixing that idea, but instead I plastered on my own fake smile. "Of course. Have a good time. I'll handle the call with my grandmother today on my own."

  That last bit was a petty reminder to Andi about where her duty should lie on the off chance she wasn't really going out on an investigative excursion. The fact that her fake smile dropped slightly suggested I was on point.

  I made an over-the-top gesture as I moved out of their way, my arm extending to the door like Jeeves the butler. "Have a lovely afternoon." I made my way to the elevator, hiding my seething anger until the doors shut and the car was moving upstairs.

  I took an hour or so in the suite to get myself back together, and then went to the office. I reminded myself that the faster I found the hacker, the sooner I could go home and be away from Andi and my meddling family.

  Once at the office, I pushed Andi out of my mind and lost myself in the computers. First, I went through each machine, scanning for breaches but not finding anything that stood out. Then I went back through the painstaking work of figuring out where the source of the hack had come from.

  I was so deep in my work I was only vaguely aware when Phil brought me something to eat. I took breaks only to relieve myself and get something to drink, and then once again dove back into the data. The work was tedious, and I had moments of wondering why the hell this was the profession I chose.

  And then there it was. Like a fucking becon, it revealed itself. I took note of the IP address that was the source of the breach, and ran a trace to see its location.

  "Phil!"

  A second later he came rushing in. "You found something?"

  I waited until the information came up. I pointed to the screen where an address for a business popped up. "Do you know this place?"

  Phil came to stand behind me looking over my shoulder as he squinted to the screen. "It looks like a café."

  All of a sudden my triumph dimmed. "A free wifi café?”

  He nodded. “If we have a date and time, there might be cameras." Phil suggested. “We can see who was there around that time. Assuming we’d know him. Even so, if we got a picture, we’d at least have something to go on.”

  I nodded in agreement. "I suppose the good news is that whoever did this is here in Hong Kong. It narrows it down to someone here."

  Phil nodded. "I was a little concerned that perhaps this was coming from somewhere outside too. I’m not sure how we'd deal with that."

  I dug the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. Spending all day staring at a computer screen had taken a toll.

  "Let me see what I can find out about that café. It's nearly dinner time. You go home and get some rest. You look exhausted."

  Checking the café was something I might've put Andi on, except Andi wasn’t here. I'd gone from excited that we were closing in on our hacker, to angry. She better have gotten some helpful information from Marcus.

  Phil offered to give me a ride back to the hotel, but I decided that I wanted to walk. It was a distance, but I needed to excise my anger. I was so close to completing my task and earning my freedom. I couldn't let all these crazy emotions surrounding Andi get in my way.

  But as I walked out the door, Andi still lingered in my brain taking me back to the first time I met her. I’d just graduated from college and convinced my family to let me take a gap year before I started working. I wanted to travel and see the world, and I got the brilliant idea of seeing the United States from the seat of a motorcycle. I bought a beautiful bike and immediately drove to Strong Incorporated to show my brothers.

  As I pulled up in front of the building, there was a woman with long thick dark hair wearing a white gauzy dress that blowing in the wind. She looked like an angel fallen from heaven. So of course, I pulled up right in front of her, like Easy-fucking-Rider.

  I pulled off my helmet and grinned at her. "You look like a woman who needs a ride." Inwardly, I kicked myself because it sounded like the worst sort of pickup line filled with innuendo.

  She gave me a sassy smile like she thought the same thing too. But she didn't look offended. She cocked her hip, putting her hand on it. "I don't need a ride, but it might be fun to take a ride."

  I laughed. I liked this woman. "Hop on."

  She shook her head. "I have to be back here in fifteen minutes. So, it has to be a fast ride."

  I think maybe my cheeks heated at her comment, which was weird. I wasn't prone to blushing. "Fast or slow, any kind ride you want, honey, I'll give it to you."

  She let out a hearty laugh and so did I.

  I held up my hand to hers to help her down from the curb. With her other hand she lifted her dress up along the loveliest creamy thighs I'd ever seen. She hoisted herself on the back of the bike and put the helmet I handed her on.

  She wrapped her arms around me, and I felt a rush. It was different from the rush of the bike. It was even different than the normal rush I might have felt when meeting a woman. It was the type of rush that told me I planned to have many rides on this bike with this woman.

  Fifteen minutes wasn't very long, but
I was able to weave through the traffic and take us out far enough that we could see the ocean.

  My plan was to drive up Highway One, the road that went up along the coast of California. I wondered if I could convince her to go with me. Was she open to adventures? Hell did she have a boyfriend or husband, someone that required her to stay here?

  The roar of the bike made it so that we couldn’t talk. That was something I’d remedy if I had more rides with her because my head was buzzing with questions.

  Fourteen minutes and 59 seconds later I pulled up in front of the Strong building. I parked and helped her off and walked in the building with her.

  "You have business here?" she asked me.

  "Not business exactly. What about you?"

  She gave a little nod and reached over to poke the button for the same floor that my brothers and grandmother worked on. Curious.

  As we rode up, I watched her from the corner of my eye, thinking I needed to ask her name and find out when she’d be done so we could go for another ride. My brothers would wait to see my bike. They’d understand. At least Hunter would. He liked women like I did. Ryan loved work, and Carter’s obsession was travel.

  The car arrived at the floor, and the doors opened. I held my hand out so she could precede me.

  "Hello Miss Walker. You're right on time," my grandmother said to the woman.

  I stepped out of the elevator, stopping short because it didn't seem like it was a good sign that my grandmother knew this woman.

  My grandmother's gaze caught mine and she looked at me in surprise. "Noah, what a surprise."

  She looked at me and then at Andi. "I see you have met my new intern, Amanda Walker."

  Inside all my plans and dreams for an adventure with this angel evaporated.

  A glance at Andi and she looked at me in surprise.

  I extended my hand to her. "How are you? Noah Strong."

  Andi smiled, but I think she sensed that our time together was coming to an end because I could see disappointment on her face.

  "It's nice to meet you," she said, shaking my hand.

  That year she interned with my grandmother, I’d been away most of the time. But once I returned, I ended up seeing her more and more. At first my grandmother had harped on me to come to work for the company, which I didn't want to do but I did offer to help when needed.

  Somehow over the years, the pent-up sexual frustration morphed into an interesting relationship between us. One filled with banter and sexual tension.

  But now that I had touched her, it seemed impossible to not do it again. Over the years I’d gotten to know her, she turned out to be the woman I had first begged her to be; smart, feisty, outspoken, with a tongue that could sting, particularly if I needed it. Some might call me a sadist because sometimes I poked at her just to feel the lash of that tongue. We had about three years of foreplay that finally erupted the other night on the table.

  Of course, all this could be one-sided, I thought as I crossed another street a few blocks from my hotel. She seemed to be into it when I was fucking her, but she didn't seem terribly distraught when I called things off. She was angry because I was being an asshole, but I didn’t get the sense that she disagreed or felt jilted. The fact that she was spending the day with Chen was proof that whatever was between us was purely physical.

  The roll of my heart in my chest, though suggested that maybe there was more to it.

  16

  Andi

  Hong Kong was an amazing exotic bustling city. It was like being in another world. I was loving every minute of my tour. The only thing that could have made a better is if my guide had been Noah instead of Marcus.

  Not that Marcus wasn't a good guide. He knew the city, and had fascinating tales to tell about the variety of places we visited. He was sweet and charming. His manners were impeccable. He was everything that Noah wasn't, which I suppose was the problem.

  I couldn't quite get the look on Noah’s face when he realized Marcus was my escort out of my head. There'd been a moment where I thought Noah might actually physically assault Marcus but then he accused me of not doing my job. He even threw in the fact that he would be talking with Margaret, and I wouldn't be there, making me look like the slacker.

  Why was he being such a jerk? Was he jealous or was he just playing the role of a boss?

  The fact that I wanted him to be jealous was really discombobulating. If he was jealous, that would mean he felt something for me. It was a silly girl’s wish to want a man like Noah to feel something for her. Noah slept with a lot of women, so the fact that he fucked me on my table didn't mean anything. At the same time, he hinted at jealousy right before he touched me.

  I had to remind myself that what he felt didn't matter, since he felt like it was a mistake. I shook my head unable to wrap my brain around any of it.

  "Yoo hoo?" Marcus waved his hand in front of my face. "Are you there?"

  I blinked as I realized I was lost in thought. It was so rude of me to be thinking of Noah while Marcus was showing me a lovely time around Hong Kong.

  "Oh, I'm sorry."

  He arched a brow and stopped us on the path in the garden that we were strolling through. He took my hand and looked at me seriously. "Is everything all right? Are you in trouble with Noah or something?"

  I shook my head. "It’s just worrying over the company and what’s going on."

  "It must be more serious than what Noah is making it out to be. Is there anything I can help with?"

  I was smart enough to know that I couldn't give Marcus any details. At the same time, I thought he might be of some help. He knew the distributors, suppliers, vendors and everyone that Strong Incorporated worked with here in Hong Kong.

  I decided to play coy. "Oh, I don't know how you could help. All that technical stuff goes over my head. I guess I just have to trust that Noah will figure it out."

  Marcus looked at me for a minute. "Yes, of course. But for someone to hack the system, there must be a reason. Are you any closer to figuring that out?"

  I smiled to hide my being uncomfortable. I didn't want him to get any idea that I was trying to get information from him. "Strong Incorporated is known for its integrity. We vet and ensure that everyone we work with has the same sort of integrity. That's why we’re working with you," I said, hoping the flattery would get me somewhere. "It's frustrating to think that somebody would betray not just our trust, but the end consumers that are the ones who are going to be paying the price or the small businesses who are also paying the price by not getting the inventory they need. Whoever would do such a thing must be very callous."

  "Or greedy." Marcus said.

  I nodded. "Yes, of course, greedy." I looked up at him. "Do you know anybody like that?"

  He threw his head back as he let out a laugh. "I know many people like that, but as you said, I don't know that any of them are working with Strong Incorporated."

  We started walking again and I made an attempt to look at all the beautiful plants.

  "You do have to wonder though what sort of person would risk upsetting everyone in the supply chain? I mean, what do they get out of it?" I asked.

  I remembered Phil and Noah talking about the possibility of hurting the business as a way to devalue it and engage in a takeover. But I decided to play dumb about knowing that to see what Marcus might say.

  He was quiet for a minute and I turned my head to look up at him.

  "There are all sorts of reasons a business might want to hurt another business. Maybe it's revenge. "

  "Revenge? Why would anybody be taking revenge on Strong Incorporated?"

  He slipped his hand into mine again. "You just asked what are the various reasons someone might do this, and I'm throwing ideas out there to help you. Revenge is a motivator. But like we already established, so is greed."

  "But if they hurt the business, there's less money. So where does the greed come in?"

  "Well, for one, it could be a competitor. So, while they're making
you lose money, the distributors and consumers are going elsewhere, to your competition, for their shoes."

  I nodded, noting that we’d thought of that. I did some of the research locally on any competitors, and I knew back in San Diego, that Carter and Ryan were also researching potential competitors outside of China that might be targeting Strong Incorporated. So far none of us had come up with anything.

  We walked a little bit longer, and then Marcus said, "It occurs to me that I am in a lovely setting with a beautiful woman, and perhaps we shouldn't be talking about business."

  I nodded in agreement because I didn't know what else to ask without looking like I was spying.

  We came upon a temple and he pointed it out to me, telling me its history.

  California and the United States had a long and unique history. But there was something about being here in Hong Kong that felt like I was back at the beginning of time. The dates that Marcus would often rattle off were almost beyond my comprehension. And while there were some certain similarities in the historical folklore or myth, it was also so vastly different. It made me wonder if maybe Noah wasn't right in that I should use some of the good salary I earn from Margaret to see the world.

  After the park, Marcus took me to a tea house that looked ancient, but charming. I felt like I was walking into a storybook.

  An elderly man dressed in traditional Chinese clothing greeted Marcus, and ushered us to a table.

  "I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty of ordering us lunch here. I think you’ll like this place."

  Unlike with Noah, where I felt the need to hide my amazement at this wonderful city, I let awe come forth. To his credit, Marcus, while looking amused by me, I believe appreciated that I was recognizing the magnificence of his city.

  After lunch, he took me to an open market where anything I saw that I showed the slightest interest in he would buy. And then he would make arrangements to have it packaged and shipped back to the hotel and put in my room for me. It was a testament to his wealth that he was able to do something like that. It was also different from the Strong brothers, because while they certainly had the money to flaunt their wealth, normally they didn't. Sure, they had nice cars and houses, but they weren’t flashy. They didn't use their money to show off their power or influence. They bought what they wanted that made him happy, and then the rest, they either saved or would put to good works, such as Hunters community arts center. The Strong Family as a whole had a foundation as well. Did Marcus have a foundation?