“There was a video,” I say quietly.
“Of us? Fuck that asshole, I’m going to bury him in lawsuits—”
“Not us.”
He releases a heavy breath. “January, I don’t care who you were with before.”
“That’s very big of you… but it wasn’t me.” I shiver, cold even in the heated car.
The color has left his face. “Who was I with?”
“Can you maybe guess?”
“No, I can’t. You’re acting like I’ve committed a crime, like I should already know my sentence.”
God, how can he keep playing dumb like this? How many sex videos has he made? “It was Chloe.”
Confusion stutters across his face. “Chloe? I don’t even know a—” Heat rushes back into his skin, twisting his expression. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“So you did make a video with her? Did you show it to all your friends, post it on the internet with all those horrible pictures, hound her out of school?” The words spill out of me along with my disgust.
“Hang on.” He grabs his phone.
My mouth drops open. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He holds up a finger and dials a number.
I’m so appalled I simply stare. I tell him about this and he’s calling someone?
The phone rings through the car sound system. On the third trill, a woman picks up. “Hello?”
“Chloe.” Mark’s mouth twitches in the ghost of a smile. “Sorry to call so late, but I’ve got some news.”
I hold in my gasp. He’s called her?
“No worries,” she says. “Do you have a job for me?”
“Not this time. You should be sitting down.”
There’s a long pause. I wonder if I should announce myself, but I keep quiet. I want to hear what happens when it’s only the two of them even if I’m doing the exact thing Fuchs is guilty of.
“Okay,” she says slowly. “Hit me.”
“Apparently someone has faked a video of you and me. A sex tape.”
She gasps. “But… we’ve never had sex. Or even kissed!”
“I know. Like I said, it was faked. To get at me, not you,” he says quickly. “This has nothing to do with what happened in college, and I swear to you, it’ll never see the light of day. I will throw every last dollar I have and then some at keeping this quiet. And eventually destroying it.”
Chloe’s voice is wobbly, but I hear a smile in there. “I know you will. You were the only one who helped me after… Well, I don’t have to tell you. I know you’ll help me now.”
The video plays over and over in my memories, suddenly changed. Maybe… maybe Mark’s head was on at an odd angle. Maybe Chloe’s skin was too smooth, her movements not quite human.
Maybe I’ve been had by an evil, evil man.
Mark is finishing up the call, saying goodbye to Chloe and telling her not to worry. That he’ll handle everything.
I’m numb. My brain feels like it’s been put on ice.
“He faked a video?” I say, mostly to myself.
Mark answers anyway. “It looks like it. How long was it?”
“He only showed me a few seconds. I thought he might be holding the rest back.” Or else that was all that he had. Or faked. I run my fingers through my hair, wishing I could disappear.
“Or that was all he bothered to have made,” Mark says. His voice is too steady, like he’s holding it hard in place. “Faking a few seconds is much easier than an entire video.”
“But… that’s not easy to do.”
“How much computing power do you think he has at hand?”
“God, I feel so stupid.” I run a hand over my face. My skin is dry and hot, as if I’ve been traveling through the desert. “How could I have fallen for that? I almost sold my company.”
And now Fuchs has sworn to destroy me and leave me with nothing. Although I might have done all that on my own by believing that video.
Something Mark said to Chloe floats to the top of my thoughts. “She said you helped her?”
He won’t look at me. “I always felt guilty because I couldn’t help her in college. I didn’t spread the rumors or look at the pictures, but I also couldn’t stop them. So when I had the opportunity, I offered her some freelance work for Bastard Capital.”
He never mentioned any of that when we were discussing Chloe before. So much could have been avoided if he’d just said something.
“You could have told me.”
“You could have told me. I wasn’t going to violate Chloe’s privacy after what happened to her, not to rehash some college shit with you.”
“But you just let me listen. You didn’t tell her I was here.”
He stares at his hands on the steering wheel for a long moment. “I suppose now after having lost you once—no, twice now—there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to bring you back. Even if it is at Chloe’s expense.”
Oh God. His voice has finally splintered, going quiet as he forces himself to finish. I can’t… This hurts so damn much. For both of us.
I climb over the console, twisting myself to get close to him in the confines of the car. But I can’t—this isn’t the place to get close.
So I ask, “Can we finish this inside?”
Chapter 30
The office I’ve set aside for her in our secure building is as comfortable as I could manage on short notice. Or what Anjie could manage.
I nod to the Bastards assembled in the main workspace, coding away with the Ultra team in order to be ready for tomorrow. Logan catches my eye, then looks significantly at January.
I give a tiny shake of my head. I’ll discuss what happened with all of them later. First, January and I need to finish this.
When I shut her office door, she doesn’t sit down. Instead, she remains standing, clenching her hands together as she takes in her office.
“Is all this for me?”
There’s a couch against one wall, with several pillows and a blanket, a desk with a brand-new Mac computer on it, and a few of my cousin’s paintings on the walls—irises done in long strokes of purple and yellow and green, stark against a plain white background.
All this is January’s. I’ll give her more if she’ll let me.
“This is your office, yes. Why don’t you sit down?” I want to hold her, to find comfort with her, but she won’t stop pacing.
She shakes her head. “I need to move. How did you find me?”
“Doc hacked your phone. They were all worried about you.”
She picks up a fountain pen from the desk, sleek and black in her long white fingers. “I never meant to hurt them. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You’re not alone in this. Not anymore. I’m here for you, and I always will be.” I swallow hard and ask her for the one thing she’s never given me, not even after she gave me her heart. “Please, trust me.”
She goes still as a startled deer, and the eyes she raises to mine… wide and beautiful and brimming with tears. “I… that’s what I wanted for so long. Even before I wanted you to love me.”
I gather her up tightly because I’m never letting her go again. No matter what. “You can trust me. If you want to sell Ultra to Fuchs, we will. If you want me to grind that bastard into nothingness, I will. I swear, I’m at your command.”
Her smile is watery. “I can tell which you’d rather do.”
“It’s not what I want. It’s what you want. What you trust me to do.”
“And if the others disagree?”
“You come first. They’re a close second, but you’re number one with a bullet point.”
Even when she was accusing me of having hurt Chloe, I still loved her so much. Which probably proves I’ve fallen for her for all time.
She takes a deep breath. I can see her mind working, analyzing and weighing the options. I stay quiet, because she’s the one leading me this time.
“First, I want to absolutely kill it at this meeting with Pixio.”
<
br /> “You will.”
“Second, I want to make sure Grace can stay here.”
That’s going to be trickier. “Elliot’s finding a lawyer as we speak.”
“Third, I want to bury Fuchs and Corvus. Like, deeper than the mantle of the earth deep.”
I don’t remember exactly which layer of the earth that is, but I’m sure it’s pretty far down. As deep as I want to bury the son of a bitch myself. “Good, because we all want to do that.”
She stops, thinks some more. Then reaches up to run her fingers down the column of my neck. Shudders run through me.
“Actually, first I want to do something else.” She begins to unbutton my shirt.
“Oh?” My blood is already magma hot, my cock iron hard.
“I missed you.” Her fingers find my pants button.
“Jesus.” I kiss every part of her bared skin I can reach, tugging at the neckline of her blouse until I hear it tear. “You have no idea how insane I went. Even Finn thought I was going overboard.”
She hooks a knee around my hip, dragging us both toward the desk.
I resist. “Sweetheart, you deserve something softer.”
She pushes herself up onto the desktop. “It feels like a featherbed. You make it feel like the softest surface ever.”
I growl and grab her hip. “You’re the soft one.”
She nips at my bottom lip. “I love how hard you are. That you can be tough as steel out there but make me feel so soft when you’re with me.”
Our first time was on a desk, but this feels nothing like that. As I pull her skirt up and her panties aside, this isn’t some urgent, frustrated grind. It’s a homecoming.
I dip my fingers into her pussy, test her wetness. So soft, so hot, ready for me. Waiting, begging.
Her arms come around my neck, holding me loosely, trusting me to stay. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” I reach blindly for the drawer, for the box I put in there in hopes of this exact situation. Once the condom is on, I push forward, filling her with one full thrust.
Her head falls back. “Yes, yes, this is where I need you.”
I keep my movements slow but demanding, and she gives and gives and gives.
“Don’t ever leave me again.” I don’t care that I’m begging, because I trust her with my vulnerability. I trust her with everything of me.
“I won’t,” she promises, her gaze holding mine. “I trust you.”
I let go, my orgasm flooding me. She’s clutching at me, holding on as her own climax takes her.
“I’ve got you,” I tell her. “I’ll never let you go.”
Staying like this forever is something I really, really want to do, but we’ve got work to do. It’s going to be an all-nighter, just like before finals at Stanford.
Gently I pull out of her, take care of the condom, then adjust her panties and skirt. There’s not much I can do about her shirt except buy her a new one. Which of course I’ll happily do.
January’s smile is fond as she lets me take care of her, her hands finding my shoulders, my arms, my chest, as if she can never bear to let me go either.
I dip my head and kiss her again, because I can’t resist that smile of hers. Can’t resist any of her.
“There’s something I should tell you about the meeting tomorrow,” I murmur into her throat. Lord, but her skin is soft.
“Mmm?” Pleasure is blurring her voice.
“Fuchs eats lunch every day at Roasted. Right when we’ll be there.”
She shoves herself upward and blinks down at me. “Oh. Oh, oh, oh.”
“That’s right.”
“You’d better tell me your plan. All of it.” Her next words are the sweetest I’ve ever heard. “We’re in this together, after all.”
Chapter 31
I’m exhausted, but there’s enough caffeine and adrenaline running through me to have me vibrating in my chair at Roasted.
We’re at ten minutes until Jack from Pixio is supposed to arrive, and I can’t stop picking at my setup. There’s our deconstructed phone, some slides for a short presentation on my laptop, and of course, Ultra running in the background, ready to impress.
I wriggle the connecting wire from the phone to the laptop. It doesn’t seem that secure. Maybe I should—
Mark lays a hand over mine, his fingers brushing the tennis bracelet he gave me. He put that back on and the earrings last night, having carried them in his pocket all the way from Napa. “Stop. You’ll undo all Doc’s work.”
That’s exactly the thing to make me stop. Everyone worked so unbelievably hard last night, after everything I’d done…
I swallow and blink. My emotions are so on edge I’m bleeding just from breathing.
“And don’t think about whatever you’re thinking about.” Mark hands me a handkerchief. “No tears. You’re here because you’re the smartest person working in encryption, Ultra is a game changer, and your team is amazing. And loves you.”
I dab at my eyes. He’s right—I can’t let Jack see me like this, and I definitely can’t let Fuchs. He’s still not here yet, but Mark assured me he’ll be arriving at twelve thirty on the dot.
So I’ve got to impress Jack and confront Fuchs. In fact, impressing Jack depends on confronting Fuchs.
“Are you sure you don’t want to lead this?” I ask. This is Mark’s specialty, not mine.
“Nope. You’ve got this. I’m only here as moral support.”
He’s the handsomest moral support I’ve ever seen. There’s no sign of our sleepless night on his face. He’s as confident, as languidly assured, as ever. I want to bottle his attitude and spray it on my wrists for courage.
He brings my hand to his lips. “I want to know what you’re thinking about.”
“Later.” My cheeks are heating, half from embarrassment and half from desire. Probably the whole of the Silicon Valley elite is watching us, and I want to hide and preen all at once.
“That’s a promise.”
And then I see Jack walking across the café toward us, and my thoughts scatter. If I passed him on the street, I might not recognize him—he’s got a middle-management dad vibe going on that doesn’t at all fit with his position as the CEO of one of the largest tech companies in the world. I mean, there are many, many countries with economies smaller than Pixio’s.
“Mark.” He greets Mark with a smile and a shake, as if they’re old friends. His clasp of my hand is shorter, his smile fixed. “And this must be January.”
I’m guessing he’s seen our pictures in TidBytes and he knows all about our relationship. But he’s not giving any of that away in his expression. There’s a reason he rose to where he is.
“Yep. And you must be Jack.” I move myself closer into “friendly acquaintance” territory, the better to steel my nerves for this meeting. Mark is on my side, and Mark is his equal. Which puts me higher than I would be by myself. “Mark tells me you’re interested in encryption.”
He shrugs with one eyebrow. “Yeah, of course. We make it a priority at Pixio to keep data secure.”
“And privacy. That’s another interest of yours.”
His expression flickers. “Privacy and encryption go hand in hand.”
“I completely agree.” I let my smile go dazzling. “Could I see your phone?”
“What?”
I don’t let my smile slip. “A little demonstration. I promise I won’t hurt it.” His reaction is exactly what I was hoping for. He’s acting like I’m asking to see his underwear, and when I show him what Fuchs has done to his precious, private phone… I’ll have won him over then.
And after that, I’ll let Ultra wow him and seal the deal. There’s only one piece missing…
“Arne!” Mark pops up out of his chair and waves someone over. I don’t turn around since a cold sweat has bloomed on my skin.
Jack swivels around, frowning. I keep smiling like this is totally normal.
“Arne is interested in cryptology too,” Mark says, lo
ud enough for Fuchs to hear. And about half the café. “He’ll love this.”
I refuse to look to see if Fuchs is coming. Part of me wishes he isn’t so I won’t have to face him, but I know we need him here if we want to finish off his spyware once and for all. I can’t just sell Ultra—I have to stop him too.
When the sensation of something cold and slimy runs across my neck, I know that Fuchs has come over.
“Mark.” It’s flat but not combative. “Jack. It’s good to see you, but I have my lunch meeting.”
“No, you’ll want to see this,” Mark says. He’s enjoying needling Fuchs, his stance easy yet alert. “Have a seat.”
“Yeah,” Jack says. “Join us.” He thinks this is a meeting of peers, that Fuchs will want to hear this and have something valuable to add.
I need to pretend that’s all that’s happening here too. At least for right now.
“So could I see your phone?” I ask Jack again. “Just a small demonstration.”
He stares at me for one long heartbeat, then pulls his phone out of his pocket, using his thumbprint to open it. He hangs on to it for the briefest second when he passes it over to me.
Perfect. He’s very attached to this phone.
I look through the apps on the home screen. Bingo. He’s got the PopPix app. I turn the phone back off and pass it to him.
“That’s it?”
“Told you it would be quick.” I toss him a smile and call up my command window that’s running the Corvus program. “Did you know there’s spyware in the PopPix app?”
His jaw tightens. “No, I didn’t.”
He doesn’t believe me. So I turn the laptop screen around. “That’s your camera phone right there, taking those images.”
Jack’s eyes go wide as he leans into the screen. The ceiling of the café is there, exposed pipes and concrete in the industrial chic fashion.
“What…?” He looks to his phone, which is still in sleep mode. With his forefinger, he nudges it. The images on the screen spin too. “How the fuck did you hack into my phone? Not only is it password protected, the data is encrypted too.”
Secret Acquisitions Page 19
