by Lexi Blake
“Whoa. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t want to invade anyone’s privacy.” Somehow she’d thought they would look at her system, tell her she was being paranoid, and she would be on her way. She should never have told her dad about it. She should have sucked it up and gone to company security and taken her chances. “Look, I think I’ve made a mistake, and I am sorry for wasting your time.”
She started to stand.
“Sit down, Noelle.”
Noelle sat at the sound of that commanding voice. It did not escape her that everyone was staring, but oddly, not at her. They were staring at the man who’d ordered her to sit. She got the feeling they were all surprised those deep-toned words had come from Hutch.
“Dude, you sound serious. Good for you, man.” Taggart nodded Hutch’s way.
Why was she sitting? She forced herself to stand again and reached for her cane. “Thank you for your time. Again, I’m sorry for wasting it.”
Hutch’s eyes met hers, and she felt a bit pinned by them. “Ms. LaVigne, the only thing you’re wasting is the unique opportunity to figure out if you truly have a problem. If you thought you could fix this some other way, you wouldn’t be here. I assume you’re going to ignore the problem now that you’ve decided we’re going to be too much trouble. There’s a reason you didn’t in the first place. If you turn your laptop over to company security, what do you think is going to happen?”
“Hutch, perhaps we should…” Charlotte began.
Her husband reached out and took her hand in his. “No. I want to see how this plays out. You wanted him in the field. He’s going to need to take charge. And possibly learn how to protect his balls. She looks like she knows how to wield that cane.”
She did, actually. Her self-defense teacher had believed deeply in turning anything around him into a weapon. He’d been careful to teach her how to make that cane work for her in more ways than one. “I think it’s not any of your business.”
“Oh, but it is,” Hutch contradicted. “Ian, you don’t fully understand what’s going on here.”
Taggart’s lips were turned up in a ghost of a smile, as though he loved the drama but wasn’t going to make it too obvious. “Oh, I think I do.”
“She’s embarrassed and trying to find a way out,” Hutch said, his expression grim. “I made an ass of myself because I thought this might be a Charlotte setup, and I hadn’t gotten a good look at her, so I was an asshole.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Was he about to be an asshole again?
“It means you are the sweetest thing I’ve seen in a long time, and I regret the fact that I’m not going to get a chance to do anything but work with you. But you should understand that I believe you have a real problem.”
She was not going to think about what those words did to her. “That’s not what you said before.”
“That’s because I hadn’t looked into the fact that someone recently died at your lab.” He managed to make the words an accusation. “You didn’t bother to mention that. You said there was an accident and the lab had to be shut down to ensure it was safe. You did not mention that one Madison Wallace died in that accident.”
“I didn’t think I needed to.” She knew she should have, but the last thing she needed was her father to think she was in more danger than she was already in. He would have a bodyguard sleeping at her place, and that was not necessary.
“I think you knew exactly what you needed to say and you didn’t,” he shot back. “You don’t want to be here. You don’t want the disruption to your life. You don’t want to acknowledge the problem might be bigger than you’re willing to admit. And you’re in a bind. You know something’s going on at your office but your boss—while brilliant—is also vindictive and seems to genuinely enjoy firing people and creating as much drama as she can. No matter what they find on that system, you’ll be under close scrutiny.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. “Well, I’ve got friends who are good with computers. They can look into it.”
Did he think she wasn’t connected? She literally worked in a lab. She was surrounded by people who were obsessed with computers.
Not once had she thought about going to one of them. Not once.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “I think you don’t want to rock the boat with your father. I also think you’re the type of woman who thinks she’s smarter than everyone else.”
“Hey,” Kyle said.
Hutch held a hand out. “You are not the primary on this case.”
“Well, we’re not going to have a case at all if you keep talking,” Kyle complained.
“I definitely think I’m smarter than you.” He was starting to irritate her. And her heart was pounding because no one challenged her like this. No one. She was the sweet, innocent Noelle who couldn’t walk as well as the rest of them. She was treated with a politeness no one seemed to understand marginalized her, too, because she wasn’t allowed to be passionate. She could hurt herself. She was weak and fragile.
It felt good to snarl a little his way.
He stood, his palms flat against the desk, as though he didn’t quite trust himself if he didn’t plant them there. He stared at her, every lean line of his body predatory, and yeah, that did something for her, too. “You probably are, but I’m about to prove that I’m a better game player than you are because I’ve already hacked your system. I did it with my phone. With my phone, Noelle. That’s how easy it was. You have spyware all over it.”
She gasped at the thought. She wasn’t bad with computers herself, but she’d had no hint that there was spyware. “But I have security on it.”
“And whoever uploaded it to your system knew exactly how to get through,” Hutch explained. “Do you know what else I found on your system? Because I can let you guess or I can send it straight to your father and let him handle the problem.”
She felt her face flush because she thought she knew what he was talking about. It was habit for her to write down her thoughts. It helped her organize them. She had lists all over her system, but only one that Hutch could threaten her with. “You wouldn’t. You don’t have any reason to.”
Kyle frowned. “I seem to be lost here. What exactly are we doing?”
“She believes someone murdered Madison Wallace, and she wants to find the killer.” Hutch let the words sit there like a bomb that was definitely going to go off right in her face. “On her own. She’s got lists of suspects. She thinks someone screwed around with the chemicals Madison Wallace was using. And somehow she’s not connected the dots here.”
“There is such a thing as coincidence.” But now that he said the words out loud, she could hear how dumb she sounded. “I don’t know why anyone would hurt Madison. Not for the same reasons they would hurt me. Everyone hated her, but she was a rock star. From what I can tell, she was on the verge of a breakthrough. We didn’t work on the same projects, so I don’t think my computer problems are connected.”
“And I think they are,” Hutch countered. “Who do you think your father is going to believe?”
He had her in check, but she still had a move to make. She turned to Charlotte. “Mrs. Taggart, I will do whatever you want me to do. I’ll be a good girl and follow every protocol you think I need, but I would like another agent to work with. Kyle said there’s a woman on the team. I would feel safer with her.”
“Don’t. I haven’t done a damn thing to make you feel unsafe,” Hutch argued. “I might have hurt your feelings, but don’t push that shit on me.”
“I’m feeling a little unsafe now because you’re being very aggressive.” He wasn’t really. His words were, but she didn’t feel physically threatened. He was, however, threatening her peace of mind because her heart was pounding, and she wondered what would happen if they were alone.
“Ian, do you remember that year of my life I spent being tortured so you could get your brother back?” Hutch said the words to his boss, but his eyes were steady on her.
Tortured?
“I do,” Taggart said evenly.
Hutch’s jaw went tight, straightening to a razor’s edge. “I’m calling that in now. This op is mine. I am in charge. We do this my way or you get on the phone with Sheriff LaVigne because one way or another she’s not going home alone tonight.”
“I thought the cotton candy machine was the trade-off for a year in hell,” Taggart said.
Hutch finally turned that stare his boss’s way.
Taggart sighed and focused his attention on Noelle. “Ms. LaVigne, Hutch is the only agent available to work your case. In light of what he’s found, I’m going to assume he’ll want close cover, and he’ll probably need to get into your office at some point. You’ll have to decide how to integrate him into your life. And pretty quickly.”
What did that mean? “Kyle has to come with me to the office?”
“No. I do. Kyle is strictly muscle, but he does have to stay close.” Hutch straightened up, seeming to relax a bit. “You recently went home. Does everyone know you went home to visit your family?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t completely sure what was happening, but she was almost certain she’d lost control in a big way. “I mean they know I went home. I’ll be honest. I’ve only been there for a year. I’ve got a couple of people I consider work friends, but I don’t talk to them about my family. We talk work stuff.”
Hutch seemed to relax a bit as though he knew he had her where he wanted her. “Good, then when you came back with a boyfriend, no one will question it. We worked out our relationship and we decided I should come to Dallas with you. Kyle is my slacker brother who needs a place to stay while he’s looking for work.”
Every syllable from his mouth horrified her. “No.”
Kyle snorted. “Because I look like the slacker.”
Taggart stood, helping his wife to her feet. “Excellent. It’s all settled then. Come along, my love. It’s lunchtime. Noelle, thank you for the muffins. They were delicious. I leave you in Hutch’s surprisingly authoritative hands. Unless you’d like me to call your dad.”
She was staring at Hutch like she could move him with pure willpower. “No. That won’t be necessary.”
“Hutch, see me before you go to check out Ms. LaVigne’s apartment,” Taggart ordered.
And then she was left with the man she would have to put up with. Well, and Kyle, but he seemed incidental at this point. Hutch had every bit of her attention.
Check and mate.
But their game was far from over.
Chapter Two
“Do I need to buy you a box of condoms?” Big Tag asked as Hutch closed the door behind him.
Unfortunately, they weren’t alone in Tag’s big corner office or he would have given the boss his happy middle finger. It looked like they were having a lunch party with Charlotte, Alex, and Eve all sitting around with takeout containers on Ian’s sofas.
Like the security team version of the Big Bang Theory. He would bet Noelle liked that show as much as he did.
Their babies would be smart and beautiful.
Nope. They would be nonexistent because Noelle would barely look at him now. He’d felt her pull away and close in on herself, but he rather thought it wasn’t in the obvious way. She wasn’t protecting herself from the Big Bad Wolf. She was trying to figure out a way to take him down. She wasn’t some wilting flower who would cry because a guy challenged her. No. She would retreat and rethink her battle plans.
He could offer her several scenarios that would have him on his back, but he was smart enough to keep quiet about that. “I don’t think that’s happening any time soon. I don’t know if you noticed but the woman doesn’t like me.”
He’d dug a huge hole, and he wasn’t sure he could climb out of it. He’d lost it in that conference room. He’d lost it by taking control in a way he almost never did. Except at Sanctum. He was careful around women because he’d seen how poorly it could go. He’d watched his father abuse woman after woman. He’d taken many a beating because he couldn’t sit by.
But something about Noelle LaVigne brought out the beast in him.
“She might not like you, but she’s aware of you, and sometimes that’s just as telling as instant attraction.” Charlotte put down her lunch. “I thought the two of you would get along. I didn’t think you’d nearly set the conference room on fire.”
“So this was a setup.” He knew it. At least he could still trust his instincts. “And it was definitely me and not Kyle.”
“Oh, she would not be good with Kyle. Kyle needs someone…well, Kyle needs to spend some time with Kai before he thinks about a relationship.” Eve closed her takeout container. “He’s hiding a lot of pain, and it’s going to come out in some not healthy way if he doesn’t deal with it. But that’s not a professional opinion. I haven’t had a session with him. It’s merely observation.”
They were all worried about Kyle, and now Hutch would be spending days, maybe weeks, undercover with the man. Noelle would be with Kyle, too. “Do you think he’s a danger to others?”
“If she thought that, he wouldn’t be working here,” Big Tag said with a frown. “He’s had a couple of sessions with Kai. Everyone has to in order to work here, but he turned down continuing on when it was suggested he should. I’ll be honest. If he wasn’t family I probably would have passed. He’s good at his job, but I’m worried. Something happened to him during his time in the military. I can’t figure it out, and my buddies who are still active tell me there’s nothing in the records that make them think he’s hiding something. That tells me one thing.”
Kyle had been Special Forces. Unless a mission had been classified it should all be out in the open. Or… “How long did he work for the Agency?”
Alex sighed and sat back. “We don’t know, and honestly, it’s only a suspicion at this point. Sean thinks so, but we pretty much cut ties with anyone who would help us figure it out.”
McKay-Taggart had cut ties with the Agency years before, and only recently they’d reupped that firm rejection after a CIA operative used Big Tag’s teenaged daughter to spy on them all. Big Tag had not been amused.
“We did that for good reasons.” Charlotte put a hand on her husband’s thigh, a sure sign of her support for his decision. “The Agency has changed. We don’t have anyone there we can truly trust, and to open the relationship back up means putting ourselves on their radar.”
The Taggarts wanted some peace after years of dealing with the spy shit. They wanted to raise their unruly brood and enjoy their lives. He couldn’t blame them, but Kyle was family, and now Hutch realized he’d been set up in more ways than one. “You want me to figure out what’s going on with Kyle.”
Big Tag shrugged. “I want you to guide him through his first major case, and if you happen to find out what those fuckers did to make him wake up screaming in the middle of the night, then I’ll consider it a plus. His mother is worried about him. I am, too. We all told Grace we thought the military would be good for him. I think we might have been wrong about that.”
Big Tag was capable of carrying the world on his shoulders. “I’ll find out what I can. In the meantime, I heard Eve talked to Noelle this morning. I’d like to know what your thoughts are.”
A smile broke over Eve’s face. “I think she’s lovely. She’s been through a lot and she wasn’t broken by it. She loves her family and her work. I would be cautious about underestimating her. She’s intensely intelligent and far tougher than she looks.”
“She’s used to people underestimating her.” She looked soft and sweet and vulnerable. “She’ll find it annoying, and she’ll also use it if she has to.”
“Very astute. I concur with that opinion,” Eve said with an encouraging smile. “You’re attracted to her.”
He shrugged. There was no point in denying that. “Yeah, but again, made an ass of myself. I’m not sure she’ll give me another shot, but that’s honestly for the best. I know Charlotte thinks the world should be all paired off, but I don’t kno
w that I would be good for anyone.”
“Says the man who made sure he gets to live in her apartment and play her boyfriend for the next few weeks,” Alex pointed out.
He’d been running on pure instinct, and that instinct told him he should stick close to Noelle. “She’s not happy about that either. I’ll have to watch her or she’ll try to find a way to put me on the sidelines.”
“Don’t forget that this isn’t merely about attraction.” Charlotte toyed with the water bottle in her free hand. “She’s in trouble. She’s downplaying her original fears. It’s like that sometimes, especially with intelligent people who’ve been taught to trust data instead of their guts. There’s a reason she called her father. She was scared. Now she’s got some time and distance and she’s questioning those original instincts.”
“I think it’s worse than dismissing her fears.” He’d seen her pale when he’d leveled his accusations against her. He’d made a direct hit. “She’s playing detective.”
“Her father was a damn good one,” Big Tag pointed out. “Don’t underestimate Armie LaVigne. If he thinks she’s in danger and you’re not taking care of her, he’ll show up here and he’ll take control.”
Yes, that was a big part of what he had to overcome with her. He’d insulted her father, though he hadn’t meant to. He’d been a dumbass playing to stereotypes. “I’ll keep him as updated as I can without breaking Noelle’s confidence. Armie might have called in favors with you, but Noelle is my client.”
Big Tag nodded slightly, an unmistakable sign of approval. “Keep me up to date on everything relevant. Charlie’s got some worries about this one.”
Charlotte’s lips turned down. “I don’t like her boss. I’ve read up on Jessica Layne and she worries me. And it’s not because she’s a woman in tech. I get any female CEO is going to have to be tough.”
“It’s the crazy eyes,” Big Tag offered. “She’s somewhat hot and all, and she plays that up as much as she can. But it’s all in the eyes. There’s pure bugout crazy in those baby blues.”
