Risky Business

by Bethany Jadin

  “Well, guys, I figured that would be your reaction. But…” she says, straightening up in her seat. “I can just do it without you.”

  “The hell you will,” Jax says, so riled up I can practically feel steam coming off him.

  Emma looks him in the eye, her gaze steady and determined, and they face off across the table. I glance back and forth between them, watching, both fascinated and concerned. There’s this thing happening between them, and there’s something sexy as hell about it — a challenge has been issued and countered, both of them refusing to submit to the other.

  Emma leans forward, her eyes never leaving Jax’s face. “Unless you plan to add kidnapping and false imprisonment to the list of crimes you’re willing to commit, then you better hear me out,” she says evenly.

  Jax’s jaw tightens further, and there’s a look in his eye like he’s seriously considering shoving the table out of the way and spanking that sweet ass of hers right here for being defiant.

  “Well, we can pull the same move,” Jude says, his voice plucking at the tension in the air. “We can just figure out a way to do this without you.”

  Emma doesn’t even blink. “Bullshit. I can go to them. They’ll let me walk right in the building — in fact, they’ll hustle me right upstairs to their private offices once I tell them I have the code finished. But…” she shrugs, “you guys can’t get all of them out of their offices at the same time without me,” she says.

  “Sure, we can. I’ll blow up their parking garage,” Gunner says, looking more serious than I’ve ever seen him. “That’ll do the trick. I’d love to blast those assholes’ cars to pieces.”

  “Wait,” Trigg says, holding up a hand. “Before we start blowing stuff up, maybe we should at least listen to what Emma has to say.”

  “Thank you, Trigg.” Emma pulls her gaze away from Jax and graces Trigg with a kind smile.

  “We just don’t want to put you in danger,” I say.

  Emma nods quietly as she absorbs my comment. “I understand that, but I’ve thought about this a long time. It’s a danger I’m prepared to expose myself to.”

  “Well, it’s not something I’m prepared to expose you to,” Jude snaps.

  Emma turns her head and gives him a curious look, amusement in her features. “So, what you’re saying is, you have final call over my decisions?”

  I disguise my smile by pursing my lips tightly. Even though I still have heaps of reservations about her being in harm’s way, I can’t help but admire her refusal to back down to the Chief. Emma’s one smart lady. She’s called him on exactly what he was claiming to free her from at our last meeting. Well played.

  Jude knows he’s been caught. He clenches his jaw then stutters out a reply. “No, that’s… that’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Then are you and your brother finally going to let the lady at the table talk? Or do you two want this to turn into a dick swinging contest?”

  Gunner moves his hand to cover his mouth, but from his eyes, I can see the laughter he’s barely keeping contained.

  Jude lets out a huff of air. “Fine.” The way his upper lip pulls over his teeth as he talks, it’s obvious how hard it is for him to give in, but he does. “What is your plan?”

  Emma tilts her head, delight in her expression. “Let’s save that for when the appetizers get here.” She breaks into a wide grin as Jude’s nostrils flare.

  “I swear to God, woman,” he mutters.

  “In the meantime, we have another piece of business to discuss,” she says, ignoring Jude’s frustrated pout at having been played.

  All of us straighten up at her words. We’ve been eager to know if she’s willing to accept the proposal in the folder we gave her — the office space, the attorney, and the list of contacts. We want her to be able to start fresh wherever she wants, even use it as an incubator to begin her own company if she wishes.

  Emma doesn’t leave us waiting long. She tosses the folder on the table, and the papers inside slide out a few inches. I see the list of contacts we gave her on the top of the pile. “I reject this. I don’t want your help starting my own business.”

  Trigg reels back in his seat, his expression mirroring my own — utter disappointment. Gunner has his mouth open like he wants to say something, but his brow is furled as well, and he just stares at the papers in confusion. Jax has been stoically silent since his staring contest with Emma. He lets out a heavy sigh and turns his glass of whiskey up, downing the last few swallows.

  Jude’s gaze is fixated on the folder, and he looks like he’s about to blow, so I grab it up and push the papers back inside.

  I turn to Emma, trying for a diplomatic tone. “As we said before, you have lots of options, including not working with anyone we’ve suggested. And…” I pause, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice, “we also said we’ll respect whatever decision you make, even if it’s not what we hoped for.”

  She takes the folder from me and holds it with both hands, looking around the table at each of us. “I appreciate the work you did in pulling this together. I promise, I looked through it — carefully. And it’s very generous. I see a lot of great companies on this list, ones that it would be an honor to work with. But, ultimately, this proposal isn’t right for me.”

  Trigg sighs. “We understand,” he says, but his shoulders slump in defeat.

  “Good, I’m glad,” Emma continues. “Because I don’t need office space in some place halfway across the country.”

  “Understood,” I say, echoing Trigg.

  “What I do need is office space here in the city. Actually… at 3248 Parkway Circle, to be exact.”

  Her words echo in my ears as my mind races to confirm what I just heard — the address for our headquarters.

  Gunner is the first to react, reaching across Jude to grab Emma in a hug. She squeals in surprise as he practically pulls her across the table in his excitement, but her arms wrap around him, and the smiles on both of their faces are so big I feel like my heart might burst open.

  The big guy has Jude plastered against his chair, his bulk threatening to suffocate the Chief as he embraces Emma. I see Jude’s hands grab ahold of Gunner’s shirt collar and pull him back to his own spot.

  “Tell me that means what I think it means,” Jude says to Emma as she settles into her seat.

  She’s still sporting the same big grin she had during her surprise hug from Gunner. “Yes. I accept Pentabyte’s offer.”

  “Are you serious?” I ask, still trying to calm my racing heart, half-afraid that I’ve misheard her, because the news is almost too wonderful to be true.

  Emma nods. “Absolutely. You guys bid really high, but you should know you weren’t the highest. Money is not why I picked Pentabyte. I want to work with you all because this company you’ve built together is the perfect home for my software. Pentabyte’s vision and ethics are in line with my values and long-term goals.”

  “For real? Like, contract and everything? We’re doing this?” Trigg asks, his eyes lighting up as he leans forward. I know it’s not acquiring Emma’s code that has him this excited — it’s the promise of working with her, having her in our lives, even if just professionally.

  “Yes. One-hundred percent. I had the lawyer look it over, as you wisely suggested. And I accept your offer for the code.”

  The guys and I all look around the table at each other, checking that we’re all hearing the same thing — is this true? It’s the last thing we expected, and it’s stunned us into silence.

  “Are you shitting me?” I say finally, my mouth falling open.

  All eyes are on me now, and Emma nods affirmatively as she laughs in surprise at my crude choice of language. I don’t even care that the uncivil words have slipped off my tongue, because I have more to add, and there’s no other way to put it.

  “This is fucking fantastic,” I say, raising my glass for a toast.

  23

  Jude

  She was guarded at the first meeting,
smiled and joked with us at the second meeting — and now, today — she’s taken her place at the conference table with us like she’s never been gone.

  I think we might have a chance. This might just work out.

  It swells my chest with hope. Goddamn if it doesn’t feel amazing. Especially after Gunner broke the ice in the midst of all that business talk at the bar the other night. It was almost like it used to be… like it could be. The six of us sharing a meal, catching up on what we’d missed out on from being absent from Emma’s life. She even laid a hand on my wrist and let it linger much longer than a mere business partner should.

  I haven’t heard the guys laugh that much or in unison for some time. Sitting at the head of that table at the pub, it stirred something in me — watching my men and… my woman. The very thought of it, thinking of her as mine, it stirs something inside me, in my heart and further south. I don’t even care the other guys want her. Hell, the thought of the things my brother could do to her…

  Fuck. I shift my ass in the leather chair, trying to discreetly adjust things in my briefs. I don’t need to get ahead of myself, here. The conference room at the Pentabyte offices isn’t the place or the time for these thoughts. We finally seem to be getting back on good footing, and the guys and I need to focus on how to keep things heading in that direction.

  There’s bad news, though.

  Emma has disclosed what BHC spoke to her about in that meeting she had with them the day the shit hit the fan. So, it looks like this will be the last official meeting Pentabyte will have with Miss Emma Collins, software engineer. For the time being, anyway. After today, we have to keep things under wraps. Emma’s supposed to pretend she’s pulling away from us, although she has no intentions of actually doing so. BHC is also working to get her out of our apartment building, but Emma is going to resist them on that one as long as possible. She’s moved enough for multiple lifetimes, and I for one sure as fuck don’t want her to leave again.

  The good news? She’s with us, no matter what BHC thinks she’s doing. And she’ll be with us for a long time, even if just professionally.

  She’s accepted our offer for her program, which includes staying on with Pentabyte all the way through launch. Even if we fast-track it as much as possible, it’ll take a minimum of a year to roll out because of the complexity of her program and the sheer number of devices and OS software it needs to work seamlessly with. And that’s just what we can see now. The possibilities are endless. That’s a whole lot of time to woo her back to us.

  The mood in the conference room is off the charts today. We’ve taken the first step in getting our woman back, but we can’t just win one battle — we need to win the war.

  Today’s meeting is for the purpose of spit-balling how to deal with Emma’s changes to our original plan. None of us are comfortable with her being the one physically at risk in the new plan, but we also all realize this situation isn’t really about us or what we want. We offered to help free Emma from the clutches of BHC, and we presented our ideas for a plan to do so, but ultimately, it’s her decision. It’s only fair that she gets to make the call of how involved she wants to be. She’s more than earned the right to decide, no matter how much it scares us to have her be the one at the center of storm, to be the one going inside their headquarters to make a grab for the files.

  “We can use the Gamma segment,” Jax suggests from his spot in the corner of the room, turning away from the windows to face us. “It’s for the implementation of the operating systems, largely unrelated to the rest of the code, itself. BHC will never be able to reconstruct the rest of the program off of it, so it’s the safest part of the code to use.”

  “Okay, but how is that going to get her into their system?” Gunner asks.

  Daniel speaks up, tipping his head toward Emma. “You could say you want to give them a demonstration? Or that you want to bring them the finished bits of the code? Something that will prompt them to access their Vault — or whatever they call their closed system where we think the black files are stored.”

  “But the Gamma segment isn’t finished,” Emma reminds us. “It’s the part of the code that’s been giving me the most trouble.”

  “It doesn’t have to be finished. Let them think you’ve gotten all the kinks worked out, but you’ll know it doesn’t work. Act surprised and pretend you’re going to try to run it again. That will buy you even more time to hack the system and copy the files.”

  “Wouldn’t they know what she’s doing?” Trigg asks, a worried look on his face. “I thought you said another member would be able to detect the system was being tampered with.”

  Jax shakes his head. “No. That’s when I was going in,” he explains. “That’s why we needed them out of the building — they might have noticed someone was accessing the system. But with Emma going in now — as much as I dislike it — they’ll be the ones granting access, so activity on their system is expected.”

  “That’s asking a lot of Emma,” I say before glancing at her and quickly adding, “not that you can’t handle it, but I’d rather mitigate as many risks as possible. Sending you in there with faulty code, having to put on a show for them, it just keeps adding layers of complexity. The best plans are the simplest ones.”

  To my surprise, Emma nods. “I think we’re on the right track, but... I’m not sure about this particular approach. I’m a terrible fucking actress, for one. And I’ve never been a good liar. Also, I don’t think offering a demonstration or wanting to turn over just a piece of the program would be enough to entice them into a meeting, much less get them to open up their secret file storage.”

  She turns to Jax. “You’re right about the Gamma segment being the safest piece to hand over, but that’s because it’s the least sexy bit of the program. It’s not the stuff they’re really after. I don’t think it would have the appeal we’re hoping for. We need something bigger.”

  “Okay, let’s put that one on the shelf for right now,” I say in a firm voice. “We can come back to it.”

  Jax nods from his station over by the floor-to-ceiling windows and gets back to staring over the cityscape, deep in thought. I know he’s been trying hard to be helpful, to come up with a way to save the day — anything he can do to redeem himself in Emma’s eyes.

  “Listen, seriously guys — I can set off a very localized explosion in the parking garage,” Gunner says. “Totally controlled. Just one car. I’ll make sure no one gets hurt. Even if I’m caught, so what? I can do time for a few years if it keeps you out of harm’s way.”

  Emma gives him a heart-melting smile. “I know you really, really want to blow shit up, and I love you for it, but no. For starters, an incendiary device is the kind of thing to automatically brand you as a terrorist — the authorities don’t mess around with those kinds of charges these days. Forget a couple years. They could make that stick until you’re sixty.”

  Gunner crinkles his nose in horror, and I suppress a laugh. Pretty sure he thinks that’s a life sentence. He’s still young enough to think meeting the end in a spectacular skydiving accident before his first grey hair is preferable to old age.

  “How about we buy an island?” Daniel offers. “Forget all this noise and mayhem. We could just disappear to our own private oasis.”

  “An island, huh?” Emma asks, raising her eyebrows. “First, how many people will fit on this island? Because I have a long list of people that would need to come with us. And second, on behalf of Zoey, would this island have cabana boys?”

  “We’ll be there,” Gunner says, motioning to himself and the rest of us guys.

  This beautiful grin of amusement twitches on her lips. “Well, as nice as that would be, I think running off to an island wouldn’t exactly solve the problem at hand, perhaps just delay it a little.”

  Daniel sighs dramatically as though she’s just shot down all his dreams, but there’s a playful smile in his eyes. “I still say, it wouldn’t be so bad if we had a private island as the new Pentaby
te headquarters.”

  “Oh, God. Not this again,” Trigg says, throwing his pen on the table and rolling his eyes in amusement.

  “I’ll say it again — that would be a bitch of a commute for the staff,” I remind him. The guy would do it. He’s been bringing this idea up since we first started talking about forming our own company. We almost made it a whole year without him mentioning it.

  But more importantly, did Emma just say it would be nice to be herded off to a private island with us? I might just need to see if my old Speedo still fits — the one I used to wear when on furlough near the Turkish beaches. I’d give her one hell of a show, and on a private beach, we wouldn’t have to worry about what anyone saw. Even if all five of us wanted to give her a show.

  “We’re not here to discuss running off to a tropical island. Not yet, anyway,” she says with a hint of mischief. “Not until BHC has been dealt with.”

  “So, I don’t get to be a cabana dude?” Gunner asks, looking utterly disappointed. He just can’t catch a break today — first, he can’t blow shit up, and now he doesn’t get to play Mr. Beach Hunk, either.

  I run my palm over my face. That man’s appetites are beyond me. “We’ve moved on from cabana dudes, Gunner, we’re onto—”

  Gunner claps his hands together, his eyes wide. “We can make it a nude beach!”

  The expression on Emma’s face is priceless as she stares at Gunner then looks around the room at each of us. There’s curiosity, and more than a hint of arousal there as well. Oh, yeah — I’m not the only one picturing that private beach and imagining the sort of things we could get into. But once again, the Pentabyte board room is not the place, and this is not the time.

  “Focus, Gunner,” I say, but it’s just as much of a reprimand for myself.

  “Right, boss. Business first, nude beach second.”

  Not exactly, but close enough. “Yes,” I say. “Now, where were we?”

  “I still like our first option the best,” Trigg says, leaning his arms on the conference table. “I can stay with Emma while she meets with BHC at some other location while you guys work with Jax to infiltrate their headquarters.”