Tall, Dork and Handsome

by Remy Richard

  Holden Reed is a dork into computers, gadgets, and Star Trek.

  Sabrina Kelly is a con artist into jewelry, pop art (preferably quickly moveable) and a clean getaway.

  But when they both get into trouble, Sabrina can’t help but notice that her new partner in crime is Tall, Dork, and Handsome.

  Holden is working on the biggest coding problem of his life, and that’s saying something for a man who’s been coding since he was ten years old. The problem is all of these distractions: threats against his sister’s life, break-ins, and the sexiest, most contrary con artist imaginable. How is a guy supposed to keep his mind on math when there’s a man-eater in the room?

  Sabrina is just minding her own business, breaking into Holden’s home, when his head of security catches her in the act. She barters information about her accomplices (who are working on much more dangerous schemes than she is comfortable with) for her freedom. But after a few days with Holden, his sister and friends, she’s not sure that she wants her freedom anymore. What she may want…is a dork of her very own.

  Tall, Dork and Handsome

  Remy Richard

  Also Available by Remy Richard

  Sexting the Limits

  Mardi Gras Madness

  Learning the Ropes

  To Dad. For always supporting me, even when I didn’t want it, and always loving me, especially when I don’t deserve it.

  Chapter One

  This was going to be the death of him. Holden Reed was sure of it. His brain had come to a grinding halt, no good ideas left rattling around in there. He was overworked, over tired, and over stressed. And it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning. Which didn’t mean much to someone who had started working at five a.m., but it didn’t bode well for the rest of the day.

  He closed his stinging eyes and considered taking a twenty-minute power nap. Not that it would help. He was stuck and had been for weeks now. He was completely out of new ideas and in need of a fresh point of view.

  Unfortunately, people who could understand his coding work were in short supply. People who could contribute to it were even rarer, so he would just have to get back to work. He rubbed his eyes and flexed his fingers over the keyboard, the thoughts coming slowly and then in a steady stream as he attacked his algorithm from a different angle this time. An angle different from the three hundred other angles he had already tried.

  He was really just getting started when the intercom on his desk buzzed.

  “We’ve got a problem down here,” said the voice from the intercom.

  He held up one finger toward the intercom as he continued to type without answering.

  “Holden.”

  The voice coming through the speaker wasn’t raised, but there was a snap to it that had Holden coming out of the fog that often surrounded him when he worked on the complex codes that made his brain hum.

  “You there?” The intercom buzzed again.

  Holden finally identified the voice as that of his head of security, Sam Powell.

  He took a deep sip of his stone cold coffee and cleared his throat before answering. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry about that. What’s up?”

  There was a long moment of silence that had Holden’s eyebrows raised and his interest peaked before Sam broke it. “You should come down here. It’s a little complicated.”

  With a regretful look at his screen, Holden saved the little progress he had made and logged off of the computer so the password protection would be engaged. “Where are you?”

  “The sunroom.”

  Holden sighed and pushed his chair back. As he made his way through the hallways and down the stairway, he had a twinge of regret for his old place, a tiny apartment where he could walk from one end to the other in twenty steps. With both him and his sister living there it had been tight at times, but it had been home. Now he was living in what amounted to a mini-mansion, and Lila was in an apartment across town. He didn’t like change, and there had been too much of it over the last few months. In fact, if he had to guess, those changes were a big part of his mental block. If he had it to do over again, he never would have taken the Organotech job.

  Holden put the regret from his mind and entered the room in time to see Sam push open the swinging door between the sunroom and the kitchen. His head of security was clearly not in a great mood. Intimidating under the best of circumstances, Sam’s brown eyes were darkened with worry and his big hands were clenched at his side. Holden wasn’t concerned though. He had hired Sam specifically because everything about him warned, “it would be a bad idea to mess with me”. He wondered who had ignored the warning.

  He didn’t have long to think about it though because Sam launched into his explanation. “We’ve got an issue. I caught someone trying to break in through the sunroom.”

  Holden shrugged his shoulder. “So call the police. It would seem like you’ve caught the guy who has been sneaking around here.” His lips quirked up. “Or did you just want to prove to me that you are in fact worthy of the insanely high salary you fleece me for?”

  “I never waste time trying to prove what’s obvious.” Sam gave a fleeting grin before getting back to business. “It may be a little more complicated than just catching a prowler. The person the neighbor saw sneaking around a month ago was definitely a man. The person I caught today is definitely…not.”

  “You’re saying a woman was trying to break in here?” Holden considered the probability of a woman culprit and then put it aside. “I can press charges against a woman for attempting to steal from me just as easily as I can against a man. I wouldn’t have thought you’d turn into a bleeding heart though.”

  Sam rolled his eyes and moved to take a bottle of cold water out of the refrigerator. “Do you want to hear what happened or not?”

  Holden leaned against the counter and settled in. “Sure. Impress me, why don’t you?”

  “She got onto the property with the lawn guys. I was in the kitchen when I saw her hanging around the patio doors to the sunroom. Just to be sure, I waited until she had actually picked the lock somehow and gotten inside before I confronted her.”

  “Sensible, I guess.”

  “Damn straight. Anyway, she pretended to be looking for the bathroom so I had Martin escort her there and keep her detained. In the meantime I asked the lawn guys and they said they don’t have a woman on their crew.”

  Holden started a slow clap for his security guard’s ingenuity. “Well done. So you think you’ve got my break-in problems all sorted out?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” Sam said with a grimace. “I took the liberty of going through her bag and pockets when she refused to tell me what she was doing here.”

  “A real hardship, I’m sure.”

  “It wasn’t. Until I found what she brought with her: a lock-picking kit, glass cutter, screwdriver, gloves. Pretty much a burglar’s tool kit.”

  Holden leaned back in surprise. “So it’s a pretty good guess that she’s the one who’s been trying to break in for the past few months.”

  But Sam was already shaking his head. “No. The would-be burglar I ran down last week was a man. No way could a woman take an eight-foot fence like that. This woman is tall, but slender. The other guy was broad-shouldered and bulky. Not the same person.”

  “But it can’t be completely unrelated. I mean, what are the odds that of all the houses in Portland, we’re randomly selected by two different thieves?”

  “Odds are generally your thing, but I agree that it can’t be a coincidence.” Sam pulled a flash drive from his pocket. “I also found this on her. Not standard for a regular breaking and entering.”

  Holden’s heart started racing and his mind flew through the possible explanations as he tried t
o keep calm. “We don’t know this is about the Organotech job,” he cautioned.

  “Not definitively, no. But it’s a damn good place to start,” Sam said.

  “Where is she?”

  “Martin’s keeping guard over her now.” Sam gestured to the sunroom and moved out of the way as Holden pushed through the door.

  A quick scan of the room didn’t reveal their burglar, so Holden took a longer look. A flash of movement by the door caught his eye, and he swung his head around. All he saw was long hair the color of wheat in the summer spilling over slender shoulders. She was currently wrapped around one of his security guards, treating him to a passionate kiss as she slowly pushed him toward the door.

  Sam let out an irritated growl and charged over to the pair. “Martin, get control of yourself.”

  The young security guard shook his head as if to clear it and pulled away from the blonde woman. She smirked at him as Sam took her arm and pulled her away.

  “Why don’t you go wait in the hall?” Sam’s tone of voice made it clear it was an order and not a suggestion. The guard blushed scarlet and refused to look at anyone as he left the room. Sam gently pushed the woman into a chair and stood close should she decide to make another escape attempt.

  When she was seated and under control, Sam looked to Holden to take the lead. The woman followed his gaze, and Holden tried to hide his reaction to her hazel eyes. For a split second he felt like he had seen those eyes before somewhere. They were a memorable color, a swirl of green and gold so dark it edged toward brown, and they pinned him with a laser-like focus.

  Suddenly, he had sympathy for the young guard.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  She just stared at him, seeming a little confused herself. He waited a few seconds, but she didn’t seem inclined to answer.

  He crossed the room to reach the chair across from her. Alarm flared in her eyes, and he sought to reassure her. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just need some answers.”

  “I didn’t have any concerns that you were going to hurt me. I’m more concerned about your Cro-Magnon man here,” she said as she jerked her head in Sam’s direction. “Besides, how do you know I don’t have backup coming?”

  She sounded confident enough, but from his closer vantage point he could see the pulse pounding in her throat.

  Holden lifted his eyes to Sam’s and saw him indicate that he wasn’t sure if she was bluffing or not. He pointed toward the door and Holden nodded, agreeing that he should go check on things.

  Sam headed toward the door and stopped to point at the woman. “Don’t cause any trouble while I’m gone.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said and blew him a kiss.

  Once Sam had closed the door behind him, she turned her attention back to Holden. “So it’s just the two of us.” Now that she wasn’t wrapped around his employee, he could see that she was dressed in loose jeans and a chambray work shirt two sizes too big.

  Holden leaned back in his chair and watched her, willing to let her take the lead and see what he could learn. “So it would seem. Got anything you want to tell me?”

  “Hmmm,” she said as she pretended to think about it. “Not really. Would you like to let me go?”

  “Not likely.” Holden drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair while he thought.

  Silence stretched out between them while they each calculated how to get around the other.

  She looked him up and down. “How fast would you say you can run?”

  “Faster than you can get to the door,” he retorted.

  She smiled slowly. “Very good. I can tell you’re a smart one.”

  “I’m more than smart. I’m a genius. A genius who you can’t flatter your way into tricking.”

  “And so modest too,” she murmured.

  “Modesty is an over-rated virtue.”

  “Well, I’ve always thought so, but it never hurts to try.” She laughed suddenly, and he felt his muscles tense in response. This woman was messing with his chemistry. She was hot.

  Crazy, but hot.

  And all of his brains told him that the best thing to do was figure out what she was there for and then get her out of his house. The further she was away from him, the more blood would be available for his brain.

  “Let me break it down for you. Sam caught you breaking into my house. We have you on camera. It’s irrefutable and it’s breaking and entering. It’s really not in your best interest for me to call the police,” he explained.

  She sat up straighter in her chair. “I didn’t know that wasn’t an option. Keep talking.”

  “All I really want to know is everything you know.”

  “Everything I know could take a while.”

  “Probably less time than you think,” he retorted. “Specifically, I want to hear what you know about the two attempted break-ins at my house over the last month, who you are and why you’re here.”

  “That’s a lot of information for not a lot of payback. Why don’t you sweeten the deal on my side?” she queried as she studied her fingernails.

  “Why don’t I put in a call straight to the district attorney?” he asked, putting a hand out for the receiver of the phone.

  She heaved a sigh of annoyance. “Fine, but you’re going to be disappointed. I don’t really know all that much.”

  “Why don’t you start with your name?”

  “Sabrina.” He waited for a minute but it was clear she wouldn’t be continuing.

  “No last name?”

  “Don’t need it. I’m like Cher, Madonna or Britney. Just need the one,” she said.

  Holden just waited through her antics and raised his eyebrows.

  She sighed. “Sabrina Kelly.”

  “And why are you here?”

  “I’m new to the area and got confused?” Her voice pitched higher at the end, almost as if she were asking if he believed the excuse instead of just stating it.

  He shook his head.

  “I have a real passion for landscape architecture?” she tried.

  He just glared at her.

  “I’m stalking you?”

  I wish. Immediately, he was appalled at himself. He cleared his throat. “That sounds closer to the truth than you have a passion for landscaping, but still no cigar.”

  She tilted her head and smiled at him flirtatiously. “You don’t think you’re stalk-able?”

  “I don’t think you’re the type of woman who gets obsessed with anything.”

  “You don’t know what type of woman I am at all.”

  “Well, apparently you’re the type to try break into a house in broad daylight.”

  “See I think that’s exactly the type of woman who would be a stalker,” she pointed out.

  Just as Holden was about to lose his temper, Sam came back in, the door thumping a bit as it closed behind him. “Well?” Holden asked.

  “Everything’s clear.” He smirked a little. “And I sent Martin home so that we don’t find him making out with any more burglars.”

  Sabrina snorted. “I take offense to that. I haven’t stolen anything that you can prove yet.”

  “Please don’t make me search you again,” Sam said.

  “Like you needed an excuse. Get your jollies someplace else.”

  “Okay, okay,” Holden broke in. “Play nice, children.” He turned to Sam. “This is Sabrina. She’s going to tell us everything she knows about what’s been going on lately.” He turned back to pin her with a steely look. “And she’s going to start now.”

  Even as Sam moved closer to take a seat next to her, she kept her gaze on Holden, watching him, studying him like she could figure out what his weaknesses were just by looking at him. With the look in her eye, Holden wasn’t sure she couldn’t do it. They locked gazes for long moments, a tug of war over who would break down first.

  Sabrina did, rolling her eyes as she finally looked away.

  Impatient, Holden decided to take his victory graciously and get the ball
rolling. “You’re here for the program,” he said quietly.

  “What program?” she asked, all wide-eyed innocence that he didn’t believe for a second.

  “Don’t start playing dumb now. It won’t work,” he warned.

  “Who’s playing?”

  “The program for Organotech.”

  “You mean one of the giant companies looking to revolutionize the field of bio-medical engineering in one fell swoop?”

  “Yes,” Holden said through gritted teeth.

  She waited two beats. “Never heard of it.”

  He struggled to keep his temper under control. He, who never got angry at anything but lines of code, found himself having to breathe deeply to keep from yelling. “If you think this is going to keep me from calling the cops, you’re mistaken.”

  Sabrina shrugged. “It’s not like I haven’t been arrested before.”

  “Good to know, but have you ever been prosecuted by the best friend of the person you attempted to steal from? I wasn’t joking about the district attorney thing. He’s my good friend and he won’t offer you any deals if I tell him not to. The only deal is mine, here and now,” he said.

  There was a moment of silence as Sabrina weighed her options. At least that’s what Holden hoped she was doing. His frayed temper couldn’t take any more banter.

  “Okay.” She blew out a deep breath. “We are trying to steal the program Holden is working on to specialize the bio-printer.”

  Her words fell like a stone into the middle of the room. The two men exchanged surprised glances while Sabrina smiled smugly.

  “How did you know about that?” Holden finally asked.

  “I have my ways. But you have to admit, it’s not common knowledge. Maybe that will help you believe me?”

  Holden had to concede that she was right. The simple fact that she knew what he was working on when only a handful of people in the world were cleared to know proved that she was more than an average burglar.

  “So you and others, apparently your partners, have been trying to break in to steal the program for months now?” It was difficult for him to wrap his mind around.