Tempting the Corporate Spy

by Angela Claire

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t in your class,” he said, leaving it unsaid what he meant by that. If he had been, he would have beaten her.

  “Oh yeah? So why haven’t you cracked my programming?” she taunted, not even knowing what the hell he was talking about.

  “Because I’ve got a dick and I got distracted by it,” he muttered.

  “No! Because you are a dick!”

  “Sticks and stones, Livvie.”

  “Don’t call me Livvie!”

  Cracking her code? Cracking her code, for Christ’s sake?

  An overwhelming sense of betrayal and embarrassment washed over Liv, perversely enough making her feel as if she’d been wrung dry. Her cheeks pinched of their own accord and she bit her lip so hard she’d be tasting blood any minute.

  God, she was an idiot. She thought he wanted her, liked her, that maybe even they could—

  Idiot! Him and her. And then him again! She tried to reign in her emotions at the sight of him sitting so calmly there frowning at her.

  “Selling your start-up company didn’t make you enough money, Mr. Crestwell? You’re going in for high-level corporate espionage now? Nice. I thought you were supposed to be above all that. How the mighty have fallen; and all for cold hard cash I assume.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” he said.

  “Fine, I’m going to go out there,” she pointed to the outer office, “and tell Jen to have security call the police, and if you’re still here when they arrive, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. Corporate espionage is a felony, you know.”

  “Whatever.” He crossed one leg over his knee, a casual pose if ever she saw one. He was calling her bluff.

  The truth was, whatever else she felt right now, she actually did not want to be responsible for getting Jonathon Crestwell arrested. It would, like, get her posthumously or whatever the word was, kicked out of MIT. Maybe she could sweep all this under the rug. He’d as much as admitted he hadn’t gotten what he’d come for, and she had a sneaking suspicion she knew what that was. She wished he would just run out of here, like the creep he was.

  And, by the by, why the hell wasn’t it common knowledge how cute he was? Because MIT was filled with guys, that was why. The morons.

  A sudden flash of the sweet way he had asked her to dance last night came to her, and mortification struck her again at the memory of admitting she “wasn’t good with guys.” Was that when he decided to sleep with her?

  “You must think I’m such a fool,” she said softly.

  He discovered a sudden fascination with a point on the wall just behind her and he stared at it intensely, saying in a monotone, “No, I don’t. I’m sorry about this. I really am.”

  She waited and when no more was forthcoming, an alarming wetness sprang to the back of her eyes. She got up and walked to the window. “Get out then and I won’t call the police.”

  When he didn’t, she put the heels of her hands up, squeezing any wimpy tears back, and then whipped around. “Go on! Scamper right out of here if you know what’s good for you, Mr. Crestwell.”

  “Clearly I don’t, or I wouldn’t have gotten mixed up with you to begin with. Being attracted to you, ah, took me by surprise.”

  “We’re not mixed up with each other.”

  “Do you want to hear me out or not?”

  “Fine. Just get on with it. What is this all about?”

  “What it’s all about is your brilliant little idea.”

  “I have a lot of brilliant ideas. Which one are you talking about?”

  “Do they all involve shutting down the Internet?”

  “What does that mean?” she hedged.

  “I’m talking about your anti-piracy software. That’s what your company wants, isn’t it?”

  “No,” she lied. “As a matter of fact, they don’t. They want the water purification program I developed. It reads impurities and—”

  “Bullshit! They could give a fuck about purifying water in Africa or whatever the hell you developed that one for.”

  She didn’t know why she was the one who should feel guilty about anything. She wasn’t the imposter.

  Her phone rang, startling them both.

  “So now it rings,” he said derisively.

  She glanced at the caller ID, noting with annoyance that it was one of the few calls she had to take—her boss’s cell phone.

  He was based in L.A., and almost never called. Was there some way he could know about all this? She picked up the phone nervously. “Liv Altman speaking.”

  “Hi Liv. It’s Randy.”

  She took in a deep breath, turning her back on Jon, Jonathon, whoever, and tried to put some enthusiasm into her voice. “Randy! What a surprise. How are you?”

  “An asshole,” she heard behind her, and tried to get farther away from her prisoner, if he was going to make comments while she tried to talk to her boss.

  “Oh, I’m fine, Liv. Just fine. You know me. Another day, another dollar.”

  She gave an insincere laugh. “I hear you. So what can I do for you?”

  “I’m in New York for some meetings. Right now, as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize.”

  “It’s kind of hush-hush. Forget about why.”

  He took a deliberate pause, as if expecting her to probe further and, conscious of Jon’s presence, she passed at the chance. “Sure. No problem.”

  “Anyway, I’d like to take you to lunch. I have something I need to talk to you about.”

  “Lunch?” Could his timing be any worse?

  “Tell him you’re busy saving his nefarious project,” Crestwell muttered from behind her.

  “I’d love to.” So not. “But could we do tomorrow? I’m kind of swamped here.”

  “Afraid not, I have other plans. Now come on, what can be more important than having lunch with your boss? You’re not trying to blow me off for plans with your boyfriend, are you?”

  “Boyfriend?” As if that was the only thing that could possibly keep her from his lunch table.

  “This is getting interesting.”

  In response to Jon’s crack, Liv whirled on him and shook her head furiously for him to shut up.

  “Of course not,” she said into the phone. “If it has to be today, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong, though, is there?”

  “Big time,” Jon said, full voice, in response.

  “Is someone there with you, Liv? Am I interrupting something?”

  “No, no, just, ah, a guy delivering the mail. Anyway, where do you want to meet?”

  “Well, I’m a little pressed for time. Why don’t we have an early lunch at my hotel? I’m at the Ritz.”

  “Fine. About noon?”

  “Make it 11:30. I’m in suite 1525. We can have lunch in the room. It’ll be more private.”

  “The Ritz. Suite 1525 at 11:30. Got it.”

  “Don’t be late. This is important.”

  Without allowing her to answer, he hung up.

  “That’s why I don’t like to take phone calls.” She replaced the receiver on the hook. “It always screws up my whole day.”

  “We’d hate to have that. You have a big bad Internet you have to get busy shutting down.”

  She looked at him with resentment then set to the task of closing down her computer, her voice neutral. “Fine. You know about the project. But don’t exaggerate. Nobody’s shutting the Internet down.”

  “Said like the perfect little corporate tool.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know you’re not going to have me arrested.”

  She slammed her screen down, staring at him.

  He stared back. “You’re too…nice.”

  Delivered almost as if it were an insult.

  “Don’t be too sure.” The interlude last night made more sense now. “Is that why you slept with me?” Damn that telltale hitch in her voice. “Some extra insurance on that score?”

  For a second he looked like th
e man who had twirled her around to Sinatra. Then his face hardened and the illusion was gone. “I love how women manage to turn every conversation into something about their love life.”

  “Whereas guys manage to turn everything into a competition,” she countered, finding pure, white-hot anger again. “You’re good, but not as good as me. Wah, wah.”

  “Don’t you have a lunch to get to?”

  “You’re really not going to just leave?” she asked in frustration. “Get out while you can?”

  “I can’t. But I’ll be here when you get back.”

  “Hacking into my computer?”

  “I’m not a—all right in this case you have a point. But there’s more to it.”

  She shook her head, going to the door. “I don’t have time to listen to this.”

  “We’ll talk later then.”

  She grimaced, opening the door and almost knocking Jen over in the process. Listening at office doors was so beneath her. She just hoped her friend hadn’t heard the part about hooking up. She wasn’t sure she wanted to admit to that now she knew this guy was a corporate spy.

  Jen straightened. “Busted.” She looked toward Liv’s office. “So who’s Jonathon Crestwell?”

  Liv purposely misunderstood the question. “The asshole in there.”

  “No, I mean—”

  “He’s this guy who went to MIT.”

  “With you?”

  “No, way before me.”

  Jen did a double take. “Way before you? What, did he develop the fountain of youth while he was there?”

  “He was a prodigy. Sort of a genius,” she said almost in a whisper, though he heard anyway.

  “Gee, thanks,” he called out.

  “A hacker,” she added, full voice.

  “I told you—”

  She slammed the door shut behind her and said to Jen, “I have no idea what he’s doing here.”

  “Maybe he needed a job?’

  She scoffed. “I doubt it. He made a ton of money from a company he sold and from who knows what else. But I don’t have time right now to figure out what to do with him.”

  “Aren’t we going to fire him?” Jen asked.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that.” She glanced at her watch. “And I have to go to midtown to meet Randy for lunch.” She opened her office door again and motioned to the still-seated Jonathon. “Come on. I’m not leaving you here. Out!”

  He got up. “If you want to make a show of kicking me out right now, go for it. But I will see you later.”

  “Why?” she asked in exasperation.

  “Because we have to talk.” He breezed past her. “I just have to figure out what I’m going to say first.”

  And then he was gone.

  “Don’t ask,” she advised Jen. “And get somebody from Security to make sure he doesn’t get back in this building.”

  “I’m filling out the termination papers, no matter what went on in there.”

  “I don’t think terminating Crestwell is going to get rid of him.”

  “Well,” Jen said, “at least it’s a start.”

  She’d slept with Jonathon Crestwell. Hard to believe. She sort of felt like Leda after the swan, though she couldn’t remember if Leda had been pissed off after she found out it’d been Zeus in her bed. Though what the hell the woman was doing sleeping with a swan, she had no idea. At least she’d only slept with a fake-consultant. Inappropriate maybe, but the same species, at least.

  Or was he? Jonathon Crestwell was as close to a Zeus as the mythology of MIT had. He exemplified the school’s spirit of pushing boundaries and brainpower triumphing over all, while still being kind of an outcast in the process. She had—they all had—admired him.

  And now he was pretending to like her, and dancing with her, and who knew what else and then calling her a corporate tool. The jerk! How he must have been laughing at the fact he had to resort to sleeping with her so she wouldn’t be suspicious that he might be digging up confidential information—which actually was the last thing she would have suspected him of when he showed up in the middle of the night.

  Thinning her lips at the thought, she stalked through the spacious lobby of the Ritz, making her way to the Tower elevator.

  Only when she was by herself in the elevator did the crashing disappointment overtake her again. She’d been used and tricked. Those goddamn tears threatened again and she wished she had brought a stick of gum. Chewing gum always staved off tears. At least for her. She had chewed piece after piece all through her mother’s funeral service, ignoring the dirty look from the priest.

  Well, chewing gum or no, she wasn’t going to cry, not now. Not for Jonathon Crestwell or anything he’d done, or was trying to do to her. She would fight back, even if she wasn’t sure what the battle objective was. Her bright cheeks and watery eyes in the mirrored door of the elevator threatened to make a liar out of her. Furiously she swiped at her eyes, relieved she didn’t wear mascara or she’d look like a raccoon right about now, and jammed a bobby pin tighter in the perfectly twisted chignon at the back of her head. She had gone home to change for no other reason than to try to cool off, but it hadn’t helped. At least she had on something more chic than her usual fare—a sleeveless black sheath and pumps—for her meeting with the boss. Hopefully the picture she presented said, “savvy young woman working on important computer science project” instead of “clueless geek duped into bed by gorgeous spy out to ruin said project.”

  She doubted it.

  It took a few knocks before Randy made it to the door of his hotel suite, and when he did he had his cell phone glued to his ear. Tall and blond and fit as any California tech executive should be, he was dressed in suit pants and a shirt, with no tie or jacket. He smiled and waved her in as he said into the phone, “Tell him to forget it. Absolutely not.”

  Shutting the door behind her, he continued his one-sided conversation, the gist of which was that the answer was no, as she took in the white cloth-covered table that had been wheeled into the room with two silver-covered dishes already laid out.

  For the first time since Randy had called her, she wondered what it was her boss really wanted. If she hadn’t been overwhelmed with anxiety about the Jonathon Crestwell situation, she might have spared a moment to worry about the purpose of this meeting. Randy had never popped into New York unannounced like this—that she knew about anyway—and when he was in New York, they always met at the office. Whether it was her recent fiasco with Crestwell or the mere novelty of this command performance, she suddenly felt very awkward in a hotel room alone with Randy as he terminated his call with a terse, “That’s final.”

  She smiled at him. “Nice to see you, Randy.”

  When he leaned toward her, she thought he was going to shake her hand but instead found herself the recipient of an aborted hug.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said quickly.

  “Don’t be so stiff, Liv.” He took her arm and led her to the table, pulling the chair out for her. “I’m not going to bite you.”

  “I was worrying more along the lines of fire me, but okay.”

  He sat opposite her and removed his silver dish as she did the same with hers. It was some kind of fish. “Why would I fire my most brilliant protégée?”

  This was the first she heard of that, or at least the protégée part, but she’d take it. “That’s great to hear.”

  “Come on now. No false modesty.”

  “Well, I appreciate that.”

  As he cut into his fish and started eating with gusto, he regaled her with the ins and outs of his trip to New York and the various constituencies hassling him for this or that. “Everybody wants a piece of me. You know how that feels?”

  “Uh, sure. You said there was something you wanted to talk to me about, though?”

  “Can I have some lunch first if you don’t mind? All business, aren’t you? That is so cool. So how’s the project coming?”

  She let out a sigh of relief. At last, a safe
subject. Work she could talk about. For hours if she had to, though unfortunately she wasn’t supposed to, with anyone, so she didn’t. It was a relief to be able to get Randy’s ear on it for once. “I’m still working out some bugs, but as an anti-piracy program, I think it’s pretty tight. Now I need to focus on balancing that with making sure we don’t overreach.”

  “Overreaching is fine, Liv.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What I mean is don’t waste a lot of time on that.”

  She thought of Jon’s objections to the project. Shutting down the Internet and all. “Well, I think that side of it is kind of important.”

  “I’m going to want you to be ready with something by the end of the month.”

  “That soon!” she cried in horror, not even sure what he meant by “something,” and he laughed, taking what she realized was his final bite of the fish. She’d barely touched hers.

  He pushed his plate away. “You need to relax.”

  Geez, she hoped he wasn’t going to offer her a neck rub, too.

  “I know you’re in your own little world working on this thing, but you have to understand there’s a lot of interest in your project.”

  No kidding.

  “And I shouldn’t even be telling you, but the truth of it is, we’re in the midst of very delicate merger negotiations and a lot of money is at stake.”

  “A merger? With who?”

  “That’s not important. What is important is that your project, our project, is at the crux of it. That’s what this is about. We’re not meeting in the office now because I don’t want to start a lot of chatter about something big going on.”

  “There are very few people actually even left on my floor.”

  “What? Oh right, there were layoffs. The buyer liked that,” he said absently. “Anyway, so that’s why I asked you to meet me here in my hotel room because you can’t exactly talk about this in a restaurant. Half the waiters in New York earn a little extra on the side by keeping their ears open.”

  “Oh, sure.” She doubted that. So much self-importance floating around in corporate America. Although, of course, she knew one person who certainly had his ears open. She straightened.

  “I’m meeting with Hershey at his penthouse on the whole deal this afternoon, as a matter of fact.”