by Tiffany Snow
Getting in to work at five o’clock in the morning on a Monday guaranteed a few raised eyebrows, especially since they knew I usually arrive at seven o’clock on the dot. I ignored the looks cast my way from the skeleton staff and unlocked my office.
It was nice having my own office and it was rather large by most standards. One wall was glass that overlooked the crew floor and the wall of screens. Being back at work calmed my still-frayed nerves. After all, it wasn’t every day that I got attacked by Iron Man.
Derrick was still there and I pinged him a message, asking for an update. Sixty seconds later, he was in my office.
“This is what we have so far,” he began, handing me a folder before taking a seat opposite my desk. “Roscoe got further than I did with the IP trace and has set up tripwires that’ll spring and let us know if he comes out that way again.”
“So where did he originate?” I asked, skimming through the papers in the file.
“Roscoe thinks he’s near the DC area.”
I glanced up in surprise. Derrick’s expression was grim. “Not another government agency, do you think?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Roscoe’s still working on it. We’ll keep you updated.”
I nodded. “And apparently the only thing he accessed was my records.”
“Yes. It’s as if he knew what to look for.”
Yes, it did seem that way. Then he’d hacked my home network . . . for fun? To scare me? Just to see if he could? Or had he been looking for something else?
I didn’t mention to Derrick I’d been hacked. If word got out that I was too incompetent to protect my own home, how could I be trusted to protect Vigilance? It was embarrassing.
“Okay. Thank you, Derrick.” I dismissed him.
An hour later, I got an unexpected call. “Mr. Gammin,” I said. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.” Stewart Gammin was the president’s chief of staff and our method of communication to the executive branch. I’d never met the president himself, not that I was in a big hurry to do so. “What can I do for you?”
Gammin was as cunning a politician as they came and twice as dangerous, because he didn’t need to worry about reelection. His was the hidden hand behind what the cameras saw, and power was his currency.
“We have a situation,” he said by way of greeting.
My lungs froze. Surely he didn’t know about the hack? I wasn’t prepared to tell him until we knew more. “What is it?”
“An unexpected visit from a Chinese billionaire,” he said. “Simon Lu. I’m sending you everything we have on him now.”
A second later, an encrypted email popped up on my screen. I ran decryption and unzipped the attachment. “Got it.”
“Go over it with Slattery,” he said. “I’ll be by in a couple of hours to detail what I need done.” He signed off without so much as a “Have a nice day.”
“And people say my social skills are lacking,” I muttered, sending an email to Clark to let him know we needed to meet in my office ASAP, then printing two sets of what Gammin had sent. He arrived before the papers had even finished collating.
“So I hear you were in early today,” Clark said, flopping down in a chair, knees spread as he leaned back.
It was difficult to concentrate when he did stuff like that, his body lovingly encased in a black polo, his biceps straining the elasticity of the garment’s sleeves. Jeans were his favorite attire as well and he wore the nice ones that clung to his narrow hips and made his . . . backside . . . look hard enough to bounce a quarter off of.
I swallowed, jerking my eyes away before he noticed my staring. At some point, Clark’s looks wouldn’t affect me—they’d become ordinary—but today wasn’t that day, damn it.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I said vaguely.
“Your scrapes look better,” he observed.
Absently, I touched the scab on my chin that I’d not bothered to cover with makeup. “Gammin’s going to be here soon to go over this.” I handed him his set of documents.
“Simon Lu,” Clark read aloud. “I’ve heard of him.”
My eyebrows climbed. “You have?”
He nodded. “Ruthless fucker. Started one of the biggest Internet companies in China, thanks to corporate espionage and tech stolen from US companies.”
“Why would he be coming here?”
“No idea. But somehow I doubt it’s an acknowledged visit.” At my questioning look, he clarified. “Back channel communication, wheeling and dealing.”
Ah.
We were quiet for a few minutes, perusing the file at our own speed. Iron Man was nagging at me. I couldn’t tell the staff what had happened, but somehow I thought it might be safe to tell Clark. Somebody ought to know, just in case I disappeared inside my TARDIS tonight and didn’t return.
“Um, you know that hacker?” I asked, still pretending to read the file on Lu.
“Yeah.”
“I think . . . he . . . ah . . . hacked my home network last night.”
No response. I carefully glanced up through my lashes to see Clark frowning at me.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
So I explained about Iron Man’s attack. “I’d programmed him myself, trying to make it more lifelike, like the movies,” I said. “He hacked my network, activated it, and took control.”
“That’s not good,” Clark said, his lips pressed in a grim line.
“I don’t really want to . . . tell anyone,” I said. “My credibility will drop to nothing. And if I’m a weak link in this project, I could be fired. Or worse.” I’d known from the moment Gammin had first approached me about running Vigilance that bowing out of the project would be the equivalent of signing my death warrant.
“So do you think the hacker was just screwing around? Playing with your toys?”
“I don’t know.” A sentence I despised saying under any circumstances.
My intercom dinged, announcing Gammin’s arrival.
“Don’t say anything to him,” I said to Clark, who nodded just as Gammin rapped sharply on my door and stepped inside.
“Good morning,” he said, taking the chair next to Clark. He was tall with dirty-blonde hair and pleasant but forgettable features. I’d pegged him to be around forty-five years old. “I take it you’ve had time to go over the file?”
“Lu seems like quite the businessman,” I said. The guy was worth over three billion.
“Yes, he’s a saint,” Gammin replied. “Which is why we need to know all we can about him. He’s coming here to discuss the upcoming trade bill. Some high-profile tech companies are making noises about bringing manufacturing back to the mainland, and their senators are listening to them. If the rumored tax breaks are put into the trade bill, it may incentivize them to remove millions of jobs from China. The visit is being kept under wraps, very low profile.”
“So what do you want us to do?” I asked.
“He wants us to listen in,” Clark answered.
Gammin gave a little smile. “Exactly.”
“Isn’t spying more of a job for the CIA?” I asked.
“Usually, yes. But the president wants his team on it, which means you.”
“Lu isn’t going to come here alone,” Clark said. “He’ll have a full security detail. Do we have any assets with him?”
“Negative. But we do know he’s going to be attending a VIP dinner tonight at the hotel where he’s staying. The setting should be ideal. Do what you need to do, but I want his communications monitored for the duration of his stay. I trust you have the ability to do that?”
That question was directed at me and I nodded. “But if it’s a VIP dinner, how are we supposed to get in?” I asked.
“Wait a second, it’s not we,” Clark interrupted.
“Failure isn’t an option so I want both of you to go,” Gammin said. “You’ll get her in and out.” He glanced at Clark, who was clearly displeased by this information. “She may need to work on the fly,” he explained. “No one else on your
team has the tech know-how to do it. She’s the best, so she’ll do it.”
Gammin reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew a thick vellum envelope, which he handed to me. I slit it open as he talked. “We don’t have the list of attendees, but have set up a cover for you two.”
“Which is?”
“You’re a couple. Been together for about six months. Clark’s a rich playboy whose family is in the tech business. You,” he looked at me, “are young and dumb. Just a bit on the side for Lothario here.”
I laughed outright. “So I’m supposed to be his arm candy? You’re joking.”
“Gotta go with her on this one,” Clark said.
I shot him a dirty look. “The only thing more unbelievable is that you’re in the tech business.”
“I’m sure you two can figure something out,” Gammin interrupted. He looked slightly pained as he gave us a once-over. “Try not to kill each other, okay?”
Sure. No problem.
6
“You can’t wear jeans and a T-shirt tonight,” Clark said once Gammin had left.
“No kidding.”
“Which means a tux for me and a cocktail dress for you.”
I grimaced. Twice within three days I had to put on a dress? Most women probably enjoyed getting the opportunity to dress up. Not me. And now Mia was gone, so who’d do my hair and makeup?
“Do you own a cocktail dress?” he persisted.
My cheeks warmed but I answered honestly, shaking my head.
Clark sighed. “That’s what I thought. C’mon. Let’s go shopping.” He stood.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I sputtered. “I have to work, not go shopping.”
“It is for work,” he said. “Now quit stalling and let’s go.”
I didn’t see any way around it, so I reluctantly followed him out to the parking garage.
“We’ll take my car,” he said, pulling open the passenger door for me.
I balked. “I can just follow you,” I said, putting on the brakes.
“And have you get lost because you have no idea where to find a cocktail dress?” he countered. I didn’t reply. “I bet dollars to donuts that you do all your shopping online.”
Damn. “Not all of it,” I muttered. As many times as I’d tried, shopping for shoes online was trial and error because not every size seven was an actual size seven.
“In you go,” he said, giving me a little push. I got in the car but also shot him a dirty look, which he didn’t see because he was already shutting the door.
“So did you and the boy wonder patch things up?” he asked as he drove.
I hesitated, my stomach doing a guilty flip-flop. “I didn’t call him. I said I would, but I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
I turned toward him. “Is it always like this?” I asked.
He looked blankly at me. “Like what?”
I waved my hand vaguely. “That your whole life has to change to accommodate a romantic relationship.” It seemed unfair to me.
“Well . . . yeah,” he said with a shrug.
I was afraid he’d say that. “But what if it ends? Then you have to change back to what it was before. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through.”
“It can be,” he said. “But you have to weigh that against what you get out of the relationship.”
“So . . . like a Pros versus Cons list?” I could do lists. Neat little precise orders of items to be weighed in a logical fashion. My fingers practically itched to grab a pen and notebook.
“Um, well, yeah, I guess, though that’s being a little mercenary about it.”
I was already digging in my backpack. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not mercenary. It’s perfectly logical, and I’m disappointed I didn’t think of it myself.” Unearthing a notebook and a pen, I flipped to a pristine page and began writing. Jackson—Pros vs. Cons, I wrote at the top, then neatly made two columns and labeled those as well.
“These never end well,” Clark said, looking dubiously at my notebook. “Haven’t you ever watched Friends?”
“It was before my time and I never saw what was funny about it.”
“Really?”
“So . . . Pros,” I began, thinking. “Well, there’s the obvious.”
“That he’s rich?”
That had a tone to it, but I didn’t know what it meant, so I just took the comment at face value. “Yes, that’s a pro because the alternative—his being poor—would most decidedly make a relationship difficult, introducing strain and even awkwardness. Especially when a woman is financially more successful than a man. So yes, Jackson being wealthy is a pro.” I wrote in one column. “Not to mention that intellectually, he’s quite stimulating.” Dumb was boring. I wrote some more. “Though his wealth wasn’t the obvious thing I was referring to. I meant the sex was obvious.”
“How is that obvious?” Clark asked. “He could be bad in bed for all I know. Or for all you know either.”
I snickered. “Please. I would know if Jackson was bad in bed.”
“How?” Clark countered. “You were a virgin, right? So you have nothing to compare against. He could be an awful partner for all you know.”
I felt the need to defend my ability to judge Jackson’s sexual prowess. “I may not have a comparison, but I do know that I am sexually fulfilled by his level of passion and experience.”
“Why? Because you have an orgasm?”
My face flooded with heat, but I answered just as bluntly. “Of course. That is the yardstick by which sexual fulfillment is measured, correct?”
Clark parked the car in the lot of a little boutique, turned, and looked at me. “If you think sexual fulfillment is just having an orgasm, then I’d definitely put Jackson’s technique in the Cons column.”
He was out of the car before I could think of a proper comeback, a not-uncommon event around Clark. With a sigh, I followed him to the door and inside the store, glancing around curiously at the muted rose carpet and the antique chandeliers dotting the ceiling. Full-length mirrors were placed strategically around while mannequins showcased different dresses and outfits.
“May I help you?” A woman had hustled forward, addressing her heavily accented question to Clark.
“Oui,” he replied, then rattled off rapid-fire French. She responded just as quickly, looking pleased at someone speaking her native tongue.
Of course, I couldn’t follow anything they were saying. Languages weren’t my thing. There wasn’t enough structure to them and they were constantly changing. I did notice when he gestured to me and the woman looked my way, too. Shifting my weigh uneasily from one foot to the other, I pushed my glasses up my nose.
The woman frowned, eyeing me up and down. “Elle est très petite, non?”
Okay, I knew enough basic French to understand that. “Yes, I know I’m the size and stature of your average fifth-grader,” I groused.
Clark snorted, then tried to cover it with a cough. I gave him the stink eye.
“Bien, mademoiselle,” the woman said. “Zee have plenty of beautiful dresses zat will suit you.”
“But I just need one.” She latched on to my elbow and tugged. “You are surprisingly strong,” I muttered, having no choice but to follow her. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Clark wink, then settle into an overstuffed armchair.
If I’d had claims to modesty, they were brushed aside with a Gallic shrug and wave as I was stripped to my underwear and various garments pulled over my head and up my legs. Most of them I didn’t even get to see before the woman who’d introduced herself as Marie shook her head and tugged them back off. I felt like a human mannequin as she studied me.
“I have just zee thing,” she said, popping out of the dressing room. She was back in moments, carrying a cherry red dress.
“Oh no,” I said, backing away. “I don’t wear red.” Red was eye-catching. People paid attention to those who wore red. You had to have a certain charisma and panache to pull off red and be subje
ct to all those staring sets of eyeballs.
Getting away from Marie in the confines of the dressing room proved impossible. I didn’t think a lady her age could be so quick or adept, but before I knew it, she was zipping me into the dress. Reaching up, she tugged my hair tie out.
“Hey! What are you doing?” But she was already fluffing my considerable length of hair.
“Beautiful,” she pronounced, then spun me around to face the mirror.
Oh. Oh wow. I’d thought the dalek dress was awesome, but this one was even better.
It was tight but stretchy, wrapping around my body and ending right above the knee. It was off the shoulder, exposing a lot of skin at my neck and chest. I’d always thought my collarbone protuberances were ugly, but in this dress they looked feminine and fragile. My sun-deprived skin looked the perfect shade of pale ivory against the red fabric and my dark hair contrasted both. It even made my blue eyes stand out.
“You like?” she asked.
I nodded, still staring in the mirror. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Let’s show zee gentleman.” Then she was tugging me out again.
I could’ve gone without a stamp of approval from Clark, but it wasn’t up to me, and quick as a flash, I was standing before him as though asking permission to buy the dress I wanted for prom.
His head was bent over his phone. He glanced up, then back down at the phone, then back up at me, where his gaze remained. I wasn’t very good at reading facial expressions, so I decided he either looked shocked or frightened. Since I knew very few things frightened Clark—and I wouldn’t even make the top hundred—I decided on shocked.
“Well?” I said impatiently, after waiting for what felt like an eon for him to say something. “This will work, right? This is what you had in mind?”
Clark’s gaze went from my head all the way to my bare toes and back up. Goose bumps broke out on my skin as if he’d touched me, which was disconcerting.
“It’ll do,” he said, returning his attention to his phone.
My chest constricted and I drew in a breath at the prick of pain and embarrassment his easy dismissal had caused. Marie looked as though he’d just told her France was a third-world country with cuisine to match.
