by MJ Riley
He told himself that he could end it. He could go public with the information on his flash drive, and it would all be over. However, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
For the first time in his life, he had found someone who was trying to understand him. There had always been teachers who empathized with him, and he knew that his friend Marshall pitied him. However, only Charlotte had ever attempted to crack his outer shell and see what made him tick.
And now she was asking him to go away with her.
“Where would we go?”
She smiled at his inquiry. “I was thinking Hawaii, the Bahamas...somewhere sunny. We could get away from all the craziness of the firm...and we could be alone.”
The prospect, like anything involving Charlotte, heated his blood. “How long would we be away?” He was thinking of his mother. Though they had finally been granted insurance, and he had found a balance between paying for her psychiatrist and slowly getting rid of all the debtors who were chasing them, he was still reluctant to leave her. She would hardly eat unless he reminded her, and he was worried that someone else wouldn't understand her condition.
To be alone with Charlotte, truly alone, away from her father's prying eyes and Adeline's judging stares was tempting. He could even leave the flash drive behind in a safe place. He wouldn't even think about it while they were gone. He could pretend, just for a little while, that fate had brought them together and that their relationship could work.
“Maybe a week? Is this you agreeing?” she said with a hopeful smile.
“This is me saying I'll think about it.” His reply was as gentle as he could make it, considering the circumstances. Leaning across the kitchen counter that separated them, he kissed her, softly and leisurely. When her lips parted, he tasted her, and it was divine.
Apart from having to hide a portion of himself from her, David was finding that being with a woman who genuinely cared for him was different from any experience he’d had before. He didn't have to ply Charlotte with gifts and flowers to win her affections. She could buy any of those things herself. She was more impressed with his mind and his conviction than anything else, and the realization made his chest swell with pride.
He wondered whether this was what it felt like to actually look forward to the next day. His entire life, David had dreaded the next morning. He dreaded what it would feel like to go a whole day without sleep after working all night and having classes the next morning. He dreaded having his mother stare at him with dull, vacant eyes. Most of all, he dreaded facing everyday with the thought that his father had killed himself for a company that practically ruled the East Coast.
But now, he barely thought of any of that.
Certainly, he was still worried about his mother's recovery, and there were nights that he still woke up covered in sweat after dreaming about the day he'd come home to his father's dead body. But, Charlotte was there. Though he could never explain the nightmares to her, she held him until his shakes subsided, and every day when he left his mother to come to work, she was present with her patience, cunning, and wit.
It was easy to pretend he loved her.
He practically did.
“Let's stay in for dinner tonight.” He coaxed lowly against her lips, making her smile. “I'm not so much interested in food as I am dessert.”
Charlotte laughed softly, and he scooped her into his arms before taking the steps upstairs to her bedroom two at a time. At first, the sight of her luxurious apartment made him both marvel and envy her, but he'd quickly grown to realize that her apartment and all of her things were just the trappings that went along with her life. She didn't show off her designer bags or drag him on shopping excursions. Quite the opposite, actually.
She seemed embarrassed to spend money in front of him.
And the fact made him adore her all the more.
As soon as he tossed her playfully onto the bed, she was upright and tugging him down against her, their mouths fusing once more. She tasted rich and sweet, like the cappuccino she'd been sipping all afternoon, and he groaned against her mouth at the flavor.
The woman was voracious.
Even as he bore her to the mattress, she was tugging at the dark-blue button-up shirt he wore, seeking the buttons. She popped one, sending it flying across the room in her efforts to undress him, and he laughed, taking her hands from his shirtfront to undo the rest himself. Once his chest was exposed, Charlotte looked over him. Hunger glinted in her eyes, and then she pounced. They rolled over the length of the mattress until she was on top, and then she smoothed her hands reverently over his pectorals and biceps. She lowered her mouth to kiss over the ridges so the muscles rippled at the sensation and continued downward. He grunted, as she shunted his pants down his legs without even unbuttoning them. Luckily, his feet were bare so she had no shoes to contend with, and then he was gloriously bare beneath her.
Her tongue traced downward and over his abdomen so his stomach tensed, and when she finally reached the throbbing organ at the crux of his legs, she gazed up at him deviously. Then, without a word, she took him entirely down her throat. He gripped the coverlet, moaning at the sweet, hot vice that encircled him. As she worked her mouth over him with ardor his thighs tensed and his balls ached. He needed to be inside her—and soon.
He endured another torturous five minutes of her tongue sliding over him, teasing him to the edge of insanity, before a hushed explicative escaped him. He sat up, took her by the shoulders, and tugged upwards until she was level with him. Charlotte's face was flushed with pride, and as she licked her lips, he groaned.
Quickly, he helped her strip her shirt off over her head. He almost ripped one of the lacy little bras that she liked to wear in half getting it off of her. As soon as her bare breasts were exposed to his gaze, he took a nipple into his mouth and suckled just the way he knew she liked. Sure enough, she moaned, arching against his mouth as he toyed with her other breast, plucking and circling its peak.
Soon, he switched to her other breast, and after a good five minutes of his ministrations, Charlotte was panting beneath him.
He did away with her jeans in short order, and then her panties, marveling at how wet she was for him. When his fingers found her, she moaned. He smiled, working his thumb against her clit until she was growling with want for him.
Turning her onto her stomach, he mounted her from behind, pushing into her with a single thrust that had her clawing at the coverlet beneath her. The pace he set was sudden and fast, and soon his name was rising from her lips to echo about the otherwise empty apartment.
She was like a vice around him, gripping him exquisitely and providing friction that made his thighs tense with the need to spill himself inside her.
He didn't have to wait very long.
When she began to buck back against him, moaning as she took him even deeper than before, the thin line of his control snapped. He pounded into her until his climax took him almost violently, making him shudder as sensation battered him.
Beneath him, his lover tensed as well. Her inner walls spasmed about him and milked him until he collapsed atop her, a faint smile coloring his face.
Sex had never been so good or so fulfilling.
Practically doing a back bend to achieve the gesture, Charlotte kissed him softly, and he pulled out of her to lay on the bed beside her, admiring the curves of her form. “If I were to choose a place to go,” she said, appearing contemplative as she continued their conversation from before, “what place would most convince you?”
He smirked at her relentlessness. “I care more about the company than the location.”
Charlotte laughed softly. “If that's the case, then the deal is done.”
He merely placed a hand at her waist, running it down and over the curve of her hip leisurely. When her new phone began to buzz, he frowned. CEOs never got a break, he supposed. He merely hoped it wasn't her father.
When David had realized exactly how dysfunctional the relationship between Em
erson and his daughter was, he'd been astounded by her resilience. Not only had she endured a lifetime without a parent's loving care, but she'd had a company she hadn't even want to run thrust upon her at the tender age of twenty-five. Many people would have been bitter and driven the firm into the ground in protest, but not Charlotte. She'd made vast improvements to the company, even without her father, and the provisions she'd made had allowed for more efficiency and greater freedom for tech designers.
Though a part of him cautioned about how dangerous it was to entertain the notion, he'd mused upon more than one occasion that she was more like himself than he could have ever imagined. To a further extent, he regretted the jealousy and hatred he'd harbored for her. While the media portrayed her partaking in the fruits of her family's wealth, inwardly, she had been suffering.
And she still was.
The discovery that Emerson Mathers had left another insidious mark on the world made David even more anxious to carry out his plan sooner. However, even though he had the flash drive that contained the article about Charlotte, he found himself returning to the lab night after night still searching.
He wondered whether there was a chance that he could take the company down without tarnishing her reputation. The thought made his chest swell with hope. Certainly, she would still hate him once he'd acted, and they would never be able to be together as they had; but he wouldn't have to do it by besmirching her name. Her father would get the brunt of the blame, if only he could find some suitable information to implicate the man.
There had been a time when David had vainly sought any articles or information with news about his father. He'd known that the records wouldn’t go so far back. In any case, Mathers would have erased them to get rid of any evidence that might reveal what he'd done; but, he still looked. His fervor had only lasted a few days when he'd realized how truly insignificant he and his family must have been in the eyes of the company for them to have been buried so deep.
Consequently, David found himself torn between using the information that he had to hasten the demise of a man he hated—even though it would harm a woman he respected and adored—and continuing his search, knowing that every day that he used the external server, he risked discovery.
And Charlotte, through it all, remained completely oblivious.
She seemed desperate to help him overcome his troubles but telling her of them would mean revealing his plans. Although he knew that she had strong feelings for him, he very much doubted that she would stand aside to watch him scuttle the company she'd poured her life into.
“It's Addy.” Charlotte said, as she checked the caller ID on her phone and made a face. “I feel like she somehow magically knows when we're...you know. She's calling me to lecture me, I swear.” With a long suffering look, she answered the phone. “Hello?”
Her volume was too low for David to hear very much of what the other woman was saying, and so he merely leaned back against the headboard and lounged as Charlotte talked.
“Yes, he's here. But, you already knew that through some strange psychic power. Yes. No.”
Suddenly, Charlotte's voice took on a slightly put-out tone. “What? I....no. No. Really? Where's it coming from? Ok, sure. Definitely. We'll be there in a half hour.” When she hung up, her expression had taken on an angry edge. “We have to get downtown.”
He arched a brow at her sudden change in demeanor. “Why? What's happened?”
Sighing, the blonde woman ran a hand through her mussed curls before speaking again. “Addy says somebody's been accessing my computer from a remote server. She needs your help finding out who did it.”
His blood immediately froze in his veins.
No.
Not now.
He'd been on the cusp of escaping all his worries for a week, and he hadn't yet decided how he was going to execute the plan he'd spent a lifetime on. “She said...someone's been hacking your systems?”
He had to stall for time. However, Charlotte didn't look to be in a waiting mood. Her face was twisted into an expression of displeasure, as she rose from the bed and began pulling on her jeans. “Not hacking, per say. Looking into my files. Searching for something, maybe.” She chuckled bitterly. “Man, wait until Dad hears about this. He'll be ecstatic that he was right, for once.”
Christ.
“Is there anywhere we can go on the outside? Maybe a company we can visit who would have more information about external servers?”
Charlotte shook her head, as she slid her t-shirt down over her hips. “No. I don't think so. This kind of thing has happened before. Addy's on it.” Charlotte broke into a fierce smile. “We'll get the bastards.” She looked over his still naked form lounging in bed with an arched a brow. “Well, what are you waiting for? Come on! She said the trace will go much quicker with your help.”
He had no way to stave her off.
With his stomach in knots and his throat dry, David rose from the bed and began gathering his clothes. As he dressed, his mind whirled with excuses he could concoct and ways that he could stall, but none of them seemed plausible.
Charlotte was utterly determined to find the interloper, and her conviction showed on her face. As soon as she had pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail, she grabbed her cellphone and her keys, leaving the room.
He could do nothing but follow her.
In the taxi, David leaned against the window, his options running like lightning through his head. There was a good chance that Adeline wasn't quite skilled enough to run a complete trace, and that was why she was calling him in. If that was indeed the case, he could somehow reroute the signal so it could be seen as having come from a different computer. He might very well be condemning some poor innocent to jail time, however. Plus, he didn't anticipate that the ferocious Adeline would leave his side for long enough for him to perform any tweaks to the system without her knowledge.
He could deny that he was the person who had accessed the files and claim that someone else in the office with his clearance level was the perpetrator. It would be exceedingly far-fetched, as there were only four members of the tech department with card clearance after hours, and none of them had the keys to David's office.
He could tell the truth.
Ha. No doubt Adeline would gut him, and Charlotte would spit on his remains. The years of his life that he worked for minimum wage and the grief that had plagued his family would go unavenged. He knew that he could not tell the truth.
Soon enough, however, they'd reached the financial district and the Mathers tower. Now, everyone in the lobby knew him by name, and they were all curious to know why he was at work on one of his days off—and with the CEO no less. Luckily for him, Charlotte fielded all their questions with her firm demeanor. Within minutes, they were taking the elevator to the tech lab.
The sixty-fifth floor was busy as usual, and no sooner had they swiped in than Adeline swooped down on them, her expression livid. “There you are. Took you long enough.” Grabbing David's arm, she led him past the lab and design room and into her corner office. Charlotte trailed behind them, and David hoped against hope that Adeline hadn't gotten too far in researching the signal. She was certainly good—there was a reason she was head of the tech department—but her development and design speed was slow.
Thankfully, luck seemed to be on his side.
As he bent over her computer screen, he saw that she had decrypted the outgoing signal from Charlotte's computer, but she had not quite been able to determine the location of the outside server. Until she did, she wouldn't be able to backtrack to the origin of the login.
The woman was breathing down his neck, and David's gut churned as he tried to think of a way to help the computer misinterpret the signal.
However, Charlotte was watching, as well. Perhaps he could fool one of them, alone; but, he would never be able to fool two of them.
Not a chance.
“They've been accessing Charlotte's computer for months,” Adeline breathed in disgust.
“Almost nightly. Whoever did this has a gigantic pair.”
“What were they looking for?” Charlotte’s query came with genuine curiosity.
“I don't know,” said Adeline with a scowl. “Looks like they were mostly accessing old news articles dealing with the company. A couple of merger documents...tech press releases...”
“Junk,” said Charlotte, summing up the information, her expression confused. “Why not go for the financial reports— bank account numbers, balance statements, things like that?”
“This person obviously isn't looking for money.” Adeline's green eyes were bright with the thrill of the hunt. “They want something else.”
“I'll be right back.” David interjected on the two women’s speculations, his throat dry. “I'm going to grab something that will help me decode the signal from my office.”
“Well, hurry up.” Ever impatient, Adeline gestured to him swiftly. “I'll keep trying to get it.”
As soon as David left her office, he made his way to his own. His own computer was off, and as he stared at the blank screen, he tried to determine if he had enough time to lay a false signal. Whether or not it would take would depend on how far Adeline had gotten in decrypting the code. He wasn’t sure if he had the fifteen minutes he needed to do it.
He glanced at the clock.
Maybe.
Just as he was sitting down and preparing to turn on his computer, the door burst open. He turned in his chair, his heart sinking as he saw Adeline and Charlotte standing in the doorway. The redhead was glaring at him furiously, while her companion's gaze was slightly more confused.
“Your office.” Holding up her laptop, the tech department head revealed that her computer had miraculously worked through the code. The connection had been traced back to the remote server that he had used in Queens, before circling around to its origin point—his computer. “The hack came from your office.”
He held up his hands defensively. “Wait a minute, Adeline. I can explain.”
