No Biz Like Showbiz

by Julie Moffett

  No Biz Like Showbiz

  By Julie Moffett

  Lexi Carmichael: helping geeks everywhere get some.

  Okay, so it’s not exactly as it seems, but that’s what’s happening on the dating reality show called Geeks Get Some that I, geek extraordinaire Lexi Carmichael, have been called to work on. Not that I’m a fan of reality shows (I can barely deal with my own reality). Still, I’ve been sent to Hollywood to find a hacker who’s screwing with the results of the show’s online voting system.

  So what happens when I get there? Well, the producers convince me to continue my investigation from the inside. And what should be an easy hunt for the hacker turns ugly when he sets his sights on me. Add to that a studio obsessed with ratings, a bunch of nerdy contestants, and my own confusing love life, and unraveling this mystery might make me a star...or get me killed.

  Meet Lexi for the very first time in No One Lives Twice!

  75,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  When I looked at what month I was writing this letter for, the song “Kokomo” immediately popped into my head. And now, though it’s still a little cold and blustery outside my windows, in my mind, we’re all sunning ourselves on the beaches of some tropical island, reading something incredible. Since you’ll be reading this letter in July, it’s entirely possible you will be on a beach somewhere, so let me help you with the incredible reads part...

  Looking for something to add even more steam to your hot summer nights? Check out Going Under by Jeffe Kennedy, the first in her contemporary erotic romance trilogy. She’s a genius computer game designer who changed her identity to escape online trolls. He’s the crack undercover reporter who’s tracking an elusive and enigmatic hacker—her. They’re a combustible combination both in and out of bed.

  Jeffe isn’t the only author with a new beginning this month. We’re pleased to welcome debut author Caroline Kimberly to Carina Press with her unique historical romance trilogy. Set in the wilds of British India, and pitched as Romancing the Stone meets Regency, she’s no demure young miss and he’s no proper soldier. And what they experience is more than An Inconvenient Kiss. If you’ve been longing for something different in the historical romance genre, don’t miss this one!

  Ann DeFee and Inez Kelley join us in the contemporary romance genre with their respective books, A Hot Time in Texas and Should’ve Been Home Yesterday. This wraps up Inez’s Country Roads trilogy, so be sure to pick up the first two books if you haven’t already!

  Problems in Paradise by Kelsey Browning is also in our contemporary lineup this month. A small-town Texas café owner wants to bury her sordid Los Angeles past and become a part of the community, but the sexy chief deputy must uncover her secrets even if it destroys his campaign for sheriff and their chances for love.

  Fans of Julie Moffett’s Lexi Carmichael series are going to fall in love all over again with No Biz Like Showbiz, in which our favorite geek girl is off to Hollywood to bring down a hacker who’s manipulating the online voting for one of America’s favorite reality television dating shows. This is a series with something for everyone: geek references, a new adult feel, mystery themes and enough romance elements to keep any romance reader happy. If you haven’t started the series yet, you can start here or pick up No One Lives Twice at any etailer.

  Shirley Wells also has a mystery release for fans of detective novels, and is back with Dead End, a Dylan Scott Mystery.

  Two fantastic authors bring us two incredible urban fantasy novels this month. In Steve Vera’s Blood Sworn, the enemies of two worlds reluctantly join forces to fight the armies of the Underworld. And in Summoned Chaos by Joshua Roots, if there’s one thing Warlock Marcus Shifter hates it’s the Delwinn Council. They’re not pleased that he once turned his back on his kind, and he’s convinced someone on the Council is working to undermine the twenty-year peace with the non-magical Normals.

  John Tristan also shares a journey in the world of fantasy with The Sheltered City. In a land devastated by dragonfire, a man with a curse in his blood must help an elf find his missing brother in this male/male fantasy romance.

  And to round out the diverse selection of novels we have for your beach-reading pleasure, in A.M. Arthur’s Maybe This Time, when serial singleton Ezra Kelley meets his match in sexy bartender Donner Davis, both men will need to let go of past hurts before they can have a future together.

  Of course, if you’re spending a lot of time on the beach and need more, don’t forget to go diving into our backlist, which offers a variety of page-turning books in all genres of romance, mystery and science fiction from authors like Lauren Dane, Josh Lanyon, Marie Force and more.

  Coming in August 2014: Shannon Stacey is back with the final (for now) installment in the Kowalski series, we welcome Lisa Marie Rice and her cracktastic contemporary romantic suspense to Carina Press, and I’m off to Mexico for my own lie-in on the beach!

  Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Editorial Director, Carina Press

  Dedication

  “A good friend knows all your best stories. A best friend has lived them with you.”

  This is for you, my girlfriends, old and new. Much love now and always!

  Donna B. Moffett

  Sandra Moffett Parks

  Elizabeth Craig Moffett

  Katy Moffett

  Kit Greening Daniel

  Cathy Vida Malik

  Maria Kieslich

  Diane Bennett

  Joyce Wallen

  Laura Demas Petrosian

  Cathy Telles Witschger

  Liz Baldin McCarty

  Elizabeth Byrne Burley

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to acknowledge those people behind the scenes who provided wonderful input, suggestions, and advice while I was writing the book. As always, my Carina Press editor extraordinaire, Alissa Davis, provided amazing insights and suggestions that helped me significantly. She knows Lexi almost as well as I do! I would also like to thank my parents, Bill and Donna Moffett, and my sister—fellow author Sandy Parks—for being the first beta readers and giving me valuable comments on the story arc. Most importantly, I must thank my brilliant nephew, Kyle Moffett, who works at Google, and his lovely girlfriend, Julia Boortz, for their absolutely critical tech brainstorming, details and suggestions. However, any mistakes or poetic license in regards to technology is on me alone!

  I would also like to thank the rest of the Carina team from Executive Editor, Angela James, down to the marketing and promotion team that do so much to help get Lexi and her stories out to the world. Your enthusiasm, support and advice are very much appreciated! Lastly, I would like to provide a belated kudos to Carina Editor Deb Nemeth who did a great job editing the novella No Money Down, and whom I inadvertently forgot to thank in the acknowledgement. You all rock!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

 
; Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  My name is Lexi Carmichael and I have a problem with most of today’s television programming. Not because of the sheer implausibility of a majority of the shows—although that does factor—but because too many programs seem to feature a tech genius who can solve the problems of the world with one stroke of a keyboard.

  Here’s how it happens...a tech head is desperately trying to hack into a system. Death, the collapse of the free world, or the apocalypse is imminent if he fails. (Yes, tech heroes always seem to be guys, since I guess in Hollywood a woman doesn’t know her way around a keyboard.) He types commands frantically as the clock ticks down to doomsday. As the scenario continues, our frazzled hero takes a moment to run his fingers through his perfectly styled hair before he types just one more command and bingo, he’s in. He’ll then have a whole millisecond to navigate a completely unfamiliar system, find the magic switch, and shut down the entire system in time to save the day, world, girl, whatever, with one stroke. All of this while the super-expensive, cutting-edge government system or expensive black-market technology used by the show’s villain will aid our intrepid hero by providing helpful visual prompts like Access Denied or Access Granted in big bold letters across the screen as he works his hacking magic.

  Just shoot me.

  I’m a real hacker and yes, I’m female. I double-majored in mathematics and computer science at Georgetown University and have spent most of my twenty-five years learning how to bypass cryptographic protocols, exploit system vulnerabilities, and finesse distributed denial of service attacks. I’ve never had to avert an apocalypse, but if I did, I’m pretty sure it would take more than one freaking minute, and I wouldn’t be worried about my hair while doing it. My first successful hack on a relatively simple system took five hours. It might have taken four, but my mom kept distracting me by yelling through my bedroom door that if I gave ballet class just one more try she’d give me a hundred dollars to spend however I wanted. So, watching these types of shows and movies is hard on both my nerves and stomach.

  Despite this, I still have a television and occasionally go to the movies. Although I never did learn to dance ballet, I did create a place of solitude for myself in a small apartment in Jessup, Maryland, which is near the National Security Agency, where I used to work. Now I’m the Director of Information Security for a hot new cyber intelligence firm in the DC area called X-Corp. The job title sounds impressive, but I’m still the same girl I’ve always been, except I’ve been trying hard for the past several months to expand my social horizons outside my safe virtual cocoon. That means I’ll watch television once in a while just so I can have something to talk about if the conversation lags, which it inevitably does if I’m involved.

  On Mondays, I generally eat dinner in front of my laptop while gaming and watching Repercussions, a sci-fi cable series about a group of young adults who discover they’re the prodigies of a race of super aliens. However, I’d seen this episode, “The Savant Within,” so I’d muted it to concentrate on my game.

  My game is “Hollow Realm,” an online real-time strategy scenario where players command magical armies in massive and complicated battles against each other. My best buddies, Elvis and Xavier Zimmerman, genius twins and excellent strategists at “Realm,” were remotely supporting my current struggle against a bunch of demon-controlled ogres. It wasn’t going well.

  I ate another spoonful of my dinner—Cheerios—and tried a couple of virtual maneuvers with my army of Glimmers—shimmery forms that could use light to destroy an enemy. Mistake. A group of frenzied ogres with light-deflecting shadow shields called murks crushed me.

  “Crap. Total failure.”

  Dejected, I pushed my chair back from my monitor. I’d have to try to recoup my losses another day.

  My computer pinged me. I glanced down at the message.

  Better luck next time, Lexi.

  I typed back.

  Thanks, Elvis. You and Xavier rock. Appreciate the support. Let me know if you need help with the zombies on Zeroth.

  Will do. Hoping for pizza and Quake with you soon. How are you feeling?

  I’m good. Going back to work tomorrow. I look forward to that pizza and more gaming soon. Miss seeing you.

  Me too. A lot. Bye.

  Bye.

  I stared at the message for a moment. Just a few years ago I never would have imagined one of my best friends would be a guy, let alone one of the few people in the universe who could beat me at most online fantasy role-playing games. But now, Elvis probably knows me better than anyone. We’re mirror images—two awkward geek rulers within the world’s new cyber-universe, while we remain outsiders in the real world. It’s a nice feeling to know he always has my back in both worlds.

  I drank the rest of the milk from my bowl and carried it out of the bedroom. I’d taken one step into the kitchen when I saw a man dressed in jeans, a dark sweater and a short black leather jacket leaning against my counter.

  “Slash!”

  I jumped a good foot straight up and lost control of my bowl. Slash caught it and the spoon with one hand.

  “Easy there, cara.” He put the bowl in the sink, then turned to face me.

  Slash is one of the most fascinating and complex people I’ve ever met. He’s Italian-American and probably the sexiest überhacker in the universe. He works for the National Security Agency in some top-secret capacity, and his knowledge is so important and integrated with the security of the United States that a team of FBI agents follows him around the clock.

  Slash and I had just returned from what had turned out to be a dangerous case in Rome. Typically, hunting hackers doesn’t involve bodily harm, but this case had been an unusual one and we’d both nearly died. I’d been shot in the left hand and was still rocking a line of stitches across my back.

  He grinned. “How are you doing?”

  His black hair was shorter on the side of his head that had been injured and he also had a walking cast on one leg. All of that only served to make him look even sexier and more mysterious than usual.

  I pressed my hand to my chest. “Well, not counting the five years you just took off my life by showing up unannounced in my kitchen, okay, I guess.”

  It’s kind of a running joke between Slash and me. No matter what kind of alarm I buy or how I set it, he gets into my apartment. I don’t think he’s ever once knocked on my door. It used to freak me out, but now it’s just part of our game.

  “How about you, Slash? You feeling any better?”

  He carefully rotated his shoulder. “The doctor took the sling off two days ago. It’s feeling pretty good. I’ve got some physical therapy ahead of me to get it back to full strength.”

  “That’s great.”

  He took a step across the kitchen and gave me a kiss on the cheek. He smelled good. He always smelled good. “I’ve been thinking about you, cara.”

  He took my left hand in his and turned my palm up. “You got the bandage off. How does it feel?”

  I flexed my hand. “It hurts, but it’s better. I’m so used to the twinges I barely notice it. I have to squeeze a therapy ball thirty minutes a day. I’m going back to work tomorrow.” I glanced down at his leg. “How’s the cast?”

  He leaned over and tapped his leg. A hollow thump
sounded. “It’s uncomfortable. I must wear it for another two weeks.”

  I sighed. “Jeez. We’re a couple of wrecks.”

  “Si.” He put his arm around me. “But it’s better than the alternative.”

  “True. Well, since you’re here, do you want to sit down?”

  He smiled and I led him to the couch. As he sat down, I saw a shoulder holster and gun peek out from beneath his jacket. I helped him prop the leg with the cast on the coffee table before sitting next to him and leaning back against the cushions. I put my feet on the table next to his.

  Slash is another anomaly in my life. I’d met him when we both got mixed up in an international case while we working at the NSA. At some point, over the past few months, our relationship had evolved. It happened so subtly I couldn’t put my finger on when or how exactly it occurred. But something had definitely changed between us in Rome, so now I had to calculate what it meant in terms of everyday interaction with him.

  “Slash, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  “Ask away.”

  “We’re friends, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Is that all?”

  He shifted slightly on the couch, studying my face. “What’s on your mind, cara?”

  “Well, back in the crypt in Rome, you said...you said you loved me.”

  My cheeks heated. Why was I embarrassed? I wasn’t the one who had said it. Slash had uttered those three words, throwing them down like some kind of gauntlet between us. Unfortunately, we’d been running from an armed bomb at the time, so I couldn’t ask for clarification. Now that we were home, was I supposed to do something—say something—in response? If so, what?

  “Ah, si, I did say that.”

  Holy cow. Slash loved me. My stomach felt funny and fluttery at the same time. “So, did you say that for a reason, or was it a turn-of-phrase-because-we-are-in-serious-peril kind of thing? You know, in case we bought the farm.”