by Ravenna Tate
He’d been lusting after this blonde, blue-eyed, curvy beauty for over a year now. The only reason he’d never asked her out was because it was more fun this way. He liked the chase. He craved the challenge, and she’d walked right into this one. She’d given him the perfect reason to claim her.
“Then don’t say anything.” He released her, and caught the quick flicker of disappointment in her eyes. “Let’s go move your things to your new cubicle.”
She didn’t like the lower level where his secret hackers worked. It showed in the way her back stiffened as they stepped off the elevator and in her loud sigh as he nodded his chin in the direction he wanted her to head. He couldn’t blame her for hating it on sight.
On the top floor where she had worked, she had a private office that she’d been allowed to decorate any way she wanted. Aromatherapy was piped in through the ventilation system, and she had a vast array of music to choose from as background noise while she worked. There was a team of administrative assistants who did nothing but wait on the analysts all day long, and she could make her own hours.
Her new home, by contrast, had generic slate-colored partitions for walls. She now had a cubicle in a row with others instead of her own office, and there was no music in the background, or soothing scents swirling in the air. Even the flooring was different. Tiles instead of soft carpeting.
She was also the only female in this department, but he wasn’t worried about any of the guys hitting on her. If they did, she was going to tell him. That was part of the agreement he’d outline later for her. And anyone who did try anything with her would find his own balls in his hands. She belonged to him now.
“Are you kidding me?” she muttered, stopping in front of the first empty cubicle in the row. She glanced up and down the aisle at the men who had slid their chairs out from behind their desks to get a better look at her. “Looks like I’m a bit overdressed.”
Rob Marin, one of the hackers on this team, raised his brows, and Ace frowned at the spark of recognition in his eyes. Rob was Traci’s cousin, but Ace didn’t realize he and Harper knew each other. He decided to say nothing for now until he could find out how well she knew him, and whether there had ever been anything more than a casual acquaintance between them.
He had carried one of the boxes of personal items from her old desk, and now he placed it on her new one. Then he grinned at her. “Yeah. You can dress in jeans here. You’re not in front of the public in this position, and there are no internal customers to impress. You still report directly to me, but I have more relaxed rules for this bunch.”
She placed the box she’d carried on the desk and eyed with him barely concealed anger. He ignored it, and addressed the others in the row. “Come out here and meet Harper Mathews. She’s got an MBA and very impressive covert skills.”
He pointed toward Tim. “That’s Tim Walker. He’ll show you what we do down here and make sure you’re all set to work.” Then he introduced her to the others. She didn’t acknowledge out loud that she already knew Rob, but it was obvious this wasn’t the first time they’d met.
After they’d all slid their chairs back into their cubicles, he pointed toward the laptop on her desk. “You can download your email from your old one onto this, but you will no longer need access to anything else you used to work on.”
“Thanks.”
Her voice dripped with sarcasm. He narrowed his eyes and moved closer to her. The scent of her shampoo reminded him of happier days when the real sun shone on all of them, and he’d walked through fields of sunflowers and lavender behind his parents’ home. Those days were gone forever unless this virus could be dismantled and they were able to take control of The Madeline Project.
Ace understood that, and so did the friends he’d mentioned to Harper. It was the reason they’d channeled so much money toward that goal. Each of them had a team just like this, squirreled away in their company, working on finding the hackers and taking back the program they’d fucked up. What good was all this wealth if they had to live underground for the rest of their lives, and would never again feel the wind in their hair or the warmth of the sun on their skin?
He leaned toward Harper’s ear until her hair tickled his nose, not giving a shit if the rest of his crew saw the gesture. He wasn’t paying them to approve of the women he chose to seduce. “I’d be careful if I were you,” he whispered. “I might change my mind before tonight and call HR and the cops anyway.”
He pulled away to gauge her reaction, and nearly recoiled as a flash of pain swept through her eyes. Her lips quivered, and he hoped she wasn’t going to cry. Didn’t she realize she’d done this to herself?
He backed away, then asked Tim to come over. “Help Harper feel at home and get oriented.”
“Sure,” said Tim. “Just let me grab my laptop and I’ll be right over.”
Ace took advantage of Tim’s brief disappearance to lean close to Harper’s ear again. “Check your email later for the directions to my apartment.”
She nodded once, her face a lovely shade of crimson now. He turned around, and held back his grin until he reached the elevator. But the smile quickly faded as he recalled Harper telling him how Traci had been crying in the bathroom. Crying hard enough that she got very drunk with a woman who wasn’t even a good friend. What had they been looking for?
He didn’t like the image of anyone crying over him. Traci had known up front their fling was only temporary. He’d never led her on or promised her anything. She’d changed her mind about what she wanted, but he wasn’t responsible for that.
Liar. He’d seen the signs. He knew them by heart now. He should have eased back as soon as he realized she was falling for him. This was his fault for letting it go on longer than it should have.
By the time he returned to his office, a second image haunted him. The pain he’d seen in Harper’s eyes when he’d threatened to change his mind and call HR and the police anyway. He’d made his point before walking her down there. He hadn’t needed to remind her in front of the others, and especially knowing that one of them already knew her. He was fairly certain none of them had heard him, but saying that had been unnecessary.
Had it been a huge mistake doing this, once he’d realized that she and Rob had met before? Too late now. Although he did want to know how they knew each other. He made a mental note to ask her later.
Ace fiddled with a paperclip. He didn’t like feeling like he’d made the wrong decision, and he didn’t like feeling guilty. He’d spent too many years of his childhood drowning in that particular emotion for transgressions he hadn’t understood were wrong. When it entered his consciousness now, the memories came with it, and he didn’t have time for them. He had too much work to do. Important work. Saving the planet type work.
He emailed Harper the directions to his apartment, and with a short note asking her how she knew Rob Marin. Then he sent an IM to Jasper, his valet, with detailed instructions on what was to be included in the package sent to Harper’s place by messenger within the hour, and what he needed ready in his apartment for tonight.
That made him feel better. He’d concentrate on this evening instead of memories he could do nothing about. It wasn’t possible to change what had happened to him. He could only change the future. And that future included Harper, at least for a while. She’d brought this on herself. What had they been looking for?
No doubt they’d only been nosy or had hoped to find dirt on him, but there was nothing to find. Ace was very careful. No pictures of intimate moments, nothing in writing, and no spoken promises he didn’t intend to keep. But this wasn’t a simple seduction. He could fire her for what she’d done, and he’d be in his right to do it. She knew that.
However, skills like hers weren’t easy to come by, and business was still business. The fact that he also wanted her in his bed was immaterial, as far as Ace was concerned. She owed him that for invading his privacy the way she had, and for violating the company’s code of conduct.
&nbs
p; Ace woke up his computer and returned to his work. All was right in his world once again. The guilt had been shoved back down into the dark, deep hole where it belonged, and a beautiful woman was coming over for dinner and more tonight. This was how things should be. It was the way they’d been for most of his adult life, and it was the way he intended to keep them.
****
Harper had no trouble understanding her new role once Tim explained it. She downloaded her email program, and when Tim finally went back to his own cubicle, she read Ace’s email. It was cold and clinical, but she supposed he’d done that so anyone reading it wouldn’t guess why she was going over there.
As for Rob, there was nothing to tell. She only knew Traci’s creepy cousin because he’d hit on her more than once when she’d first come to work here, but she hadn’t seen him in months. She told Ace that, and also expressed her displeasure at having to work on the same team as Rob. Ace didn’t answer her email, but then she hadn’t really expected him to.
He likely never put anything in writing that had the potential to come back to bite him. She and Traci had discovered that when they’d tried to find dirt on him. The man was very careful. Harper sighed and glanced down the row. At least she’d never have to worry about any of them finding out what Ace was forcing her to do because he’d never tell them, and she certainly wouldn’t.
Tim and the others, including Rob, were personable, but quiet. They hadn’t asked her any questions, and if they wondered why she was there, they kept it to themselves. Tim had explained that they ate lunch in the tiny break room at the end of their row every day, which was fine with her because she usually sat at her desk anyway.
She made a bullshit excuse of having already made plans today so she didn’t have to sit in that room with them. She couldn’t deal with that much closeness yet, and if Rob started hitting on her again she was going to tell Ace she couldn’t do this.
Instead, she ate her lunch at one of the picnic tables where none of her former coworkers usually sat, so she wouldn’t be seen. She wasn’t ready for the question and answer session from them, but knew she’d have to face them eventually. What could she tell them, after all?
She had hacked into Ace’s personal accounts. There was no way to downplay that or excuse it away. Her reasons for doing so didn’t matter. It had been an incredibly stupid thing to do, and she and Traci had learned nothing new about Ace after all that work.
Traci had wanted to find dirt on him to hurt him. It had sounded like a solid plan after one pitcher, and after two, she’d been ready to string Ace up by his balls. In the harsh light of artificial day, she understood that she’d been an idiot to even consider such a thing. She was now a victim of her own drunken outrage. And to top it off, she and Traci hadn’t even been friends. In fact, they hadn’t spoken since Harper had left Traci’s apartment the morning after their hacking session.
Harper’s appetite was gone. She tossed away the rest of her sandwich and went back inside, determined to get through the remainder of the afternoon with her head held high. She’d brought this on herself, and she wasn’t a woman who blamed others for her mistakes. She’d taken responsibility for it and would now have to accept the consequences.
Her mind worked overtime while she got used to her new role, replaying every nuance of her conversation with Ace earlier. She skipped over the kiss every time. She couldn’t go there yet. Was it merely part of his usual pattern, or had he meant to devour her mouth but pulled back for some reason?
By the time she logged off and headed for home, she’d convinced herself that Ace was only having fun at her expense. This was a cat-and-mouse game. He wanted to punish her for what she’d done, and he’d let her sweat it out in this secret department for a while, then restore her to the top floor and her pretty pale mauve office with the Lichtenstein prints on the walls. She’d gladly return to wearing business clothes to work, and she would never complain about them again.
This had to be nothing more than an elaborate scheme to get back at her. If he’d really wanted to punish her, he’d have fired her, plain and simple. He hadn’t climbed to the top by coddling his employees.
And surely he didn’t mean for her to have sex with him tonight. He knew he couldn’t really get away with something like that. She’d worked for him for over a year and he’d never so much as asked her to grab some coffee with him. Why now? What had changed? He couldn’t do this. No matter what he’d said earlier, in his heart he knew that.
She would let this play out, and then in a week or so she’d ask to see him, and would tell him she’d learned her lesson, and ask for her old job back. And then she’d never go near alcohol again for the rest of her life.
Chapter Three
Harper had a scooter to get around the city, just like almost everyone else did, but this evening she decided to walk. She needed to work up her courage and get her thoughts together, so she was prepared no matter what happened tonight.
The package he’d sent had been waiting when she got home, and she’d whistled as she pulled out the cobalt dress and matching shoes. Both were designer, and she had no idea where the hell he’d found them. She took her time showering, and then decided to wear nice underwear. Just in case.
Right. Because you have no intentions of having sex with the man.
This was ridiculous. She was behaving like she and Ace had a relationship and this was a date. She wasn’t going to sleep with her boss. And even if she did want to, and had fantasized about it for a year, she would do it on her terms, not his. She had no desire to be his plaything of the month, like Traci and countless others had been. And she was not about to let him blackmail her into his bed.
It would take her nearly thirty minutes to reach his apartment building walking, and she knew if she concentrated on Ace and what he expected from her tonight during that time, she’d turn around and go home. So instead she let the memories of her life before surface.
She’d been eighteen when she’d moved underground, a week out of high school. Her parents had both worked for the National Severe Storms Laboratory, and had stayed above ground with other teams of weather researchers who thought they’d be safe inside the NSSL facilities in Norman, Oklahoma. They’d been wrong.
She shivered as the memories washed over her, even though the temperature was kept a constant seventy-two degrees in the fake outdoors of their underground city. Her parents had been in constant communication with her during the month they’d still been above ground, and Harper had felt so grown up being allowed to move into the dorms at the brand new underground university. She’d started in the summer session, anxious to begin her new adventure.
Then a tornado that the NSSL, just before they went off the grid forever, described as more powerful than the most violent EF5 tornadoes ever recorded, struck their facilities in Norman. She’d never heard from her parents again. No one who had been inside the facilities had survived.
Harper had to stop and take a seat on one of dozens of park benches set along this path because her heart was pounding and she felt dizzy. She must be more stressed than she realized. She hadn’t had such a strong reaction to thinking about her parents in a long time.
She glanced up at the fake night sky, and then took in the decorative street lamps and live bushes growing at perfectly-placed intervals. They’d done an amazing job simulating a beautiful park-like setting in this section of town, but she still remembered the feel of wind on her face. She could tell the difference between the piped-in sound of crickets and real ones. The stars she admired weren’t real.
Would any of them ever see and hear those things again? She was still helping make that possible in her new role at ACE Communications, even if she did feel like a criminal. Then again, that’s exactly what she’d been with Traci. What they’d done was against the law, or at the very least, an invasion of Ace’s personal privacy. She was lucky that he hadn’t fired her or called the police.
When she rose again, she hurried toward his building
, not wanting to have to explain to him why she was late. Her past life was none of his business.
Even though the neighborhoods in the underground cities had been designed to be as homogenous as possible, there were still parts of NorthCentral that clearly not everyone could afford to live in. Ace’s building was in one of those neighborhoods. In fact, the entire apartment, shopping, and entertainment complex had an air of exclusivity and privilege. Why it should surprise her that he lived here, she had no idea.
The doorman asked for ID before he would let her inside. Good lord. When he seemed satisfied that she wasn’t there to rob all the residents, he ushered her through the doors. An impeccably dressed woman hurried out from behind a reception desk and asked who she was there to see. Harper told her, and then the woman returned to a console behind the desk and pushed a button.
Harper silently hoped he wasn’t home. Then she could return to the shabbier side of town and pretend this had never happened.
A voice from behind the desk made her jump. The woman smiled and pointed toward an elevator. “Penthouse A. I’ve already punched in the security code for you.”
“Thank you.” Too late now. She was stuck.
The elevator doors opened into a foyer decorated in rich tones and deep red wood that she swore was either cocobolo or jarrah. How had he brought it here? Did he have private tunnels that led to South America and Australia? Nothing about Ace would surprise her.
He entered the foyer through a set of double doors, the same color as the floor, dressed exactly as he’d been at work. But as she caught the scent of soap, and before the image of Ace naked in his shower filled her mind, she distracted her thoughts by glancing around at the Van Gogh prints on the walls. Once again, she wondered how he’d either salvaged all this in time, or had acquired it after moving underground.
“You look amazing,” he said, his gaze lazily playing over her dress.
