Enchanted: (Billionaire Venture Capitalist #8): A Fake Fiancée Romance

by Ainsley St Claire

  “That is completely unnecessary,” Tom fumes. “Derek overreacts all the time.”

  “I’d rather we overreact than have no company,” Rob declares. “When is Cameron due?”

  I look at the time on my cell phone. “He’ll be here in about ten minutes.”

  “Can you excuse us?” Rob says to me.

  I nod and walk away. Their voices become raised, but I head out front to reception to wait for Cameron.

  Two different rideshares pull up. Cameron jumps out of the first, and Parker launches out of the second, and both men rush inside. “What do you know?” Cameron asks.

  “Tom Hiddle is upset you’re coming, so prepare for some resistance. Rob is glad you’re here.” I watch Cameron and Parker exchange looks. “The chat rooms and social media sites are being hit heavily with a lot of misinformation.”

  “I want you to keep an eye on Tom today. It doesn’t make sense that he’s not alarmed by this,” Cameron says.

  “Will do.”

  Cameron and Parker march through reception and head to Rob’s office.

  I stop at Francie’s desk and quietly give her the update.

  “I don’t trust Tom and haven’t for a while. He hasn’t been acting normal for a few weeks,” she whispers.

  “Anyone else seem a little off?”

  “There is Michael Wang, but honestly, I think he’s worried about his application for citizenship. He’s a Chinese citizen applying for his naturalization.”

  “Let’s keep an eye on him.” I look around the large room to where most of the engineers are sitting in front of a huge bank of floor-to-ceiling monitors that span the wall. Three of the screens on the left are black and running all sorts of code that mean absolutely nothing to me. The remaining screens are the user boards and is what seems to hold everyone’s attention. Parker is talking to the group regarding the false information, and Cameron is in deep discussions with Craig, while Tom stands close by, listening. As I watch, he looks up, giving me the evil eye.

  I walk to the company kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee. I text the SHN office receptionist on the way.

  Me: Do you know how Parker and Cameron take their coffee? They’ve jumped right into an issue here, and I thought I’d make myself useful.

  I wait for a few minutes.

  Receptionist: According to Constance, Parker likes it with a lot of cream and two sugars.

  As the bubbles rotate, I make Parker’s coffee.

  Receptionist: Emerson believes Cameron takes it with one cream and one artificial sweetener.

  Me: Thank you!

  After delivering their drinks to them, which they greatly appreciate, I wander back to Francie. Tom is no longer with Cameron and Craig. “Where’s Tom?”

  “It looks like he’s being dressed down by Rob in his office,” she says in a low voice.

  “What about Michael Wang?”

  “He seems oblivious to what’s going on. Either he is a very cool cucumber, or he’s not involved, but I’ll keep watching.”

  Taking my place at my desk, I sit back and watch all the activity. Parker has the team broken up into smaller groups, and they are all attacking the hackers who are trying to access our data through the firewall.

  Cameron is sitting with Craig, and their fingers are flying across their keyboards and they are working to thwart the hackers.

  When Tom storms out of Rob's office and slams the door to his own, Francie stands and says, “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Can I get you anything?” Before I can answer, under her breath, she adds, “I’m also going to talk to Rob’s admin, Alyssa. She’ll know all the details.”

  I nod. “I think I’m good for coffee.”

  As she leaves, Rob crosses the room toward me. “Quinn, thank you for calling in Cameron and Parker.”

  “No problem. I understand it’s a little overwhelming and can feel slightly intrusive to have someone from the outside come in.”

  “This company is my everything. I’ve leveraged my parents’ home and my savings, and my friends who work here have done the same, so we could get to this point. We can’t afford to have what happened to Pineapple happen to us. Tom is newer and less invested. He doesn’t understand.”

  “I’ll just sit back and hang out,” I assure him.

  “Thanks again. It was a good catch.”

  I blush at the compliment as he awkwardly pats me on the shoulder. I get it. This is his life, and had I not made the call, he might have lost everything. But at this point, there’s still no guarantee that the hackers haven’t accessed enough information to destroy SketchIt.

  Cameron’s and Craig’s fingers fly across the keyboards as they yell at the hackers, and it seems like a cyber sword fight.

  “He’s trying to insert malware,” Cameron announces.

  “I got the opening closed,” Parker assures him.

  “He’s doing a run at the production files,” one of the engineers exclaims.

  “I moved them to a hidden folder,” another engineer shouts.

  I’m amazed at how well they’re all working together, and to think, Tom was going to ignore this.

  The receptionist calls me. “Yes?”

  “There is a Cora Perry here out front. She’s here to see the two men that you brought in.”

  “I’ll be right up.”

  As I jump up, I glance over and see Tom watching everything from the window in his office, his arms crossed in front of him. Our eyes meet, and his lips purse and his stance becomes hard. Not giving his attitude another thought, I whisk myself to reception and find a woman with short curly blonde hair dressed in a navy blue pantsuit and flats. She sees me and smiles. “Hi, I’m Cora Perry with FBI Cybercrimes. I’m here to see Cameron Newhouse and Parker Carlyle.”

  I extend my hand. “Welcome to SketchIt. I work for SHN and called them in this morning when I heard the engineers refer to misinformation going out to the chat rooms and social media channels and another who was sure someone was trying to get behind the firewall.” I turn and open my arms. “Follow me, and I’ll take you to Cameron and Parker.”

  She smiles. “Thank you.”

  Cameron spots us as we walk in. “Parker, can you come and take over for a moment while I catch Cora up on what we know?”

  “Sure, boss.”

  After they trade places, Cameron joins us. “Cora, welcome. Thanks to Quinn here, we may have prevented a full-on attack. Currently, we’re just blocking their efforts. No counterattacks—yet.”

  “Great. I have Lisa in our lab ready to go. Are you ready to deploy the Trojan horse into their system?”

  “I am.” He claps his hands, and I can feel the excitement.

  As they get to work, I see Tom pick up his car keys and walk toward the door. Grabbing my phone and purse, I follow him out the door.

  He heads to the garage, and I flag down a taxi. A few minutes later, I see Tom behind a wheel of a white car as it rips out of the garage in a hurry. I jump in the taxi and yell, “Follow that white Chevy Cavalier.”

  The man has a thick accent. “No problem.”

  He steps on it, and we go flying through the streets of San Francisco. Tom starts by heading toward the Bay Bridge and then turns the opposite direction, working his way toward Golden Gate Park. The traffic is thick enough that even if he makes a light we miss, we catch up.

  He stops at the early part of the Richmond district in the Avenues in front of a two-story apartment building. Gray with white trim, it’s somewhat nondescript, and it faces another building with a grassy courtyard between. As he parks, I quickly throw my last sixty dollars at the driver and thank him before I carefully exit the car and watch where Tom goes.

  I pick up my phone and dial Cameron.

  “Hey. Where are you?” he says in greeting.

  “When you deployed the counterattack to the mole, I saw Tom leave.”

  “Shit. We’ve gone into his computer and found some red flags. Where are you?”

  “I followed h
im in a cab, and he’s at 2nd and Lake in an apartment building. I’m just hanging around outside watching.”

  He murmurs something to someone in the background, and then a woman gets on the phone. “Quinn, this is Agent Perry. Where exactly are you?”

  “I’m at a bus stop just off 2nd and Lake.”

  “I’m going to send a few people to you. Be careful. We don’t know what you may have stepped into.”

  I hadn’t thought of it like that, and all of a sudden, I feel exposed and vulnerable. Following Tom may have been a bad idea. I walk over to a busy bus stop and try to blend in with the group of riders as I watch the building.

  Within five minutes, at least ten big black cars come racing up the street with lights flashing in their grills, blocking the street to all cross traffic in front of the apartment building where Tom went inside. The others waiting with me at the bus stop scatter like cockroaches do when the light comes on.

  A tall man approaches me. “You must be Quinn Faraday.”

  “I am.” Unsure what to do, I stand there awkwardly.

  “My name is Agent Patrick James.” He extends his hand for me to shake. “Do you know what apartment he went into?”

  “Not completely, but he went in the second entry in the building on the left.”

  He pulls a radio from his hip and shares that information. Moments later, agents swarm the building and there is a ruckus before I see Tom with an agent on each side of him escorting him out.

  As they lead him to a waiting car, he sees me across the street and yells, “You fucking cunt!”

  “That’s the best you’ve got?” I scream back before looking over at Agent James and shrugging. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”

  Holding back a smile, he says, “I was thinking the same thing. Glad it was you who said it and not me.”

  “We don’t know if he did anything,” I explain.

  “Our team is combing through his computer. His departure during the cyberattack is suspicious, and some things aren’t adding up. If nothing else, we will detain him and figure out why he’s acting erratically.

  He steps away, leaving me sitting on the bus stop bench, when all of a sudden Emerson and Dillon come rushing up.

  “Quinn! Are you okay?”

  I nod. “I didn’t do much, other than see him leave and follow him in a taxi. He owes me though. I had to give the driver my last sixty dollars.”

  Dillon drops his head back and laughs hard. “This could be big. They’re not sure about his involvement from Cameron’s perspective, but between him, Parker, and the Cybercrimes team, they’ll get it figured out.”

  Agent James returns to me. “Quinn, we’re going through his apartment. We’ll need a statement from you. Can you meet us downtown—” He looks at his watch. “—say three o’clock?”

  I nod.

  “We’ll make sure she has representation with her,” Dillon informs him.

  “That’s fine, but we’re looking for a statement from her and nothing more. She isn’t under investigation,” Agent James assures him.

  “We understand,” Emerson says. “We’ll get her there at three.”

  Chapter eight

  Quinn

  Emerson and Dillon walk me to their car. As soon as we’re moving, Emerson is on the phone, and it’s piped through the car’s speaker. “Hey, girlfriend.” I recognize the voice as Cynthia’s.

  “Hey. Who was the lawyer you used with the FBI?”

  “Marci Peterson. Do you need her?”

  “Quinn may have found the mole, and the FBI wants to meet with her. Dillon and I agree that having a lawyer represent her would be smart.”

  “Agreed.” Then she rattles off a phone number.

  “Thanks.”

  “Good luck. Quinn, she’s awesome, and you’ll be in good hands.”

  “Thank you,” I yell from the back seat of the car.

  Emerson disconnects the call and dials Marci. “Hello, this is Emerson Winthrop Healy. I’m calling for Marci Peterson.”

  “I’m sorry she’s with a client right now,” the receptionist informs her.

  “I understand. Can you please let her know that Quinn Faraday, from SHN, is meeting with FBI Cybercrimes today at three? This is in regard to the case she worked on with Pineapple Technologies.”

  “Can you hold a moment?”

  “Of course.”

  “This is Marci Peterson,” a woman says through the car’s speaker.

  “Hi, Marci, this is Emerson Healy. My husband, Dillon, and Quinn Faraday are in the car with me.”

  “Hello,” she says cautiously.

  “We work with SHN, and today Quinn went to a client site and discovered our hackers had infiltrated the client. She called in reinforcements, and when things got hairy, she noticed the engineering manager leave and followed him. The FBI Cybercrimes has apprehended the engineering manager, and the FBI has requested a meeting today at three, and while we don’t suspect that anything will go awry, we do think it’s smart for both Quinn and SHN that we have representation.”

  “Quinn, who are you meeting with?” Marci asks.

  “I was asked by Agent James. I can’t be sure, but I think he may work with Cora Perry.”

  “Can you meet me here at my offices in about an hour?”

  I look at Emerson, and she nods. “I’ll see you there.” I glance between Dillon and Emerson. “Do you know where it is?”

  “I do,” Dillon volunteers.

  “See you then, Quinn,” Marci says before disconnecting.

  “We should probably grab you at least a sandwich before you meet with her,” Emerson suggests.

  “I’ll be fine,” I assure her.

  “Nonsense. I have a feeling you’ll have a big afternoon. I know you mentioned giving the cab driver your last sixty dollars, so I’ll buy lunch. It’s the company’s fault you are stuck paying for lunch,” Emerson says.

  “Thanks.” Then I realize something. “Oh, I left my laptop back at SketchIt. Crap. I may need it later for my second job.”

  “We’ll get someone to messenger it to us at Marci’s. Not a problem,” Emerson interjects.

  “What’s this about a second job?” Dillon asks.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Emerson admonishes him.

  A few moments later, we pull in front of a building that has valet parking. Only in San Francisco is parking so sacred that you find business buildings with valet parking.

  We order sandwiches at the little deli, and as we huddle together at our table to eat, they ask me to recount what happened this morning. This definitely was not how I expected my day to unfold when I got out of bed. Dillon is excited that we may have caught the mole.

  After lunch, they walk me up to Marci’s office and agree to wait for me.

  As soon as Marci walks out to reception, I like her already. She’s barefoot and explains to me that she wore a cute but bad-for-walking pair of shoes today and had to run around the federal courthouse all morning, so her feet are killing her. “I know it isn’t professional, but I promise I’ll have shoes on before our meeting at three.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’d go barefoot myself if you’d let me.”

  She smiles at me, and I know we’ll be fast friends.

  We walk back to a large conference room, and she points to the closest end of the long table.

  “Tell me why the FBI has asked to meet with you?”

  I walk her through how it started when I walked in at SketchIt.

  She asks several probative questions and drills down. Judging from my first impression of her, she came off as a little bit of an airhead, but I can tell by her questions, not much gets past her.

  “What could the FBI find against you?”

  “Do you represent me or SHN?”

  “Right now, I’m representing you.”

  “Then you should know that I have a second job.”

  “That happens in San Francisco,” she assures me.

  “It’s doin
g phone sex.”

  “That’s legal. What’s your concern? Are their minors involved? Blackmail?”

  “Oh God no! It’s just the only thing they can hold against me, and SHN could terminate me for it if it were to become public.”

  “If you’re working for a legitimate business, you should be fine as far as the FBI is concerned, but I don’t know about SHN.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Well, let’s get through today and see what they want.”

  We agree to meet in reception after hitting the restroom and getting our things together. Of course, I have nothing to get together, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a long afternoon.

  When I walk into reception, Emerson is waiting for me with my computer bag. “Oh, thank you. You didn’t have to wait with my computer.”

  “You’re welcome, and of course I did. I’ll go with you to the FBI, as long as you’re okay with that. This is a big deal.”

  “You’re very sweet. I’m starting to get nervous, and while Marci’s great, I don’t know her as well as I know you.”

  She pulls me into a hug. “You’re going to do great. You’re a hero. You didn’t do anything wrong; we just want to make sure they don’t turn anything back on you or SHN.”

  “I know—”

  Marci walks in, cutting me off. “Are we ready?”

  I nod. “This is Emerson Healy with SHN. She’s my boss.”

  “It’s great to see you again,” Marci gushes. “Let’s get over to see our G-men.”

  A car is waiting for us when we walk out, and it drives us to the FBI building. I had no idea it was here. I walk past this building often when I walk to work in the spring, when the weather is the best. It’s a plain building in the middle of the financial district, but the more you look at it, the more it seems to stand out from its neighbors—no doorman, no awnings, very plain.

  We walk in and find a large woman sitting at the desk out front with two armed guards standing behind her. Marci announces us, and the woman requests our driver’s licenses and sends us to a screening area outside the elevator banks before directing us to the fourth floor.