Page 31 of The Billionaire's Proposal

A deep belly laughs rolls from Benson. “You love me and Wells. And if we’re not opposites, no one is.”

“Truer words have never been spoken.”

I think about what Benson said. All. Night. Long.

The next morning, I fly back to Miami. My driver takes me directly from the airport to the marina where I deliver a stiff coffee to my favorite boat captain and am awarded with a soul-stealing kiss. Her lips envelop me, and the tenderness in her eyes shows me how she feels, even if she hasn’t said it.

“Barclay will pick you up after I tape my segment and bring you to my penthouse.”

“Okay. Thanks for the coffee and the kiss.”

“There’ll be more than a kiss waiting for you tonight.”

“Promises, promises.”

This woman’s playfulness is infectious, constantly injecting happiness into my life. Benson’s words echo in my mind, and I know Cameron Darling has me, hook, line, and sinker.

We smile as our lips overlap repeatedly. She rubs her finger over my lips. “See you later.”

A few more kisses, and I’m off to meet the final woman for the show—the hacker. This should be more interesting than the professional sleeper.

The hacker sits in a black vinyl booth of a chain restaurant. I know it’s her because she told the producer she has pink hair. “Mr. Worthington,” she says. It’s between breakfast and lunch, so we have the restaurant to ourselves other than a few elderly couples.

“Jonna, I presume.”

She smiles as she shakes my hand vigorously. “Welcome to my office.”

“You know I saved you for last.”

“You did?”

“I did. The techy in me wanted to meet a real-life hacker.”

Her face blooms with color, similar to her hair. She’s young, pretty, with a blinding smile.

“Where to start?”

“Let’s start with how you made hacking your living.”

She curls her lips to the side and scrunches her nose, reminding me of my sister. Jonna has a thin shirt that exposes one shoulder and a tiny gold nose ring. She wiggles around a bit and strums her fingers on the top of her unopened laptop.

“Have you heard the term white-hat hacker?”

I nod.

“I’m an only child of two doctors, and I spent a good amount of my childhood with nannies and babysitters. If you have children, don’t do that to them. Don’t have children if you don’t have time for them.” She pauses, looking at her fingers. “Anyway, I was winning video game championships by twelve. One of the other players got me into designing games on one platform. But once I got interested in coding, I realized I was really fucking good at it. Starting out, I was hacking into video games and manipulating the endings so people couldn’t win. The company that owned it was small and hired me right after graduation on a contractual basis. I was just one of many white-hat hackers looking for code that left them vulnerable.”

“Your letter said you did something illegal, and you were scared. What happened?”

“It was harmless. A girl I wanted to be friends with wanted to go to a concert, and tickets were thousands of dollars for lower level. I thought if I got her tickets, she would want to hang out with me, so I hacked into the ticket system, changed the prices, and bought our tickets. What I didn’t take into consideration was that thousands of other people were buying tickets at the same time. The company lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The FBI contacted me, and I have thirty days to submit to an interview.”

Jonna opens her laptop and angles it where I can see her screen, showing me the follow-up letter from the FBI. Shit, I can’t air any of this, or she’ll be in more trouble. Triple W Communications will have to pick one more person for me to meet, and all I want to do is spend any free time I have with Cameron.

“They might charge me. I don’t want your money, Mr. Worthington. I sent in my letter to your company because I thought you may know someone who can keep me from going to jail.”

“Where are your parents now?”

“Indianapolis. I moved here when I turned eighteen. I figured if I was going to be lonely, might as well be lonely on a beach.” A soft breath escapes her throat.

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