Page 26 of The Attraction File

I couldn’t open my mouth. The detectives leaned forward waiting for my answer, but I wouldn’t give it to them.

Swallowing, I glanced over at Evaleen who focused on her hands. Twisting her fingers around each other. Her body was shaking.

Was she afraid of my answer?

I knew I was.

“Whatever do you mean?” I stalled.

I might as well have been on trial for my life because I was sweating profusely.

Should I tell them the truth? Yes, I am so attracted to this woman that I can’t be in the same room as her without walking out with a hard-on. Yes, she’s physically beautiful, but it wasn’t about that. It was her fearlessness, her strength, and how she refused to be nothing less than herself to the world.

I knew Henrik didn’t like her. He thought she had a chip so large on her shoulder it could be a boulder. But he didn’t know her, not like I did.

“I think you know what we mean, Mr. Mimir.” Hardy leaned closer across the table.

It felt hot in the room, stifling. I wasn’t about to admit something that would alienate Evaleen from me even more.

“Why is our personal life relevant to a missing coworker? When this picture was taken, Ashton Graham wouldn’t have even started to work for Mimir for another two years.”

I had to ask. This meeting needed to end. There were several reasons I avoided Evaleen. Yes, I was attracted to her. Yes, she hated me. It wasn’t fun to be reminded of that. This meeting was like a hot poker to my heart, painfully teasing me with what I could never have.

“Yes. Why are you asking us such personal questions, which I might add, are none of your business?” Evaleen pointed toward the detectives.

“We searched Ashton Graham’s apartment a few days ago and found this image on his laptop. We don’t know why he would have that picture of Mr. Mimir, and when our IT people traced the image it appeared to come from your computer, Ms. Bechmann.” Mackeson pointed to the picture in front of us.

I struggled to hide my smile. Evaleen had that picture. It almost made all these ridiculous questions and Evaleen’s sharp denial that we had feelings for each other worth it.

I leaned forward on the table. “What? Why would Ashton have this picture?”

“That’s what we are trying to figure out. We still can’t seem to find him. Since he was in IT, do you know why he might have hacked into the Mimir system to take anything?”

My heart began to race as fear caused my skin to become slick. Mimir had been hacked? That was my worst nightmare as an IT exec. The press would go wild if this got out.

Mimir would no longer be the third largest Internet retailer in the world. It would be lucky to get any business. Who would feel safe giving us their credit card information or shipping address?

Here I was worried about some lust filled night years ago when millions of people’s information was out there for anyone to get.

“So you think he hacked our system?” I was standing now, my fingers turning white from the pressure of leaning on them as I got as close to the detectives as possible.

“We don’t know, Mr. Mimir. Once we got the—”

“Wait a minute.” I waved my hands in the air cutting Hardy off. “This could cost the company millions, maybe even billions. I can’t even imagine how much information could have been hacked. This is the stuff that brings down companies, and you were joking around with our HR manager because she is a good employee? Is that where your priorities lie?”

Mackeson got up and held his hands in front of himself. “Look, Mr. Mimir, we don’t have reason to believe that he hacked your entire system, just a few of the employee’s computers.”

“Who? I need to know as I am the CIO.”

I felt Evaleen’s warm hand on my arm and as if she held some magical power, I breathed. The tension in my body eased. I found she wasn’t glaring nor grinding her teeth, but I was greeted with a hint of a soft smile.

She glowed. I swear there was an aura around her that made me realize that this wasn’t the end of the world.

“This is just a job, Edgar. A job you are great at. If anything happened, I know you will work hard to correct it,” Evaleen said as she gave a quick squeeze to my arm before lowering her hand.

I needed to hear that. She was right. This was a job, and if there was a breach, I knew enough to fix it. Sure, there may be some damage after, but I have dealt with worse in my life.

“He had files that originated from Ms. Bechmann’s computer, your computer Mr. Mimir, and Henrik Payne’s too.”

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