Page 197 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

He felt something pinch inside him.

He had been telling the truth when he’d said that this wasn’t the first time his company had been hacked. For any major business, institution or high-profile celebrity it was a constant threat. Some hackers did it for the rush. Some liked the challenge of defeating a worthy opponent. Others did it for the chaos they caused, or simply the money. All had a willingness to break the law.

But, for all her defiance, this woman didn’t strike him as being some kind of disrupter. In truth, she seemed altogether too young to be playing games with people like him. And yet there was a wariness in her eyes that didn’t match her age, a tautness to her shoulders as if she were waiting for the sky to fall on her.

Only surely it already had. This was it. The end of the world. Disaster not averted. A real-life elimination event involving her reputation.

It didn’t make any sense.

Then again, nothing about this woman or how she made him react made any kind of sense. Why, for example, when he should be focusing on the fact that he had caught her red-handed hacking his system, was he so aware of that curl of dark red hair that had come loose from the riotous mass of dark copper strands twisted into a low ponytail? Why could he not tear his gaze away from where it now lay coiled in a question mark over her right breast?

That he was even thinking about her hair, much less her breast, was just one of many things that had happened today that Tiger McIntyre didn’t understand. First there had been the moment earlier when she’d walked, no, sashayed into his office with his lunch. Women walked in and out of his office all day every day and normally he barely registered them, but for some reason Sydney had made him stop reading his emails.

He swore silently. And not just any old email. An email from the United States space administrator no less.

But as he’d looked up and caught sight of her reflection in the glass that hadn’t seemed to matter. And he had watched her in silence, waiting for her to acknowledge him, confused at his uncharacteristic behaviour because he never watched or waited for any woman.

And they always acknowledged him first, even the ones who thought they were playing hard to get.

But she hadn’t.

Because she was a thief, he told himself irritably. Probably she couldn’t meet his eye because she was hacking into his accounts, stealing his IP.

Only that wasn’t true. She had met his eye. His chest tightened, remembering the gleam of her irises. Espresso brown. That was the colour of her eyes, and as their gazes had locked, he’d felt his heart accelerate and every single nerve ending start to shiver just as if he’d downed several black coffees in quick succession. It had sideswiped him and he’d been completely shaken by the burst of heat and need that had roared through him, so much so that he had taken her arm as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do.

Shaking his head free of that memory, he took a step towards her. ‘What did you think was going to happen? That you’d get a dressing-down and then I’d let you walk out of here? This doesn’t go away. This only gets worse.’

She was staring past him into the darkness. ‘I didn’t get that far.’

That made no sense either. Sydney was clearly smart. Smart enough to create a false employment record and get herself hired by the temp agency. Smart enough to hack past the McIntyre firewalls.

And yet he believed her.

‘Maybe you should have done, because you accessed my private server without authorisation. You’ve stolen intellectual property presumably for profit. You’re looking at time in a federal prison.’

‘No.’ Now her eyes found his. She was shaking her head and her voice sounded thin, as if she was finding it hard to speak, but he told himself that he didn’t care, that she deserved to feel like that. ‘I can’t go to prison. I have commitments, responsibilities—’

‘You mean a child?’

It was as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse. Which was ridiculous. She was a stranger. He had clapped eyes on her for the first time today. More importantly, she was a liar and a thief, and yet the thought of her having had a baby with some man that wasn’t him scraped against something inside him.

‘No. That’s not what I mean. I have bills to pay.’

He felt a rush of relief, sharp and so incomprehensible that it was swiftly replaced by anger. With her, with himself and, as usual, with his father. Because there was no day when he didn’t feel angry with his father.

His teeth were on edge, his body so tense now that he thought it might fly apart. ‘You should have thought about that before you took me on.’ It was out of his hands. There were laws. She had broken them.

‘I could work for you.’

He frowned. Her beautiful dark eyes were narrowed on his face and there was a faint tremor beneath her skin.

‘You? Work for me.’ He repeated the words as if he couldn’t believe that he’d heard them correctly, although he knew that his hearing was perfect. ‘You think I’d trustyouto work for me? After this?’ He laughed then, showing his teeth, although it was a laugh without a hint of mirth. ‘I don’t do second chances, Ms Truitt. You cross me once, we’re done.’

‘I got past your firewall,’ she said after a hard pause, and there was a flush to her cheeks. ‘That shouldn’t have happened. I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

‘An argument which might have more power if you hadn’t been caught.’ Why was he even having this conversation? He should just let the police deal with her, and, in the meantime, Carlos could babysit her.

And yet, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do that, and he didn’t understand why. He just knew that at some point in their conversation he had drifted closer to her. Too close. Close enough that he could touch her if he wanted to. Which, in spite of what she had done, he did.

---