Page 23 of Sinful Attraction

“Oh, he will. He’ll just act like the whole thing isn’t that important because the intel came from me.” I look around as he leads me up the stairs and into his flat. It’s big, modern, and airy, with high ceilings, skylights, and huge windows. He has one of those giant sectional couches that includes a wide, flat lounger, the whole thing in brown saddle leather. “This your hideaway?”

“Yeah, I usually spend time here when my sister’s being crazy or I have a date. There’s no real privacy at the family home. You know how it is.” He heads straight to the kitchen. “You want a beer?”

I check my watch. It’s two in the afternoon. I shrug. “Sounds fine.”

He pulls two chilled longnecks out of the fridge and pops the top off with his pocketknife before handing one over. “So, one of the reasons I wanted to cut you in on all of this is that you’re the original programmer of what was used against me. I figure if anyone can help me find who else is using it or has used it besides us, it’s going to be you.”

I stare at him thoughtfully as he takes a swallow of his beer, then sip my own. It’s a brown ale, nutty and mild, and goes down easy. “You drew me in by handing over your own spy.”

“My father’s spy, if you want to get technical—and I did that at particular risk to myself. He has no idea I exposed her.”

My eyebrows lift. “That is risky. I hear your father’s got a nastier temper than mine.”

“It takes a lot to piss him off, but yes, absolutely.” His gaze slides into my cleavage again, then back up to my face. “What’s your point?”

“How do you plan to keep my interest? Do you really think we can double our money while we work to get the stolen funds back?” I lift an eyebrow before taking another sip of my beer.

He smiles slowly. “Besides my charming company?”

I fight not to roll my eyes. “Yes.”

His eyes twinkle, and I find myself becoming curious. “Exposing an enemy, getting revenge, and making a pile of money above and beyond what I took or was taken from me.”

“I’m listening.” Especially about the ‘getting revenge’ part, he seems oblivious to the fact that the revenge I really want is on him.

Chapter 11

Michael

I can’t believe my good luck. Arya has actually agreed to work with me! She’s still pissed, I can tell, but she’s cooperating. With her in my corner, I can get all this done in no time, and I’ll get the chance to make it up to her for following Dad’s order to steal from her.

Now, I just have to figure out how.

I wonder if she has any idea how sexy she is. Maybe a little. She’s not the type to manipulate people with her body, but her body is amazing all on its own, and she knows how to show it off without looking too obvious.

I want to think it’s deliberate and that she has dressed like this to catch my eye. I hope so because my eye has been definitely caught. The black silk of her dress clings to her every curve, whispering against her thighs as she moves around. I can just glimpse the lacy top of her stockings or the faint gleam of a garter clip when she shifts in the right ways.

I’ve been sitting here with my cock regularly going hard from thinking about the possibilities since I first laid eyes on her an hour ago. It’s fucking with my focus. I’m enjoying it anyway.

“I’ve been gathering server-access records for my family for the date of the heist, the day after, and the days leading up to it.” I bring out my laptop and set it in front of my seat next to her. She’s at my big, heavily carved Chinese dining table, one of the few antiques in the place. She’s still on her first beer while I’m on my third. I guess she’s not much of a drinker.

I bend over the laptop and bring up the access records. “Twenty family members living at the mansion, plus all my dad’s men, plus the extended family, plus higher-level staff. It’s just a little under two hundred people. We need to find out who was online during the heists and what they were doing.”

She bends forward slightly to look at my screen as I scroll through some examples, face thoughtful. The extra glimpse of her cleavage makes me lose my breath for a moment. Does she have any idea what she’s doing to me? She seems oblivious, but the longer she stays here working with me, the more desperately I want to fuck her.

I’ll get there. I’m even more determined now to seduce her than I’ve ever been. And now, even though she might be pissed at me at the moment, I have the chance to do more than make things up to her. I have the chance to finally have her in my bed, and that is worth risking a lot for.

Right now, though, I need to help us make some actual progress on finding whoever screwed both of us over. I focus back on the documents we’re looking at while she frowns and pages through them all for a second time.

“Have you caught something?” I ask, intrigued that she’s reacting like this so quickly.

“I may have. Or rather, I’ve caught the lack of something. There are absolutely no outside logins to your family’s subnet on the night that money was taken from you.”

I frown thoughtfully. “You’re saying that whoever did this physically logged onto the family net from home? My parents’ home?”

“It was very early in the morning. No remote logins from any family members. No remote logins from anywhere. I’m double-checking everything, but you’ll need to see if someone on your system covered up a remote login.” She looks up at me as I sit beside her, her gaze a touch hot. Or is that all me?

“If they did, you have someone with admin access running around your system. If they didn’t, yes, someone physicallylogged in at one of your family computers, stole the money, and transferred it away.”

---