Page 74 of Don't Game Me
“You think that will stop me?” Reynolds shot back.
She unfolded her long body from the stool. “Let me close up shop first and pack my computer. So, where’re we going?”
“You’re going to help us find Ms. Harrison and tell us everything you know about Symphis.”
23
In a rotten mood, Jake sipped his coffee to jolt him out of exhaustion after no sleep on the red-eye flight from California.
Noah marched into his office. Him here before seven in the morning during the week when he should be on his honeymoon? Not good.
“Early morning?” Jake asked.
“I went online to see how the media perceived your presentation yesterday at Comic-Con, and I got this.” Noah thrust his iPad in front of him with a picture of Jake carrying Becca in the Leia getup.
“It was Becca.”
“I heard. From Emma and the FBI. The real question is why the hell didn’t I hear it from you like thirty seconds after you found her? Now she’s missing again. The FBI questioned the woman who helped Becca, although she wasn’t that helpful. All that aside, what’s this picture about?”
Hours ago, Jake contemplated asking one of his best security experts to hack the internet and erase all the images, but he’d been advised more pictures would pop up again within hours.
Both of Noah’s eyebrows were practically in his hairline as he waited for a reply.
Jake set down his coffee. “She hurt her foot. Had a big blister.”
Noah’s nostrils flared, and his eyes widened. He snatched the iPad back and scrolled. Then shoved it in front of Jake again. “Thatis a hell of a lot more than a toe blister.”
The image of him with Becca in his arms captured him gazing down and her gazing up. Their body language screamed far more than friendship. If he were an outsider, he’d say it was a striking picture and assume the two had some seriously heavy feelings for each other.
He glanced at the URL. CNN. Seriously? This ranked as a top CNN story? The headline read:Sexiest CEO off the market?
“Press, whether good or bad, is still press. Especially on CNN,” said Jake. “That’s a market we couldn’t crack even when we became a big company.”
Noah grabbed back his device. “I’d prefer to have them headlining the goggles launching tomorrow. The article vaguely mentioned it somewhere near the end. Not my sister andyou.”
“You can’t tell it’s Becca.” He held his breath, waiting for the bomb to detonate.
“You had her and lost her!” He slammed the iPad down on the table hard enough they both cringed and stared at the device. “Now she’s who knows where doing God knows what stupidity. What happened between you and her to lead to that picture?”
Ka-boom.
“Something.” Didn’t come any lamer than that.
“Something? What kind of something? When a story like this headlines on CNN, paparazzi will hit the trail. They’ll be on your ass every second until they figure out the identity of the woman in the Leia outfit.”
“That sounds annoying,” he said without emotion.
Noah’s puzzled glower conveyed a bigwhat’s wrong with you?
Jake sucked in a deep breath, readying for a fight. “We were together.”
“Obviously, you were together at the same place to get that picture taken.”
“No, I mean we slept together after the wedding.”And before.
Noah grunted and shot him the evil eye. “Not only was my sister forced to use subversive technology to hack our system, but also you seduced her? Talk about a weekend from hell for her.”
That hurt. “I did not seduce her. She’s the one who was all over me.”
