Page 107 of Mr. Hook-up

I drained the rest of my scotch and walked back to the bar to pour myself more.

Just as I reached for the bottle, an idea came to me.

“Fuck ...” I growled across my office.

“You’re onto something, aren’t you?” Holden said.

“Oh hell yeah he is,” Grayson said. “I know that expression on his face.”

I brought the bottle back to my desk, twisting off the cap, not even bothering with my glass. “I have an idea.” I wiped my lips. “Call the pilot right now. We need the plane.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Drake

“Ice cream, cookies, doughnuts, chocolate cake, salt and vinegar chips in case we need to offset the sweets, and I brought over some fries that I stuck in the freezer that are just waiting to be put in the air fryer,” Saara said.

She was standing next to my coffee table, looking at the sugar-inspired charcuterie board that she’d been working on for the last several minutes.

While I was slumped on the couch, drinking.

More like guzzling every drop of wine in my glass.

“What am I forgetting?” she asked. “Oh, maybe we need some tart fruit to counterbalance the salty chips. I brought strawberries and raspberries too.”

I held up my glass. “More wine.”

“Ahhh, that.” She hurried off to the kitchen and returned with two more bottles. “For this round, do you want white or red—”

“Just pour. I don’t care.”

I heard a twist and then the sloshing of liquid, the glass getting heavier in my hand.

But I wasn’t watching her fill it.

I wasn’t looking at anything.

I’d zoned out, like I’d been doing since I got home from work a handful of hours ago. A ceaseless pattern repeating in my head where I first racked through every thought, trying to figure out how I hadn’t heard about Faceframe’s Dating Place, and then remembered the heaviness of the day—the faces that had stared back at me in the conference room, the words that had been spoken. The conversation I’d had with Easton in my office before I left. If my name was never cleared, could we continue as a couple? Would Grayson and Holden ever accept me being a part of Easton’s life? Would the tech industry—an industry where Easton had such a remarkable reputation—respect him if his girlfriend was pegged as a corporate spy who sought to destroy his company?

But it didn’t end there.

It got worse.

Because there was also the personal weight of it all. The one request Mom had before she died was for me to graduate from MIT, but I still wanted to make her proud. I wanted her to look down and see what I had accomplished. And if I had the reputation of being a spy, no other tech company would ever want to work with me.

I would be finished.

Breathe.

Sip.

Repeat.

“Drink up,” Saara said.

With my hand still raised, I brought the wine to my lips, swallowing until my throat burned.

How did I not know? Who designed the content to be so similar to Hooked? How quickly can the forensic data analyst prove that I had nothing to do with it?

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