Page 4 of The Refusal

I give her a small wave, then hastily drop my hand to the wood of the conference table. Ugh. I am not making this better. Delia has a messy blonde babe hipster thing going on. As she does a top-to-toe sweep of the clothes I am wearing, it’s clear she thinks I don’t bear any of the hallmarks of someone who works in tech, never mind having the ability to understand complicated security issues. The way her mouth twists makes me think she’s decided to put me in the trivial idiot box—one I am starting to think I deserve. Great. What with her and Janus, that will be two votes against me. At least Bob will be in my favor, and possibly mop-headed Matt. I turn to look at the third person at the table, a stunning dark-haired woman.

“This is Amanda, who runs our legal department.”

“Hi, Amanda. Good to meet you.” I smile enthusiastically. She smiles back in that tight-lipped way that some uptight people have and slides a document over to me. Jesus.

“I need you to sign the nondisclosure agreement before we start.”

“No problem.” I bob my head. This is standard fare for security issues that nobody can deal with and they’re running scared. No one wants the media to get wind of it. Silence settles over the room as I skim through the document checking for unusual clauses—like harassing the CEO, I think to myself as my stomach drops—before signing with a flourish.

“Great,” I say, smiling while trying to draw my plummeting confidence up from the floor. “Shall I start?”

A loud voice starts outside the door, and silence falls as everyone’s eyes swing toward it.

“Yes, Pete,I know, it’s a fucking disaster. I want everybody working round the clock on it.” This is followed by a loud “Goddamn it!”, and the door swings back heavily on its hinges, wood banging against the wall with a bounce, and a clearly agitated Janus Phillips strides in.

“Sorry, everyone.” His eyes sweep the table, raking his hand through his hair. “This is such a fucked-up situation …”

His words tail off as his eyes come to rest on me. A small frown appears between his brows, and I’m sucked into his unsmiling face and the straight line of his lips. I’m hanging on the edge of a cliff waiting for the earth to crumble under my hands, breath cemented in my chest, trying to tamp down the heated flush that wants to climb into my face. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again.

“Um …” And then his expression starts to be replaced with something that looks a lot like amusement.

“Hi,” he says, as his face transforms to that heart-stopping lopsided grin, and he stretches out his hand toward me. “You must be Jo Williams?”

“Great to meet you,” I say, catching an easing breath and struggling awkwardly out of my seat to extend my hand over the table. His eyes dance at me, and the way they twinkle and crinkle at the sides catches me deep inside. My God, he’s gorgeous.

“TheJo Williams, huh?” he says, nodding. “Nice to meet you properly.” His lips curl slightly as he shifts his attention to the room. “Where have you got to?” And in a heartbeat, his amusement and joviality morph into sharp drive.

“Jo was going to take us through some background about her, and then we were going to talk about the issue at hand,” Bob says slowly, his warm calm clearly the salt to the pepper of Janus’s high spirits.

“Yeah, yeah.” Janus runs his hand through his already unruly mop of hair. “We get what a goddamn genius she is—we’ve all seen her resume and know what she did to sort out Caltech. Bunch of jackasses. Let’s cut to the sorting us out part, shall we?”

Someone coughs into the quiet. Everyone studies their laptops while I stare at him wide-eyed.What resume?The one where I scraped into college by the skin of my teeth? AndCaltech.Oof.Six months ago, they called us in to look at the security problems all over their badly designed network. We sorted it out, but it was a huge headache.

And he doesn’t appear to be in the least bit pissed with me—just highly amused and terribly impatient. Like things can’t move fast enough for him. I snort inwardly. I’m not sure how he’s going to deal with me, I’m the most methodical person on the planet.

“Okay,” Bob says, breaking the silence. “Matt, do you want to kick off telling Jo a bit of history about our systems and how that’s developed into the current architecture?”

And we are off. I pull out my pad and colored pens and, as they are answering my questions, arguing about the structure every now and then, I sketch a diagram of their system. The network starts to take shape as I draw in connections, highlighting in red and green where things strike me as being okay, what things are weak, and what’s worthy of further investigation. After three hours, my little map is pretty detailed. The time has flown by.

“Do we know how they got into the system?” I ask.

Matt clears his throat. “Still unknown. We’re running through all that data now. Could be a particular piece of hardware, software, or something that’s got through our defenses like malware or a phishing email.”

As Matt runs through what data he’s got and what he’s examining, Janus gets up to glance out of the window and then comes to stand behind me, leaning over my shoulder slightly and watching as I add notes to the map. He’s been glancing at what I’m doing all the way through the meeting, and my writing falters as he shifts forward to put his hand on the table by my wrist. I glance sideways at the strong muscles roping down to long expressive fingers, the curl of dark hair on his arms. I chance a look up at him, and heat starts to build in my chest. He stares down at the pad, face serious as his eyes dart around the paper. Then his unsmiling gaze zeroes in on mine and I’m treated to his hot brown eyes roaming my face, dipping to the flush on my neck, and my tongue sneaks out to wet my lower lip as his eyes flick to it. What will everyone think if they catch him doing that? I swing my eyes back to my map. Maybe he does it all the time. Maybe he doesn’t even realize he does it. Maybe I am unintentionally flirting too.

“I’ve heard a lot about this security technique of yours,” he says suddenly, a long finger stretching to tap the side of my pad. And his tone holds a hint of sarcasm.

I survey my diagram and suddenly I’m hot all over. This is a billion-dollar company that operates around the world, and all I’ve got for a global network like this is a piece of paper and colored pens? And messing around in the elevator?Really? What am Ithinking? Janus Phillips is … is … like THE person in tech right now. Janus Industries could cement our reputation in the security space. My flush climbs higher, and I blink once, twice, then suck in a deep breath.He’s a client. He’s entitled to question.

“I make notes this way,” I say, but I can’t shake off the stiffness in my voice.

As I turn to look up at his face, I realize two things: first, he hasn’t missed my mortification, and second, I am completely misreading his comment. He isn’t judging me. His face is open and relaxed; he’s genuinely interested. I groan inwardly. They’re a professional outfit. Presumably Bob briefed him about me before the meeting and he just wants to understand how I work. A small frown appears between his brows, cool distance washing over his face, and I curse the terrible chip on my shoulder that is doing me no favors at all. He probably thinks I’m a real idiot now. I search desperately for something to rescue the situation.

“You know what they say, it’s never that remarkable to the person who does it.” I screw my face up at him, widening my eyes. I hope he gets it.

His eyes zoom in on my wrinkled nose and go a little unfocused, and then he smiles, nodding thoughtfully, and, although the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, the frown has disappeared.

“What do the little squiggles mean?” His hand goes to the back of my chair, and he leans farther over me, gesturing at the notepad as the warmth of his body radiates through my shirt.

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