Wire (Pierce Securities Book 2) (4 page)

“What do you do here?” His voice was every bit as sexy as she remembered it, and she cursed herself for the damn bucket list. Why hadn’t she just ignored him that night? Sure, it had been great, but now she had to work with him, and she wasn’t sure she could.

“I… sort of run things.” Who was she? Why did she think she could do this? It had been simple that night to pretend to be someone else, but now, she needed to be the CEO because that’s what she was. She couldn’t act like the star struck idiot who kissed his pictures at night. Because she was that, too.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Cool, so I’ll see you around, then? Maybe we can grab lunch or something.” He seemed genuinely interested in her, but how would he feel when he discovered she hadn’t given her real name?

“Um… There’s a staff meeting at ten. I’ll see you then.” She waved toward a door on the far wall. “That’s your office. See ya.” And she escaped to her own office, like the chicken shit she was.

Locking the door behind her, she took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. This was ridiculous. She was a grown-ass woman who’d fought in a man’s world to build up the most successful gaming software company on the planet. It was a male-dominated industry by far, and she’d worked her ass off to get where she was. She was well-liked by her employees, some of whom were loyal to a fault.

So why couldn’t she handle Evan Rocco? Ever since she had decided to hire his firm to stop The Crimson Lady, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him.

Because he was Evan fucking Rocco.

She spent the morning buried in answering emails. The board was worried after the last attack had brought so much negative publicity to the company, and Paige was trying to put out the fires. When ten o’clock rolled around, she was as ready as she’d ever be to face her employees.

And him.

The conference room was full by the time she made it in, standing room only, with some people in other’s laps. She didn’t mind as long as everyone was comfortable. Peggy was saving her a seat, and she smiled brightly at her old friend before sitting next to her.

“Hiya, Paige,” Peggy beamed at her.

“Hey, Peg,” she replied, her eyes focusing on searching, coffee-colored eyes.

Like a magnet finding its polar match, her chair swiveled until she faced Evan, who was sitting across the conference table from her.

His eyes had widened in surprise before they narrowed into something else, and his temple started twitching. Paige’s stomach dropped as his mouth flattened into a thin line and curved down in disappointment.

Or anger.

“Hey, everybody!” she began cheerily. “Thanks for taking time out this morning to come meet our latest acquisition.” She paused for faint titters. “Evan Rocco is our new Operations Manager, and as you all know, he’s got a wicked brain for programming and development, so you can most likely go to him with any questions you have.” She turned the floor over to him, feeling guilty about blindsiding him. She hadn’t warned him about this meeting and didn’t know how he would feel about public speaking, but then again, she couldn’t really talk around him, so she wasn’t sure how she would have given him such a warning.

“Thanks,
Paige,
” he emphasized her name, making it clear he was pissed. “I’m pleased to be here and want to let you all know my office has an open-door policy. I’m proud to be working for such an upstanding company and am eager to get started.” He linked his fingers together on the table in front of him, and Paige was entranced by the hands that had roamed her body that night. The capable, gentle hands… “I’ll be meeting with everyone one-on-one this week, to determine work styles and stuff like that. I’m not here to start firing everybody, so you should all be good as long as jobs are getting done.”

His voice was reassuring as he spoke to the employees, and Paige was pacified, but when he turned his face back to her, the hard edge was still there, and she realized the soothing reassurance wasn’t for her. He was still pissed, and Paige knew she
really
didn’t want to talk to him.

“Great!” Pasting her cheery smile on, Paige continued with updates. “Our monthly staff birthday party is next week, and Presley’s baby shower is two weeks from now.” She beamed at the highly pregnant woman sitting in a chair near her. “Let’s all show up for that and eat cake!” After a few more announcements, the general meeting was over. As they all filed out, Paige raised her voice above the commotion, “If the department heads could stay, please, I’d like to have a brief meeting with you guys.”

Evan’s posture had relaxed, and he stretched out his long legs under the table, bumping her toe with his shoes. She didn’t know if he was trying to get her attention or not, but she couldn’t look at him to hazard a guess.

Not understanding her body’s reactions to him, Paige chastised herself. She really needed to get a grip on reality. And the reality was, she was an adult who ran a multi-million dollar company. She could certainly look at a man, for heaven’s sake.

But she kept her head buried in her tablet, tapping at the screen, checking emails until everyone filed out, leaving six people around the table.

Paige had Evan start work today, on meeting day, because he needed to meet the department heads. While she didn’t want The Crimson Lady to be anybody on her staff, logically she knew it had to be an inside job. Not only did
somebody
have to have access to the servers to load her onto them, but that same somebody had to push the patch with The Crimson Lady on to all the clients. At least, that’s what common sense dictated. She looked at the faces around her—of the people she considered friends—and couldn’t imagine any of them doing any of this.

She watched Evan listen carefully to the introductions and plotted how she could help him catch The Crimson Lady without actually interacting with him.

Evan paid close attention as each department head gave reports to Paige, who listened attentively, ignoring him completely. He typed notes into his tablet—possible motives and modes of each person to accomplish the creation and implementation of The Crimson Lady—not feeling any closer to a resolution to the problem than before these meetings.

Of course, he was flabbergasted at Paige’s behavior. He couldn’t imagine why she couldn’t at least acknowledge him. Did their night together mean absolutely
nothing
to her? His initial reaction was to be pissed, then he realized that if The Crimson Lady was in this room, which was likely, she may not want them to know of their past. But still, couldn’t she at least look at him?

When the meeting was over, Evan rose quickly, wanting to follow Paige to her office to talk privately. But when he got there, a man was standing outside waiting for her, looking for all he was worth like a Don Johnson wannabe. The
Miami Vice
throw-back wore a white linen suit—which Evan’s mother would have said was gauche after Labor Day—with a hot pink shirt underneath. His spray-on tan and bottled streaks in his hair added to the nouveau riche effect.

The man smirked as he watched Evan watch him, and Evan made a mental note as Don Johnson followed Paige into her office before he went into his own. He needed to find out who that guy was, telling himself he could be a suspect, but knowing the weird lump in his gut was pure jealousy. He was startled to see a young woman was sitting in one of his chairs, waiting for him. She looked familiar, and Evan assumed he’d seen her in the staff meeting, but couldn’t remember a name.

“Hi, Mr. Rocco. It’s so nice to finally meet you.” She stretched out her hand, and he shook it, her hand lingering in his longer than was polite.

“Evan, please. I don’t get the impression we stand on formalities here.” He sat behind his desk, still immaculate as he hadn’t unpacked anything, choosing to carry his satchel into the meetings with him. “You are?”

“Terry. I work in Development. I’m in charge of the characters, and your research into AI has been crucial to my work. I just wanted to come in and gush to you a little.” Her voice was a little breathy, and Evan couldn’t help but wonder if it was nerves or if she was hitting on him. Then her words sank in. Great. Everyone knew his history.

Feeling the heat rise to his face, Evan countered, “Does everyone here know my past?” He didn’t know if that would help him or hurt him in his endeavors to solve this mystery.

Terry nodded, “Yeah, but most of them think you’re a living legend.”

“Who doesn’t?” Realizing how arrogant that sounded, he backtracked, “What I mean is, am I going to have any problems out of anybody here?” Until he could do some digging, everyone at PSL was a person of interest. He needed somebody to stand out from the crowd.

She shrugged. “Probably. But there are assholes everywhere, right? And since you’re new, so to speak, like not specifically Team Paige or anything, I think you’ll be okay.” She leaned back and crossed her shapely legs.

“Team Paige?”

“Oh, you didn’t know about the takeover?” He nodded. “Well, she didn’t fire
all
the tech people, she let most of them keep their jobs, and some of them haven’t been exactly appreciative.” He knew Paige hadn’t fired most of Patton’s employees and made a mental note to ask her about that.

“I see.” Her take on it was interesting. “So you think I’m okay?”

Her gaze dropped to his lips, and he smiled at her, needing an ally. “Definitely. I totally think you’re okay.” She eye-fucked him until it got uncomfortable. The thought crossed his mind that she might be available to use to his advantage. All of her actions seemed deliberate, from the crossing of her legs to the way she licked her lips.

Paige’s office down the hallway, and Simon’s understandable credo about sleeping with women on the job, surfaced in his mind. He’d need to find a different way. Maybe just being friends would work.

“Well, I should go. Call me if you need anything. I’ll be happy to help you get settled in.” It didn’t look to him like she wanted to go the friend angle, though. Not the way she licked her lips, eyeballed his chest, and then winked at him.
Damn.

“Thanks, Terry.” She stood to leave, and he called out, “Can you leave my door open on your way out? Thanks.” He tried to ignore the swagger of her hips as she left.

Opening his company laptop on his desk, he inserted his own drive and downloaded the cloaking software that would keep curious lookie-loos from hacking in and seeing what he was up to. Then he started transferring files from HR to his drive so he could take them home and comb through them.

After an hour, Evan’s list of people with motives for sabotaging Paige had grown exponentially, and he considered himself completely overwhelmed. Deciding he needed to talk to Paige, he walked over to her office and knocked on the door.

Silence from the other side of the door was all he got. Her secretary was gone, too. He looked at his watch, noticing it was lunchtime. Evan made his way over to the snack area to see what was in the fridge, vowing to corner Paige at some point today.

It bothered him, though, that she wouldn’t make a point to see him on his first day there. What did that say about her? Was she going to treat him like a non-entity the entire time he was here? How was he supposed to do his job that way?

This was a mistake
. Paige couldn’t keep the thought away, as much as it messed with her normally positive outlook on things. Hiring Evan Rocco to find The Crimson Lady was going to mess her up. He was already doing things to her, and she had been avoiding him since the meetings.

Head buried in the fridge, she didn’t realize he was standing right behind her until his smooth voice penetrated her second-thoughts.

“I need to talk to you.”

She straightened abruptly, managing not to bonk her head on the freezer. His dark eyes pierced her menacingly, his jaw ticking as he clenched his teeth. He was pissed.

As he took a step forward, she took one back, bumping into the refrigerator, inhaling his aftershave and cursing herself simultaneously. Jeez, he smelled good.

“Why the fake name?” She swallowed hard at the raspy tone of his voice. He sounded pissed off, and sexy, and like he was holding on to a tenuous thread of control.