Zero Day Exploit (Bayou’s End #1.5) (7 page)

He looked away from those wide blue eyes and trembling lashes. With a deep swig of his drink, he finished it off, then set the bottle down. “To me, being close to people means losing them, Zoraya.”

“You don’t have anyone?” she asked, a subtle tremor in her voice.

“I never needed anyone.” He let out a bitter bark of laughter and captured another California roll in his chopsticks. “You’re probably thinking this is just some dramatic sob story to get you to sleep with me again.”

“The thought crossed my mind.” She dragged a hand through her tangled hair, then reached for her drink. “So you’re always living a fake life to avoid living a real one. So you can’t get hurt if you lose someone else.”

Evan inhaled sharply, then forced down the scraping feeling in his throat by filling his mouth with the maki roll, chewing, and swallowing. “Stings when you put it that way.”

“Sorry.”

“No…it’s okay.” He shook his head and pushed one of the trays toward her. “I’ve just never told anyone that before.”

She uncurled enough to snag the tray and prop it against her thighs. “Why would you tell me?”

“Because I feel like a massive jerk and it’s only fair that I answer your questions.”

Her lips twitched, before a slow, reluctant smile broke across her lips; his chest tightened to see it, and he wondered what the
hell
was wrong with him.

“You are kind of a massive jerk,” she said, and he couldn’t help but laugh, the hollowness in the pit of his stomach easing.

“Still feels good to make you smile.”

“It’s only temporary.” She grinned and popped a piece of nigiri into her mouth.

Evan leaned back against the couch, letting himself look at her. Letting himself
want
her for just a moment, even if he doubted he was really off the hook. It was nice to just relax with her, like last night at the bar—even if he still ached in that heavy place just below his ribs, after dredging up things he tried to spend his life forgetting. “So you’re really going to hold a grudge forever because I changed the dress code at your job?”

Her smile turned pensive. She looked down at her food, then away, watching the snow fall through the window—where the street lights glowed golden through the glass like candles in sconces.

“It’s not about that, not really,” she said, then fell silent to take a few more bites of her sushi. He waited her out until she was ready to talk again, her voice quiet and low and thoughtful. “It’s about feeling powerless when all I’ve ever wanted is to stand on my own.” She laughed. “I guess that’s the curse of the twenty-something. Realizing how powerless you are in the face of the giant profit machine. Probably makes me sound whiny.”

“Maybe,” he said neutrally, wondering at the sadness that hung over her in a cloud. Wondering what she was wishing for, what she’d reached for and failed to grasp. He lingered over a sip of his drink, then offered, “I’m not powerless.”

“No, but you’re preying on people who are.” She returned her gaze to him, brows knitting. “How can you do it? Going through life just…making everyone miserable.”

“It’s not about making people miserable,” he pointed out. “It’s about making people money. Your company makes good money, more chance
you
make better money. And right now, in this market, there’s no money in nurturing special snowflakes in the hopes they’ll have a multibillion dollar spark of creativity. That gamble pays out less than the lottery. Right now the money is in shareholders and investors. And to attract those, they need a company that looks professional. Not like someone went emo on a pack of
Bratz
dolls.”

She stared at him, hurt flickering in her eyes, and he cursed himself. He couldn’t have said that a bit more tactfully, no. He had to go and be a fucking idiot.

“That’s low, Evan.” She dumped her sushi tray on the table.

He groaned and dragged a hand over his face. He was in it now; might as well see it through. “Look. I’m doing my job. You’re not the only one who has bills to pay. Don’t blame me because your company hired me.”

“Do you actually believe all the bullshit you spout up there?”

“I don’t need to believe it. I just need to sell it.”

She sniffed, uncurling her legs and sliding to her feet. “I thought you were trying to convince me you weren’t a smarmy asshole.”

“Did I say that?” He snorted. “I thought you were trying to convince me you weren’t a self-indulgent hipster.”

She froze mid-stride. A deadly quiet settled over her, her eyes brimming with a storm. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked quietly.

“I mean if changing your clothes and dyeing your hair creates this massive identity crisis, you must be pretty insecure about who you are.”

“
Excuse
me?”

God, he hated the way she was looking at him. Hated this sick, guilty feeling welling in his chest. Who was she to make him question his life, and what he did? This was the real world. This was business.

And he never should have mixed business with pleasure.

“I mean,” he said, shoving his food onto the table, “you’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve judging me for what I do when you can’t even function in the adult world.”

Her lips parted, trembled. Her fists clenched; her breath heaved and shuddered with the force of the tension rippling through her slight frame. He had a passing thought that she was lovely when she was angry, incandescent, before she hissed, “So much for thinking you were growing a conscience. At least I didn’t lie.”

“No, but you won’t let me forget it.” With a snarl, he stood. “Grow up, Zoraya.”

“I think it’s time for you to go.”

But he didn’t move. He couldn’t. Not when everything in him was screaming that this was wrong. He’d come to fix his fuckup, to try to at least make peace with this odd, beautiful woman who made him question himself in ways he couldn’t stand. Who made it so easy for him to just
talk
to her, just so that harsh look in her eyes would soften and she’d stop watching him like she was waiting for the next horrible lie to come out of his mouth.

Not that being honest was much better. Honesty made him cruel and hurtful, enough that he’d only hurt her more because he couldn’t keep his stupid mouth shut. He should just go. Go, and stop thinking about pulling her close and kissing her until the angry line of her mouth softened and they found something better to do than fighting.

But she thrust one hand toward the door, pointing, trembling with thinly-restrained fury. “
Get out!
” she cried, her voice cracking as it rose and peaked.

Evan shrugged into his jacket, rose, and walked out without a word.

*     *     *

Zero slammed the door shut hard enough to shake it in its frame, then sank down on her couch to bury her face in her hands with a low moan. She never should have let him in. She never should have let him get under her skin.

And he had no
right
to say those things about her. Just because he had eight years on her didn’t give him the right to talk to her like she was a little girl who had no idea how the real world worked. She understood business. She understood responsibility. Just because she hated giving up the last of her individuality didn’t make her immature.

Condescending prick.

Condescending,
contradictory
prick, one moment saying he liked her hair the old way, the next calling her an emo
Bratz
doll, but not before spinning her every which way with that story that made her ache for the loneliness in it, the quiet acceptance that it was his lot in life to lose people, so it was better not to have anyone at all. God, she couldn’t get torn up like this over him. The story probably wasn’t even true. This was probably just another game to him, jerking her back and forth just to watch her dance like a puppet.

She wasn’t letting him do this to her.

She had to deal with him at work for the rest of the week. Four days. Four days of hoping she never crossed his path; of hoping she could keep her detachment if she did. She could be detached. She could be cold, aloof, as proper as any stuffed suit. He wanted to see professional Zero?

He’d fucking get her.

A
S HE STRAIGHTENED HIS TIE
in the mirror of his hotel room, Evan gave very serious thought to the idea of showing up for work drunk.

Another vodka shot might ease the hangover headache—better than the aspirin and enough water to lower the local water table, anyway. He couldn’t even remember how much he’d drunk last night, though he could probably figure it out by counting the empty bottles from the mini-bar. He vaguely remembered getting drunk enough that he couldn’t stop laughing at himself, laying in his coldly spacious, empty suite that felt sterile and dead compared to Zero’s cozy little apartment. This was his life. Hotel rooms without personality, without warmth. That was
him
. No warmth. Every hint of his personality faked.

He saluted himself in the mirror. “Smile, James,” he told his reflection. “That fake personality’s earned you a very real career.”

But suddenly he wondered…what would he do, if he could do something he actually believed in?

Could he ever be like Zero, struggling to hold on to some idea of happiness, struggling to be the one bright spot of color in a featureless corporate world?

Why was he even thinking about this?

Shaking his head at himself, Evan snagged his briefcase and headed out to catch a cab.

He didn’t see so much as a glimpse of Zero on his way in, and within moments he’d been swept into the top-floor executive suites for endless meetings and discussions over stacks of personnel files. He frowned as he scanned through Zoraya’s. Her aptitude scores were remarkably high, her performance reviews listing her coding ability off the charts. She was extremely talented, but her list of shortfalls was worrying when management was talking about budget cuts and layoffs.

No initiative. Not committed to personal advancement; not willing to go the extra mile. Not a team player
.

That didn’t sound like the Zero he knew.

He stacked a few folders and his tablet in his arms, picked up his briefcase and half-empty mug of coffee, and spared a distracted smile for the CEO and COO. “I think I’ll get started on those one-on-one interviews. We’ll talk tomorrow about team restructuring.”

Trailed by polite murmurs of assent, he headed out and into the elevator, down to the… He scanned her file. Second floor. UI team. He flipped through a few more folders. Alejandro Rojas. Ravi Brahmbhatt. Janelle Corvino. Eric Gladwell. Over two dozen others, so many he wondered how the team got anything done. Mixed into the stack was one recently promoted Rick Sorensky. Evan eyed the blank stare looking up at him from the photo clipped to the file. Rick Sorensky didn’t look like someone who, according to the file, had
displayed remarkable personal initiative in seeking new advancements in corporate technology
.

Still frowning, he stepped onto the floor. Just another cubicle farm; he’d have to change that. He made a few notes on his tablet. Closed cube farms promoted an environment of weary drudgery. Open layouts made people feel like they were being constantly watched, and created an unproductive atmosphere of stress and frustration. He’d have to work up a hybrid layout.

He stopped when he realized the entire floor had gone quiet. He looked up. Everyone stared at their screens rigidly, but he knew they were really looking at him.

Except Zero. The line of her shoulders was slim and sharp, her back to him as she sat stiffly in her neat little steel-gray jacket, deep maroon blouse, and matching gray pleated skirt. She typed like she had a grudge against the keyboard, but while everyone else watched him from the corners of their eyes, she kept her attention on her screen with militant focus.

Well. He’d known this wouldn’t be easy.

He flashed a quick
don’t mind me, I’m harmless
smile around the room. A half-dozen heads ducked below cubicle walls as he made his way down the aisle. He didn’t doubt that before he’d walked in, the conversation had been about him—and it hadn’t been charitable. He stopped outside Zero’s cube. A…
thing
, some kind of cross between Cthulhu and My Little Pony, eyed him balefully from atop her desktop screen, next to a Hello Kitty plushie that had been cut apart, stitched back together, dirtied up, and bloodied with zombie spatter paint. Several other mutilated and zombified kids toys lined her desk, a rather oddly charming mixture of the cute and the bizarre.

Kind of like her.

“So you’ve got a thing for zombies,” he said, propping one arm against the low cube wall.

Zero fell still, then turned a chill blue glance over her shoulder. “Mr. James,” she said coolly. Her lips—painted a stark shade of fuck-me red that probably wasn’t the effect she was going for—pursed.

“I supposed that’s appropriate.” Evan sighed. Yep. Still mad at him. Freezing him out with the professional mask. All right—if she wanted to play this game, he’d play. “Very well, Miss Blackwell. I need to talk to you.”

“I have work to finish.”

“You can put it down for a few minutes.”

With a scornful sound she began typing again, fingers rapidly rattling across the keyboard, lines of code spooling down the screen like magic. “And ruin your corporate productivity metrics?”

“Pretty sure you’ve spent more time glaring at the screen than programming.”

“You’re a disruption. Maybe corporate should consider another consultant.”

“Okay, Z. Okay.” Evan held up one hand, biting back a laugh. He shouldn’t enjoy it so much when she hissed and spat at him, but at least it meant she was
talking
to him. “White flag. Truce. Come on. Can we talk for five seconds without going for each other’s throats?”

“Depends. Can you go five seconds without saying something condescending?”

“I’m not trying to be condescending.”

She spun in her chair, folding her arms over her chest and studying him with her lips set in a thin line of disapproval. “Judgmental? How’s that one working for you?”

“I’m a little of that. I have no right to be.” He let his hand fall. “It’s a hazard of the job. See something wrong, say something snarky about it. It gets attention.”