Breaching His Defenses by Allyson Lindt (read aloud books .TXT) 📖

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Would she seem needy if she sent him a message? He was probably on his way up now. Right? She glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes late. No, this would be okay. She sent him a quick text. It’s Mikki. Just making sure everything’s okay.

Another half an hour ticked by, and nothing. Sick dread nudged her senses. He’d said they weren’t completely okay but had still forgiven her. Had he changed his mind? Had the few hours apart given him a new perspective on how badly she’d fucked up?

She was overreacting. There was nothing wrong. Sometimes life happened. She set him another quick note. You all right? Where are you?

Which was okay, right? They hadn’t exactly defined their relationship this afternoon, but she assumed when he said he wanted to see more of her, he’d meant it.

Except an hour after she sent the message, and still had no response, she wasn’t so sure. She clicked on the TV and cycled through the channels two times before she realized she had no idea what she’d just seen on any of them. Another hour passed. He wasn’t coming. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t going to show up.

She set her phone on the nightstand and lay on her stomach on the bed. Crime drama. That should take her mind off things. Classic, straightforward whodunit with a smattering of interrogation and court room drama. The victim had been killed by his business partner, who had been sleeping with the victim’s wife, and embezzling from their company.

Mikki clicked the channel to something with cartoons instead. The inanities and three nights of almost no sleep combined with her wounded disappointment and pulled her eyelids shut.

A loud hum tore through the room, jarring her awake. She stared around her room, blinking away the sleep. What the hell? She turned toward the nightstand. A sad giggle escaped. It was just her phone vibrating against the solid surface.

She grabbed the device, not able to suppress her hope. It was Jared. It had to be. He had a good excuse. Her gut sank when she read the message. It was definitely him, all right.

His note just said, Cleaning up your mess. A Trojan, really?

She clicked the words around in her head, looking for a meaning. She knew what they meant, but how did it relate to her? Realization crashed in around her, and she sank to the floor. Someone had exploited what she’d found. It was the most plausible reason she could think of for why he’d be blaming her. Someone who’d known all the details of what she’d uncovered and had access to her phone less than twenty-four hours ago.

Her hands were shaking as she pulled up her phone’s email history. There it was, sitting in a file that was deleted but still hiding on her phone, with Jared’s email information spoofed as headers. Whoever had used her phone to do this hadn’t even bothered to cover his tracks.

She pulled up Hayden’s number, her raging fury making it difficult to even think. He’d still be on his flight, but he always checked his messages as soon as he landed. She didn’t try to keep her voice steady. It took enough effort to keep a string of profanities and cruel names from flying to her lips. “It’s Mikki. I know it’ll be late when you get in, but I thought you’d like to know sooner rather than later. I quit.”

All his warnings about her finding other work faded into the back of her mind. This was unacceptable. It bordered on illegal. She couldn’t draw a paycheck from these people even if it did mean finding another job would be a struggle.

She pulled herself into the easy chair next to the bed and turned her attention back to the TV. Cleaning up your mess. Jared’s text echoed in her thoughts. She hadn’t meant to cause a mess. It was never supposed to be like this. This was more than the simplicity of her wanting to know if she was better than the legendary Jared Tippins; it impacted an entire company. The livelihood of thousands of people.

She needed to find Jared and make things right. It didn’t matter that sleep tugged at her senses. Rest could wait until this entire thing was straightened out.

She pulled on some clothes, grabbed her phone and her room key, and headed straight for the elevator. Hopefully Jared would be in his room. She had to help him make this right.

She pounded as loud as she dared without drawing attention from the neighbors and staff. Her gut sank further when there was no answer. Now what?

When her phone vibrated against her hip, it jarred her from the edge of panic. She didn’t check the display, hitting answer on autopilot while her brain whirred for solutions on where to look for Jared next. “Hello?” Her voice cracked, and she winced.

“Everything all right?” Hayden’s cheerful tone sharpened the edge of her exhaustion.

Any restraint she’d used earlier was lost in the haze of exhaustion and frustration. Time to be blunt. “No, it’s not. Things have moved past bad and straight into fucked up.”

His chuckle drifted over the phone line and sent ice dragging up her spine. “Then maybe you should have been more selective about how you landed your job.” His tone was steel. “I’ve tried to put this politely, and I’ve tried to hint. You’re smart. I figured you got what I was implying. The signing bonus was to help soothe your conscience. The fact you’ve kept quiet for six months implies you didn’t want to be found out. That you fucked their director of technology and still didn’t say anything indicates you’re getting off on the entire thing. If you quit now, you’ll never work tech again. Not just in this industry, but in any. Just like the guy who interviewed you. And your resignation is accepted, by the way.”

The line clicked off, and Mikki stared at the device in her hands. Rage, fear, and nausea all rolled inside. She didn’t know how she was going to make this better, but if it was the equivalent of spitting in Hayden’s face and helped Jared out at the same time, she’d sacrifice a lot to make it happen.

Chapter Nineteen

Jared stared at the laptop in front of him, and tried to blink some moisture back into his eyes. Vivian’s phone sat in the middle of the table, speaker on and cable running back to her machine to keep it charged. The clack of keys filled the room. Occasionally Dewson would report something, or one of them would snap out a question or command, but for the most part, they kept their heads down.

When he’d gotten Mikki’s first text several hours ago, the rest of his doubt had been obliterated. The message headers matched. The email—the one pretending to be him—had come from her phone.

He didn’t want to believe it. It devoured every thread of his consciousness not already dedicated to fixing the problem at hand. He’d really fallen for it again. Not in a million years would he have ever guessed…

Then again, that seemed to be his curse. It really was true—what his parents had between each other, the love he’d grown up around—that was the shit of fairy tales.

He hadn’t been able to tell his friends the newest information. Vivian at least thought highly of her. They could deal with that after. The only thing he didn’t understand was the shitty job she’d done covering her tracks. Six months ago, he hadn’t seen a trace anyone had been on his network. This had her name stamped on it. Literally. Was she mocking him? He didn’t want to believe it, but he also couldn’t ignore the possibility.

He raked his fingers through his hair. He needed to focus on work. Where was the hole that had allowed the Trojan onto their network? What was he missing? Maybe Rosen had been right; he’d been out of the tech for too long. At least the network was clean, as far as they could tell. That was killing him, too. Not only could they not find the holes in their network, they didn’t even know if they’d completely removed the immediate threat.

“Next steps?” The exhaustion in Tate’s voice reflected the weary atmosphere of the entire room. It was barely eleven, but they’d been at this for hours, only breaking long enough to down another can of Red Bull or cup of coffee. For about thirty seconds, he’d considered using the former to make the latter. Fortunately, he wasn’t that exhausted. Yet.

Would Mikki do something like make coffee with Red Bull? He hated himself the moment the thought passed through his head. He’d managed to keep from thinking her name all night, and now there it was, flooding back in and taunting him. Maybe that was what he needed to do. Think like her.

Sexy, alluring, deceptive… He pushed the string of words aside. Later. Wallow later. Impulsive, fickle, and fleeting. There was the mindset he needed. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply—one…two…three times, trying to push away all the indoctrination he’d picked up over the years. If he was just some person, someone who had the skill and intelligence, but not the corporate experience, where would he poke around for holes?

Her words echoed in his head. Remote computers. Machines you wouldn’t ever expect to have access to your deepest, most important information. He focused on the room again, gaze pausing on Tate. “Check the virtual machines quality assurance uses. You’re looking at database users. Accounts with no passwords, admin access, shit like that.” He turned to Vivian. “Same thing, focus group VM’s. Dewson.”

The drowsy “Yeah?” echoed off the glass coffee table.

“Every fucking administrative assistant we have. Ours, reception, all of them.”

That was it. It had to be. Hope surged inside as he dove into his own work, searching and scanning the same things he’d ordered everyone else to do.

Except an hour later, no one had anything. It was all tight and secure. He flopped his head back against the couch, letting a frustrated grunt escape. “Fuck.”

A knock echoed through the room. Jared shot a questioning glance at Tate.

His friend shrugged and nodded at the tray on the table. “Room service was already here, and even if it wasn’t the middle of the night, I told the front desk to give us some quiet—including housekeeping.”

Vivian sighed and stood. “Staring at each other isn’t going to answer the ‘who’ question, and we’re obviously at a standstill, so an interruption won’t hurt.” She pressed her eye to the peephole and muttered, “Well then. Didn’t expect that.”

Jared’s gut sank, rage twisting with betrayal. He didn’t have to ask who it was.

“We’re kind of busy for a booty call.” Tate’s comment barely reached Jared’s ears through the scream of his thoughts.

What the hell was she doing there? Rubbing it in? The latch clicked, and the hinges squeaked. He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help it. There was Mikki, standing in the doorway. Even across the room he could see the circles under eyes. Her shoulders were hunched. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, gaze darting everywhere. Every time she reached him, she skipped past, never making eye contact. “I want to help.”

Vivian opened the door wider.

Jared’s protest stuck in his throat. He should be ordering her to leave. Ignoring everything she said. But that tiny little voice in the back of his head refused to accept all the facts at face value. Mikki stepped into the room, and the door swung shut behind her.

Vivian nodded at Jared before she turned away. “It’s his show, it’s not my call.”

Apparently it was her call, at least on some level. He fixed his most damning glare on Vivian, who shrugged it off and settled back onto the couch across from him. Maybe he should have told them there was evidence to back up their suspicions of where this had come from.

A heavy silence descended on the room, filling Jared’s lungs until he thought it might suffocate him. He forced himself to breathe but still couldn’t look at her. “How did you find the room?”

“It’s um…luck?”

“We have work to do.” Jared couldn’t keep his exhaustion from his voice. “You hacked another computer so you could come tell us you’re sorry for hacking ours?”

He finally forced himself to look at Mikki. Even being as furious with her as