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She opened the magazine to the spread showing the cover gown and several of Lexi’s upcoming pieces from her fall line. The dresses were haute couture—one of a kind—the simplest design priced at twelve thousand dollars and going up to twenty-five thousand. They’d each been put together completely by hand, every fabric panel, every gather, every individual bead hand sewn. The fabrics were the highest quality and often European, the designs complicated and utterly unique.
Seeing layouts like this always reminded Lexi of just how far she’d come—all the way from the ghettos of Kentucky. Emotion swelled inside her, tightening her chest. She was proud of what she’d accomplished. Excited about her future. But she had to admit, she was also lonely. Too often painfully so. She knew mindless sex wasn’t the answer, but it wouldn’t be a bad start either.
To keep her mind off the fact that more bankers than studs had frequented her life for far too long, Lexi pulled out her phone and slipped her Bluetooth headset onto her ear, then tapped into the speech-to-text program.
She opened Rubi’s Secret Squirrel app without ever touching her screen. Even after she’d read both the introduction and the instructions,
Lexi was more confused than ever.
By voice, she directed her phone to dial Rubi’s cell, then switched back over to the app.
“Lexi,” Rubi answered, “you know I love you, but I’m a little busy, if you know what I mean. Are you okay?”
“Sure, fine. Tell me about this app. ”
“Did you just hear—?”
“He’ll wait,” Lexi said, referring to whatever hot guy she’d picked up between the time she dropped Lexi at the airport and now. “They all do. What is this app all about?”
“It’s an information-gathering app. A highly secured and encrypted tool. Did you read the—?”
“Yes. You might be a brilliant designer, Rubi, but you’re not the best technical writer. ”
“Couldn’t possibly be the reader, could it?”
Rubi whispered something to whomever she was with. Fabric rustled.
“Okay,” she said, “it’s not a complicated application. It uses technology hundreds of other apps out there already use, called augmented reality. You know the ones where you use your phone’s camera to view the surrounding area and the app overlays information on top of the picture—like neighborhood restaurants and the type of food they serve or gas stations with their prices. ”
“Sure. ”
“This app is exactly the same, only I’m gathering different information from the targets. ”
“Targets?” Lexi frowned at the screen. “I don’t think I like the sound of that. How is the NSA going to use this?”
“I can’t say. That’s why it’s called Secret Squirrel. ”
Lexi heaved a sigh as fatigue settled in. This day had been almost twenty hours long. “Fine. ”
“For testing purposes, the prototype simply collects cell phone numbers. So just start the app and scan the area. Where there is a cell phone, the number will register on your screen.
“Then, just call the numbers by tapping on them to make sure the person possessing the phone on your screen is the person who answers that phone in reality. That’s it. ”
“But, what am I going to say? I can’t just hang up on them. They’ll have my number, they’ll call me back—”
“Your number is both blocked and encrypted. Their numbers have no identifying information attached, so unless you were to go to crazy lengths to get it, their privacy is retained. I don’t need any lawsuits. If you get confused about who you’ve contacted, you can assign tags to their numbers. That way you’re not contacting one person multiple times by accident. ”
“Still…that’s kind of uncomfortable. ”
“You never made crank calls as a kid, did you?”
“We didn’t have a phone when I was a kid. ”
Or a car. Or air-conditioning. Or, often, food. Heat and water had been sketchy too. Medical and dental had been covered through welfare. Lexi had told Rubi she’d grown up poor but no more. That was another one of their opposite traits—Rubi’s father was a multibillionaire, and Rubi was a millionaire in her own right. She’d made her share of the money modeling, but far more from her IT consulting as a programmer and these crazy apps she created. Lexi had funneled all her modeling income into LaCroix Designs—her real passion and the only reason she’d modeled to begin with.
“Can I text them instead?” she asked.
“As long as you can be sure the number you see on the screen corresponds to the person holding the phone, that’s fine. The data is transmitted to me through the app, and I’ll analyze it on my end to make sure the program is pulling in what I need, the way I need it from the radio signals being used. All I want to do right now is test the app under different circumstances and make sure it’s targeting accurately. ”
Lexi glanced around the terminal at the unsuspecting travelers whose privacy she was about to breach. With the app open, she lifted the phone toward the lobby. Several people sitting nearby appeared on the screen. Within half a second, phone numbers popped into view above their heads like thought bubbles.
“This is kinda creepy,” Lexi said.
“This is our national security at work. ”
“That makes it even creepier. I like your other apps better. The ones that do frivolous everyday tasks or create games to reach a goal or—”
Biker Boy strolled around the corner, an open magazine in one hand, a large coffee cup from one of the restaurants nearby in the other. He had his duffle slung over one wide shoulder.
Lexi’s breath caught.
“Look at it this way, Lex,” Rubi said. “If NSA buys this, you will have aided our national security. If they don’t, we’ll do something frivolous and fun with it. Deal?”
When Lexi looked down at her screen, Biker Boy appeared in the viewfinder. And, pop, pop, so did two little white bubbles above his head, both with local phone numbers.
Holy shit.
Lexi laughed, the sound rolling out of her so unexpectedly she covered her mouth. “Sure,” she said. “Sounds good. Hey, Rubi? If I get two phone numbers for one person, does that mean they’re carrying two phones?”
“Yes. Any last questions? I’ve got a very hot boy waiting for me. ”
So do I. He just doesn’t know it yet.
“You’re absolutely sure none of these people can get my phone number or my name or any other information about me, right? ’Cause that could be incredibly…awkward, not to mention difficult to explain. ”
“Positive, Lex. ”
Lexi disconnected, watching Biker Boy from the corner of her eye. She kept her head down and maintained rapt interest in her phone. He glanced around the lobby, and she could swear his gaze paused on her, but surely he couldn’t recognize her from the car. Not with her hair up, the hat hiding her face.
When his gaze drifted past her, Lexi let out a breath—of both relief and disappointment.
Damn those reporters. If they weren’t here, she might just be desperate enough to do something impulsive—like be the one to initiate a conversation.
But not with Justin James from the Independent sitting a couple of rows away. The reporter had been at Lexi’s studio just two weeks before for a joint interview with Lexi and her client Bailey Simmons, daughter of Hollywood director Charles Simmons. James had been fascinated with Bailey’s thirty-thousand-dollar haute couture gown, which included one-of-a-kind fabric from France, pearls, and Swarovski crystals sewn over the entire bodice, and a thirty-foot train with embroidered cutouts.
Those were the kind of clients who ran background checks on Lexi before they dropped big money on a dress for one day in their life—or their daughter’s life. The kind of clients who brought bodyguards to their fittings. The kind of clients who made Lexi sign confidentiality agreements.
And those clients made up the bulk of Lexi’s income. Over the last two year
s, she’d become the most expensive, most in-demand couture wedding dress designer in Southern California. Any significant smear on her image or reputation would cost her big business—the kind of business that paid her rent and put food in her mouth.
The rich and famous in LA were well connected and knew all the other rich and famous in LA. That was how her client list had grown so quickly. And it was also how her client list could tank just as fast.
Biker Boy chose a seat on the opposite side of the waiting area, where he leaned forward, forearms on thighs, gaze on his open magazine. His duffle and coffee sat on the floor at his feet.
Just seeing him, that thick, dark hair, the wide shoulders stretching that hot leather jacket, the biker boots, rekindled the yearning he’d created with that one long look into her eyes earlier.
This was the kind of man she craved—a rough-around-the-edges, blue-collar, hard-loving man. A few tattoos, a dark background, confidence in the bedroom…or the bed of a truck…or on the back of a motorcycle…
The very kind of man she’d spent too much time with in her youth. A place she would absolutely not revisit. And she’d learned far too well a few years ago just how quickly the wrong man could trash all her decades of achievement.
But that had been a relationship, wide-open and public, which had been a huge element in his leverage against her. Lexi hadn’t made that mistake since. Couldn’t imagine ever making it again. Besides, she didn’t have the room or the desire for that level of commitment to a man in her life.
What she could easily imagine right now was Biker Boy pulling her up against his hard body, tasting her with his hot mouth, dragging off her clothes, pushing deep inside her…
The thrill of it pulsed in her blood. Pumped heat between her legs. Shot need low into her belly, where it gnawed into an unbearable ache.
Lexi bit her lip, her mind racing. She could use Rubi’s app to text him. A little harmless anonymous flirting would allow her to get to know him better. Then if he played along, and if she liked him, she could look for a more opportune moment—sans reporters—to introduce herself.
Lexi tested the texting feature out on a couple of other innocent bystanders first. When it worked perfectly—each target picking up their phone and looking at the display immediately after she’d texted them—she sent Rubi a one-word text: smooth, and reevaluated her own “target. ”
She zeroed in on him with her phone, and those two numbers popped up in the bubble alongside his dark head again. Two phones. That piqued her curiosity. She’d known businessmen to carry two phones—one for personal use, one for company use. But this guy was the furthest thing she could picture from a businessman. Which made him the perfect sexual fantasy.
Now…she just needed some clever way to open the conversation.
As she watched him on her phone’s screen, something flew into the picture and bounced on the floor near Biker Boy. Lexi glanced up without lifting her head, keeping her face in the shadow of her cap’s brim. A little kid, maybe five, argued with his mom several chairs down from her target. The kid, his face scrunched in a scowl, threw one of his toy trucks at his mother and stomped off in search of the other projectile.