Breaching the Billionaire, AR, Kobo

  I know, he thought. But you’re wrong.

  Chapter Eight

  His lips closed over hers and Alethea moaned with pleasure, opening her mouth for him, inviting his invasion. He claimed her mouth with an abandon that spoke of his intense need for her. A need that also rocked her.

  His hot lips moved across her cheek as he whispered, “You’re mine, Alethea.” One of his hands slid beneath the short hem of her nightgown and settled on one of her buttocks, squeezing it possessively. He rolled onto his back, taking her with him so she lay on top of him. With a strong, bold move, he whisked her nightgown over her head, settling her back against him, bare chest to bare chest. “That’s better,” he said huskily, then slid a finger beneath the hem of her silk underwear. “But why are you still wearing these?”

  Alethea rubbed the soaked crotch of her panties back and forth against his arousal. “Because you’re slow tonight?”

  “I’ll show you slow,” he growled, and lifted her so she was straddling him. Then he started a hot, torturously slow worshipping of her breasts. He traced them first with the back of his hand, then circled her excited nipples with his calloused thumbs. He flicked their hardened tips until she was gasping from the pleasure of it. Then he pulled her forward and took one of her small breasts into his mouth, suckling gently. She felt the intensity of that caress shoot through her stomach as she rubbed herself helplessly against him.

  He rolled onto his side and brought her with him. Taking both of her hands in one of his, he held them above her head and plundered her mouth while his tip teased her wet lower lips by sliding back and forth against them. With one strong move, he shifted so he was above her and spread her legs wide.

  “You’re mine,” he said roughly. “Say it.”

  When she refused, he inserted just the tip of his shaft inside her, rolling his hips in a teasing move that had her thrashing wildly beneath him. “Mine to take as often and any way I want. Submit to me, Alethea. You know you want to.”

  She shook her head in denial, until he plunged so deeply inside her she cried out, a sound that he muffled with his mouth on hers. Then he withdrew and began the tortuous tease of rubbing himself against her swollen clit and folds. His tongue claimed hers. Her hands were held immobile above her while his free hand explored and claimed her.

  She was defenseless to stop his possession of her, and so wet and ready for him that she couldn’t deny how much she wanted to give in to him.

  He plunged his shaft deep within her again, taking advantage of how her mouth opened wider when she gasped by claiming it even more deeply. Her senses were full of him and she was losing the battle with herself. He withdrew from her and began to lick his way down her chest, between her breasts, past her navel until his mouth hovered over her sex.

  “You can’t win with me, Alethea. I’m in control here. Not you. Say it.”

  She’d long since stopped caring what she was saying. She gripped the sheets on either side of her, her head thrashing back and forth as she cried out, “Take me, Marc. Take me.”

  The sound of her own cries woke her and she sat up with a jolt. “Marc?” The room spun. She squinted against the harsh morning sun, then dropped back into her bed, groaning in response to what felt like a sledgehammer crashing against her forehead.

  It was a dream. Just another freaking dream.

  Opening one eye cautiously, Alethea noted the chair that was still pulled up beside her bed.

  And a nightmare.

  I don’t drink.

  What was I thinking?

  I wasn’t.

  As a collage of memories from the night before began to surface, Alethea closed her eyes again. I threw myself at him and he ducked.

  She vaguely remembered him holding her hair back as she hunched over the toilet. Lovely. She didn’t remember exactly how she’d gotten into her nightgown, but she did have a vivid memory of Marc watching over her while she slept.

  Hopefully I don’t talk in my sleep. She half smiled. Maybe I do and that’s why he ran. She groaned again when she realized someone had installed carpeting in her mouth while she’d slept.

  Pushing herself out of bed, Alethea trudged to the bathroom. The hot shower wasn’t washing away the hurt she’d felt when Lil had questioned her motives, nor did it lessen her mortification about turning the hottest man she’d ever met into her nursemaid for the night.

  Some days just suck. She looked at the calendar on the wall. I can’t even blame it on Monday. It’s Tuesday.

  Beneath the spray of the shower, Alethea weighed her options for the day. I can stay angry with Lil for not trusting me, angry with Marc for seeing me at my worst, and angry with myself for not handling either situation well, or I can do something about at least one of the reasons I hate myself today.

  You don’t help someone because you know they’ll thank you for it. You help them because they need you. Because you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t help them.

  Something doesn’t add up.

  Why would someone go to the trouble of uploading glitches that could be fixed easily? Why make it look like Stephan is involved? Or is he? No, it doesn’t make sense for it to be him. He’d hit Dominic with a more deadly corporate blow. Could both be a smoke screen to cover a more sinister plan? If so, what?

  She opened her phone and scrolled down to a number she knew she shouldn’t call. Jeremy. They weren’t a team anymore. Maybe they never had been. He was a good friend to me, but I didn’t appreciate how good, until I screwed it up. I should have respected his relationship with Jeisa. I should have been happy for him, instead of worrying about what it meant for me and my career. Maybe even my ego.

  I killed that friendship because in my rush to get what I wanted, I didn’t see how I was hurting those around me. I don’t mean to hurt them. Does it matter, though, if the result is the same?

  If I don’t do something, I’m going to lose Lil—the only family I’ve allowed myself to have. She thought of her mother, who had remarried a couple years after the “accident,” and how she’d never been able to forgive her for being able to accept the lies and move on. Like Lil, her mother didn’t want to see anything that might threaten her happiness.

  And I couldn’t let her have that fantasy—even if the truth wouldn’t undo our loss. I needed her to believe me.

  I wouldn’t back down.

  Not even when it destroyed my relationship with my mother. Why couldn’t I let her be happy? Am I the vindictive person Marie thinks I am? Am I wrong to keep digging when I know no one wants me to? Am I destined to repeat this pattern until I’ve driven everyone I care about away from me?

  No, this is different.

  I can’t walk away until I know how serious this is.

  It’s not about coding errors. I know it. What am I missing?

  Is Stephan involved in this or not?

  There is only one person who knows for sure.

  She padded out of the shower, applied a shield of makeup, and shook her hair out in rebellious free curls. Normally she dressed to blend in. She preferred to work under the radar, but the red dress she chose was her war paint.

  An image of Marc surfaced, but she shook it off. This has nothing to do with how my ego took a beating last night. I don’t know what I’m going to face today, and I’m not leaving any advantage behind.

  It has nothing to do with the nearly impossible chance that our paths may cross today.

  She slipped on her Louboutin stilettos, strode out the door and down to the garage. She peeled out as she drove off, not caring about the drivers she angered as she cut them off.

  She was going to find Stephan, and no one—no one—was going to stop her.

  “I found him.” Craig sauntered into Marc’s office, interrupting an otherwise tedious couple of hours of reviewing notes.

  “Who?”

  “Our mole. At least I think so. He fits the bill. He’s in programming. He was living with his parents up until a few months ago. All of a sudden he??
?s dressing sharp, driving a Bentley Continental, and throwing money around like he won the lottery. The secretaries call him Coding Casanova. They aren’t interested in him, but they love to gossip about him.”

  Marc stood and stretched. “That sounds like exactly what we’re looking for. What’s his name?”

  “Jim Whitman.”

  A quick search on his computer told Marc all needed to know. “He’s relatively new. He was hired last June. June. That would have been when Dominic went to China to sign his big contract.”

  Also when the first serious hacking occurred.

  He dismissed Craig and dialed Jeremy’s cell number. “Jeremy, it’s Marc. I need you to hack into something for me.”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Jeremy said with a laugh. “First, we never call it hacking. Second, we never talk about it on a phone where anyone could listen in. And third, I have a legitimate business now. I’m done with that lifestyle.”

  “Someone’s on the wrong side of your firewall and I think I found him. I need proof to give Jake. Tell me what this guy is up to.”

  “Are you sure? It should have been airtight. Hang on, I can get remote access.” There was a rustling noise, then a clatter of Jeremy’s cell phone falling and being picked back up. “Who is it?” he growled.

  “Jim Whitman,” Marc said.

  “I don’t know him, but I will in about two minutes. Just using my password generator.” A few seconds later Jeremy said, “And I’m in.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Give me a minute. Getting in is easy. Wading through the crap in most people’s email is the pain. Wait. He has an encrypted folder on his desktop. That’s so cute. It’s like putting a tiny safe in your backyard and thinking it’ll protect your jewelry. It screams, ‘Open me.’”

  “So, open it.”

  “Done.”

  Marc paced as Jeremy typed.

  “The good news is this is no Einstein. We’re talking about basic coding and simplistic encryption. Eesh, he doesn’t even have sophisticated taste in porn. You should see what this guy spends his lunch looking at.”

  “Is there anything in that folder that suggests someone is paying him?”

  “No.”

  “Keep looking. Can you see if he’s accessed anyone’s mail or a department he’s not supposed to?”

  “I can try. Most would know to cover their tracks. Oh, look, he didn’t. This little weasel has been all over the server.”

  “We’ve been experiencing coding glitches. Could he be uploading them . . . or whatever you do to get them in a program?”

  “You don’t know much about computers, do you?”

  “No, but I’m a dead shot from a thousand yards with a sniper rifle.”

  “Point taken. Okay, so this guy is definitely gathering information for someone. I don’t think he’s the reason for the computer problem, but I’d say he knows who is. Give me a minute. I miss doing this.”

  After a series of guttural noises, some revealing his displeasure with what he found, Jeremy said, “Do you want the good news, the bad news, or the who-didn’t-see-this-one-coming?”

  “Just spit it out.”

  “I know what Jim was up to, and he’s not a threat to your software. In fact, he’s tracking whoever is.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “He traced some code errors back to Stephan Andrade’s IP address.”

  “Shit.”

  “Seriously, that’s fucked up. I thought that guy was over whatever happened between him and Dominic.”

  “I thought so, too.” This just keeps getting worse. “Was there anything else?”

  “Yes, Jim sent out an email right after he found a connection to Stephan.”

  “Who? Who did he contact?” He knew the answer, but he hoped he was wrong.

  “Alethea,” Jeremy said, sounding more than a little put out. “I can’t believe she replaced me with an idiot who doesn’t even know to encrypt or erase his email. He thought deleting it was enough.”

  Alethea. What am I going to do with you? “Thanks, Jeremy. Can you do one more thing for me before you go?”

  “Sure.”

  “I need a little something to help ensure Jim stays gone after we kick him out. Don’t stop digging until you find something we can hold over him.”

  “My pleasure,” Jeremy said, and started furiously typing again. As he searched, he said, “I’ll also retrace his tracks and see if I can find anything he missed. Just a quick piece of advice: If Alethea thinks Lil and Abby are in danger because of this, she won’t stop until she takes down Stephan, along with anyone who stands between her and that objective—even if it gets her killed.”

  Marc said with conviction, “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Good luck, man,” Jeremy said. “I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”

  Marc hung up the phone and dialed Jake Walton’s number. “Jake, we need to meet this morning, but I have to pick up a package first.”

  “You found something?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Good, where do you want to meet?”

  “I’ll come to you.”

  After hanging up, Marc charged out of his office and down to his car. He called Alethea, but it went through to her voice mail. Trusting his gut, he headed toward Stephan Andrade’s main office.

  He ordered his team to set up a surveillance perimeter around the building. If she made it there before him, he wanted to know. He parked in front of the building and glanced into the main foyer, even though he had no expectation of seeing her there. It wasn’t her style.

  He stopped mid step when he spotted a drop-dead gorgeous woman in ridiculously high heels, a hot red dress, and telltale auburn locks, standing at the reception desk of Stephan’s office.

  Although he’d never been one to believe in destiny, he felt that he was meant to find her.

  Stop her.

  Save her.

  Chapter Nine

  The problem with knocking is that you give people the chance to slam the door in your face.

  “Do you have an appointment?” the older secretary at the main desk asked her.

  Squaring her shoulders, Alethea said, “No, but I need to speak with Stephan Andrade.”

  The secretary looked her over and said, “You know he’s engaged, right? That outfit would be completely wasted on him.”

  Alethea let out a calming breath. She doesn’t matter. This conversation doesn’t matter. Don’t give her a reason to refuse you. “Can you just call to see if he’s available?”

  “Hon, he’s not available. Men like him never are. If you’d like to leave your name with me, I’ll forward it to his secretary. That’s the best I can do.”

  Unprofessional. Rude. And there is no way she’s a natural blonde. Again, all unimportant. “He must have a list of who you allow to go straight up. I know him personally.”

  The woman looked down at her desk, then back up without saying anything.

  “My name is Alethea Niarchos. Check the list.”

  The woman scanned a paper on a clipboard, then some side notes. She looked up and her face went a bit red. “Hang on a moment,” she said, before bending to speak softly into a microphone.

  Two security men approached from across the hall. Alethea rolled her eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Seriously? I’m on that list? Fine, I’ll just call him myself to tell him I’m here.”

  She dug her phone out of her purse but, before she could input anything, the phone was snatched out of her hands from behind. Alethea spun, prepared to show her assailant why she excelled at kickboxing, then froze when she saw who had taken her phone.

  “I’ll handle this,” Marc said smoothly to the approaching security men and to the stunned secretary. He gave them his card. His name alone was now big in his business.

  The secretary let out an audible sigh of pleasure as she looked him over.

  He dropped Alethea’s phone into his pants pocket and took Alethea by the arm
, guiding her rather forcibly toward the office building’s front door.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Alethea raged.

  “Saving you from yourself,” Marc said calmly, and stepped out of the building with her, still holding her arm.

  She planted her feet—not easy to do, considering her heels—and refused to budge. “Take your hands off me or I’ll do it for you.”

  He stopped and smiled down at her. “You could try.”

  She cocked one knee in preparation of doing just that, then stopped. With her heart beating wildly in her chest, she admitted to herself that it was good to see him again. Right. Wrong. It didn’t matter. He’d come for her and that felt pretty damn good. Her eyes homed in on his lips, those wonderfully stern and kissable lips.

  He pulled her flush against him and growled down into her ear, “The only choice you get is how you’re getting in my car. Are you coming peacefully and willingly, or would you like to see exactly which pressure point causes temporary paralysis?”

  If possible, his threat made him even more attractive. She squirmed against him, more out of the need to rub against him, than to get away, but he didn’t know that. He held her tighter, and the feel of his body hardening sent a shot of fire straight through her. She should be angry with him. He was standing between her and what she had to do, and she felt confused as to why she wasn’t fighting him.

  She shifted her tush against his erection and reveled in his quick intake of air. Oh, yeah— that.

  His breath was hot on her neck as he said, “I’ll take you up on that offer, just not now.”

  His confidence served as a splash of sanity. She raised a foot to plant one of her heels into the toe of his shoe, but he twisted her body just enough to keep her off balance and take away the leverage she needed. She changed her approach and softened her stance in his grip. Widening her eyes and turning her head to look into his, she said, “I have information about what is going on at Corisi Enterprises.”

  “Great. You can tell me when your adorable ass is in the passenger seat of my car—and it will be there in less than two minutes, one way or another.”