Buch lesen: «The Business of Pleasure»

CHAPTER ONE

IT HAD BEEN a long time since she’d crashed a party.

AJ weathered yet another snooty look from yet another glittering society princess, dripping diamonds and sipping Dom. She waited until Socialite Barbie passed before she looked down at herself.

She’d miscalculated a little there, AJ conceded, tugging discreetly at the hem of her dress—short, tight and black. Club wear might get her the right kind of attention when she went dancing—which was to say she never sat out a song or paid for a drink—but tonight, she stuck out like a poor relation. She’d been so busy hacking her way into this shindig that she hadn’t paid too much attention to the dress code.

She should have bought something new. Something fancier.

This was a Liam Kearney event, after all. The tech magnate was known for his lavish lifestyle, his womanizing ways and his profligate parties.

Also, his tech was fucking epic.

AJ let her gaze wander over her lush surroundings. Lucrative, too, judging by his fancy digs.

She’d never been to a real Beverly Hills mansion before. The place had the works: tennis court, fountains, greenhouses, indoor/outdoor pool (currently full of bikini-clad models, natch), and most importantly, fancy French doors that led to Liam Kearney’s office.

AJ reached into her shiny little purse thing, pulled out a tube of lipstick and did a quick reapplication in the ugly but ornate mirror hanging on the wall beside her. Probably cost more than her rent, she thought with derision, careful to angle the opening of her purse away from the closest of the six hidden cameras she’d located in her visual sweep. She placed the lipstick back inside, surreptitiously starting the stopwatch on her phone as she withdrew her hand.

He might have gaudy taste in mirrors, but his surveillance was expertly placed. Not that she’d expect anything less from the man who’d practically redefined cybersecurity. The whole place was wired up tight, and it was impressive as hell. Good enough to keep most professionals out.

AJ tucked the satin bag back under her arm.

Of course, she wasn’t most professionals.

She took a couple of steps before she paused and pretended to fix her shoe, grabbing the doorknob for support. It turned easily in her hand, without setting off any audible bells or whistles. With a quick glance to make sure no one was paying attention, AJ slipped into the room, closing the door behind her.

Four, no five, discreet cameras took immediate notice of her. With that kind of setup, a silent alarm was probably overkill, she figured, sizing up the place, but she wouldn’t rule out the possibility yet.

The office itself was modern and stylish with six big, evenly spaced windows that you could see through from the street (provided you were packing a pair of decent binoculars and had the skills to avoid the omnipresent private security patrol), and a computer setup with enough monitors to impress any fourth-rate TV show set decorator, but shit for doing any real work.

AJ stopped at a bookshelf crowded with tech awards and press clippings, careful to make sure whoever was monitoring the feed mistook her for an idly curious partygoer and not the security threat she was.

Despite herself, she was a little impressed by the shiny hardware. From national commendations for tech innovation to entrepreneur of the year, the man had won every accolade there was.

She picked up a heavy silver frame and stared at the photo of young Liam as a newly minted CEO. He looked...scrappy. Determined. Not so much happy as hungry, and she respected that.

He’d been eighteen years old when he’d launched Cybercore.

It was beyond impressive. Also the recipe for a million photo ops.

She set the frame back on the shelf.

No thanks.

AJ preferred to make her mark on the tech industry in less...public ways.

As though she had all the time in the world, she meandered toward the desk.

From the imposing black leather chair to the Cybercore logo spinning on each of the high-res monitors, everything about the room screamed Inner Sanctum of a Tech Mogul.

AJ didn’t buy it for a second.

She was good, yeah. Hell, she was the best, but the fact that she’d just waltzed into this “office” without tripping anything direr than a couple of security cams told her this room was just a showpiece—a quick stop for nosy houseguests who wanted to see where the magic happened.

This was not where Liam worked, and this was definitely not where he stored anything of importance.

Which meant that her gut had been right when she’d spent hours yesterday poring over the blueprints of his mansion.

The office was a decoy; the server was in his bedroom.

AJ rolled her eyes, because of course it was.

Rich dudes were so fucking over-the-top sometimes. Honestly...sleeping with it like he was a dragon guarding his treasure or something. Luckily, AJ was a firm believer that the greater the challenge, the more rewarding the heist.

Max would be so pissed.

AJ pushed the rogue thought aside. She might be in enemy territory behind Max Whitfield’s back, but she was only doing it to help him. Besides, what her boss didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Well, “boss” was a bit of a stretch.

She was more of an independent contractor. Ever since she’d gotten caught hacking into Whitfield Industries by that arrogant dickwad, Wes Brennan. But instead of reporting her like Dickwad had suggested, Max had hired her, and it had really helped her out of a jam. The kind of jam most people went to prison for...

AJ was nothing if not loyal. Somebody was fucking with Whitfield Industries, and that meant someone was fucking with her.

And she was damn sure that somebody was throwing this party tonight.

Grabbing the arm of the chair, she turned it so it faced the window and took a seat, unclasping her purse as she set it in her lap. Someone should be here any second now...

As if on cue, the doorknob turned. AJ stole a glance at her phone. Forty-five-second response time, give or take. Conspicuously slow for a silent alarm, so she’d been right about it being just cameras.

The smug smile playing about her lips died instantly as AJ spun the chair around to face the man who’d just walked in on her.

Ho-ly shit.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in here,” he said.

And she’d been expecting some covert security lackey to be dispatched to check on her, not Liam Kearney himself, complete with a tumbler of amber liquid in one hand and a flute of champagne in the other.

Inconveniently, he was sexier in real life than her Google searches and his television interviews had suggested. She knew he was hot—the man got more press than the latest reality TV starlet’s nude selfies—but nothing had prepared her for his presence. There was something about him that didn’t quite translate in his pictures, something almost...wild, which was not usually the adjective that came to mind for a man who was known for his savant-like coding and his three-piece suits.

Her lady parts gave a twinge of appreciation, and AJ realized that it had been a long time since she’d gotten her flirt on. And an even longer time since she’d, ahem, taken care of things. Why else would she be salivating over a man so completely not her type?

She liked dangerous guys, ones who didn’t look like they’d just come from the cover shoot of CEO Monthly, with their clean-shaven jaws and their jet-setting tans and their thousand-dollar haircuts, short on the sides, slightly longer on top. In fact, the only thing that kept all that masculine perfection from being completely repulsive was the devilish spark in his hazel eyes. There was an implied dare in them, and AJ had never been good at turning down a dare.

She dropped her gaze pointedly before meeting his eyes again. “The fact that you’re double-fisting drinks leads me to believe otherwise.”

His grin was lethal, a cocky mea culpa that probably earned the forgiveness of women from six to ninety-six, even though it was completely unrepentant. “Detail-oriented. A quality I admire.”

Yeah, she’d figured that out pretty fast. Not often the king of the castle himself came to check on a security blip. AJ wasn’t quite sure what that was about. It didn’t make sense.

“I was just looking for somewhere quiet, away from the crowd,” she lied with her best damsel-in-a-tiny-dress head-tilt. “These shoes are killing me.”

She leaned back in the plush leather chair, propping her heels on his desk, ankles crossed so that her strappy gold stilettos were on full display.

There was a suspended moment as his gaze slid the length of her legs, and she ignored the phantom warmth that followed in the wake of his inspection—an inspection that lingered for a beat too long on her purse. Reflexively, AJ shut it, the snick of the clasp deafening in the silent room. Her breath caught at the snap of awareness as he reestablished eye contact. Something indefinable shifted in the depths of his gaze...and then he pushed the door closed behind him with his elbow, totally falling for it.

AJ exhaled.

When it came to distractions, the classics always worked, though AJ couldn’t help a pang of disappointment that she’d won so easily. Liam might be a renowned tactician, but that didn’t change the rules of the game: rock beat scissors, scissors beat paper, and penis beat brain.

She let a hint of a smile curve her lips. “So what’s your excuse for ducking out of the party?”

“The truth?” he asked, walking toward her. He moved with a lot more grace than your average tech geek. Hell, he moved with more grace than some of the more accomplished pickpockets she’d known.

It took a second before AJ realized she was pressing back against the chair at his approach. She swallowed and forced her muscles to relax as Liam circled the desk, positioning his body between her chair and the desk. A show of dominance that she recognized—she was good at reading body language—but that didn’t mean it didn’t work. She made a conscious effort not to move her feet even an inch to accommodate his big frame as he leaned a hip against the dark wood surface. The soft material of his suit jacket brushed her bare calf, and she shivered at the sensation.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.” His voice was deep. Seductive. “And I was looking for an excuse to rectify that.”

He held out the champagne flute.

AJ cocked an eyebrow and ignored the stemmed crystal, relieving him of the tumbler in his other hand instead. “Well then, the first thing you should know about me is that I prefer scotch to bubbly.”

He let her see the flare of interest in his eyes. “It’s bourbon,” he advised, setting the champagne on the desk beside his hip.

AJ took a sip. Potent, but smooth. Much like the man who’d provided it.

He reached into the left side of his jacket, retrieving his phone. His thumb flew over the surface of the sleek, matte black rectangle with impressive speed. It took a moment longer than it should have before the soft whir of the security cameras simultaneously shifting direction penetrated her consciousness, before her gaze cut from his big, capable hand to the reflection of his screen in the monitor behind him. Before she could glean anything of import, he was already tucking his phone back into his interior breast pocket.

Damn.

It took everything in her not to flinch at the wasted opportunity. She’d gotten soft, working for Max, holed up in her cushy apartment and doing everything remotely. She’d been off the front line too long. The old her would have capitalized on a gift like that—a glimpse at the screen of her adversary.

Maybe she still could...

She’d come here to drop a backdoor into his main server so she could poke around at her leisure and figure out how to thwart any further attempts to hobble Whitfield Industries. It was supposed to be a quick, covert mission, under the radar all the way.

Liam had messed up the covert part of her plan by walking in on her, but he’d also presented her with an opportunity she’d never dreamed of—the chance to do the same thing to his phone.

She’d made some mods to the program Max had asked her to look into, the one that had been covertly installed on his sister Kaylee’s phone. It had turned out to be Cybercore issue, which put a big red bull’s-eye on Liam Kearney’s chest. He’d rocketed to the top of the suspect list—douchebag most likely to be responsible for the hack on Whitfield Industries.

After she’d analyzed the malware, she’d tinkered a little. It had good bones, but she’d made it even better. If AJ could get her phone close to his, she could install the spy app remotely and have access to everything: his passwords, his emails, his whole life. Excitement at the prospect bubbled in her chest. There was something poetic about beating Liam Kearney with his own tech.

But to make that happen, she needed him to stay close. Really close.

AJ licked her lips, not missing the quick dart of his gaze to her mouth. Her smile was indulgent.

This was going to be easier than she’d thought.

She waited until he raised his eyes to hers. “How can you be sure?”

“That it’s bourbon? I poured it myself.”

She smiled despite herself at his dry, offhand delivery. “That we’ve never met,” she corrected.

He searched her face, and her breath caught beneath his scrutiny, trapping her in the moment. She couldn’t look away.

“I’d remember you.”

AJ’s pulse stuttered like Morse code, but before she could parse the hidden message, the door to the office swung open, and in walked a vest-and-bow-tie-clad waiter brandishing a tiny silver tray with a tumbler of bourbon balanced dead center. Liam grabbed it, thanking the waiter he’d obviously summoned with his phone—Kearney was a tech god, not telepathic—and AJ used the distraction to arm the app on her phone with a quick up-down-up-up press of the volume buttons through the satin of her purse.

The waiter removed the abandoned champagne flute before he turned and left as efficiently as he’d appeared, and just like that, she was alone with Liam again.

It was time to initiate Operation Phone Hack.