Nothing Personal (25 page)

“
Down on your stomach,” he said. “Right now.”

She turned her head to the side so her cheek came to rest on the wood, felt him pulling her back again, only her toes reaching the fl
oor. He was lifting her, shoving her skirt up again, then pushing something underneath her so she lay on an incline, her bottom in the air, her feet dangling in the heels he still hadn’t taken off. He guided himself inside with a hand on each of her hips, and it was slow again. But this time, his fingers came around between her legs, rubbing in time with his thrusts, sending her rocketing up higher with every stroke.

He took his hand away, and she cried out in dismay
until he replaced it with the other one, keeping up the rhythm of his hips all the while.

Sh
e felt the tip of what must have been his thumb, hard and wet, inside . . . inside, his fingers closing over her bottom, holding on tight, and was shocked into stillness. But only for a moment, because his other hand was still moving over her from the front, and he was still thrusting into her, and it all felt too good, too strong.

“Alec . . .” she moaned
. She had no purchase with her feet off the floor. She got her elbows under her, squirmed back against him, rested her head on her hands, and felt it all. “Oh . . . no . . . help.”

He
stopped. Everything, like a stop-motion video.

“H
elp?” His voice sounded hoarse behind her. “Stop?”

“Don’t . . .” She got out. “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare.”

She heard the soft sound of his laughter. And the movie started again. All of it. The hand, the thumb. And him. All of it, filling everything. Making her feel everything.

Her hands were slippery with sweat against the table, and she couldn’t hold herself up anymore anyway.
She reached out desperately for the edges again, gripped the smooth surface as best she could, put her cheek against the hard wood, and held on as he drove her higher.

“More
,” she gasped. “Alec. More.”

So he gave her more, and then more still, and everything in her was tightening, winding up, higher and higher, until she
was finally, blessedly, over the top. She heard herself crying out so loudly that she was very nearly screaming, the gasping groans as he joined her, and they were both there together, spinning down and down, out of control.

Long seconds passed, the only sounds the moans she couldn’t control, his harsh breathing. Then his hand was on her back, gentle, as he withdrew from her.

“
How’re you doing down there?”

“
Uhh . . .” She couldn’t answer. She realized that she was lying face-down on a conference table, her hands stretched limply at her sides, her legs dangling. That she was still wearing her blouse, that her skirt was around her waist, her underwear gone. What a sight she must be. She struggled back, impeded by something under her hips, felt his hands coming out to pull her upright, turn her around, pull her skirt down, set her in a chair.

He grabbed
a handful of tissues from the box on the credenza, made a few adjustments. Picked his shirt up from the table where, she realized, it had been providing padding under her hips, and pulled it on. It wasn’t looking nearly so neat anymore.

“Stay there,”
he commanded. “Give me a sec.” He zipped himself up, reached down and handed her the underwear he’d tossed to the floor, then went to the door and unlocked it, pulled it shut behind him.

She sat in the chair
, held the silky thong, and trembled. She should get up, she thought vaguely. Put her underwear on. Go to the ladies’ room herself and clean up. But she honestly wasn’t sure she could.

He was only gone
a minute, then he was back with her, twisting the lock carefully shut again. He came over to her and pulled her up, then sat down again with her in his lap.

“Desiree.” He smoothed a hand over her hair, which she could tell was falling down. “Baby. Talk to me.”

She laughed a little, the sound husky and low. “I think . . . I’m still stunned. Did you really just do me on the conference table?”

She could hear the grateful relief in his answering laugh. She should probably look at him, she thought vaguely. But she’d shut her eyes, because lying against his chest felt so much like the only thing she could do right now.

“I think I just did exactly that,” he said. He was kissing her cheek again, smoothing his hand down her back, along the silk of her blouse.

“
Mmm. You did a really good job.” She had her hand around his upper arm, over the swell of bicep, squeezing and stroking there. “I think I’ve been folded, spindled, and mutilated.”

“Well, hopefully not mutilated. But folded and spindled . . . definitely.” He
kissed her again. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up, go out to dinner. What do you say?”

Her legs were a little wobbly
, still, when she stood up. But it had been worth it.

She saw the
thick blue binder on the table, and stopped.

“What was that,” she asked slowly, “underneath me?”

The flash of his white grin was her answer. He didn’t even have to say it, but he did anyway.

“The employee manual.”

“Just for the record, I don’t think I want to have anal sex.”

She got him just as he was sitting down
, and he very nearly spilled the glasses of red wine he’d brought back from the bar. He caught himself, handed over her glass, and settled into the leather couch near the fireplace in Ziggurat’s coziest corner, much quieter than usual at nearly nine o’clock on a Wednesday night. Quiet enough, discreet enough, he hoped, for a quick drink and dinner, because all he wanted to do was feed her fast, get her upstairs and into his bed, and hold her all night.

“OK,” he said cautiously. “Want to elaborate?”

He could see even in the dim light that her color was rising, but she plowed ahead. “You’re too big, and I think it would hurt.”

“All right
. Did you not like what I did after all, back there? Too much?”

Still embarrassed, still honest.
“No. I mean, yes, I liked it. But I don’t think I want to go any further with it.”

“Well, for the record.” He set his glass down
so he could take her hand. The hell with discretion, because this mattered. “We aren’t going to do anything you don’t want. All you have to do is tell me.”

He could feel the tension
leaving the hand he held in his own, and sighed with relief that turned out to be short-lived.

“
So you’ve done that before?” She studied her glass, took another sip.

“What? Which part?” He
was starting to sweat now. Talk about your minefields.

“Anal sex,” she said promptly. “Have you
done it?”

“Uh . . . yeah
. I could lie, I guess, but if you talked to somebody who knew better . . .” He gave her a rueful smile. “Unfortunately, some girls
do
kiss and tell. But I gather you haven’t.”

She
laughed a little herself. “You pretty much exhausted the breadth of my experience by the second time. What else have you done?”

“What
else?”

She
dropped his hand, made an impatient gesture. “If I’m going to tell you what I don’t want, I have to know what it is. What you’re thinking you want to do.”

“Uh . . . You should probably
assume that I’ve done everything. Well,” he hastened to qualify as her startled glance flew to his face, “I’ve never had sex with a man, and I’ve never hurt anybody. Or paid for it,” he added as an afterthought. “But I’m a guy, Desiree. When it’s been there to take, I’ve pretty much taken it. And if a woman’s wanted something, I’ve pretty much given it to her. I’ve been around the block a time or two.”

“Around the
block?”
she complained.
“Sounds to me like you’ve cruised the entire neighborhood.”

That forced a laugh from him
. “Could be.”

“And that’s all right with you,” she
probed, searching his face. “To have me say that I don’t want to do something.”

“Absolutely all right with me
.” He could feel the ground getting a little firmer under his feet again. “Mandatory, in fact. Although if you tell me that you only want to do it in bed at night, under the covers, in the missionary position with the lights out and your eyes closed, I might have to do some hard negotiating.”

“And I take it,” he added
with a disappointed sigh when she was smiling again, “that this means I have to send the chickens back.”

Which made her burst out laughing
, and the relief filled him, and he grinned back at her and took another sip of his own wine, and thought,
Man, I love this.

And that was when he heard the voice from behind him.

“Hi, Alec. How’re you doing?”

He turned
, already tensing.
Oh, no. Not quiet enough.

“Hi, Debra. How are you?” He
set his glass down, stood, and blessed his good memory. He could almost always remember their names. But the timing was . . . awkward.

The pretty Asian girl
gave him a look at her perfectly straight little teeth, then smiled at Rae. “Hi, how are you? I’m Debra.”

“
Rae,” she said. He didn’t need to glance down to see that all her wariness was back, could feel her withdrawal as clearly as if he were still holding her hand.

“
I haven’t seen you in a while,” Debra told Alec. “Have you been out of town?”
In other words,
he thought,
why didn’t you call?

“Just busy, I guess
.”
Please go away.

“Well,
I won’t keep you,” she said. “I’m meeting some people myself. But . . .” She reached into her purse, pulled out a business card, pressed it into his palm. “If you know of anybody who’s looking for help with PR, give them my name, would you? I’m thinking about making a move.”

“Nice to meet you,
Rae,” she said with another smile. And was off again with a toss of the shiny black hair, her hips moving in an easy glide under the short skirt.

Alec sank down again, reached for his glass.
When in doubt, drink.
Then changed his mind, set it down.

“So. Where were we
?” he asked. “Just about to order some dinner, I think.”

Rae
ignored that for the pathetic attempt it was. “This would be the downside for me, then. Was that recent?”

“No.” He sighed and looked at her again. “I told you. Months.
Not since that first day I met with you.” He flicked the card restlessly against the fingertips of the opposite hand. “And anyway, I just started wondering if what I’ve always thought of as my irresistible personality was actually some kind of networking.”

A sh
arp laugh greeted that idea. “You mean that’s never occurred to you?”

“Ouch.
Some ego, huh?” He grinned, handed her the card. “But we
are
still light on the PR side, so if you’re interested . . .”

She
ripped it neatly down the middle and dropped the pieces onto the table in front of her. “No way, buddy. Not on your life.”

Somehow, after that,
it worked out that he was spending every other night with her—and, all right, both nights on the weekend. Almost always at her place, just because his apartment
was
too big, and too cold, and too unfriendly, and her cottage was so much better on all counts. Not to mention that it had her in it, and if the choice was falling asleep alone, or falling asleep holding Desiree, well, that wasn’t really a choice at all, was it?

But it was driving him a little crazy that he always had to invite her, or more accurately, invite himself. She never seemed to
be counting on it, although she always said yes. When he brought a few things over so he wouldn’t have to go home to change before work, she emptied a drawer for him in her tiny spare bedroom, and cleared space in its closet, and his toothbrush, his razor, his shampoo all found new homes in the feminine territory of her bathroom. But she didn’t give him a key.

He
could almost see her hovering, halfway out the door, ready to bolt. He’d had some kind of half-assed idea that he should try not being so available, maybe make her miss him a little, but then she took the weekend off to go see her grandmother, and even though he’d gone up to Truckee in desperation and helped Gabe build Mira a white picket fence, that had still been one hell of a boring weekend. And there he’d been on Monday night, right back with Rae again, and that had been the end of that one.

Meanwhile, he
kept suggesting dinner, and he even went to a few more yoga classes. He figured she’d eventually realize that if it was Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, he was going to be around. So when he got that other call on a Wednesday afternoon a few weeks later, it didn’t take him long at all to figure out how to respond.

At least
he hadn’t been thinking about her at the time. He wasn’t that far gone. He was still able to work, and he swore when the distinctive chime of his phone broke his concentration. Damn. He’d been
this
close to getting that sequence.

He glanced at the screen, a moment of surprise followed by a faint but unm
istakable sinking of the heart, a new emotion to associate with this particular name.

The phone chimed again, and
he considered ignoring it. No, she deserved better than that from him. He picked up.

“Hey, Claudine. How’s it going? Where are you?”

“In town. And I need to meet you for a drink tonight.”

“Probably n
ot the best idea,” he said cautiously. “Things have changed a little in my life.”

He heard the impatient sigh.
“I got that last time, remember? No designs on your virtue, lover boy. But there’s something you need to know.”

“What
? You got hot gossip?” His mind wandered back to that sequence again.

No answer for a couple
of seconds. “Something you need to know,” she repeated. “But not on the phone.”

He sat up straight, the code forgotten. “Something about me, you mean
. Personal, or business?” Rae? Were people talking despite their caution?

“Both, I think. Tell you tonight, in person.”

“It’s bad, then?”

“It could be.”

“All right. Ziggurat at six-thirty?”

“No. Someplace quieter. More private.”

“Look,” he said cautiously. “You know I’ve enjoyed it, but . . .”

She sighed
again. “I told you. Your beautiful body’s ancient history to me. I’m trying to help.”

“
All right. But if it’s something about the company, I’m bringing Des— Rae.”

“Uh-huh. Because two heads are better than one. Right.”

Claudine had always seen too much. And right now, she was seeing that he didn’t want to meet her alone, without Rae, and have Rae learning about it and wondering why. And anyway, if it was something about the two of them, she needed to hear it too.

But probably not.
Probably just another rumor started by a competitor, casting doubt on AI’s progress. But even if that were it, Rae needed to be there to ask her own questions, because she’d think of something he wouldn’t.

“Yes
,” he told Claudine now. “Because two heads are
better than one, especially if one of them’s hers. I’m bringing her.”

Alec saw Claudine coming in the front door of Dagustino’s, touched Rae’s hand to alert her. He’d chosen the North Beach restaurant where he’d taken Rae for that first late-night dinner. A back table again, same candlelight, same quiet intimacy, but a completely different mood. Rae tense beside him, not touching her wine. They hadn’t been talking, just waiting. No point in speculation until they knew what they were dealing with.

He stood to meet Claudine
, gave her a kiss on the cheek, watched her reach across the table to hug Rae. And she still looked good. She dressed much like Rae, in fact, though the clothes looked a little different on her curvier figure, and no question, the blonde hair that fell in carefully tousled waves halfway down her back was sexier. So why was there only one woman at this table that he wanted to take home tonight?

He forgot all about that, though, within seconds of the waiter delivering Claudine’s martini and leaving the table again. As soon as he heard her news.

“What?”
Alec stared at her, exchanged a startled glance with Rae. “Where does this come from?”

Claudine waved one manicured hand in a dismissive gesture. “Where do these things ever come from? It’s not even a rumor. Just a whisper.”

“That our code could be for sale.” Alec felt the cold rage welling. “To whom?”

“Don’t know that either. Sorry, all vague.”

“But you believe it.”

She hesitated. “It feels real. It feels bad. You know I have to go with my gut.”

He nodded. Successful salespeople always did, and nobody was more successful than Claudine.

“The Chinese,”
Rae said. “Probably.”

“That’s usually who it is,” he agreed. “But who
’d have access, and how would they have got it? We’ve been careful, as careful as I’ve ever been.”

Rae
pulled out her phone, began taking notes. “I’ll call Eric Lindquist over at DatAssure in the morning, get him to run some forensics. We’ll think it through, start narrowing it down.”

Claudine tossed off the rest of her martini and stood. “I’ll leave you guys to it. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If I hear anything else, I’ll let you know.”

“Stay and have dinner,” Rae urged. “Since you’re here. We don’t have to talk about this.”

“But you want to.
Anyway, I’ve got dinner plans of my own. Had to do a little reaching out, once I lost my San Francisco Treat. And even if I didn’t . . . getting a distinct fifth-wheel vibe here.”

Alec looked at her sharply.
“That’s
not out there, is it?”

She smiled. “Nope. Your secret is safe with me.”

“The Chinese,” Rae said again when they were alone. “
That’s who’s buying. They’ve got practically a whole industry built up around stealing code. And you know who they usually go for.”

“
Chinese nationals,” Alec said. “Or Chinese Americans.”

“And disgruntled employees, or former employees,” Rae said.

They looked at each other, said the name at the same time.

“Simon.”

But when
DatAssure came back with a name, it wasn’t Simon’s.

“I have to assume the guy’s better at programming than he is at industrial e
spionage,” Eric Lindquist said on Monday morning. “Or you’d have fired him the first week.”

Rae studied the sheaf of papers
Eric had handed across the desk, with Alec looking over her shoulder. “He used an
FTP site
to transfer the files? Isn’t that . . . ”

“
Moronic?” Eric asked. “Yeah. On the other hand, it made for a pretty easy investigation. But then, you were watching for flash drives, right?”

“Could have put it in his underwear,” Alec pointed out. “Stupid bastard.”

Rae looked across at him, startled.

“Hey,” he shrugged. “Obvious loophole. But what are we going to do, strip-search everybody?”

He was trying to play it cool, but inside, he was seething. Michael. Who’d been given this opportunity, this kind of access. And had paid them back with treachery.

“You’ll want to talk to him, and, I assume, to fire him,” Eric said. “
Make sure there’s nobody else in it with him. Be aware, though, it’s going to be hard to prove, and hard to prosecute. But it doesn’t look like you lost as much as you could have. I think we caught it early.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Alec promised. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I have some recommendations as well,” Eric said. “Ways to step up your security, on an ongoing basis. Just in case this isn’t an isolated event. Because where there’s a buyer, there’s a problem.”

He went on for ten minutes to outline scrutiny of the logs, extra layers of protection, and at the end of it, Alec nodded.

“Do it,” he said. Signed the contract Eric pulled out, and left DatAssure’s office with Rae.

“Time
to bring everybody in,” he said, reminding himself to slow to her pace for the walk back to the office. He wanted to walk fast, though. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to hit Michael, and to keep on hitting him.

“I agree,” she said. “We need to tell
Brandon and Joe, and the board too. It was one thing when all we had was a rumor, but with proof . . . we need to disclose.”

He nodded unhappily. “Before we talk to Michael, even. Because Joe will want to be in on it, and the board will want to know what we’re doing, and what we plan to do. Let’s just hope,” he said grimly, “that the son of a bitch talks.”

But when
Michael was brought into the conference room, was sitting across the table from Alec, Joe, and Rae, he didn’t admit anything. Just stared at them as if he were facing a firing squad, disbelief and horror written clearly on his young face.

“But I . . . I
didn’t,”
he stammered. “I wouldn’t. You have to believe me. I want this job. I want to do this. Why would I risk my whole future?” He was babbling now. “It wouldn’t be worth it. I wouldn’t. I didn’t.”

“It’s right here in the log.” Alec pointed
to the damning proof. “Your login, transferring the files. And you were here.” He reached a hand out for the time record, and Rae handed it to him. “In the office. You did it, and we know it. Time to talk about it.”

“There is one way out,” Rae said
when Michael continued his denials. She’d been designated as the Good Cop in this exercise. “If you tell us who you sold the code to, we can make this a lot easier on you. And if you tell us if anybody else was involved. Was this Simon’s idea? Tell us,” she coaxed, “and it’ll be easier.”

“But I can’t.” Michael was crying now, and Alec looked at him with disgust.
Weak. A follower, not a leader. “I can’t, because I don’t know, because I didn’t
do
anything! Why won’t you believe me?”

“
Tell us who you sold it to, you little punk,” Joe growled. “Now.” He looked meaner and bigger and madder than ever. The Bad Cop, and he did it well. Michael ought to be quaking in his boots, and from the looks of things, he was.

“Nobody.” Michael was still crying, but he was defiant. “You can beat me up or whatever
you want to do, but I can’t tell you, because I don’t
know.
Because I didn’t
do
it. I swear I didn’t. I swear on my . . . my mother’s life.’

They kept at it for a while, but it was no use.
The board hadn’t wanted the police called any more than the three of them did. Having it hit the grapevine that their code had been compromised . . . People said that any publicity was good publicity, but they weren’t talking about this kind. This kind spelled nothing but disaster.

In the end,
Alec fired Michael to the tune of more tearful protests, watched Security walk him out, then went back to the conference room with the others for a postmortem.

“I don’t know,” Rae said, looking unusually unsettled. “
He was pretty convincing. Do you think he’s that good an actor?”

“No,” Joe said. “I think Simon was in it with him, calling the shots, making it happen.”

“He probably didn’t realize everything Simon was doing,” Alec agreed. “May not even have got a cut, who knows. A pawn, for sure, but he was part of it all the same. And of course he’s upset. He’s very, very upset that he got caught. That isn’t hard to fake at all. We’ll probably never know the whole story, but we have to assume the worst. This is too important to take chances.”

That was the bottom line.
They talked to the board about the additional measures they were taking, and Rae talked to the security desk about being even more thorough with their checks. That was all they could do, except to be grateful for Claudine’s warning, and to hope that they’d seen the end of it. To hope, but not to know. And not knowing was no good at all.