“It’s not that bad a secret,” he said. “I think a friend would understand.”
“Maybe.” She’d had some girlfriends in college, but had never pushed the point. It wasn’t worth the risk. Wasn’t worth seeing them look at her with disapproval in their eyes. “At any rate, it’s not an issue now because I’ve gone straight. So no more secrets.”
“Good for you.”
“Right. Good for me.” She licked her lips and focused on the papers in front of her, suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation. So far, at least, Kyle hadn’t treated her any differently andheknew her secret. A tiny part of her wondered if maybe,just maybe, they could let this thing between them grow.
But she quashed the thought. She was being sentimental and foolish, letting good sex push out sound reasoning. She was here to do a job, and she needed to get busy.
Thirty minutes later, she was camped out in front of Brent’s computer, a pad of paper in front of her and an Internet search engine pulled up on the screen. Her mind kept drifting back to their earlier encounter on the conference room table, and she pressed her legs together, fighting the urge to call Kyle over for the repeat performance she so desperately craved.
Determined to work, she paged through the hits, scribbling down suppliers for various bits of electronic equipment, the kind all the best burglars imported from Germany and Switzerland and utilized to circumvent state-of-the-art alarm systems. The equipment wasn’t cheap, but it would do the job.
She hoped Kyle didn’t balk at the cost—the tally was really adding up—but she doubted he would. The business was worth more to him than mere money. She suspected he’d pay to fix it out of his own pocket if necessary.
Across the room Kyle was tapping at his keyboard. From what she could tell, he was concentratingon work just fine.Men. Well, she wasn’t about to be shown up. If he could focus, so could she.
“I think I got it,” Kyle said.
“Got what?”
“Schematics to the Driskell system. Brent was reorganizing the network, but I think I found them. I’ll print them for you.”
She shook her head. “Don’t bother.”
His eyebrows lifted in question.
“You want me to penetrate the current Driskell system, right? See if we can find the flaw and then test whatever fix you and Brent come up with?”
“Right.”
“And this is proprietary technology, yes? Not some system you bought at Wal-Mart?”
He didn’t even bother to answer that.
“My point,” she continued, “is that the thief didn’t have the schematics, so I don’t want them, either. At least not for round one. If I can’t get in, then I’ll take a look, see if I can find a weakness. But I want to make a go without the info first.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
“So, uh, you’re getting a lot done, huh?”
“Guess so, under the circumstances.”
“Circumstances?” she asked.
“Mostly I’m thinking about how I want to lay you across this desk and strip you naked.”
“Oh.” It was all she could do to force out a response. She tried to say something else, but couldn’t even manage a sound. Their eyes met, and she started to melt under his heated gaze. Her thighs tingled, and she knew that she was getting wet from nothing more than the look in his eyes.
The phone rang, yanking Mel back to reality. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, her attention refocusing on the list on her desk. Across the room Kyle answered the phone, and Mel tuned out the conversation, lost in her own little erotic haze. When she heard Ethan Driskell’s name, however, she banished fantasy and started to eavesdrop.
“I understand, Mr. Driskell. But finding the flaw will help us ensure that the upgrade is—Of course we’re confident in our system. The tests are simply to help us ascertain the problem.” Kyle ran his fingers through his hair. “Just a few days…. Well, thatisunderstandable. When will you be back from vacation?…I see. Well, thank you. We’ll be in touch to schedule the upgrade installation.”
His face had hardened throughout the conversation, and as he hung up the phone, Mel was sure he was going to explode. She got up and crossed the room, settling herself on the desk in front of him.
He rested his palm on her thigh and looked up at her, a forced smile on his lips. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself. What was that all about?”
