Secret Pleasure

Oblivious, he dropped the white cotton. “Twenty stitches.”

“I have a vanilla latte for Karly and a coffee for Hot Guy,” called the barista, and Aidan quirked a conspiratorial eyebrow, startling a smile from her. It might not be the heat that had sparked between him and Lola, but it was nice to see him as herself, too.

They grabbed their coffees from the counter. The grande cup looked small in his hand.

“Got time to sit with me for a bit?”

She wanted to. Wanted to indulge the desire simmering in her belly. But she had a meeting that she couldn’t blow off, and the prudent part of her—the part that knew the longer she tempted fate, the more likely it was that Aidan might connect her with her alter ego—warned her to get out immediately, before her secret came back to bite her.

With an apologetic smile at the handsomest man to ever flash her at a Starbucks, Kaylee put herself out of her misery. “I’m sorry, Aidan. I really need to get to work, but it was great seeing you.”

She reached into her purse to grab her keys. Despite her very smart decision to leave, her whole body shivered when he reached out and touched her hand to stop her. She swallowed against the resurgence of lust as she looked at him. “Then see me again.”

“What?”

“Lounge 360. Nine o’clock. I’ll buy you a drink.”

She really shouldn’t. Max would hate that. Her mother would hate that.

“I’ll be there.”

Shit.

He shouldn’t have talked to her. Liam’s tech was good enough to install without making contact. That had been the goddamn plan.

She’d been completely oblivious to him when he’d taken his place in line behind her, but he hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut.

In his head, she was this gangly, shy teenage girl with braces who stared at him like he’d hung the moon when she thought he wasn’t watching. At four years his junior, she’d been mostly off his radar when Max would invite him over.

When she was on his radar, it was just because she’d always seemed so...lonely. He’d felt sorry for her. Sylvia Whitfield had been on her constantly and about everything—Kaylee, stand up straight; Kaylee, your hair is a mess; Kaylee, stop being so noisy.

And Max had been weird about his little sister, keeping a very conscious distance, though he’d never explained his reasons.

But she wasn’t an awkward girl anymore. And some perverse part of Aidan had been too curious to content himself with the brief glimpse of her profile he’d gotten in the parking lot while he’d waited to see if she’d show up like his intel guy had predicted.

He’d wanted to see the woman she’d become, and so he’d broken his own damn rule and talked to her.

Stunning. That had been his first thought when she’d turned to face him. Then her hazel eyes had flared with surprise and recognition as they scanned his face, and her skin had flushed in a way that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Her full lips, slicked shiny with gloss, had popped open in an unconsciously provocative O that had hooked him in the gut right before she stepped back in surprise. He hadn’t expected the jolt of familiarity, hell, of attraction, that had arced up his arm as he’d steadied her.

He spared a brief moment to wonder if she’d felt it, too, or if it was just the surprise of seeing him again after so many years that had sent her phone tumbling to the ground, smashing both the screen and his plan to install the spyware and get the hell out.

That’s what he got for thinking with his dick, which obviously didn’t care that she was part of the enemy camp. Though to be fair, neither did his brain, judging by his offer to take her out for drinks tonight. Fucking drinks with Kaylee Whitfield.

Now all he could do was hope that she’d replace her phone before they met up again, or this whole day would be a complete waste.

CHAPTER SIX (#udce100c3-b252-58fe-b0fd-5aebcd84969f)

KAYLEE ARRIVED AT the office eleven hours and forty-six minutes before she was going to meet Aidan for drinks. Which was fourteen minutes late for the daily briefing with Soteria Security, where she was playing the role of Max’s factotum.

“I’m sorry to keep you both waiting. Slight issue with my phone.” Not exactly a lie, she decided, setting it shattered-screen up on the boardroom table. She placed her coffee beside it and took a seat.

“Damn.” Jesse Hastings winced. “I hate to see good tech suffer.”

Kaylee had no doubt that, as a certified tech geek and one half of the crack cybersecurity team Whitfield Industries kept on retainer, Jesse felt her pain.

“Me, too, but not as much as I hate having to sacrifice my lunch hour to replace good tech.”

“Here. Take this one.”

Kaylee did a double take as Wes Brennan, the quieter, more serious half of Soteria Security, pulled a top-of-the-line phone out of his suit pocket and held it up.

“Seriously, Wes?”

“Yeah, seriously, Wes?” Jesse shook his head and turned to Kaylee. “I just gave him that phone this morning. After spending hours configuring the safety features to his exacting standards.”

“My old phone is fine. I did some upgrades to it last week that I wanted to test anyway, so I haven’t even activated this one.” Wes gave his patented low-key shrug and pointed at her broken phone. “Hand it over. I’ll change out your SIM card.”

Kaylee passed it across the table.

“You ever feel massively underappreciated by your boss?” Jesse asked with a sigh.

Her brother’s stern face flashed through her mind. “You have no idea,” Kaylee assured him, and they shared a knowing eye roll.

“I saw that,” Wes said drily, making quick work of the phone. The second he turned it on, the calls, texts, and emails rolled in with a cacophony of buzzes and dings. With a raised eyebrow, Wes switched the phone to Silent and handed it back across the table.

Kaylee glanced at it warily and set it facedown. “Okay, what do you have for me, gentlemen?”

After the security briefing—Wes and Jesse were still no closer to figuring out who had installed the malware on Emma Mathison’s computer that had led to the postponement of SecurePay and the domino of scandals that had followed—she’d spent the rest of the day plowing through the quotidian concerns of running a multimillion-dollar business.

She’d known Max worked hard, but she hadn’t quite realized that every day for him was as busy as being in the middle of a PR crisis was for her. It was eye-opening to see firsthand the difference between how her father had run the business—an unapproachable figurehead who doled out more blame than praise—and the more interactive style her older brother had adopted. He was available without micromanaging, and as a result, there was a level of respect for him among his employees that was quite a revelation to Kaylee. She hadn’t realized how much she’d let their frigid relationship as siblings color her view of Max as a boss.

His long work hours made infinitely more sense to her now. She’d had to force herself to leave the office at eight o’clock, giving up food just so she could steal half an hour to change and freshen up before meeting Aidan.

The bar he’d suggested was classier and more upscale than she’d been expecting, with chandeliers, gleaming wood, and dim lighting. Floor-to-ceiling windows gave the circular room a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the city.

It was a sexy, grown-up place to have a drink.

She pressed her hand to her abdomen to quiet the sudden zigzag of nerves.

When she’d been getting ready, some annoying flare of feminine pride had reared its jealous head at the memory of the polite nothingness she’d seen in his eyes at the coffee shop. It bugged her that while she’d been drowning in lust, he’d been completely oblivious to her status as a female of the species. Little Kaylee Jayne. Completely beneath his notice.

As a result, she’d applied her makeup with a little more flair—slightly winged liner, faux lashes, and she’d painted her lips with the same red lipstick she wore onstage. Then she’d donned the sexiest dress she owned. Well, not including her Lola costumes, but she never included those. They belonged to her blonde, blue-eyed alter ego. It was the sexiest Kaylee dress she owned. A black shift that skimmed her curves without clinging anywhere, but she hoped it was reminiscent enough of the black skirt she’d been wearing that night to give him a little déjà vu—déjà screw?

It was madness. Her goal at the coffee shop had been to escape recognition, and tonight she was doing everything in her power to jog his memory.

What if he noticed? What if he didn’t?

Honestly, Kaylee. Stop fidgeting.