A Matter of Trust (3 page)

Sloan leaned forward, picking up her pen. “What’s the timetable?”

“I believe that may very well be up to you,” Michael replied. “I don’t want to proceed until I’m certain that ongoing projects and the blueprints for future growth cannot be pirated or compromised in some way. Until that time, I intend to continue with the status quo.”

At that, Sloan looked up in surprise, studying the cool, composed blond across from her. Despite the small signs of tension, Michael Lassiter was remarkably controlled. What she had so calmly outlined amounted to nothing short of war within the arena of the financial world. It was the kind of confrontation that could lead to personal ruin and, indeed, had in many instances. The fact that she was married to the man she was about to engage in an all-out conflict did not appear to trouble her. Sloan wondered briefly if Michael would also continue the personal relationship with her husband as if nothing were amiss. “Are you still...living with him?”

When Michael hesitated, color rising in her face, Sloan added quickly, “I’m sorry. I only ask because I’m trying to get a sense of the playing field here. Hostile takeovers can get messy, and—”

“No, that’s quite all right,” Michael interjected, her mask of imperturbability firmly in place. “We are still together, yes.”

“Thank you.” Sloan was oddly disturbed by the information. It gave her pause to think of anyone compromising herself privately for the sake of eventual financial supremacy. It also struck her as merely a form of prostitution and somehow much too demeaning for this obviously accomplished woman
. I’d better just stick to business. And what Michael Lassiter does in her private life is most definitely not part of my business.

Closing the file folder, Sloan added, “You’ll need a cover story as to why I’m spending so much time in your corporate headquarters. I’ll also need to visit each of your branch divisions, and I’ll have to meet with your present systems operators. Also, I’ll need unrestricted access to all levels of program applications and data acquisition.”

“Am I to take it that you accept the assignment?” Michael Lassiter seemed to relax infinitesimally, letting a small sigh escape.

Sloan shrugged. “We haven’t talked about the contract conditions or costs yet. Depending on the current state of your system, the software and consultant fees could run into six figures.”

“Those details are inconsequential to me.” Michael stood and stretched out a slim elegant hand. When Sloan rose, taking it wordlessly, she added, “What I require is your discretion and your talent.”

“Of that I can assure you,” Sloan responded.

The hand in hers was remarkably warm, and she felt a slight reluctance to relinquish it. When she did, Michael Lassiter turned and left the room without another word.

*

An hour later, a knock drew her attention away from the reports she’d been rather unsuccessfully reviewing. Her mind kept returning to the meeting she’d had with Michael Lassiter—bits of conversation and fleeting images kept obscuring the data she was trying to absorb. Something about the woman affected her so strongly that it interfered with her concentration as nothing ever did. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

Maybe it’s the mixture of determination and discomfort in her eyes. She’s going to do what she needs to do, but it’s hurting her just the same. Jesus, why do I care? It’s all just part of the game.

“Permission to enter?” a lightly mocking voice requested, accompanied by another knock.

“What?” Sloan responded irritably.

Jason stood in the open doorway, leaning one slim hip against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his chest. His tailored trousers, monochromatic shirt and tie, and glossy European loafers screamed aspiring businessman-on-the-rise. His model-perfect, blond good looks verged on being too pretty for a man, but his intense blue eyes and tightly muscled physique added just the right amount of masculinity. “Time to compare notes.”

“Come on in,” Sloan replied in a tone that suggested she knew she had no choice in the matter.

“Sorry about the unexpected meeting.”

“No problem.”

He regarded her with one eyebrow cocked. “And should I even ask where you spent last evening?”

Sloan fixed him with a stony glare as she tossed the report aside. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Talkative, aren’t we? Testy, too.” He walked farther into the room. “Must be sleep deprivation.”

He tried unsuccessfully to hide a frown, because he hadn’t really intended to browbeat her about her private life. It was just that he’d hoped by now she’d show signs of settling down, but she never did. With each new woman in her life she seemed even less interested in anything serious. It wouldn’t have bothered him so much if it weren’t for the shadows in her eyes that had nothing to do with fatigue. He managed to hold his tongue, reminding himself that he wasn’t doing much better in that department himself.

“Can we save the lecture for another time?” Sloan rubbed her face with both hands, aware for the first time that she
was
tired. It wasn’t just the lack of sleep. If anything, sex usually relaxed her. Unfortunately, she’d learned through bitter experience that such pleasures often came at a price. Claudia Carson had made it very clear that she wanted to see more of her. That idea wasn’t an altogether unpleasant one by any means, but the intensity in Claudia’s voice had set off alarms.

I will have to be very certain that the ground rules are clear before things became unnecessarily complicated. Sex is one thing, but—

“What about the client this morning? Did we at least get the new contract?”

“Yes,
we
got it,” Sloan answered somewhat churlishly and then immediately regretted her tone. She saw the hurt in his eyes and reminded herself that they were friends. “I’m sorry,” she sighed. “You’re right. I really
didn’t
get much sleep.”

“And I suppose that’s
my
fault?” Jason flopped down in the chair Michael Lassiter had occupied earlier that day, deciding from the homicidal look on his associate’s face that it would be safer to change the subject. “So tell me about the Ice Queen.”

Sloan skewered him with another stare meant to do damage. When he squirmed a bit and mouthed a silent
Please,
hands clutched to his heart, she finally laughed.

“She’s a client, Jason, not a date.”

“Oh please. Like there’s a big difference,” Jason retorted, but this time his tone was uncritical.

Sloan shook her head, still smiling. “So now and then I see one of our clients...ah...socially, shall we say? It’s never interfered with business. And besides, I can assure you that won’t be happening with this one.”

Jason wondered if he didn’t detect a slight hint of regret in Sloan’s voice, but he wisely chose not to comment upon it. Instead, he asked playfully, “And why exactly is that?”

“First and very foremost, she’s straight,” Sloan said with finality. Although she probably deserved her reputation as someone who never lacked for female companionship and never made a long-term commitment, she did have some limits. Dating straight women was definitely one of them.

“Things can always change,” Jason commented.

“Not this time.”

It was clear that for the moment at least, the matter was closed. Jason knew that if he continued to push the issue, Sloan was likely to lose her famous temper. He’d been on the other end of that enough times not to want to provoke her.

“Okay, I yield,” he said. “No more business talk. Are you coming to the show tomorrow night?”

“Of course I’m coming. You know I love to watch Jasmine perform.”

After almost five years, Sloan still found it hard to believe that the buttoned-up, straightlaced man she had first met in the esteemed halls of Justice in D.C. was actually the sultry, sexy siren he became onstage. His transition was so complete that she sometimes wondered how he managed to keep Jasmine under wraps as successfully as he did. She was one of the few people who knew them both, and, secretly, she had to admit to a slight bit of sexual titillation when Jasmine flirted with her. It was bad enough that Jason was a guy; the fact that he was straight made it even more confusing.

She grinned. By now she should know better than to try to sort out her own conflicting reactions. “Besides, I haven’t seen Jasmine in weeks.”

“Good”—he rose and carefully shook out the perfect creases in his trousers—“because she just bought a new dress.” He winked and for a second, Jasmine’s beautiful face flickered beneath the surface of his good-looking male countenance. “And I just
know
you’ll like it.”

Sloan laughed again. “Why don’t you go pretend to work for a while and give me a break? Don’t we have something—a background check on someone, a network to hack into—
something
that needs your attention?”

“I suppose I could start the file on Lassiter,” he admitted, and finally left her in peace.

She sat staring after him, her mind returning once again to the interview with Michael Lassiter. It wasn’t the most difficult job she had ever undertaken. With all the major corporations and most small businesses dependent on computers, calls concerning hacking, software piracy, and network disruptions were daily occurrences. Corporate espionage was one of the largest financial drains on most international organizations, mostly because it went unreported for fear of undermining public confidence in the company.

It never ceased to amaze Sloan that most people who were critically dependent upon computer networks knew almost nothing about them, and even those who did rarely took the time to ensure that they were totally tamperproof. She had recognized the need for Internet security services well ahead of the pack. Now that there were almost daily news reports detailing the ease with which systems could be entered and altered, computer security was a hot area. She had foreseen the need, and her previous experience made her perfect for the work.

What she found both intriguing and troubling about this particular assignment was her employer. Michael Lassiter struck her as a woman who was completely capable of living with the consequences of her decisions. But once or twice, Sloan thought she had seen a flicker of fear in the other woman’s eyes. For no reason she cared to explore, that bothered her.

Michael swiveled her chair to look out the window of her twenty-first floor office. It was after 7:00 on a Friday night and just getting dark. Her Center City offices overlooked the financial district with a view beyond the skyline to the river. Had she been looking, she would have been able to see for miles across the broad expanse of water as commuters crossed the Walt Whitman and Ben Franklin bridges heading home. But her gaze was unfocused, and what she saw was only the ghost of an image in her mind.

Usually what occupied her mind were visions of the future; what excited her were concepts—possibilities—the ideas she formulated for others to implement. More and more companies were looking outside their own spheres for advice on product development, market trends, and emerging technologies. It paid to be the first on the block with the newest creation, items to facilitate how humans worked and played and communicated. And the bottom line was, companies were willing to pay for that advantage.

She and her central core of designers worked with corporate executives to put their businesses not on the crest of innovation, but ahead of the curve. Everything she had accomplished, and everything she hoped to accomplish, lay stored in the far-from-unassailable memory banks of her company’s computer system.

However, Michael was not envisioning the future now, at least not the future she had formerly imagined. Until recently, she’d had no reason to contemplate her own life. Work occupied her mind almost constantly—that and what she and Nicholas needed to do to accomplish their shared dream.

She had met Nicholas Burke almost fifteen years ago when she’d been a precocious freshman at the Cambridge Institute of Design and he had been a worldly graduate student at MIT. Barely seventeen, she had been socially inexperienced, despite her privileged upbringing, and intellectually too intimidating for most boys her age. But when she’d met Nicholas in a theoretical design class, he had appreciated her ideas and had been supportive and encouraging. Together they had spent hours talking, dreaming, and finally forging their common vision into the formidable enterprise it had become. Along the way, it seemed only natural that they should wed.

It had never occurred to her that their relationship lacked passion or romance. It was not something she was aware of needing. There were moments when she felt a loneliness so acute it was physically painful, but she probably would have ignored those had she not finally become aware of Nicholas’s affair with a young female graphic artist in their firm. She was less hurt than baffled. Although she didn’t consider herself particularly inventive or adventurous in the physical department, she wasn’t aware of ever refusing Nicholas’s advances either. It was a part of their relationship that left her strangely unmoved, but she had assumed her performance had been adequate. Clearly, Nicholas required something additional.

She supposed that she could have simply ignored his affair, but, once she became aware of it, she rebelled at the idea of continuing a relationship so false. Some day soon, she would confront him with her desire to divorce, and she felt quite certain that he would react by seeking greater control of the company. She intended to preempt that event, and one way she could be prepared was to ensure that her unique contribution to the company was safe.