Climbing High (10 page)

“If my regional offices were paying millions in bank fees they’d stop it, change the way they bank. I wouldn’t allow this,” he said, sounding frustrated and on the defensive.

“They don’t realize it. They see slight increases, not big enough to individually address in any one office, but because it’s happening in small amounts in every regional office, the bottom line is staggering. Again, no red flag.”

She keyed up another page. “And finally here the money disappears for good. Once the stolen money is moved to get the additional service fees, it funnels into an account in the Cayman Islands. Your accounts show the money on paper, but it is no longer there.” Siree exchanged looks with Ty and at his nod, spoke. “There is a high degree of probability that you can’t get it back.”

“I’ll get it back.” He spoke with absolute confidence, his face hard, his eyes narrowed as he stated the only acceptable conclusion. “These men will pay for putting my employees in jeopardy. If my company tanks, thousands of people will have no way to feed their families. I’m heading for Toronto as soon as I can get my plane off the ground. I’ll have to bring in the Technical Investigative Services of the RCMP, so I can get warrants to seize their cell phones and personal computers, to tie them irrevocably to the thefts.”

He shook Ty’s hand and thanked him for sending in his top forensic accountant and getting him such fast results. Siree knew he must have had a thousand details running through his mind, his phone already in his hand to call Gribbs and the pilot, but he’d stopped in front of her. “Thank you. You’re not only a financial genius but a remarkable woman. I’m fully appreciative of what JDI owes you and what you’ve sacrificed in freedom and your own life these past weeks. Send everything you have through to my secured site then get some rest. You’re officially off the clock. I can take it from here.”

As the adrenaline that had kept her going the past two days leached from her body and exhaustion turned her limp, she watched the opposite occur in Jake. His energy level, always high, ramped up another thousand watts. He’d named his company well, for his indomitable will would see him through anything. She smiled. “Jump damn it, right?”

“You’ve got it. See you soon.” His index finger stroked across her cheek. He nodded to Ty and strode from the room.

A two-word text acknowledged the receipt of her report, and Finchley called twice with questions from him. Siree fielded them from her laptop in Sharon’s office, wishing Jake a clean, swift kill.

Chapter Five

On Thursday evening, Siree walked beside Janice into the Toe Hold, the downtown climbing club. She sought physical release and the absolute focus that climbing necessitated to take her mind off Jake and his fight to save his company.

She’d heard nothing from him.

Two solid nights of sleep and two days of relaxing with her mom and Ty charged her battery to full again. In fact, she felt she had a surfeit and nowhere to put it. She had a hundred questions she wanted answered about what was happening at JDI. She knew Jake would keep every move hidden to avoid negative publicity for his company, or showing his hand to the thieves before they caught them. Yet did he have to push her out of the loop?

She chose one of the most challenging of the bouldering climbs, wanting the freedom to move independently of ropes. She’d booked for a spotter, and with him in place she started up a wall, that necessitated a deadpoint swing onto a roof, similar to the one she’d attempted on La Verte. She was determined to master it.

But thoughts of Jake distracted her. She’d made the choice not to get personally involved with him, but now that she’d done the job, she felt hurt that he’d treat her just like another expert for hire. She knew her feelings were irrational. Annoyed with herself, she shook the thought free and chalked her hands yet again.

Forty minutes later, soaked in perspiration, she clung to the underside of a two-metre outcrop. She pushed her left foot hard against a small notch and hung onto two others with her fingertips. Gravity pulled at her quivering body. If she released the least pressure on her foot, she would fall to the mats below. Her right foot flailed midair, seeking a new toehold to push against so she could move a few inches closer to the lip of the overhang. Her fingers felt they would break off any second. Sharp eyes taking in her quivering muscles, her spotter moved into place under her. The drop wasn’t that far, but the ignominy of taking the fall made her cling harder to the rock.

A hand grasped her ankle and pressed her foot onto a notch two feet ahead of her last one. She turned her head to thank Janice, and met the intensity of Jake’s eyes.

“What the…” She gasped. “Where did you come from?” She pressed hard with her right foot and released her right hand, curling the fingers back and forth to work out the cramps before grabbing another teaspoon size bump so she could let go with her left hand and do the same. She had to keep moving or fall. Jake kept even with her, his eyes intent on her progress.

“You about done?” he quizzed.

She drew in a ragged breath so she could answer. “As soon as I get right side up again.” There was no use in debating the issue. She knew he’d taken in her saturated clothing, heavy breathing and quivering limbs. Push, push, grab, grab, press, press. She moved herself to the edge of the under hang, her spotter following her progress below, then reached around it for a handhold. She found a good size one, thank God, and could use her entire hand to hold her rather than her fingertips. She maneuvered the rest of her body around the sharp edge and up with a victorious cry. Crouched on the top, she’d morphed from creeping spider to human again, worked her stiff fingers and toes.

Jake swung up beside her. “Here let me.” He grasped her hands, laying a heated line across the tender flesh of her inner wrist and palm. She tried to pull free. He glanced at her flushed face and started to massage her fingers with clinical detachment. “Good job.” His hands slowed, the motion becoming a caress that flushed her body with heat.

Confused by his reappearance and interest, when she’d thought he’d walked out of her life again, she pulled her hands free and stood. “I need a shower.”

He straightened to his full height and looked down at her. Eyes heavy lidded and knowing, swept the length of her body and back up to mesh with hers.

Her quivering leg muscles all but gave out under his clear message of sensual intent. Every particle of her Yin leapt to attention.
Take me, take me now.

His lips lifted in a sensuous curve. She imagined biting them with passionate abandon. She worried her own lip with her teeth, staring at his mouth. Dragging her gaze from it, she looked up to find his eyes filled with mirth and that warm affection he showered on her. It seemed he could read her mind, and sympathized.

She looked over the ledge, picked a toehold and stepped down, making it the short distance to the floor in a record breaking time. “Thanks,” she said to the instructor who had spotted for her. “I appreciated the tips on getting onto the roof.”

“My pleasure, Siree. Anytime.” He imbued the words with invitation, cataloging her assets like they were going on the block and he wanted to make a bid.

Jake stepped between them. With a lift of his hand in the instructor’s direction, he brought her focus back to where he needed it, on him. It annoyed him to see the other man coming on to her. It annoyed him more to react in such a juvenile way.

On the flight back from Toronto thoughts of her had dominated any satisfaction he felt around the arrest of two of the thieves and the challenge of tracking the third hacker. They’d been superimposed over strategies to handle the media, his board members, and what this would do to stock in JDI. Anything taking precedence over his company shook him. It had never happened before. But he’d prioritized seeing Siree. What happened between them from this point on had nothing to do with work.

He wanted her. But he didn’t know if she wanted him. He knew body language, knew she felt the same force urging them together. The powerful attraction between them was a lit match away from a wild fire. He warned himself that didn’t necessarily mean she had changed her mind. The niggling certainty he might not be able to let her go stayed his hand for the moment. Making love to Siree promised to be beyond anything he’d experienced. In giving himself to her, he would give something he couldn’t get back.

He’d determined to move ahead, taking things as they unfolded, and the first step had been to find her. The second, to spend time with her. He glanced at his watch. “Meet me by the front door in fifteen.”

The look she gave him told him he had couched it more as a directive than an invite. “I thought we could go somewhere for coffee, so I could catch you up on what’s happening in the company.” He’d bet a million dollars on the odds she couldn’t resist hearing the results of her work, and he would use every trick in his deck to win time with her.

“I’m with Janice. She’s on duty tonight and supposed to follow me home.” She searched the gym behind him.

“She finished her climb a half hour ago and I told her I’d see you home. She’s gone already.”

Her bottom lip puffed out. She turned away and headed for the showers.

Uncertain if she’d agreed or turned him down, he moved fast to shower and change so he’d beat her to the front door. With all that hair, she would take considerable time, he figured. He leaned against the front entrance wall and whipped out his phone. “I’m taking Siree over to Bascall’s for a drink,” he informed the guard on him tonight. “How’s it looking out there?”

“All quiet,” his bodyguard cum chauffeur, stationed in a car on the street, confirmed. “Do you want me to follow you in?”

“Sit tight. Call me if anyone from the media shows up.” Siree walked into the entrance and he pocketed his phone.

“That was fast.” He breathed in the meadow sweet scent of her, straightened and took her bag from her hand. “Janice said your car’s in the lot? We can drop this in it on the way by.” He opened the door. She hung back. “Aren’t any of your faithful followers lurking about?”

“I moved so fast today they’ll still be looking for me in Toronto.”

Like a deer checking out an open meadow, she stepped daintily into the small glass vestibule and took a long glance in both directions, then flitted past him to exit the street door.

Once she’d unlocked her car and he’d stowed her gear, he took her hand for the half block walk to the lounge he’d chosen. She allowed him to hold it.

Bascall’s offered mood lighting, and good service in luxuriant surroundings a media hound would have trouble infiltrating. He chose a booth away from the door, and slid in across from her.

When the waiter approached, Jake asked for the food menu and told him they’d need a minute. Appearing confident, while tension played a riff on his muscles, was a business ploy. He’d never needed it around a woman before. He tried to read Siree, came up empty. “I didn’t get a chance to eat today. May I tempt you with an appetizer to go with your drink?”

She took the menu from the waiter without answering. Seconds stretched. She read it. He pretended to, while he watched her over the top of his. What was going on? She looked up and smiled at the hovering waiter, who rushed forward as if called to the second coming.

“I’ll have a glass of the sauvignon blanc and the curried seafood appetizer.” She looked over at him, her brow raised.

“A Caesar, no salt, and the Thai salad, please.” He sat back as the waiter hurried away. “What is it?” He leaned forward to search her face. “Your silence is deafening.”

“Why are we here, Jake?” Her searching gaze captured his.

“Here, at Bascall’s?”

Her eyes flashed. “No games, Jake. I don’t play them. I won’t accept them from you. Here at Bascall’s, here together, here in our ex-business-non-personal relationship. Yes, all of the above.” She held his eyes, defying him to evade her again.

“Here at Bascall’s because I need a quiet place to talk to you and some food, and this is good for both. Here together, because it’s no longer necessary for you to play the role of employee. Here in our relationship”—he emphasized the word—“because yes, we have one, whether defined or not, because I need it more than I need to eat or talk to you.”

She blinked and looked down, fiddling with her cutlery. “Nothing’s changed. Yes, I don’t have to pretend to work for you, but you’re still a media magnet, and I’m still determined to hide from them. I can’t see a relationship developing out of that.”

The waiter returned with their drinks. As soon as he left, Jake spoke. “Don’t you want to know?” He reached across and lifted her restless hand from the table, rubbing his thumb across her palm. “I remember the feel of your body pressing against me, the silk of your skin. Your scent haunts me, and it isn’t enough. I ache with the need to make love to you, to watch over you while you sleep afterwards, to share a climb, a joke, a newspaper with you. I want a chance to get to know the hurt child inside the competent woman, the fragile girl inside the fearless climber.” God, he was making an ass of himself. He’d be begging next. He let go of her hand and picked up his drink, tossing the celery on to his butter plate so he could take a long swig.

“Yes, I want to know.” Serene as sunrise, her honesty soothed him, before her words shed harsh light on his desire. “I think sex with you would be fabulous. You’re suggesting we become lovers and for the next weeks we enjoy each other. You slot me into your schedule, and your security team works full out to arrange our assignations and protect you while we’re together. I get to hide in the backseat of unmarked cars, come to you via people I don’t know, but who know everything about me. I don’t want to be number X in a long line of women they’ve handled for you.”

He didn’t like the picture she painted, but didn’t have a comeback. Sure he’d dated numerous women, had extended some of those dates into short term relationships, but they were so far off what he felt with Siree, that he couldn’t even fathom the thought of her in a line.

None of them had wanted to avoid publicity. In fact, most were with him just to garner more, but certainly Gribbs and the boys had factored the ones he slept with into the arrangements around his protection. It knotted his gut to hear Siree talking about sex, and short-term lovers, and enjoying each other in transitory terms. He refused to think about her moving on to someone else who could offer those things. He wanted to swear, to punch the wall of the booth like a rejected teenager. It all seemed so damn hard.
Is it even worth it?
He looked into the golden eyes watching him.
God, yes.