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He
narrowed his eyes. “That was too easy.”

She
shrugged. “Not for me it wasn’t.” She gathered up the contents of her bag. “Do
we have a deal?”

He
studied her face carefully for a few seconds, but Julianne knew how to maintain
a neutral expression. She was backed into a corner right now, and she knew it.
She also felt guilty about badgering him into setting up the meeting, but it
was the only chance she’d have of getting this story, and she realized that
now.

Finally,
he stood. Her gaze shot straight to his crotch and she recovered quickly, but
not before she noticed the bulge. Was that because of her?

Of
course he noticed her looking, but she stuck out her hand and ignored the
knowing gleam in his eyes. He was entitled to be a bit arrogant. He had the
upper hand right now, and he knew it. “Thank you, Kane. I look forward to
hearing from you after the meeting Friday morning.”

He
shook her hand, and she wished she didn’t feel a spark of electricity, but she
did. It was impossible to ignore, as was the fact he held onto her hand far too
long. “I’ll let you know. You have my word.”

“
Thank you.” When he finally loosened his grip, she
cast one last quick glance at his desk to make sure she hadn’t left anything
behind, and then she strode toward the doors with her shoulders squared and her
head held high. She wanted to get the hell out of here before she made an ass
of herself, but didn’t want it to appear that’s what she was trying to do.

He
made his way toward the doors at the same time, bent down to scoop up the pad
of paper he’d thrown at her earlier, and then opened the doors for her. “Until
Friday.”

She
nodded. “Friday it is.”

Julianne
waited until she was out of the building before texting Isabelle Sharpe, an
acquaintance who worked in the pool of general administrative assistants at
Bannerman Investments.

Did not get the story but he has a
meeting with the other Weathermen Friday morning. Do you have any pull with
them? I need help to land this.

A
little assistance from an inside source never hurt anyone. If push came to
shove, at least she’d have a backup story, even if it wasn’t the one she
wanted.

Now
if only she could keep herself from fantasizing for the remainder of the week
about fucking Kane silly again.

Chapter
Three

 
Kane
alternated between fuming over Julianne’s unexpected appearance in his office,
and daydreaming about what she looked like completely naked. He’d only seen her
ass five years ago as he’d bent her over the desk and simply taken her. It had
been exquisite, and if the very real possibility of them being interrupted
hadn’t loomed over their heads, he’d have spent the entire afternoon in this
office with her until they’d christened every piece of furniture in it, plus
the floor and walls.

He
fiddled with pens, swiveled in his chair, and stood in front of the windows
glancing out over the fake outdoors of
NorthEast
.
Each of the underground cities had been constructed to resemble the multitude
of former US states under which it had been built. Since this one spanned the
area underneath most of New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, there were
plenty of fir trees and flowering bushes. But they couldn’t fake the sound of
real birds, or the feel of a summer breeze on your face as you walked along the
beach.

Kane
knew in his heart he could never allow Julianne, or any reporter, to blow the
cover off the covert teams each of the Weathermen were starting to put together.
In addition to the teams each of them now had cross checking names on forums
and message boards across departments, they were hiring teams to track down
machine IDs and IP addresses for all the names of suspected hackers.

Each
of the twelve men had hacker teams that had been working behind the scenes, but
this was the first time in six years that they’d pooled their resources, and
widened their search across company departments, instead of merely
concentrating on message boards and forums where weather control geeks and
known hackers hung out. If Julianne exposed all that, they might as well
reinvent the Internet and start all over.

He
understood her hunger for a story. It was the same desire he felt every time a
new investment opportunity cropped up. The way he had taken his
great-great-great-great-grandfather’s company and turned into one of the most
successful of its kind in history wasn’t by jumping on every new thing without
taking the time to research and forecast first. Julianne had heard a rumor, or
he had a leak in this building, or one of the other Weathermen did, and she’d
run with it. That wasn’t smart, and it wasn’t likely to land her an exclusive
story.

He
also understood her demanding nature. She was tenacious. He’d seen that in her
five years ago, and although she may have stopped making up shit about people,
she was still willing to be pushy to get a story.
UTU
must admire those qualities in her or they wouldn’t have hired
her.

He
wasn’t sure he wanted her to do any story, but then realized he wasn’t being
fair. She had apologized for that stunt five years ago, and she’d apologized to
him in person today. While she still was eager, her insistence that she was a
different person now than she’d been then remained to be seen.
UTU
wouldn’t have kept her on for four
years if she hadn’t proved to them she’d changed, so he was willing to give her
a chance as well. Only on the condition, however, that she not blow their
entire covert operation.

Who are you kidding?
You want to fuck her again, not help her career along.

He
forced himself to sit down and bring up a project that needed his attention
while he tried to push away images of all that copper-colored hair and those
blue eyes. When she’d started to take off her top he’d nearly lost it. The urge
to lock the doors and tell Agnes not to disturb them had been strong.
Too
strong. Julianne had that effect on
him, which partly explained why she’d been able to get any information on him
in the first place.

Are you going to let her make a
fool of you a second time?

No.
He wouldn’t let that happen, but he also wasn’t going to pass up another chance
for a legit article in
UTU
. That was
good business, period.

And it gives you a chance to have
Julianne in your office again.

“
Fuck…” Kane shook his head to clear his thoughts He
had work to do.

****

Julianne
sat across from Isabelle in Boston Internet Café, sipping a latte and munching
on a sandwich. Isabelle had agreed to meet her for lunch, as long as it was
across town so no one she worked with might see her and Julianne together.

“
Did he try to force you to name me?”

“
Of course he did, but you know I won’t do that.”

“
God, he’s so damn smug. He throws this huge party
every year around the holidays, and last year he gave everyone in the AA pool a
very expensive pair of earrings or cufflinks. I swear the cufflinks were solid
gold, and the earrings were, too. The diamonds in them were real. I just know
they were.”

“
That’s very generous of him.”

“
Generous? He was showing off his wealth. He’s all
about the money, Julianne. Don’t be fooled by those sexy eyes or his charm. If
he can make a profit, he’s all over it. I’m sure the gifts were all tax
deductible.”

Julianne
said nothing. She’d known Isabelle for years but wouldn’t consider her a
confidante. They’d known each other in high school and had then reconnected
when everyone moved underground, but they were only casual acquaintances at
best. Isabelle was more interested in hanging out with Julianne because
Julianne was a good listener, and Isabelle liked to bitch about things.

Three
months ago, Julianne had listened to Isabelle go on and on about all the hiring
for new teams taking place not only at Bannerman Investments, but at all the
companies the Weathermen owned, and Julianne asked her to dig around. When
Isabelle found out why each of the men was hiring covert teams, Julianne knew
she had to do the story.

“
So how many people has he hired for this new team?”
asked Julianne.

“
None yet, but he’s been interviewing. I’ve heard
through the grapevine that they’re all taking their time with these teams.”

Isabelle,
along with dozens of administrative assistants, pulled work from a queue and so
could end up seeing correspondence from any department in the building. Because
Julianne had asked her to keep an eye on the new team, Isabelle cherry-picked
her work in the queue now, grabbing any work from HR that she could find. They
were too busy for anyone to notice what she was doing unless someone
specifically went looking for it.

“
He looks different than he did five years ago,” said
Julianne. “More mature.”

Isabelle
snorted. “Mature? He’s a forty-one year old man who dresses like a
twenty-something, he’s straight, and he’s not married or engaged. What does
that tell you?”

Julianne
swallowed the food in her mouth, but before she could answer, Isabelle spoke
again.

“
It tells you he’s a player. Didn’t you notice today
how most of the workers on his floor are female?”

“
I didn’t have the opportunity to see inside the other
departments.”

“
Well, next time do it. He likes to look at them all
day.”

Julianne
resisted the urge to smile. Isabelle knew nothing about her having seduced Kane
five years ago. From what she’d seen today, he dressed fine. As far as him
being a player, she couldn’t base that judgment on what they’d done in his office.
People can and do change.

If
he was dating around, he kept it secret. There was nothing about him in the
tabloids, and she hadn’t found too many photos of him at events outside of
work. She’d pegged him as someone who was devoted to his company, and who kept
to himself a lot.

There
was one way to find out. “Has he asked you out?”

Isabelle
nearly choked on the sip of chai tea she’d just taken. “Um … he did once, but I
turned him down.”

She’s lying.
Isabelle glanced everywhere but
into Julianne’s eyes, and the slight tremor in her voice gave her away.
Julianne could spot a lie instantly, and her heart went out to this woman. Had
she asked him out and been turned down? Or had he completely ignored her? “I’m
surprised he’d even consider dating an employee.”

“
They all do that. Emmett Radcliffe is engaged to Liane
Peyton. He hired her to build the database where the twelve of them pool their
names and other information. Dominic Greco’s new team member, Angela Davidson,
spends more time working in his apartment with him than they both do at the
office. And Ace Easton is getting married in a couple of months to Harper
Mathews, who used to be one of his PR analysts. She’s now part of his
not-so-secret hacker team.”

“
Why is it not so secret?”

Isabelle’s
dark eyes gleamed, and she leaned forward. “Because one of the names they
uncovered as a potential player in the gang that sent The Madeline Project
rogue used to work for him,
on the same
team
. The rumor now is that this same man is using new code names to
infiltrate the companies of all the Weathermen, or trying to at any rate, and
is hell bent on exposing them and their secret teams.”

Julianne
shivered, but it wasn’t from the possibility of an even bigger story.
Isabelle’s words had a nasty, dark quality to them, as if what she’d just told
her was dangerous. “How do you know all this?”

“
Internal memos. The man’s name is on a watch list
that’s been given high priority.”

Julianne
tried to keep her voice nonchalant. “What’s his name?”

“
Rob Marin. He used a bunch of code names having to do
with snakes, but they caught onto that too quickly. Now they believe they’ve
tracked him down under the names
BreakingGlass
and
RisingWater
.”

“
Storm-associated names. How unoriginal.”

“
Well, he wasn’t too bright to begin with. From what
I’ve been able to gather, he tried to manipulate system logs to frame Harper
because she wouldn’t go out with him, but he didn’t realize they had fail-safes
that prevented him from completely changing them. That’s how he was caught.”

“
Wouldn’t someone with hacking skills know that?”

“
Not necessarily. We’re talking about highly complex
coding that most of these twelve designed on their own to protect their data.
It’s not something they taught in any class because it’s unique to their
systems. You have to be in their IT departments to learn it.”

How does she know all this?
“Your degree is in IT, right? You
sound too intelligent to be working in a glorified steno pool.”

Isabelle
laughed. “No shit. I’ve been telling them that for two years. I only took this
job in the hopes of landing a position in IT one day. You know how it is with
those now. Everyone has the same degrees. The competition is crazy.”

“
I’m sure you have a great shot at it since you already
work for them.”

“
That was the plan.” Isabelle glanced at her phone.
“Shit. I have to run. Don’t want to be late getting back from lunch. Our
department supervisor, Dean the pervert, watches shit like that obsessively.”

Julianne
took her time walking back to the building that housed the offices of
UTU
. She needed time to process
everything Isabelle had said today. There were more unsettling things she’d
mentioned than tidbits of useful information Julianne was willing to use, and
that wasn’t par for the course with Isabelle. Had something changed recently?
Was it safe to keep using her as a source?

Obviously
Isabelle had either asked Kane out or flirted with him, and he’d rejected her.
Had that been recently? Was that why she sounded so bitter today?

Julianne
took out her recorder and repeated the key words about Rob Marin and his silly
new code names. She needed to dig a bit deeper into that story. If what
Isabelle said was true, he might be trying to sabotage their networks, and Kane
would want to know that.

The
engagements of Ace Easton and Emmett Radcliffe were something she could have
read online, but how did Isabelle know that Angela Davidson spent so much time
at Dominic Greco’s apartment? Both lived in
CentralWest
,
clear on the other side of the country. That information surely wouldn’t be on
a company memo or in correspondence between departments.

As
far as Isabelle’s knowledge of code and how IT security worked, she’d likely
picked that up in school, but Julianne had never heard her talk so freely about
it before. Maybe she should have given Kane Isabelle’s name after all? Julianne
was wary of using her again. Something odd was going on, and she wanted to find
out what it was.

Maybe
the
real
story at Bannerman
Investments had nothing to do with Kane?

****

While
Julianne waited for the outcome of Kane’s meeting with the other Weathermen on
Friday, Patti asked Julianne to do a story on the IT programs at
NorthEast
University. Patti started to apologize, saying it
was due by early next week and she normally wouldn’t spring something like this
on a reporter, but the person to whom it was assigned was ill and couldn’t
finish it.