Lip Lock (2 page)

“Hi?” she said as she rose to her feet.

He couldn’t stop staring. The lavender silk blouse looked soft and fragile as it caressed her shoulders and curves. The darker lavender tweed skirt should have concealed the gentle slope of her hips, but instead it emphasized her small waist.

“I was hunting for”—she looked at the jar of olives in her hand—“paper towels.”

He didn’t say a word. His eyes traveled down her long legs, noting the laddered nylon at her knee. He paused when he saw the black heels. They seemed out of place with the outfit, but he didn’t know why.

She rolled her eyes as her complexion turned pink. “Not that these are paper towels.”

There were two possibilities of why she was in the cabinets.

“I mean”—she gestured wildly with her hands—“I know what paper towels look like.”

Either she was not too bright…

“They’re paper. On a roll.” Her cheeks were streaked bright red. “With…with holes on both sides.”

Or she was a voyeur. He wasn’t sure which answer he preferred, but he was leaning to the first one.

A third possibility hit him. Threesome. He was surprised that didn’t occur to him first.

“Okay, I’ll shut up now.” She pressed her lips into a tight, straight line.

“I’m looking for Glenn,” he finally said.

She quickly looked at the kitchen island. “Mmm.” Nodded her head but kept her lips firmly sealed.

“Have you seen him?” he prompted her.

She opened and closed her mouth. “
Seen
him? No.”

The lie irritated him. “You sure?” he asked as Molly became more flustered. He took a step closer to her. “He was going to be here.”

“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him.” She winced and turned crimson. “Just got here myself.”

He felt his eyebrow arch. “You did?”

She slowly blinked. “Yep.”

“When?” Kyle stood in front of Molly. He caught a whiff of her scent. He couldn’t place it, but it made him think of something sweet and delicious.

He reached out and Molly went still. He felt the tension soaring, arcing between them. Heat flared and boomeranged.

Kyle’s fingers brushed her hair. It was softer than he anticipated. He wanted to curl his hand into the waves and get tangled.

Molly’s sharp intake echoed in his ears and he reluctantly let his hand drop. “This was in your hair,” he said gruffly, showing her the sliver of wood.

“Oh.” She grabbed the long splinter and held it in her clenched hand. “Uh, it must have happened when…” She drifted into silence.

“Paper towels,” he explained for her.

“Right.” Her voice was a whisper.

“Molly”—his voice was soft but carried a bite—“how could you have missed seeing Glenn when he was right here in the kitchen with you?”

Her eyes widened and she blinked rapidly. “I, uh. Well. Okay, I was in the cabinet.” She motioned defiantly at the island. “I didn’t see anybody else in there.”

“What?”
Kyle heard what she said. He just couldn’t believe it.

She set the jar down. “I need to get back to my desk. If I see Glenn, I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.”

Kyle stared after her, unable to tear his gaze away until the door swung shut. What was it about Molly Connors that made his head spin?

And why did people find the need to lie to him?

Why had he been concerned about lying? It was no big deal, Kyle decided a half an hour later. So what if he questioned his oldest friend’s word, or if the receptionist didn’t tell him the truth? What was the saying about the devil you know? Yeah, he’d take that over the nameless, faceless people out to destroy him.

He leaned back in his chair and faced his three top advisors across the conference table. Glenn, Timothy, and Annette had been through it with him from the start. Together they had achieved the impossible and amassed power, respect, and a fortune.

But today, he felt vulnerable. Like he was the underdog—the one thing he swore he would never be again.

“Our security procedures are expensive as it is,” Glenn said. “We don’t need to add on anything else.”

“Glenn, you’re not getting it,” Timothy, the head of security, said from across the conference table. “Last night we caught a low-level computer programmer walking out of the building with the blueprint in his backpack. Obviously, we need to go on lockdown.”

Kyle’s stomach tightened and pinched as the rage billowed inside him. Someone almost got away with the intellectual property for their upcoming product. It was his most innovative work. He had spent years coming up with the artificial intelligence for a program to analyze the content of a picture. Any picture.

And he almost lost it.

Sure, he was going through the process of getting it legally protected. But his idea was at its most vulnerable from the time they created the blueprint to the time they get it patented.

It would be hell if they lost all they had researched and developed. If they missed out on the partnership with plaza+ tag, the revolutionary community on the Internet, they would stagger from the bad hit.

But if their competitor stole the idea and patented it as their own…The possibility ate at Kyle’s gut like acid. He refused to let that happen. Ashton Image Works would never pay the competition millions of dollars for the use of one of his ideas!

“I thought the blueprint was online,” Glenn said. “And you had to use a password to get to them.”

“Parts of it are,” Kyle explained. Glenn never understood computers, which was how their friendship developed. They met in college when Kyle had to tutor him. “And some of the specs of the blueprint are not available online. Like the highly sensitive ones that we don’t want leaked.”

Glenn rolled his eyes. “A lot of good that did.”

Kyle felt the reluctant smile tug at his mouth. “You know the green book I’m always carrying around? That’s the blueprint this programmer tried to take out.”

“Why didn’t he copy it?”

“Because,” Annette interrupted, “it’s on a specially treated green paper that makes it very difficult to copy.”

“Oh.” Glenn paused as he mulled over the information. “How many of these blueprints do we have to keep track of?”

“There’s only one.” It was a thick book with hundreds of thousand lines of code.

“One?” Glenn looked back and forth at the others, obviously wondering if he heard correctly. “For the whole company? Just one book?”

“Yes,” Annette said, “we all have to share.”

“In this book is a log of every programmer who has looked at the blueprint and why they looked at it. They have to be approved each time by a manager.”

Glenn’s mouth dropped open. “This is your idea of a secured system?”

“It has sensors embedded in the pages,” Timothy said. “It’s like trying to take a book out of the library before you checked it out.”

Glenn practically sputtered with outrage. “And not once did anyone think of going high-tech security?”

“No one has swiped the blueprint before this.”

“Uh-huh.” Glenn rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “And you really wonder how a nobody got the book?”

“The programmer is the fall guy,” Annette decided with her usual intensity. Right now the blonde radiated with deep anger. “No way was he working alone.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Timothy said.

“He didn’t have the security clearance,” she pointed out. “He didn’t work for anyone who did. He would have raised red flags earlier.”

“So you think he had an accomplice?” Glenn asked.

“I think he
was
the accomplice,” Kyle said. “We have to look higher. All of those who have access are under suspicion. We’ll find the connection that way.”

“You do know what this means?” Annette said.

Glenn hunched his shoulders as if he were bracing himself for the impact. “No.”

“This programmer wouldn’t have made a ballsy move unless he already had made contact with a buyer.”

Silence wavered in the conference room until Glenn slapped his hands on the table. “Shit.”

“Our competition now knows what we want to do with our product,” Annette continued. “And we don’t know how much info they have of ours to make their own blueprint. It’s going to be a race against the clock.”

Timothy rubbed the back of his neck and exhaled. “Which company do you think it is?”

She shrugged. “The image processing software industry is very small, very competitive, and—”

“Very hot,” Kyle finished. “We need to use that to our advantage.”

Annette stiffened and then groaned. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

Kyle drummed his fingers on the polished table as a plan began to form. “It’s time for our potential partners to pay us a visit.”

“Are you insane?” Glenn asked, wide-eyed.

Possibly, Kyle decided. The idea bordered on deranged, but he couldn’t play it safe. Going on the defensive would be a bad move. “It’s only a matter of time before word gets out that we had a security breach.”

Timothy tossed his hands in the air. “Which is why we need to lock down.”

“No.” Kyle was adamant on this point. “That makes us look panicky.”

“That’s because we are,” Glenn muttered.

Kyle pinned his friend with a cool stare. “Which is why we have to look confident, but not careless. We’re going to invite the owners of plaza+tag, show them around, and get the deal.”

“Show them around?” Timothy was horrified. “Have them tour our company so they can, what? Take pictures with their cell phones?”

“We have to gain their confidence,” Kyle said. “And make sure they won’t want to do business with anyone else.”

“They’ll screw us,” Annette predicted.

Kyle rose from his chair. “They’ll have to take their turn. This is our plan and we’re running with it.”

Molly was just about to turn off her computer when her boss pushed open the glass door. She pulled her hand away from the shut-off button and tried to look busy as Sara hurriedly approached her.

“Did you confirm the meeting?” the executive assistant asked in a breathless rush.

Oh…shoot!
Molly felt her insides twist but kept her expression blank. “With the outside advertising agency?” she asked carefully.

“Yes, that one.” Lines formed on Sara’s forehead. The woman always appeared frazzled and anxious, from her curly red hair to her chewed fingernails.

Molly smiled brightly. “Of course.”

“Good! What a relief.” The phone buzzed and Sara leaned over the reception desk. Molly slowly rested her elbow on a stack of papers.

“That’s my line. I’ll get it here.” Sara reached over and grabbed the phone. “Sara speaking. Oh!” She checked her watch. “I didn’t realize…I’ll be right down. Okay…okay. ’Bye.” The phone went down with a clatter.

“I forgot to tell you that I have to leave early,” Sara said with a grimace. She hurried to the glass door, slid her ID badge across the security pad, and yanked open the door. “I have another doctor’s appointment. I bet I used up all my sick leave for the year.”

“No problem,” Molly called out, frozen in place. “I have everything under control.”

She didn’t move even after her boss reappeared. “Do you have any questions before I go?” Sara asked as she crossed the spacious, modern reception area, carrying an overflowing tote bag.

“I got it covered.”

“Thanks,” Sara said as she headed for the stairwell. She pushed the heavy door with all her might. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“ ’Bye!” Molly kept her smile intact until the door closed with a metallic click.

Dang it! Molly lifted her arm and grabbed the to-do list. She glared at the unchecked item: confirm ad agency meeting.

She slapped the notepad onto her desk and covered her face with her hands. She could do this. Cover her tracks. She was practically a pro at it.

Molly looked at the clock. It was almost five. How much did she want to bet everyone at the ad agency was gone for the day?

She punched in the numbers, gnawing her bottom lip as she devised her story. Her mood brightened when a live person answered on the other end.

“Hi, this is Molly Connors from Ashton ImageWorks. I’m following up on a message I left earlier today. I haven’t received a reply.” She closed her eyes, silently apologizing for whoever was going to get blamed for the “breakdown” of communication.

But by the time she hung up the phone, the meeting was confirmed. Molly scratched the task off of her list with a swipe of her pencil, hoping she didn’t get anyone in trouble. She had a feeling that kind of karma was going to turn around and smack her good one of these days.

“Where’s Sara?”

Molly’s heart lurched into her throat at the sound of Kyle’s low voice. Her arms and legs suddenly felt floppy as she felt an electric rush scream through her veins.

“She’s…” Didn’t Sara say she used up her sick leave? Molly didn’t want to get the executive assistant in trouble. “She’s in a meeting.”