A nerve was pounding. A vein stuck out from his neck. He was speaking again, the car sidling up to a stoplight. “My grandfather wanted to hurt me through you, so he was moving to hold a claim over your school, and then therefore over you. After he thought that would be cemented, he wanted to see you again. That fact alone had the sole purpose to scare you, to let you know he could get to you whenever he wanted, wherever you went. I took out both those options because I told your university that if they accepted his thirty million donation, Peter Francis would pull his seventy million donation that they were set to receive later this month. Like I said before, money aside, they do not want to align against myself or your father, and that was them choosing. They chose our side.”

  The light turned green and we moved forward.

  We weren’t going to the apartment. I recognized our surroundings. We were going to Naveah.

  Kash was still speaking. “I lost one of the edges I had on him today. I don’t know if my trip will work out to give me that same edge on him, so that means after we go to Naveah, after I fire your classmate, after I shower with you, I have to keep making moves on him. I have edged out ahead of him and I cannot lose that. I could lose you, but that won’t happen, because I know his last play and that will be to hurt you.”

  We were slowing, turning in to the basement parking lot of Naveah. Kash stopped talking until he had parked. The door leading to the elevator inside opened and two guards were standing there.

  Kash ignored them and turned to me. His eyes were glittering and fierce. “He wants to destroy me, even more now, and the one way to make sure he shatters me is to touch you. I will never let that happen.”

  I was breathless, my stomach was in knots, and I was reeling all at the same time—and yet I wasn’t. I knew Calhoun was coming for me, but seeing Kash in action today changed everything. It all got a bit more real, a bit more surreal, and I reached for his hand.

  I had to touch him.

  He grounded me.

  As soon as my fingers grazed his skin, I felt the roots sink into the ground.

  I felt stronger.

  I also had a feeling I was getting a few more guards.

  I whispered, “I believe you.”

  Some of the fierceness lessened, and a softness came over his face. His hand lifted, cupping the back of my head, and his fingers slid through my hair. He tugged me to him. “I need to kiss you, then I’m going to fire your classmate. You can watch if you want.”

  I would be delighted to watch him fire Hoda.

  EIGHTEEN

  Torie greeted us as we stepped off the elevator. She was wearing a black Naveah staff shirt, black skirt, and pumps, holding a clipboard. She flashed me a smile. “Hey, girl.” A professional smile formed and she cleared her throat. She straightened, and I could see the actual employee slide into place. “Miss Mansour is waiting downstairs in the lobby. Should I give you a moment before showing her up?”

  Kash’s hand was behind the small of my back. He ushered me in first, as our two guards followed us. One took point outside his office door. The other remained by the elevator. Torie moved ahead, opening his office door, and we followed inside. Kash’s hand touched my back, keeping me in place, and he moved close behind me. He said over my head, “Give us five. Erik is downstairs. Have him walk her up.”

  Torie winked at me before leaving.

  Once those doors were closed, the club’s music was faint, but still there.

  Kash was at my side, his hand on my chin, and he was turning my head. “I need more.” His meaning became clear as his mouth touched mine, and anything I might’ve thought or felt about him having Erik show Hoda up to her firing was wiped away. The usual heat and need and desire took over, and it wasn’t long before standing and kissing me with his head tilted wasn’t enough. He groaned, taking over. Tugging me back to his office, he picked me up, sat me down on his desk, and was between my legs within one second.

  Then his front hit mine, his hands were into my hair, holding my head, and his mouth was opening over mine.

  Jesus.

  I was swept up. My pulse was racing, my blood pumping, and I was panting as his tongue slid inside to meet mine.

  One second.

  Two.

  Thirty.

  The kiss kept going.

  My legs were wrapped tight around him. Our chests smashed together.

  We were doing something, or waiting for something. I was trying to remember, but I forgot everything.

  I was unbuckling him, not remembering where we were, when we heard a discreet knock, followed by the elevator arriving.

  Kash tore himself away from me, cursing as he did. He barked out, “Hold.”

  There was absolute silence outside the door.

  Not in here. I was breathing loud and ragged, trying to gather myself, still on his desk. I was half-sprawled over it, and Kash was breathing almost as hard, a few feet away. I watched him, literally watched as he closed his eyes and a wall fell over him. He’d been there with me, right there. Needing. Living. Feeling. Then a knock, the elevator ping, and I was sitting here, cold from the loss of him, and a stranger came down over him. He was pulling on his mask and his face turned granite again. He was hard, and he stared back at me. A flicker of heat speared me from his eyes before he came back to me.

  He straightened out my clothes. He pulled down my sweatshirt. I hadn’t noticed when that went up.

  He buckled my jeans. I hadn’t realized those were undone.

  He was brushing some of my hair off my shoulders, and I saw the top button of his pants was undone. I put it back in, and he paused at my touch, his forehead coming to rest on mine. His chest rose, held, then fell back, and he cupped the back of my head. A kiss to my forehead, and he murmured there, “One hit isn’t enough.”

  I knew what he meant, but I tipped my head back. “I think you mean a drug.”

  His eyes were dark, holding mine. He was all serious. “No. I don’t.”

  I got his meaning, and I swear, the oxygen left my lungs.

  We need air to live.

  I so got his meaning. “Oh.” My throat swelled up.

  His eyes were starting to smolder, so he pressed one last kiss to my forehead, then to my neck, before he picked me up and walked me to his couch in the corner. It was in the dark and he’d only turned on one lamp in the entire office, the one on his desk, so it was possible I could sit where I was and Hoda would never even know I was there. I didn’t know if that’s what he intended, but he deposited me down, leaned over me a second. His mouth twisted in regret before he straightened and went back behind his desk.

  “Okay.”

  The door opened, and just as Kash was pulling his chair out, Hoda entered the office.

  This wasn’t a Hoda I’d ever seen before.

  Her shoulders were curved in. Her head down. Her face pale. She wore her sleeves over her hands and she was tugging at the corners of each of them. She was almost shuffling in. Her hair was in a simple braid that started at the base of her head and trailed down to where her hair ended, just beyond her shoulder blades.

  “Sir,” she started, her voice tentative.

  He didn’t waste time. “Why did you lie on your application?”

  Her throat jumped. “Sir?”

  His gaze was intense on her. He didn’t sit, but he didn’t speak or anything. He was waiting for her. He also didn’t explain his question.

  “I … uh…” She lifted her head, blanched, and looked back down.

  He spoke. “The timid look doesn’t suit you.”

  Her shoulders straightened and she looked up. “I lied because I didn’t think I’d get the job as a woman. I knew someone who worked here before. They said the hiring was a joke, that I could apply as a man, show up as a woman, and they wouldn’t even notice. So, I did it. I was hired on paper, with my résumé, and when I showed up, they didn’t question me.”

  Kash’s eyes narrowed. “Those staff members are no longer with us.”

  “I know.” Her voice was clearer.

  Kash leaned back against the wall behind his desk, his head lowering, but his eyes remained on hers. He crossed one ankle over the other and motioned toward her before his hand went into his pocket. He was the image of relaxed. But his eyes weren’t. I saw the heat running behind the mask he had in place.

  “I saw the tape. I heard her voice.”

  Her eyes widened. “You can’t have video in the women’s restrooms.”

  “Who said I did?”

  Her eyebrows pulled down. Her head lowered an inch. She was thinking, confused. Then she stiffened, and she jerked back up. “You tapped my apartment?”

  “You called the Camille Story blogger in the hallway of your building. Your building is owned by a subsidiary of Phoenix Tech and there is security in all Phoenix Tech buildings. It took a moment to locate the video, but we got it, and we have your voice on tape telling the blogger that you will send over the list.”

  She was thinking, her eyes locked down. “‘The list’ could’ve meant anything. I could’ve been calling about my grocery store list.”

  “You could’ve, but we also found your email, where you sent the link for where she could download the Hawking University student emails. I’ve had staff look into it, and you were thorough. You didn’t just send the main email that every student is given. You looked into second and third emails for students, especially students in your program. You added certain staff members onto the email. You wanted to make sure everyone knew about who Bailey Hayes was, including who her family and her boyfriend are. You wished to humiliate her, though I don’t know why you would want to make an enemy of her.”

  She was seething. “You have no proof of any of that. If you did, you obtained it illegally. I can fight you—”

  “You’re fired as an employee from this nightclub, and we can fire you on the simple grounds that you lied on your application. We have copies of your first application, and the changes you did yesterday, and we have you on video making those changes. I have not asked Bailey to search, but if I did, she would be able to find proof that you were the one who released that image of us months ago.”

  She was standing so rigid. Her chest was heaving. “You’re lying.” She spoke through gritted teeth.

  “No.” Fuck. He almost sounded sorry for her, as if he pitied her. “You have made enemies where it was very foolish of you to do that.”

  I’d had enough with being quiet. If she didn’t know I was there, she was about to. I stood up and spoke from the corner. “Did you tell Calhoun Bastian where and when we ate lunch?”

  She jumped, half screeching. She hadn’t known I was there. She’d been so focused on Kash. Whirling, a hand to her chest, she fell back a few steps. “Oh my God! What are you doing—” She saw my face, and got right. “No! I would never do that. Out you in a stupid email, yes. But not Calhoun Bastian. Jesus. How stupid do you think I am?”

  “Are we talking on a scale from one to ten?”

  Kash snorted.

  I took a step forward. “Why the email? The university isn’t going to kick me out. They know who I am.”

  Her eyes rolled to the ceiling and stayed there. She muttered, almost speaking to herself. “Because your dad is seriously powerful, and rich. And your boyfriend is even wealthier. And he’s got a huge, scary enemy. I wanted others to know you were there. I wanted them to either hate you or stalk you or try to use you. I didn’t care. I just want to make it such a hassle to have you be a student at Hawking University that they have to ask you to leave the premises.”

  I waited, because there must’ve been a better reason.

  She stopped talking. A calm settled over her, and I was guessing that was the reason.

  “You’re an idiot.” I shook my head. “They’ll lock down the building. I’ll come in the back, stay in the building, and leave another way. More security guards will be there for me. That’s it. That’s all they’ll do. They’re getting a seventy-million-dollar donation from my father. You think they’re going to kick me out?”

  She was, and she was seeing it. Her mouth slackened. “Oh.”

  “Right.” Kash had had enough of this conversation. He tapped his phone. “Escort Miss Mansour from the premises and give her a list of buildings within the city she’s banned from.”

  She gulped. “What?”

  “It’s within our right to ban you from any premises and locations where we feel you are a threat, and unfortunately, that’s your apartment building. You have the weekend to vacate your place. You’re no longer in our employment, and I’m half considering encouraging Hawking University to expel you. Five of your graduate scholarships and two of your loans have been pulled. If you remain a student at Hawking, you’ll need to find other funding.”

  She really hadn’t thought anything through.

  She whispered, “Fuck.”

  Kash didn’t care one bit. The door opened. Erik was there. He took her arm, and Kash said, “Walk her to her locker. Give her a box for her belongings. Once her locker is cleared, walk her to the street. Call her a car.”

  Erik guided her out of Kash’s office.

  The door closed, and I could only gape at Kash. Even I hadn’t thought about all of that. “Her apartment? Her scholarships? Shit, Kash.”

  He spared me a look, but he wasn’t messing around. He tapped some buttons on his computer, picked up his phone, told them he needed an hour. Putting the phone back in the cradle, he walked around and took my hand. He was leading me to the back of the office. “The apartment was necessary. She knows now who owns her building. She could stage an accident, try to sue us, and most companies settle. I’m sure she’d get some money out of us. As for the scholarships, I was pissed off. Still am.”

  He opened a door in the back and flipped the lights on.

  Kash led me into a bathroom. He moved to the sink, turning the water on before coming back to me.

  “Her life is not over.” His arms slid under my armpits and he lifted me up, sitting me on the counter. He moved between my legs again, his forehead coming back to mine as his hand slid down my chest, settling between my breasts and staying there. “But she has the means and capability to come back and hurt you. She can’t do what you can do, but she still has IT skills. The first blow I strike against her has to sting or I risk having her coming back and doing worse to you. I cannot risk that, not after what she’s already done.”

  He stopped, staring at me, the wall gone, and I was seeing his heat, all of his heat. He whispered, bending to kiss the side of my mouth, “I have bigger and badder battles coming. The long-term war is my grandfather. I can’t get pulled away dealing with someone being petty and trying to hurt you because of whose sperm helped birth you.”

  When he put it like that, okey dokey.

  NINETEEN

  Kash

  “It’s nice to hear you’re alive after all.”

  It was the twelfth call I’d taken over the past three weeks from business partners who had found out that Evelyn Colello’s son was alive after all. Business partners who had worked with my mother, half of whom had never sold her share, and it was mine to claim if I wanted in. The other six had been bought out, and a team of lawyers was accounting for the loss of those shares right now.

  “Bad time?”

  Lifting my head, seeing Peter in my door, I said good-bye to the newest business partner I’d found out about that morning and hung up the phone. “Come in.”

  Peter glanced around, holding two coffees in hand. “I heard you were using the Naveah office. This your ‘daytime’ office?”

  I motioned to his extra coffee. “That for me?”

  “It is. Black. Plain. Boring.” Peter pretended to wince as he handed it over, then he took a seat on the other side of my desk. He finished scanning the room. “Your dad used to use your other office, back when he and I were the majority holders at Phoenix Tech, before everything got big.”

  And “got big” was an understatement. They grew that company to be one of the leading companies in cyber security. My father went on to lead the business end while Peter took over the computer end. It’d been a match made in heaven. And he was right. I’d taken to using my dad’s old office at Phoenix Tech headquarters a week ago.

  Taking my coffee, I sipped it and waited.

  Peter came. Peter never came without a reason.

  He sighed, looked at me, and there it was. The reason. He reached behind him and pulled out a file he’d stuck in the back of his pants. It was an odd habit, but he did it often over the years.

  I noted, “Briefcases can be used as weapons, too.”

  He shrugged. “You know I hate those things.”

  Not unless there was a computer in it. His photographic memory wasn’t the only thing he’d given his daughter. Both needed their computers on hand or they felt naked. They got twitchy, anxious, and the second you gave them a laptop, both settled down. It was uncanny.

  “What am I going to see when I read this over?” I skimmed through the papers. “This is an order of protection.”

  He nodded, sipping his coffee. “Against your grandfather, on behalf of my family. My entire family. That’s the summary of all the orders.”

  Okay.

  I tossed the papers on my desk and sat back, studying him more squarely.

  His eyes twitched, enlarging before he clamped down. “What?”

  He was guarded now. Good.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “With what? I’m helping. I know you have a lot on your hands.”

  “Have you checked in with Matt?”

  He frowned, his eyebrows dipping again. “Did something happen?”

  “He was on a bender recently.” I’d reported this to him, or had my team report to Peter’s team. I knew he would be notified, and I was now seeing that he didn’t listen or read his team’s reports.