“You didn’t go to prison?”
“No. They gave me an advance on my salary so I could find some place to live.” The government wanted to be sure he was happy in his new position. The fear of going to jail if he stepped out of line was there, but there was also the mutual understanding that once he had access to their systems, he could do great harm. They needed to be sure he wouldn’t be tempted by a foreign agency’s bribes.
“I wasn’t the only one. There were about ten of us, all hackers, in a cube farm. None of us over twenty-five.”
“Skye said you sold an encryption device. That you had a lot of money?” Cara sounded uncertain, almost like she wanted Wes to tell her it wasn’t true.
“I don’t know how they know about any of this to be honest. The work I did… With what we saw every day, we wereencouragednot to discuss it.”
Cara held his gaze. “Jerrod said Melody told them.”
Wes shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t do that. I told her—” He stopped when sympathy skated across Cara’s face. The tight feeling in his chest returned.
Weshadtold Melody a little of what he was doing. He’d bragged. Wes wanted her to see him as more than just the kid she had saved from beatings in the group home. He coughed. “She just wouldn’t.”
Cara’s smile was sad when she said, “Someone I trusted gave Erik the pictures he sent to the tabloids. I think we’ve both learned that you never know who you can really trust, or even if you know them at all.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Clickingthe button to lock his truck, Wes adjusted his grip on the messenger bag. Originally, he was supposed to have lunch with Jin and Nina, but after the meeting, he wasn’t interested in being heckled anymore. Wes had been mentally off all morning. All through the meeting and demonstration with their potential client, Wes kept losing focus.
He hadn’t seen Cara before he left that morning, and he couldn’t help but wonder how she was feeling after last night?
At first, Jin seemed amused by Wes’s distraction, but after the second time Wes missed his cue to chime in with an explanation of how the algorithm would benefit the client, his friend was just annoyed.
Nina gave him a quick kick under the table before proceeding to cover for him. Wes listened to her lay out their capabilities and explain how they would use their patented algorithm to test each point of access in the client’s system.
On the way to the elevator, Nina was steaming. “What is wrong with you? This is an important get for us!”
“I know. It’s totally my fault. Thanks for covering. Technically, it’s not really covering though. You coded as much of the algorithm as I did. I’m just always the one who talks.”
Nina glared. “We can have the ‘misogynistic world of women in tech talk’ another time. IknowI’m perfectly capable of explaining what we do. I’d just like a heads up if I’m supposed to be taking lead. We looked like clowns in there. Too much dead silence while you sat there daydreaming.”
“I wasn’t daydreaming. I’m just tired. I had a late night. It won’t happen again.”
After Cara had gone to bed, Wes couldn’t sleep. He did an extensive internet search on himself. The arrest was there, covered by the Atlanta papers. But there was no way anyone could have known he hadn’t served his time or that he worked for a government agency, unless they were searching inmate rolls at the time he would have been incarcerated.
The only one who knew those details, and that he had sold the encryption device, was Melody. Because he’d trusted her.
Wes had tossed and turned for hours until he finally decided she must have had a weak moment. Melody liked attention. She probably didn’t realize how dangerous her slip was. It was his fault for not making her understand that Wes could get in a lot of trouble for having shared the information with her. A voice in his head whispered that he was making excuses for Melody—again—but he ignored it.
“Late night, huh? Anything to do with a certain person you spend every nonworking minute with?” Jin waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“It’s not always sex, you know.” Nina glared at her husband.
“Not always, but usually. Besides, you’ve seen how he is.”
“It’s true, his lack of emotional intelligence isn’t usually our problem. But, if he’s going to start blowing important client meetings because of it, then I guess we have to address the sexually frustrated mess in the room. Particularly, when he can’t even recognize what’s right in front of him.”
“I’m standing right here.”
Sometimes working with a married couple was a pain in the ass. It was apparent this wasn’t the first time they’d discussed him and Cara—and Wes didn’t like it.
“Even if I were daydreaming about sex, why would you assume it’s about Cara?”
Jin and Nina looked at him and then each other.
“Just sleep with her for fuck’s sake and put us all out of our misery,” Nina muttered, pushing the button for the lobby.
