5. Emily
Soft rays streamed in through the window, waking me up from the best sleep I’d had in a long time. I had a lot to do today and knew I should probably get out of bed, but I was too comfortable to move an inch.
I sighed. The softness of the bed felt like a gentle caress on my skin. A pleasant warmth pervaded my body. I dragged the sheets up to my face in an attempt to shield my eyes from the sunlight. Why did I have to leave the curtains open?
I breathed in the floral notes of the sheets, mixed with something more, a fragrance my memory chased, trying to remind me of something.
Then I realized.
These were not my sheets. This was not my bed. This was definitely not the smell of my apartment.
My eyes shot open just as my brain pieced together what the smell was, adding in the memories of all that had happened last night.
No way in hell am I pining for the smell of Travis Ross.
I was scared of what I would find if I looked around the room. But I had to get myself out of here, one way or another.
Preferably with some sort of object that had his fingerprints on it.
My eyes drifted to the man beside me and I let out a sigh of relief when I saw that he was still sleeping.
Then I made a little sound in my throat, as the sight of him unexpectedly tugged on my heartstrings.
Travis was curled up, pressed against me. His arms were wrapped around me as if we had passed out after a round of lovemaking. His soft brown curls fell angelically over his perfect face as I studied his sleeping form, taking in all of him instead of running out of the door like I was supposed to. I was tempted to trace the outline of his sharp jawline with my fingertips, but I stayed my hands. If he woke up, I might not be able to complete my mission.
My mission. To expose him. To destroy him. Because he was a terrible person who went to Calypso and hung out with potential serial killers.
Right.
Something caught my eye on the bedside table behind him. I looked closely, trying to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.
Victory. There, behind Travis was a glass. The glass he’d had a drink of water from. I remembered watching his hands wrap around it the night before. Tried not to think about those hands doing other things.
How could I have slept with this man? My rational brain was beginning to wake up as I recalled the list of crimes I was sure he had committed. The list of crimes his father had committed against people like me.
I tried to shove the aching desire to stay with him, to simply never go back to my old life, far down into my chest.
My thoughts were all over the place as my eyes returned to the beautiful man who was still passed out beside me. Of course, I had slept with him. What other choice did I have? I needed to find a way to catch him off guard so I could get his fingerprints. Every action I took last night was to help me get what I was looking for and nothing more.
I brushed away the thoughts trying to take hold, but they continued to surface. Leave it to my mind to betray me. My eyes closed unwillingly as the images of last night flashed in my mind.
I shuddered. Last night was the best sex I had ever had.
I had not had many partners who meant something to me, but I had definitely been sexually active. I’d dated men who felt more like sex friends than partners in an actual relationship because that was what the guys had wanted with me. With all of my experience, nothing had felt like what I had with Travis Ross after knowing him for just one night.
He was my enemy. I despised him and his family and everything they stood for. How could I have let myself share a bed with him and enjoy it?
It was perfect that I had slept at the edge of the bed. I slipped out of his embrace and rolled out of bed as quietly as I could, so I ran no risk of waking him up. I found my clothes, grimacing when I saw the state of them. I had nothing to wear home but this very rumpled, revealing red dress and nightclub heels.
Rushing, I grabbed my panties, stuffing them into my purse, slipped into my dress, and snatched my shoes from under a chair.I then reached into my purse, removing the Ziploc bag I had brought with me, and carefully picked up Travis’s glass with a paper towel to the rim to avoid leaving fingerprints of my own. That accomplished, I ran out of the penthouse, slowing my steps and trying to look normal in the hallway beyond.
To anyone watching, I looked like I was doing the walk of shame. Which was fine by me since “purely carnal one-night stand with irresistibly handsome billionaire” was actually not a bad cover story for my real mission.
I hailed a cab and was finally able to relax now that I was out of Travis’s reach. I ignored the part of me that ached at the thought and focused on my scoop.
All I had to do now was get this to Michael so that he could do his thing. Despite being younger than me, Michael was an incredible hacker. I was blown away by the extent of his skills. He could get into any system he wanted, no matter how tightly guarded it was, if you just gave him enough time to figure out how.
I had seen him do so on multiple occasions and I was still amazed by his abilities. He could have gotten rich off hacking if he wanted to, or become a rich tech bro, but he had no interest in doing that.
Just like me, Michael was determined to use his skills to dig up what the Ross brothers were hiding. We had ended up bonding over our goal of exposing corrupt, powerful people.
Like most people who were knowledgeable about hacking, Michael preferred to stay off the grid, leaving as few digital traces as possible. He had told me to never text or call him on the phone about what we were doing. So, I had to wait until I got to him in-person to share the exciting news of my success. I was so eager to take the next step and put this one behind me that I went straight to Michael’s place without stopping to change at my apartment, sweat-stained tiny red dress and all.
I paid my fare and climbed out of the cab in front of Michael’s place. I had just raised my hand to knock when the door opened to show Michael, a slim young black man, who looked like he had just woken up from sleep. I felt a little guilty about waking him.
Michael was not the textbook nerdy hacker. He did not wear big glasses and flannels, neither did he look sloppy or unkempt. He looked like the average, attractive guy on the street and he took care of himself. Now, even standing in his pajamas, clearly tired, Michael looked quite handsome. We had never had romantic chemistry, but I sure didn’t mind looking at him.
I smiled at him and walked in when he stepped aside. As I glanced around, I wondered if he ever had women over. I knew it was because of the stupid mistake I had made last night but it was something I was suddenly curious about. A man like him seemed like he could have plenty of interested women, but I never heard him talk about them.
“Where have you been?” Michael asked, sounding more concerned than frustrated. “You spent the entire night out. The only reason I didn’t panic was because I saw that you had left Calypso.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Are you tracking my location?”
His response was a deadpan look, like I should have known he would do that.
Fair enough. The man has security cameras and alarms around his place.
“You were going behind enemy lines, on a very important and dangerous mission. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t track your phone?” He asked me.
Behind enemy lines? That assessment was more accurate than he could know. A chill ran up my spine as I remembered Blackwell’s hands on me, the dead look in his eyes. Would Michael have been able to do something if he’d taken me?
“I’m not sure how I feel about you tracking me without my consent…” I started but he waved his hands to stop me.
“It’s fine, I don’t track you anywhere else. Just wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Yeah, that sounds like what a stalker would say.” I grinned. And tried not to let even myself in on the fact that I was covering for how scared I was by the fact that I actually had needed a rescue.
“Oh, shut up!” Michael grouched. “If I wanted to stalk anyone, which I don’t, it would not be you,” he said.
“Okay! Wow…burn! Okay.”
He chuckled. “Did you get it?”
“Yes, I did,” I said, brightening as I remembered. I carefully extracted the Ziploc bag containing the glass from my bag and handed it to him.
“Nice.” He held the bag up in the air looking at it like he could already see what he wanted on it.
“Well, you don’t need me here for this part, do you?” I asked him.
“Eh, not really.” His gaze was locked onto the glass as he spoke.
“Are you planning to work on it right away? You look like you”ve just woken up,” I said, picking up my purse. “I am and I did.”
I rolled my eyes at him. His mind was already figuring out ways to get the fingerprints.
“I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Do you want one?” I asked him.
“Sure… Go ahead. It’s not like it’s my house or anything.”
I chuckled, ignoring him as I went to get the coffee.
“Do you think we’ll be able to get that file today?” I called out from the kitchen, my nerves jangling as I thought about it. I suddenly realized that last night had opened new possibilities for me.
What if the files confirmed my suspicions that Travis Ross was a ruthless criminal like his father?
…what if they showed that he wasn’t?
I shook my head. It’s not like you’re ever going to see him again.
“Well, I sure hope so,” Michael was crowing in the background. “Otherwise, this could get very frustrating very fast,” he replied.
Yeah, it would be frustrating if this didn’t work. We had put so much effort into this.
Michael and I had cloned Travis’ phone. We had figured out where his assistant got his coffee every morning and we both had been able to get there when the assistant was there. He always carried Travis’ work phone when he got coffee. I had pretended to bump into him and made him spill his coffee all over himself so I could nab it. I had acted sorry, which was exactly how I had felt when I did that and how I still felt. He was not the one we were going after. He was just collateral damage whose job may have been endangered by my subterfuge.
And yet, despite months spent stealing and planning to steal Travis’s data, I felt that I hadn’t known anything about him until last night.
It’s just his stupid, handsome face. You know he’s a monster. He was at Calypso.
The truth of it burned me while I burned myself on Michael’s coffee, so lost in my thoughts I tried to sip it while it was still nearly boiling.
The moment we’d returned to Michael’s after cloning the phone, we had tried to go through everything on it. Most of it had been boring and useless—selfies of Travis with his rich friends, stiffly formal business email after business email, an admitted lack of sexy selfies or selfies including women—but some of it had been encrypted. Michael had done his best to decrypt the files, which was where we had found something called ‘the secret file’.
Michael had tried all he could to open the secret file, but the security for it was too much. We needed Travis’s biometrics to get in.
We hoped the secret file would contain something useful. What would someone hide behind that many layers of encryption?
I let my coffee cool before pouring Michael his own mug. I set it on the table beside him and picked up my purse.
“Alright, I’ll be heading out now. I had a long night.”
I cringed inwardly when Michael looked at me with narrowed eyes like he was about to ask about it, but he shook his head and focused his attention on his devices.
“Sleep well.”
I turned around, my face red from embarrassment, and walked out the door. It was obvious he suspected what had happened, but I was glad he had not tried to poke into it because I did not want to talk about it. Especially not now, as we were staring down Travis Ross’s mysterious secret.
I headed out the door with only one thought in my head:
I should not have slept with Travis Ross.