CATCH (The Billionaire's Rules, Book 14) (5 page)

“I know,” she replied, finally.

“You know?” he asked.

“I know that this is going to be some big explanation for why last night was a mistake,” she told him, toying with her coffee cup as she said it.

“I know that last night was confusing for you,” he said.

“This sounds rehearsed.”

“It’s not,” he replied, curtly.

“Are you sure?” She raised her eyes and challenged him.

“Yes, I’m sure.” His brow furrowed. “And I get that you might be angry, because I told you it wasn’t going to happen.”

“You said you wouldn’t fuck me,” she agreed. “And then you did. Fuck me, that is.”

Brayden’s cheeks flushed now, and she felt a surge of triumph at having made the CEO uncomfortable. “It was confusing…for both of us,” he stated.

She snorted. “Sure it was.”

“You don’t believe me?”

Lanie shrugged. “If you say so, then I believe you.”

“That’s never happened to me before,” he told her.

She laughed. “I highly doubt that.”

“What I mean is, I usually keep my word. And I don’t ever lose control. I’m not sure what happened. Something came over me.”

“That’s convenient. Something came over you.” She wanted to scream in his face but then she also wanted to tear his shirt off, or let him throw her over the desk and enter her tightest place, fill her completely, ride her in front of the entire office while they watched.

Brayden put his coffee back on the desktop and stood up. His neck was red and his eyes were intense. “You’re being difficult, Lanie.”

She put her coffee down, too, staring back at him. “I feel sorry for you, having to deal with me.”

“Lanie.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We need to keep things professional from this point forward.”

“Oh. Yes. Professional.” She nodded.

“Don’t be sarcastic with me.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” she said, taunting him intentionally.

“Lanie.”

“Yes?” She blinked innocently.

“We’re going to keep things very simple from now on.”

Lanie was about to respond back with yet another verbal jab. She wanted to keep jabbing until Brayden took it back. Took back this idea that they were going to be strictly professional—took back this notion that he didn’t want her anymore.

Suddenly, there were murmurs, loud and growing louder from the employees out in the main workspace.

Something was going on.

For a flash, Lanie wondered if their conversation was somehow going out over the speakers or something.

Everyone knew.

She felt herself grow momentarily faint at the thought of it.

But then she saw people staring at their computer screens, and looking at one another with shocked, confused and anxious expressions and she realized that whatever was going on—it had nothing to do with her and Brayden.

Virgil stalked out of his office right next to them, and his eyes were wide, mouth flexing into a grimace. He turned, almost robotically, and stared at Brayden.

“What the hell’s going on?” Brayden yelled.

“Get out here,” Virgil told him.

Brayden quickly went out to the main workspace and Lanie followed.

“Has there been a terrorist attack or something?” Brayden whispered at his co-founder.

“Hackers,” Virgil said flatly. And then he gave Brayden a sidelong, suspicious glance.

All across the large room, Lanie heard a voice repeating in fragments, coming from various computers and speakers as everyone in the office watched whatever it was that had gotten such a strange reaction from them.

“We’ve been hacked?” Brayden said, moving towards one of the monitors at the closest desk and spinning it towards himself.

The man who sat there jumped out of his seat. “Do you—“

“Just play the message, whatever it is,” Brayden snapped.

The man sat back down and quickly his fingers tapped across the keys.

Seconds later, an image appeared on the monitor.

It was a close-up camera angle of a man wearing makeup and an extremely long nose. He had very long lashes and wide eyes, almost comically wide. And the nose was obviously a prosthetic.

“Looks like that guy from A Clockwork Orange,” Brayden muttered.

“I think that’s the idea,” Virgil nodded, arms folded across his bulky chest.

A strange, low, distorted voice came from the speakers as the bizarre clown-like character on the monitor began talking. “Hello Hook Up sycophants and hucksters. I am so pleased to be speaking to you. And especially you, Brayden Forman.”

Brayden turned and looked at Virgil, his expression one of disgust and contempt. “What the hell is this? A joke?”

“I don’t think so,” Virgil said.

Brayden turned back to the monitor.

The creepy clown person grinned with his wide eyes and cocked his head at an angle, causing his long prosthetic nose to jiggle comically.

And then Lanie realized it wasn’t supposed to be a nose.

“Oh my god,” she whispered.

It’s a penis. He’s wearing a penis on his nose.

“Brayden Forman is a very naughty boy, isn’t he?” the distorted voice laughed. “Brayden Forman likes to stick his hand in the cookie jar. He likes to play games with people—especially women. Isn’t that right, Forman the Fornicator?”

Lanie saw the CEO’s back expand as he slapped his palms down on the desk in front of the monitor.

“This is crap,” Brayden said. “Someone’s just messing with us—“

“Keep listening, dammit,” Virgil told him. “This is real.”

The creepy clown person was acting weirder and weirder. He shook his head from side to side, making the dick nose swing back and forth and almost appear to stick out of the monitor.

Finally, he spoke again. “We’ve hacked into the Hookup system because you are a corrupt, disgusting company with a repugnant CEO who can’t keep his dick in his pants. Your sick CEO needs to apologize, publicly, to all of the women he has used and screwed and shamed and hurt. He has made a mockery of love, a mockery of romance, a mockery of the bond between men and women. And he will apologize for being a sniveling, lying, dirty dealing pig who mistreats women. A misogynist of the highest order. He will apologize and broadcast it on YouTube within the next twenty-four hours, and it must be kept available for viewing forever and ever Amen. If Forman the Fornicator does not comply with our demand, we will release all of the personal information—all the credit card and identifying information of Hookup’s clientele that we’ve obtained. And that includes pictures. Everything will be revealed.”

The wide-eyed character leaned towards the camera and now the penis nose really did hit the lens. He uttered a distorted, hair-raising laugh, and then the video ended abruptly.

Lanie came to the realization that everyone in the workspace was now looking at Brayden.

All eyes were fixed on him and the office had gone deathly silent.

Even Virgil was watching him, his eyes hooded and his expression enigmatic.

“This is crap,” Brayden said, standing tall. He looked at everyone who was watching him. “You hear me, guys? This is just bullshit. We have the tightest cyber security in the business. Have there been any signs of a security breach?”

A few people shook their heads, but they seemed uncertain, Lanie decided.

Her palms were sweating and her hands felt itchy.

“It’s credible,” Virgil said softly.

“Why is it credible?” Brayden asked, turning to him.

“Because, they sent that message to everyone’s email. Obviously, they know something. They hit all of us at once. It’s a well-planned, concerted effort. How do you explain that?”

Brayden shook his head stubbornly. “It’s bullshit. They just want to embarrass me. Embarrass us.”

“But if—“

“If they had something, they’d have shown it,” Brayden replied, his voice confident. He turned and looked around the room. “I’m telling you all, if this fool—this jackass sitting in his mother’s basement—had a damn thing on us, he would have shown proof of it in the video. But this was just a cheap scare tactic.”

People nodded in acquiescence, and Lanie thought it was amazing how quickly Brayden seemed to have gained everyone’s trust back.

They believe in him
, she thought. And then she realized that she did too.

Virgil shook his head once. “Okay,” he sighed. “So, business as usual then?”

“Obviously, we need to try and trace it, try and see who’s pulling a stunt like that. Probably stupid college kids, trying to be the next Anonymous,” Brayden said, his voice lower. “But we’re fine, Virg. We’re fine. Our security is the best.”

“So we thought.”

“No, it is.” Brayden grinned and clapped his friend on the shoulder.

Virgil seemed to relax and then everyone else was laughing and shaking their heads, getting back to some semblance of normalcy.

Lanie still had a gnawing sense of unease.

She knew less than nothing about hackers or any of this, but that creepy person on the monitor had struck her as very serious.

And very frightening.

She was still chewing her bottom lip when a new chorus of murmurs and buzzing rippled through the workspace.

Brayden and Virgil looked at their employees, their relief fading as they realized something new had occurred already.

“What now,” Virgil said, his teeth showing.

The closest person turned to them. “A new email,” he said. “They sent a chunk of files. Database files, they claim.”

Brayden ran to the computer closest and bumped the employee away. He began typing furiously, and his head was focused so intently on the screen, his torso bent over as he typed and scanned the evidence.

Virgil moved next to him. “Is it real?” he shouted. “Is it real?”

Brayden pounded his fist against the keyboard so hard that keys flew off and landed on the floor. One of the keys, an R, landed right near Lanie’s right foot.

She stared down at the key from the keyboard, feeling a strange sense of pity for it. It looked so lonely and bereft. Broken.

Brayden straightened and put his head in his hands and then he lifted his head and closed his eyes.

“Shut it down,” he announced.

Virgil stared at him. “You can’t be serious.” He grabbed at Brayden’s shirt. “Hey, listen to me, man. You can’t—“

Braden shrugged the President off him, and looked out at his employees, his voice rising louder. “Shut everything down. We’re finished.”

Lanie took a step backwards, feeling her heart hammering in her chest.

Virgil was shaking his head and talking to Brayden, but Brayden wasn’t listening anymore. He gave Lanie one last look over his shoulder, and then he was walking briskly across the office floor, as Virgil shouted after him.

But Brayden didn’t stop walking. His legs moved faster and faster and turned into a jog through the office space.

By the end, he was running.

Brayden Forman ran out of the office and disappeared.