Page 2 of Reckless Devotion

“Tessa, honey, I would get down on bended knee and propose if you fetched me a coffee.” I pause to lean one elbow on my assistant’s desk, flashing her a signature shit-eating grin that rarely gets seen in this fifty-five-story high-rise.

Evelyn’s derisive snort floats over my shoulder as she continues to her own office. Tessa raises two slightly bushy grey eyebrows at me and purses her lips. She is corralled inside a large black desk with a broad raised lip behind her screen so the world can barely see her. Just how she likes it, I suspect.

Aside from Evelyn, she’s the only other employee who gets a slice of the real me. Not because I didn’t try to treat her like everyone else, she just told me in no uncertain terms on her first day that I could go and do something very inappropriate to my own ass and then shove the job up there too if I didn’t buck my manners up.

After blowing through three assistants in the space of a year—two of which looked at me with heart eyes that even my steeliest mask couldn’t deter, and one of which was just plain incompetent—I was desperate enough to keep her on. Who am I kidding? I admired the set of balls on the old girl.

“Go get your own coffee, I’ve got work to do.” She hooks one finger over the rim of her glasses to slide them up her nose a touch.

Her eyes crease a further degree and even though her lips are still pressed firmly together, there is no hint of true annoyance. She gets a kick out of cutting me off at the knees as much as I like trying to win her over.

Sighing dramatically, I bounce my palm twice on the raised desk lip and head for my office. “It’s a good thing I ordered Joe’s for us both, then.”

“Good boy,” she responds in a tone laced with a hidden smile, because Joe’s is her favorite coffee shop half a block away.

I turn when I reach the large double mahogany-stained doors. “It was extra cream, extra sugar, right?”

She twists slowly in her swivel chair, wearing a stern mask of dissension that probably has her grandkids’ knees wobbling. She’s watching her cholesterol and I know it. SheknowsI know it.

“Suddenly I don’t feel so bad reminding you that you have your meeting with that journalist next.” She sniffs haughtily, twisting to resume her position as office sentinel.

My cheek hitches with a steaming mug of instantly brewed annoyance, gaze sliding to the still-shut doors. I’ve been rescheduling this stupid interview for weeks, but my PR team says it will be worthwhile.

To say we gained major flack a few months ago when a classified governmental report leaked which recorded some of our tech showing up in the hands of Russian rebels is an understatement. It prompted us to fit remote kill switches into anything applicable within our production line. All of this was paraded to the press by some do-gooder hacker that I’ve been attempting to track down for months. They hacked through my own advanced security coding like a hot knife through butter to obtain a confidential copy of that report and they seem intent on playing cat and mouse with me. Little bread-crumbed clues hereand there are buried in piles of code, all of which have sent me on a wild goose chase to nowhere fruitful.

The reminder instantly dampens my mood, frustration roiling beneath my skin. I remind myself that I should know who the little fucker is by the end of the day. The trap I set has taken weeks to lay—the code being some of my best work. And if it goes without a hitch, I should have an IP address and maybe even a name within hours.

My wrist flicks up, showing me the shiny gears in my watch face. I’m tempted to reschedule this meeting again. It’s not even 9 a.m. but I’ve been here for four hours and I’ve got a proverbial fuckload to do today.

“Don’t even think about blowing it off, she’s been waiting for forty minutes.”

My eyes flare, glancing back at Tessa, who hasn’t moved an inch. She’s uncanny like that sometimes, like she’s got built-in sonar that picks up my every move and thought. Tugging the cuff of my charcoal Kiton suit back over my watch, I press open the doors.

“Miss Devonshire, my apologies for keeping you waiting.”

Light bounces around my office, reflecting off monochromatic art, dark glossed walnut wood and falling on the stout woman seated in a black suede chair opposite my desk: statement chunky black frames too big for her face, short coiffed grey hair, and a tight, forced smile emblazoned on a wide mouth. She reminds me of a toad eyeing up a fat, juicy fly. Lord help me, I thinkI’mthe fly.

“It’smissand I’m sure you’re very busy with important things, Mr. Walker.” She stands sharply, pressing a stubby hand between us. The way she says this leaves me under no illusion that she understands I’ve been giving her the run around.

“Indeed, my apologies.” I shake her hand once and then drop it, striding around to my side of the desk. “Please, do get started. I have a hard stop in twenty minutes for my next meeting.”

I don’t, but I’ve learned over the years to come equipped with a pre-prepared excuse in situations that I don’t want to be locked into. She hums a singular flat tone and glances down at the notepad in her lap as she sits again. For all her odd appearance, I can’t fault her navy suit. Sharp, crisp, and definitely tailored, given her unusually short stature.

“Mr. Walker, how do you explain your technology aiding known terrorist organizations?”

Christ. Straight for the jugular then. The corner of my lip twitches as I slide off my suit jacket and unhurriedly drape it over the back of my large black leather chair. “It is regrettable that international enterprises have limited control in territories that experience civil unrest.” I straighten the cuffs on my shirt with a sharp tug on each and then lower myself into the chair. “We’re working closely with the international guard to reduce pirate attacks on our supply routes…”

I reel off the pre-prepared statement given to me by my head of PR first thing, but beneath the emotionless facade lives a secret beacon of burning anger. Anger thatmytechnology was used as part of an initiative to kill innocent people. The security within my supply chain is second to none, so I’ve got private investigators working around the clock to try and find out how the fuck it happened. And I won’t stop until we do.

I learned to play politician before I even finished high school. How to answer questions without really giving the information people are looking for. How to direct focus onto other, more prevalent issues. Most people are malleable and easy to direct, but given the downturn of Devonshire’s mouth, I’m not sure she’s one of them.

“Still, isn’t ityourjob to ensure the security of your own supply network?” She cuts through the flack and drives down her point, attempting to isolate me as the solitary culprit.

Oh, she’s smart, but I’m smarter.

“It is our job as worldwide providers to ensure we comply with all international shipping security regulations, which we take great effort to do.” I retain my casual stance and lazily straighten my tie, reeling off several of our largest competitors’ security breaches over the last couple of years. All of which rival, if not exceed, our own.

Her wide mouth flattens in annoyance. She’s not the only one who came prepared. I might appear civilized, but this right here is my gladiator arena, and I will roar louder than any rabid lion put before me. Even one in Italian loafers and ridiculous glasses.