Page 35 of Dream Date With the Millionaire
“You really think James Richardson hired you to be one of his lackeys because of your IQ?”
Her mouth tightened. “I’ve made a difference at Hookamate.com.”
“Oh, yeah, I’d be real proud of the results of your spying on me.”
“You?”
Bryce ignored the confusion in Dani’s eyes. He pretended not to see her lower lip tremble. He focused on all the problems Blinddatebrides.com had been having with scammers. Problems he should have been investigating instead of wasting his time with her. “I used to work with the guy. He’s had some sort of vendetta against me since I left.”
“You worked with him, so that means you’re…?”
“Bryce Delaney.”
Her face paled. “The founder and CEO of Blinddatebrides.com.”
He nodded once.
She slumped against the futon. The hurt in her eyes told him that she’d had no idea who he was. At least she hadn’t been using him to get information. The realization didn’t make him feel any less betrayed.
“You knew about me this entire time.” Disbelief and anger dripped from each word.
“I didn’t know why you were on the site, but a chat filter picked up the words I’m a spy.” He kept his voice cool, calm. “We’ve been trying to figure out what that meant ever since.”
“We?”
“My security team and me.”
She winced. “So all of…um…our dates…”
“An investigation.”
Who was the one who was lying now? Bryce didn’t care.
Dani bit her lip. “So while I was spying on Blinddatebrides.com, you were spying on me.”
“Investigating you,” he countered.
“Without my knowledge.”
“Yes.”
She sat only two feet away from him, but the space felt insurmountable. He liked her. Or had liked her. He wasn’t sure what he felt now.
She glared at him. “Guess that gives new meaning to your user name.”
“Don’t put this on me.” He stood, not wanting to be drawn into an argument. “You’re the one who broke the terms of service. Everyone’s wondered why Hookamate.com’s traffic ranking has been up for the past four months. Now I know the answer. Were you there to steal content or was hacking and sabotaging the site part of your job description, too?”
“None of the above.” She rose and walked to the opposite side of the room. “I gave James screen shots, but I never stole anything. I used the site to get ideas and create new content for ours. Traffic is up because I was doing my job. And a damn good job at that.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “And I never did anything else on your site. No hacking. No sabotage. I might have broken your TOS, but I followed every other rule, especially when another user contacted me. That’s why I turned down dates. It wasn’t fair to lead them on when I had no interest in dating.”
“I find it very hard to believe you.” His words sounded harsh to his own ears. Suddenly, he didn’t care about remaining in control. “What did you say that night after your date with Gymguy? ‘Players and liars are everywhere.’ Guess you spoke from experience.”
“You, too.” She drew her lips into a thin line. “You admitted following Hookamate’s traffic rankings. Every company checks out their competitors. It’s irresponsible not to. Yes, I crossed the line when I joined the site, but I was only doing my job.”
“Your job?” Bryce’s temper flared. “Joining a community, making friends, going on dates so you could spy. Having men fall…”
Damn her. He’d known about the red flags, yet he’d wanted to believe she was on the level.
So much for taking care of his Web site, customers and company. He was no smarter than those suckers who got conned out of their hard-earned money by responding to foreign spammers’ e-mails asking for money to be wired overseas.
Still curiosity got the better of him. “Why did you go out with me?”
“James wanted me to put together a clientele profile and see what clients really thought of Blinddatebrides.com. I only went out with you and Gymguy. No one else contacted me after that.”
“I turned off your participation in the compatibility matching program and site search engine.”
“Why?”
“The investigation,” Bryce admitted. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t a troublemaker and trying to cause problems with clients.”
She pursed her lips. “You didn’t want me going out with any other guys.”
A beat passed, and another. “Maybe not.”
Definitely not. And, from the expression on her face, she knew it.
