The Business of Pleasure

CHAPTER TWO

AJ TOOK A showy swallow of her drink as she pulled her feet off his desk. She hated to gulp down the expensive stuff, but she needed to move her glass into her left hand, and giving him the impression she was a little tipsy might help sell the next part of her plan.

“Neat trick.” AJ tipped her chin in the direction of his bourbon. “Tell me, does everyone come when you call?” she asked, the words low and suggestive as she grabbed her purse in her right hand and got to her feet.

The key to a believable stumble was to commit, trust your mark to catch you, and then keep the response understated. No overwrought flailing or ridiculous exclamations. Even a layman could see the hammy stuff from a mile away.

With a credible slip, AJ widened her eyes—little details were important—bringing her purse hand up and bracing it against Liam’s chest in an attempt to catch herself. A quick twist of her wrist ensured the satin lined up right about where that interior suit pocket that housed his phone should be.

The remainder of her drink sloshed perilously close to the rim of the glass before she fully regained her balance. As far as misdirection went, it was a nice touch, even if she did say so herself. And she knew it had worked by the way Liam’s palm had landed on her hip to steady her as he turned his attention from her glass back to her face.

He let his gaze wander down to her mouth and back up. The low hum of arousal between them intensified. “As a rule, they call after I make them come.”

Her knees went soft, and his hand tightened on her hip.

“You okay?”

Was she okay? Sure, if you ignored the part where she’d spent the last four days figuring out how to break into this man’s bedroom without being detected, and now all she could think about was how much she wanted to take him up on the implied invitation to join him there.

Goddamn, she needed to get laid. Usually, when the itch got bad enough, she went out and took what she needed. No fuss, no commitment. But if she was being honest, no one had lit her up for a while.

Not like this.

“Guess the bourbon’s hitting a little harder than I thought.”

It was a lie, of course. She wasn’t drunk. You couldn’t run a job if you weren’t 100 percent in control of all your faculties. And yeah, matching wits with a worthy adversary always revved her up a bit, but this...this hormonal glitch was another level altogether.

“Perhaps a little fresh air would help.” He took his hand off her hip, reaching beneath the lip of the desk, and the twin sounds of music and laughter rushed into the room.

AJ glanced over her shoulder to watch as the window closest to them retracted into the wall, granting them access to a wrought iron terrace.

When she turned back, he seemed closer than he had a moment ago.

God, he smelled good. Warm and sexy. Expensive. Eau de Rich Guy.

Yeah, distance sounded like the smart plan right now.

“Perhaps it would.” She meant it to sound mocking—who the fuck said perhaps anymore?—but it came out a little breathless.

She pulled her purse back from his chest, tucking it securely under her arm as she straightened. That should have been plenty of time for the malware to install, she figured, turning and stepping through the space where the window used to be, taking a bracing sip of her drink as the warmth of the night surrounded her.

“Some party.”

He glanced around the glittering mass of guests amid the fountains and twinkle lights, chatting and laughing while they flitted around. Seeing. Being seen. “You don’t like it?”

“Not really my scene.” Pomp and circumstance made her itchy.

“Really?” Liam ran a hand over his jaw. “I thought all women loved a reason to dress up and drink a man’s bourbon.”

Cynical words. AJ’s brows lifted as she realized for the first time that he was a little itchy, too. “Huh.”

“Huh, what?”

AJ turned to face him, leaning a hip against the balustrade. “Just drinking in the astounding realization that the tech world’s most infamous international party boy hates his own parties.”

He shot her a what-are-you-talking-about look and he lifted his drink. The muscles in his throat worked as he swallowed. “What makes you say that?”

“Besides the fact that you’re up here talking to me instead of mingling? I’m good at reading people. And I have a doctorate in the nuances of cynicism. You just bypassed world-weary and jumped straight to jaded.”

He considered that for a moment. “Some might argue that talking to a beautiful woman is well within the definition of mingling.”

“You’ve purposefully ignored three flirtatious waves and the arrival of a senator.”

“Impressive. I could use you on my security team.” Liam blew out a breath, and AJ didn’t miss that his gaze went directly to said senator, who was holding court next to one of the tiered fountains that dotted his property.

“So is that what you think of me?” Liam asked. “Jaded international party boy?”

She didn’t buy the casual spin he put on it. It sounded like a real question, and she let her femme fatale act slip for a minute. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to think?”

The world went still for a second, as though the brief flash of understanding that passed between them in that moment had been captured, a photograph in time. Then AJ blinked, and real life resumed.

“I’ve always found it a tactical advantage, the ability to disappear into the stereotype.” Liam’s gaze turned pointed. “Much easier to get what you want when people underestimate you, don’t you think?”

Danger prickled along AJ’s spine, and for the second time that night, she had to actively loosen her muscles. Rhetorical question. He didn’t know anything. First rule of surviving on the street—if you act guilty, you get caught. She might not pick pockets anymore, but she’d do well to remember the lesson. “You don’t seem like a man who has too much trouble getting what he wants.”

“Not usually.” He eyed her attentively. “But I guess we’ll find out.”

That trickle of lust she’d been fighting since he’d walked into his office upgraded itself to a gush, but before she did something monumentally stupid, his phone vibrated, and they both dropped their gazes to his chest.

“Aren’t you going to get that?”

Liam shook his head, and AJ tipped hers to the side, studying him. “I’ve never known a titan of industry to ignore the siren song of a phone call.”

“Do you know many? Titans?”

“A few.”

His phone vibrated again. AJ stepped closer, reached toward him, and when he made no move to stop her, she slipped her hand inside his suit and pulled out his phone.

“Dom,” she announced, reading the contact info on the display. “As in dominatrix? Are you late for a bit of the whip and tickle?” The phone continued to buzz insistently against her palm. “You must be a good customer. She seems eager for contact.”

“Dom as in Dominic. Business acquaintance. He could probably pull off the leather, but judging by his golf game, I doubt his mastery with the riding crop. He’s not very athletic.”

“Well, color me disappointed.” With a twist of her wrist, she held the phone out to him, screen up. “Might be important.”

Liam took the phone and tucked it back in his suit without so much as glancing at it. “Work has a tendency to consume you if you let it.”

AJ turned back to the balcony, leaning her forearms against the railing. She liked it when work consumed her. Kept that bad shit from creeping into her brain. “You don’t let it?”

“As I believe we already established, I live to party.”

She laughed at that. “You’re so full of shit.”

She felt his eyes on her profile, the burn of their focus. Barroom talk was out of place at a cocktail party. She probably shouldn’t have said that.

“You see?” he asked, his voice deliciously husky. “I told you.”

The tease worked, and she gave in to temptation, looked over at him. He had a tiny jagged scar on his chin. “What?”

His gaze roamed her face in the dim light. “I’d remember you.”

Something in his eyes, so dark, ran through her like an electrical current. Her laugh sounded fake, even to her own ears. “Sure you would. Just like you remember everyone else at this shindig?”

Liam flickered a surveying glance at the grounds, teeming with people. His easy shrug of confirmation sharpened her focus.

“There’s got to be two hundred people here.” Two hundred and twelve, according to her research. All required to RSVP for the code that would grant them access tonight. And another thirteen who’d politely declined, which had essentially nuked their bar codes so they’d been of no use to her. This had been a tough party to crash.

“Give or take,” he said, with a sip of bourbon.

She turned toward the terrace railing and rested her elbows on it, staring down at the busy garden below. There were people milling about, but her eyes snagged on a mismatched couple almost directly beneath her, illuminated by the fancy lights strung all over the grounds.

“Who’re those two?” she asked, with a head tip at a stout, balding man who’d cornered one of the waitstaff so he could raid the shrimp platter while the gorgeous woman on his arm guzzled champagne with alacrity.

Liam turned to see her pick, and the sleeve of his jacket brushed her upper arm, unleashing a wave of goose bumps across her skin. “Phillip Henderson and his much younger wife, Tara Billings-Henderson.”

Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You could be saying any names. How would I know if you’re full of shit or not?”

He leaned forward on the railing and raised his voice a little. “Phillip. Tara. So glad you could make it tonight.”

The mismatched twosome lifted their heads like a couple of well-trained Labradors at the sound of their names, eager for their host’s attention.

“Wouldn’t miss it!” boomed the bald guy, yelling much louder than necessary and affording AJ a full view of all his teeth and his mouthful of masticated shrimp. “You always throw the best parties!”

The blonde dropped her husband’s arm like she’d been burned, executed a shampoo-commercial-worthy hair shake and waggled her fingers. “There you are! I’ve been looking for you all night. Save me a dance?”

In a nonanswer, he raised his glass to them, took a sip of bourbon and turned his whole body to face AJ.

“Super classy guest list,” she complimented, hoping the irony didn’t make her sound petty. At least they were on the guest list.

A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips.

The sexy pulse of the base-heavy track the pool-deck DJ was spinning spilled through the night, making her want to dance like she did in the club. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and sway with him while his hands rode the small of her back, the curve of her ass, pulling her close so she could grind her hips against his while he kissed her neck...

Shit.

She was in big trouble, and the look on his face did nothing but confirm it.

“I’m Liam.”

AJ almost laughed. “Oh, I know.”

“Then it appears you have me at a disadvantage.”

Her hand tightened on her glass at the accuracy of his statement. But it wouldn’t be true for much longer if she didn’t get her shit together. She wasn’t here for his animal magnetism, she was here for his tech.

The reminder gave her the strength to shoot him a cool smile. “Not a position you’re used to, I’m sure.”

He stepped closer. It was disconcerting, the way his broad shoulders blocked out the view of anything but him.

“On the contrary, I pride myself on being familiar with a wide array of positions.”

AJ swallowed, ignoring the urge to mess him up a bit, rake her hands through his hair, tug his tie askew, get him a little bit naked. “You’re handsomer than I expected.” The thought slipped past her lips and raised his eyebrows.

“That didn’t sound like a compliment.”

She gave him a once-over and shrugged. “Kind of cliché is all. I mean, hella smart, stupid rich and disgustingly handsome? It’s a little much. Most people settle for two out of three.”

His gaze roamed her face. “I don’t believe in settling.” His voice was low and intimate and vibrated at the perfect frequency to tighten her nipples. “Tell me your name.”

“A—Robin.” She remembered her alias at the last second. Damn. Maybe that bourbon had affected her a little. She’d been this close to saying AJ. That would have been a rookie mistake, giving him her real name. Well, real enough, anyway.

“Robin,” he repeated, leaning forward. Or was she leaning forward?

Either way, their breaths mingled, and her breasts ached for his touch, and being horizontal sounded like a way better idea than being vertical because being vertical was highly overrated as a state of being anyway.

It would just figure that the only man to light her up, to really light her up, in the last four years would be the one man who was completely off-limits to her. A mark. Nothing more.

GD sex hormones. This was no time to be all hopped up on dopamine and serotonin and Liam Kearney’s mouth.

“Liam! Hey! Awesome party!”

The intrusion was perfectly timed, and AJ took a step back from temptation and sent a cursory glance at the bikini-clad girls beckoning from the lawn below them.

“Why are you hiding up there? Meet us in the pool!”

“Yeah. Come get wet with us!”

When AJ looked back at Liam, his gaze was still locked on her, and she ignored the zing of heat in her belly.

“It seems I’ve monopolized you for far too long. Your fan club is getting restless.” The rueful note in her voice wasn’t fully for show. “But it was nice to meet the man behind the legend. Thanks for giving me a reason to dress up and drink your bourbon.” She swallowed the final mouthful and pressed her empty glass into his left hand, ignoring the spike in her pulse when her fingers brushed his. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go freshen up.”

“It was nice meeting you, too.” A noticeable beat slipped by before he added, “Robin.”

Something about that pause made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Liam raised his hand, gesturing toward the house with her glass. “You’re looking for the first door on the left at the top of the stairs.”

The directions startled her. “What?”

“The bathroom,” he clarified, his voice easy though his gaze remained sharp. “You wanted to freshen up. That’s what you said, right?”

AJ’s smile was deliberately casual. “Yes. That’s exactly where I’m headed. Thank you.” She knew that, of course. She knew every inch of his sprawling estate, thanks to the blueprints she’d nicked from the city’s website.

Not that she couldn’t have gotten them through regular channels...but why wait for the mind-numbingly slow wheels of bureaucracy to turn when you could just make the internet your bitch? Instead of filling out forms and weeks of waiting, she already knew where the bathroom was, and where his bedroom was, and where the panic room in the back of his bedroom closet that he’d reconfigured into a server room was.

“It’s been entirely my pleasure, I assure you.”

Thanks to emphasis, what might have been a bland pleasantry from anyone else held some heat. Enough to make AJ wish their night could have ended differently.

Ignoring all her good sense, she tightened her grip on her purse and stepped close enough that her breasts pressed against his chest. “Well, if this is your idea of pleasure, it’s probably good we stopped now.” AJ leaned in, then leaned in a little more, until her lips brushed his ear. “My definition might have killed you.”

She pulled back in time to see Liam’s mouth tip up at the corner. “It sounds like it would have been a hell of a way to go.”

God, it had been forever since she’d felt this...alive. Maybe a little walk on the wild side was exactly what she’d needed. “Oh, it would have been. I assure you.”

And with that, she left Liam on the balcony and headed into the house.

Playtime was over. She had work to do.

CHAPTER THREE

LIAM KEARNEY HATED being bored.

Sadly, it was becoming the status quo.

His personal life had devolved into a slideshow of inanely shallow parties, forgettably beautiful women and exceedingly nauseating sycophants. Sometimes he got the impression that he’d become the thing he hated most in the world...a black-card-carrying member of the entitled elite.

His mother.

Usually he could bury that irritating thought in work, because his professional life was interesting enough. At least it had been, until a month and a half ago.

That’s when Max Whitfield, his rival in the race for the next step in digital cryptocurrency, had grown a conscience and confessed to the world that someone had hacked him, so he was pushing back the release date of his SecurePay app until he’d gotten to the bottom of it. He wanted to make sure that the customers who trusted him with their business were getting the kind of superior product they associated with the Whitfield Industries name...or whatever PR bullshit his sister had spun for him.

All he’d heard in that press conference was that Max had folded and handed him the win. Liam had been planning on taking it anyway, of course, but it would have been so much more satisfying to do it in a fair fight.

He thought briefly of his past dealings with John Beckett, and his more recent dealings with the dead man’s son, Aidan. Max’s former father figure and former best friend, respectively. And he knew Max blamed him for the former part on both counts. Buying John’s code hadn’t been illegal per se, but Liam’s gut had told him the old drunk wasn’t totally on the level when he’d shown up, looking for a deal.

Not his finest hour, but Liam had been young, and hungry, and bent on proving himself to all comers. Passing on John’s raw genius and sending him back to Whitfield Industries because it was the sappy, good-guy “right thing to do” was not an option he’d entertained.

Then Beckett Senior wrapped his car around a tree, Beckett Junior had skipped town, and Max’s side of the rivalry had turned personal.

A tiny ember of guilt tried to flare, but Liam drowned it with a healthy swallow of bourbon. He couldn’t have known how things would turn out when he’d made that deal.

Still, Liam owed Max a fair fight, and he’d been looking forward to it, to putting the products each of them had developed to market in a cryptocurrency battle royale and see once and for all who came out on top.

Max’s software would be good—why have a rival if he didn’t have the chops to push you to be your best?—but it was no match for Cybercore’s hardware.

The Shield was a status symbol, one you could display on a watchband, a bracelet, a necklace or a belt. Max could only sell people the SecurePay app once, but The Shield came in seven different colors, a rotating selection of limited-edition prints, and a coordinating line of accessories.

And that was why Liam was going to wipe the floor with him.

Well, he would have.

Now that Max had temporarily dropped out of the game, Liam’s inevitable victory was hollow and unfulfilling.

He thrived on testing his mettle against a worthy opponent.

Liam stared contemplatively at the empty glass in his left hand. And speaking of worthy opponents...

He wasn’t bored anymore.

Most definitely a party crasher...but how she’d done it was what intrigued him most. This was an exclusive bash he was throwing.

He knew she hadn’t breached the perimeter. Not only couldn’t she have scaled the wall in that dress—God, that dress—and those heels, but his new electronic fence tech was unbeatable...which was why the government was about to make him even wealthier than he already was.

That meant she had not just duped a bar code, which would have flagged her for using someone else’s invitation, but created a new one that let her through the gates under the alias Robin Capucha, without registering as an extra person and tripping the maximum guest number warning, either.

The cockiness of casually breaching his top-notch security by giving Robin Hood a Spanish flair was...ballsy. And intriguing. And pretty fucking hot.

Someone below called his name, but he pretended not to hear as he stepped back into his decoy office—he kept all the really good tech downstairs—and abandoned the glasses on the desk. Then he pulled his phone from his jacket to check the progress on the facial recognition he was running off the security footage from the front gate, where all arriving guests had to check in. No match on her so far.

Liam tapped a finger against the edge of his phone. “What are you up to?”

As if in answer, his phone buzzed again. This time, he answered it.

“Dom. What have you got?”

“Not sure. All the cameras in your office are now pointed at the ceiling, and I can’t get them back online.”

Good to know he could still outsmart his employees. “That was me.”

“I knew it!” His voice got muffled, as though he was covering the mouthpiece. “I told you it was Liam,” he gloated, and then his words were back to full strength. “I told Mina it was you. She and I have a hundred bucks riding on who solves your office cam puzzle first.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, we just had a camera go out. Nothing but static in the library. Nobody on the feed prior to, so either it’s busted, someone hit it remotely or you’ve got a tech-savvy ghost.”

Aha.

The library. It housed a built-in safe behind a false picture frame, like something out of a movie. He’d considered having it removed during the last set of renos, but there was something antiquated about it that appealed to him. And it was a smart hit—a room with a secret was a target that would draw focus.

“Wanted to let you know, but you’re a hard man to get ahold of tonight.”

Liam’s focus drifted to the tumbler on his desk. There was a faint imprint of her lips on the glass, the same deep pink as her lipstick. “I was busy working out a little puzzle of my own.”

Dom laughed. “Yeah, I know what you were busy with. I’m the one who told you ‘the puzzle’ was nosing around your office in the first place, remember? You want me to dispatch some muscle to the book room to investigate?”

“In a minute. First, check the other feeds for looping. Start with the west stairs to the basement and the hallway outside the master bedroom. Work out from there.”

“There’s no way anyone pulled something as bush-league as a loop with Mina and I on the—Jesus H. Christ in a porno, that’s a bingo on the hallway cam. Goddamn, this is clean. It didn’t trigger any of the fail-safes.”

Liam’s blood picked up, like a predator who’d just scented his prey.

Definitely not bored.

“Send someone to the library anyway. Low priority. Tell security not to cause a scene. And get the cameras back online. I’ll take care of the bedroom myself.”

Liam stowed his phone away, helpless against his own smirk of satisfaction as he hit the button that would close the window to the balcony. It had been a long time since anyone had gotten under his skin like she did. And longer still since anyone had gotten the drop on him.

Gorgeous and brilliant was a hell of a combination.

Liam savored the rest of his bourbon, contemplating the upcoming battle of wits, giving his sexy little interloper a few minutes’ head start on whatever she had planned.

Then he pulled the doors to the office closed behind him and returned to the party, placating attention-seekers with a distracted smile and nod as he headed toward the stairs that led to his bedroom.