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It was a stereotypical Seattle day when Josie and Spencer walked into Starbucks the next morning. The clouds overhead were low and heavy, and a steady drizzle coated everything it touched. Fall weather had kicked into gear, and the Emerald City was living up to its reputation as one of the rainiest cities in the country. As normal as that was, that didn’t make it feel good. The gray weather seemed downtrodden... almost ominous...
Not a good sign, given the meeting they were about to have.
Josie braced herself as she looked around the coffee shop. It was about as clichéd as you could get, too—meeting at a Starbucks in Seattle—but she didn’t see Nolan. Good. She wanted to set the stage and get herself grounded. For the first time in a long time, she had a course of action. She knew what steps she was going to take.
She was so ready for this saga to be over.
She glanced at the counter, but the thought of coffee made her stomach hurt. “Did you want to get something?” she asked Spencer.
“I’m fine.”
He wasn’t acting “fine.” It was as if they’d swapped roles. His mood was darker than the weather outside, and she could feel his edginess scraping at her. He definitely didn’t need any more caffeine. Half the pot of coffee had been gone when she’d woken up. She didn’t know how long he’d been up, but she sensed it had been a while.
The question was, doing what?
She chose a table along the wall that looked out on the street.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked as he took the seat next to her.
She was prepared. Talking to Luke and Kylie had turned out to be the best thing they could have done. She was through hiding things. Together, they’d come up with a plan she could follow. “Nolan can’t intimidate me anymore.”
A hard smirk formed on Spencer’s tired face. “You’re sexy when you’re on your game.”
She was surprised to have to fight back a smile.
“It feels good to be doing something.” Anything proactive. She was tired of waiting to see what her evil ex would do next.
Spencer looped his arm around her chair and rubbed his thumb against her shoulder. “I’ve got your back.”
It was something she’d come to depend upon.
Her eyes narrowed on the door when she saw short-cropped, curly hair just above the Starbucks insignia. “Good, because he’s here.”
Spencer’s tension jumped when the door to the coffee shop opened, but Josie went eerily calm. Nolan had been controlling her digital life, but he wasn’t so big and bad in the flesh. Disdain bubbled inside her.
He swept his hand over his damp hair as he surveyed the people inside the restaurant. When he spotted her, a cocky expression settled on to his face—until Spencer rose from his seat beside her.
Talk about big and bad.
Nolan stopped halfway to the table. Josie glanced at Spencer. He looked nothing like the cute computer guy who’d first stopped into her office. He’d turned into a muscled, intimidating protector.
She jumped to her feet when her ex-boyfriend turned sharply toward the door. “Nolan, wait.” She caught Spencer’s arm. “Sit. Please. We need to talk to him.”
For once, he ignored her. His feet stayed planted as he faced off against her blackmailer.
Nolan took a wide berth as he approached the table. “You brought muscle?”
Spencer’s biceps flexed. “She brought her boyfriend. I wasn’t going to let her meet with you alone, you bottom dweller.”
“Spencer.” Josie sat down in her chair and tugged on his arm. Pride swelled in her chest, but she couldn’t let Nolan see. He needed to think that they were weak, on the ropes. “Don’t make things worse.”
“Boyfriend?” Nolan let out a laugh. “When did you start moving fast?”
She caught Spencer’s shoulder. At her stern look, he sat back in his chair, about as laid-back as an irritated guard dog sensing a threat.
Josie focused on Nolan and locked her emotions up tight. She had to get what she needed from him, no matter how hard he pushed her buttons.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m willing to deal.”
He cautiously pulled back a chair on the opposite side of the table. What he wanted from her was apparently important enough for him to risk it. “Keep your tough guy on a leash. If he comes at me one more time, those photos are going out before I hit the door.”
“None of us want that,” she said. “Certainly not you. Give those pictures to me, and I’ll make contacts for you. I’ll start by introducing you to bigwigs at Afire. Today. I can make it happen.”
“Afire?” he sneered. “I don’t care about those corporate sellouts. I want to be put in touch with investors, venture capitalists... people who matter.”
She’d done that when his company had been at Start ’er Up, but there was a reason why he hadn’t been able to attract any funding. “You know that’s why Afire supports the accelerator, don’t you? It’s to keep its eye on technologies with potential so they can invest or buy out the business.”
Nolan blinked as if the concept had never occurred to him, but covered his surprise. “Keep talking.”
Josie breathed deeply. The hook had been set. “We have meetings next week to start looking at the next class of companies coming in. It’s a good time to get in front of the committee.”
He nodded slowly. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
It was more difficult than he knew. She was getting sick of playing meek and mild.
“But you need to do something for me.” She held out her hand. “Your phone. Let me delete the photos.”
Nolan looked toward Spencer as he weighed the trade. “No.”
Anger leapt in Josie’s chest, but she tamped it back down. “You promised.”
“I did no such thing.”
“Then I won’t introduce you.”
“Then the pictures go out.”
Prickles ran down the back of her neck. She fought not to let him rattle her. “So you’re just going to hold them over my head indefinitely?”
“Sounds like a good idea to me.” His chair scraped against the floor as he pushed it back. “Set up the meeting. If it goes well, I’ll delete some of your sexy shots. If you get me back into Start ’er Up, we’ll talk about deleting the rest.”
Josie curled her hands into fists atop the table. “Nolan.”
“It’s called leverage, Jo Jo, and you don’t have any.” He held his hand up to his ear, with his thumb and pinky splayed. “Call me. Today.” He stood and smiled down at them. “It’s a good deal, the best you’re going to get.”
“Sit. Down.”
Josie flinched when Spencer spoke up. It was the first thing he’d said since Nolan had arrived at the table, but she’d never heard him sound like that before. Cold. Unyielding. Scary. He didn’t move from his lounging position, and he didn’t raise his voice, yet Nolan stopped on a dime.
Spencer’s gaze was chilling. “Let’s talk about leverage.”
* * *
Spencer’s throat felt like ice, and his vision was narrowing. He pushed out Nolan’s chair with his foot. The long screech scraped along his nerve endings. “Unless you just want to feel the hammer when it drops?”
The guy’s preppy face lost some of its confidence. Spencer raked him with a look. No-good Nolan was built like a fireplug, but he’d put on weight since that photograph at the picnic. He had frat boy written all over him—someone who’d gotten his way too much in life because of his daddy’s name or his mommy’s money.
It was time he met with the new authority of the age.
Spencer leaned forward when Nolan dropped back into his chair. Yeah, that’s right. The candy-ass bully should be scared. Spencer braced his elbows on the table and wrapped his left hand over his right fist. He was running strictly on caffeine and adrenaline now, and it made him raw.
He really didn’t like this guy. Truly didn’t like him.
Nolan shot an angry look at Josie. “If he lays a finger on me, you’ll be the one who pays.”
“See now, that’s where you’re underestimating me,” Spencer said. He cocked his head. “I may look like the brawn, but she and I have kind of a brains/brains thing going on.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You either leave Josie alone, or I’ll hit you where it hurts.”
“Yeah, yeah. Right here in the middle of Starbucks?”
“I’m talking about your identity, numb nuts, starting with your banking account, number 382X841K3. Routing number five-five-five something-something-something. I have it bookmarked.”
Josie’s gasp was audible. Nolan jerked in his seat, but then went still. His chest wasn’t even rising and falling with his breaths.
Spencer went in for the kill.
“And your credit accounts. There are three of them, aren’t there, including your company account?” He cracked his knuckles. “See, here’s the thing. You pissed off one of her skinny, dorky dweeb friends. That was a really big mistake on your part.”
Nolan went as gray as the sky outside, but his eyes glowed with fury. He let out a hiss of anger and turned on Josie. “The deal is off. Your career is dead.”
He pulled out his phone.
Spencer didn’t flinch. “You’ll want to think long and hard about this, because once you touch her, your life is mine. I’m prepped to penetrate every digital orifice you have. I’ll take over your printer, your modem, and your router. Your coffee machine will brew at two o’clock in the morning, and your Spotify radio station will only play polkas.”
Reality was hitting the guy. Spencer could see it, but he kept going.
“I have your library card PIN. Your garage door opener will constantly be on the wrong frequency. I’ll even control that fancy fish tank you bought. Are you getting me?”
Blotches of red colored Nolan’s cheeks. “You can’t do all that. You’re lying.”
“Are you willing to make that bet? All I have to do is...” Spencer pulled out his own phone, and his finger hovered over the screen.
Shootout time.
“Wait. No. Don’t.” Nolan didn’t even wait for the draw.
Spencer’s eyes felt gritty, but he could see every fleck of fear in the man’s eyes. It was about time he felt some of what he’d been dishing out.
“Wh-what do you want from me?” Nolan asked.
Spencer’s heart jumped, but he kept his voice steady. Calm. Intimidating. “It’s easy. Give her your phone.”
Nolan gritted his teeth so hard that his lips nearly disappeared. “I’ll delete half of them.”
Spencer’s muscles clenched, ready to propel him over the table at the bastard, but he locked himself in place. He shook his head. “As long as those photos are out there, I’m out there—and I think Josie can handle the repercussions of you following through on your threats better than you can handle what I’ll dish out. Know why? Because in those secret photos you took of her, she looks phenomenal.”
He and Nolan stared each other down, at an impasse.
Josie held out her hand. “Let me delete the photos from your phone, Nolan, and I’ll introduce you like I promised.”
“And him? What does he do?”
“I do what she tells me to do,” Spencer said.
The struggle was clear on Nolan’s face. It was the only deal he was going to get, but he still grumbled when he passed his phone across the table. Josie’s hand was steady as she took it, but Spencer could feel her relief sweeping over him. She delved down into the camera app. He knew when she found the pictures because her breathing got faster. He watched over her shoulder as she selected the whole of them and pressed delete.
Her sigh nearly shook the windows.
“Let me see that,” he said.
Nolan grabbed for his phone. “No, you’re not messing with it. This wasn’t part of the agreement.”
Spencer held the phone back, on this side of the keep-away game for the first time. He got no pleasure out of it. “I’m just checking to see if you put backups in the cloud.”
Josie folded her arms and sat back in her chair.
Nolan relented. There wasn’t much else he could do. His leverage was gone.
Spencer got rid of the final copies and passed the phone back. It was clear that Josie had stayed in her old boyfriend’s presence as long as she could stand. She grabbed her purse and stood. Spencer followed her lead, but felt dizzy when he moved too fast. He was working on zero sleep.
Nolan’s coloring came back. Red slashes rode along his cheekbones and crept up his neck. He jumped to his feet in front of them, blocking their way to the door. “When will you get that meeting set up?”
Spencer reached for Josie to pull her out of harm’s way, but she stood her ground.
“Oh,” she said. “Why don’t we just handle that now?”
She turned to the table of coffee drinkers next to them. “Nolan, this is Luke McAllister, the head of Afire’s security division.”
Luke stood and propped his hands on his hips. The look he leveled on the blackmailer was steely.
“And across the table there is Matt Miller, Afire’s chief counsel.”
Nolan took a step back, and then another. He turned to bolt for the door, but ran smack dab into the third man in the group, one she didn’t know.
“Special Agent Wong, FBI, Seattle Division,” he said. He pulled out a set of handcuffs. “Nolan Kemp, you’re under arrest.”
Josie’s jaw dropped, but Spencer felt nothing but success as he watched the restraints go on Nolan’s wrists.
Afire’s bigwig lawyer didn’t look as happy. A scowl was on his face as he turned to Luke. “Why’d you let them delete the pictures? We didn’t talk about that.”
“Because as long as they were out there, they were a threat,” Luke said, “to Josie, Start ’er Up, and Afire.”
“But we could have used them as evidence.”
“You’ve got the texts, the voicemail, and witnesses.” Luke patted him on the back. “Come on. This is why they pay you the big bucks.”
Spencer tried to hold back, but couldn’t. As tough as he’d just acted, he was a white hat at heart. “You can see what information you can get out of Photo Giraffe. You’ll probably have to use your legal magic, but they didn’t shut down his account for nothing.”
There was a strong possibility that Photo Giraffe still had the files locked up with Nolan’s account, but Spencer refused to tell Josie that. They were sealed tight. She’d worried about them enough.
“What about him?” Nolan demanded. His entire face was red as he jerked away from the FBI agent. “Did you hear the threats her computer geek made?”
“About hacking your fish tank?” the agent said. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
Spencer kept his face passive. It wasn’t the fish tank, but where it could lead that was the threat. It was one of many devices on Nolan’s home network. He’d never hurt any poor little fishes.
“We’ll check all that out, but let’s focus on your extortion attempt first,” Agent Wong said. “Come on, let’s go down to headquarters.”
The FBI could check, but they wouldn’t find anything. Spencer hadn’t done anything. Yet.
Seeing an opportunity, Josie whipped out her phone. She took pictures as the agent walked Nolan to the door in handcuffs. She wasn’t the only one watching. Around the restaurant, coffee aficionados were pointing at the scene and whispering. One of the baristas was already on the phone with headquarters just a few blocks away.
With a few pushes of some buttons, Josie posted her own damaging photos on the Internet. The smile on her face lit the dreary day. “Oh, sweet justice.”
Oh, yeah. Spencer grinned. The sleepless night had totally been worth it.
Afire’s lawyer stopped beside them. “Those things you told him... Employee to company lawyer, did you do them?”
“No,” Spencer said. That didn’t mean he didn’t have everything mapped out on how to do them. Between him and Kylie, they’d checked this guy out closer than his proctologist. If needed, they could do even more damage than he’d threatened.
But things had gone according to plan.
Luke’s plan, at least.
Spencer turned to his boss. He’d worried that as an ex-Secret Service agent, Luke would want to keep the pictures as evidence too, but he’d seen past the short-term threat to the long-term. He’d found a way to thread the needle to satisfy the lawman and the company man inside him—although he didn’t know anything about what his security team employee or his girlfriend had done behind the scenes. Spencer vowed to keep it that way.
Luke looked him over with a critical eye. “You look like hell.”
Spencer winced. He felt like it, too. With adrenaline seeping out of him, he didn’t know if he was weaving on his feet or if he was imagining it. He saw Luke stretch out what looked like two hands. Spencer reached for one and got lucky.
“Take the rest of the day off,” his boss said. His handshake was firm. “Get some sleep. You deserve it.”
Josie flew into Luke’s arms with a hug that was fierce. “Thank you for all your help.”
The tough guy hugged her back. “Next time, don’t wait so long to come to me.”
“There’s not going to be a next time,” Spencer said. He held out his arm. “And give me back my girl.”
Luke held up his hands, and Josie came to Spencer’s side. She felt warm and supportive. Boundlessly happy. It did funny things to his insides.
“I’ll take him home and then come in to the office,” she said.
“Don’t bother. Take the time. I’ll pass on the word that the threat has been abated,” Luke said. “The Start ’er Up team shut it down.”
* * *
Josie snuggled against Spencer as they walked out of the store. Other patrons were still watching and talking, trying to figure out what was going on. She could feel their eyes on them as they walked down the street. Outside, the drizzle continued and the wind blew, but nothing was going to put a damper on her joy. She might be stepping in puddles, but she felt like she was floating. They walked under an awning over a shop down the street, and she tugged Spencer to a stop.
“We did it.” Her heart, which had beat so steadily throughout the interaction with Nolan, was now pounding fast. “We actually got those pictures back.”
She’d known that was the goal, but she hadn’t truly believed things would turn out all right in the end. She’d been on the losing side for so long.
Spencer wrapped his arms around her, strong and protective. “I knew you could do it. You were rock solid, Strawberry.”
“Me? You were downright scary. Like red-hat hacker scary.”
“Red-hat hacker?”
“I’ve been studying up.”
Spencer rolled his shoulders. “Yeah, well, he pissed me off, coming after you like that—and then threatening to renege on his promises.”
“I could tell.” She could still see the tension on Spencer’s face. His soft eyes were too hard, and his lips were pressed flat. She stroked the tight muscles in his back. “You were up all night, weren’t you?”
On his computer... Looking into Nolan... She wasn’t going to ask if he could do all the things he’d threatened. She already knew the answer to that.
“I wasn’t going to let him terrorize you anymore.”
“My Guard Dog.”
Their gazes locked—his possessive and hers suddenly watery. He dipped his head and gently brushed his lips across hers. Emotion clogged Josie’s chest. She clung to him as he deepened the kiss. It wasn’t until a passing car honked its horn that he pulled back.
He ran a hand through his hair. The damp weather left it spiked and mussed sexily. Dark circles were starting under his eyes, and he had more than a five o’clock shadow.
“I think I’m crashing now,” he admitted. “These all-nighters are killing me.”
Josie could see him fading fast. “Why don’t I drive home?”
“Good idea.” He fished his key fob out of his pocket. “Do you mind if we go to my place? I could use a shave and a change of clothes.”
He could use a bed most of all. The urge to take care of him was overwhelming. Josie looped her arm around his waist and ushered him to the parking lot where they’d left his SUV. He climbed into the passenger seat, and she struggled to get the driver’s seat adjusted. Finding the windshield wipers was another trick. The gray clouds were sitting overhead like a toad, and the drizzle just kept coming. It didn’t have the guts to full-out rain, but it was enough to obstruct her vision.
Finally, she pulled out into traffic. “Lake Union district, right?”
He reached over to pull up the navigation system. He’d told her where he lived before, but she’d never been there. It made her feel guilty. Their relationship had always had the taint of Nolan hanging over it. They hadn’t been able to concentrate on each other like most new couples did.
Even with that, though, she knew she loved him. He’d gone above and beyond to protect her. It was past time she learned the little things about him, like what food he kept in his refrigerator and how he squeezed the toothpaste tube.
For some stupid reason, that made her even happier than hitting that delete button on Nolan’s phone.
Spencer stretched his legs deep into the well of the floorboard and slumped against the headrest.
“Hey.” She bumped his shoulder. She didn’t mind if he fell asleep in the car, but she’d have trouble getting him into his apartment. “Stay awake just a little while longer. I’d try, but I don’t think I can carry you.”
He sat a little straighter. “He thought I was the muscle.”
She smiled. She’d known he’d soak that up.
She talked to keep him alert, but was surprised when they got to his place. He didn’t live in an apartment. He had a house. An actual house, and a nice one, at that. It was a cute, older home. It didn’t sit directly on Lake Union, a smaller freshwater lake connected to Lake Washington. It was up higher on the hillside, but it had a view of the lake.
She parked in front of the detached garage and, for a moment, just stared. Hearing him detach his seatbelt broke her out of her thoughts, and she hurried around the SUV.
“Which key?” she asked. She flipped through the assortment on the key ring he’d given her.
He rubbed both hands over his face. “Uh, square head. I think.”
He was moving slowly, but of course, he’d remembered to grab his backpack with his Mac from the back seat.
Josie got the front door open and was surprised again. His place wasn’t messy at all. She looked around the living room in amazement. It was clean and tidy, but heavy on the tech. A big-screen TV hung on the wall, and a surround-sound system had components placed around the room. A bookcase of video games and DVDs took up one wall, and she was almost giddy to see the way they were alphabetized and organized by genre. It pleased her nearly as much as the hardwood floors and the leather furniture.
He plugged in a code to the alarm system by the door that she hadn’t even noticed.
“Spencer, this is beautiful.”
His steps were heavy as he slogged past her. “Want to see the bedroom?”
He was already tugging his clothes over his head. No workout for him this morning. He’d gone a round or two of another kind.
Josie swept up the sweatshirt when he dropped it in his wake. They passed one bedroom he’d converted into an office. It stopped her in her tracks. He had a better setup here than he did at Afire. There was a wall of computer screens. Power buttons blinked, along with Wi-Fi and a digital clock on a Darth Vader helmet.
The computing power in the room was shocking. Look at what he’d done to Nolan with only one tiny Mac.
She heard the creak of mattress springs and hurried to catch up. She stopped in the bedroom doorway, her heart squeezing. He’d dropped face first onto the bed, and he didn’t look like he planned to move anytime soon.
Poor baby. She folded the hoodie and put it atop the dresser, and then moved to take off his sneakers.
“C’mere.” He reached out for her, but his voice was muffled and fading.
She couldn’t think of anything better. She’d slept the night before, but it had been a restless sleep. She’d dreamt about meeting with Nolan and the thousand things that could have gone wrong.
Giving up on being tidy, she dropped her purse and jacket onto the floor and toed off her shoes. After a moment’s thought, she pulled off her top, too, and crawled onto the bed beside him.
He shifted onto his side and wrapped his long form around hers. His hand rested heavily against her waist, and she looked out the bedroom window with her eyelids drooping. The view over the lake was postcard perfect, although the water looked choppy under the steady wind. Houseboats bobbed easily in the water, not too upset by the weather. Raindrops glided down the window pane slowly, as if they just didn’t have the energy to go faster.
The rainy, lazy weather made her happy she was right where she was.
“We got him, Spencer. It’s over. It’s really over.”
“No, Strawberry, it’s just begun.”
With that, his arm went heavy against her, and his breaths turned deep, his exhales stirring her hair. He’d gone to sleep as instantly as if a switch had been thrown.
She relaxed against him, her heart light. “Sleep, Guard Dog. It’s my turn to watch over you.”
As tired as she was, Josie’s gaze swept over the room. She was curious about him. There was an acoustic guitar standing in the corner. She hadn’t known he played. Mini superhero action figures stood on a shelf next to it. That, she would have predicted. A book on Python coding sat on the nightstand, atop another book... Was that the Kama Sutra?
She was so surprised that she laughed. She quickly pressed her lips together and checked to make sure she hadn’t woken him. When he said he’d studied, he meant it.
She was eager for what she’d find next. There was a fidget spinner and a funky lamp on the table and—
Her breaths stopped. For a moment, she didn’t know what she was looking at, but she recognized it. She recognized it down to the very fiber of her being.
Those fibers turned brittle.
Her heart, so light and free, dropped like an anvil. He couldn’t have... Not Spencer...
But there it was, in blatant, graphic detail. A picture. With a shaky hand, she reached for the cheap metal frame on the nightstand. The shot was taken from a strange angle. The film was black and white and kind of grainy, but she recognized it for what it was.
It was a picture of the first time they’d made love.