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Spencer slept hard, but he didn’t sleep long. When he woke up, a check of his phone showed it was only lunchtime. He rolled onto his back and stretched. He didn’t know what had woken him. Maybe it was hunger, or maybe he’d noticed that Josie wasn’t lying next to him anymore. Either way, the few hours he’d gotten had helped. The dull throb in his head was gone, and the weight of fatigue had lifted. When he remembered why he’d been so tired and what they’d accomplished, he sat straight up in bed.
Who needed sleep? It was time to celebrate.
He popped off the mattress and buzzed through the shower. He shaved and found a clean set of clothes. He felt like a new man, with new possibilities. He’d already seen the change in Josie. She was smiling more—beaming, actually—and there’d been a bounce in her step. They had the whole day to spend together, just the two of them, without any embarrassing pictures or threats hanging over their heads.
He left the bedroom to find her, but it wasn’t difficult. She was sitting on the sofa in the living room. His heart jumped at the sight of her in his home. So beautiful, so sweet.
Only something wasn’t quite right.
His smile faded when she didn’t greet him. He looked around in confusion. The TV wasn’t playing. She wasn’t on the computer or reading a book.
And she looked upset.
His footsteps slowed. Had something happened while he’d been out? Had Nolan somehow talked his way out of the charges? Did the police really need those pictures they’d deleted as proof?
Anger pierced through his brain, hot and jagged. Every. Single. One. He was going to follow through on every single one of the threats he’d issued at the coffee shop. He’d warned the guy. He was going to pay for taking those pictures and—
A picture.
Through the jumble of thoughts running through his head, Spencer realized that Josie had something in her lap. Her feet were propped up on the coffee table, and an eight-by-ten picture in a metal frame was balanced against her thighs.
All his peripheral thoughts shut down like firewalls crashing, one right after the other. He recognized the picture she held in her lap.
Oh, God. He’d forgotten about that.
His gaze jumped up to hers, and the air squeezed right out of his chest. Her thoughts were telegraphed in those expressive eyes, and her pain was palpable from across the room.
“Josie, no. It’s not what you think.”
She slowly turned the picture around so he could see it. “Security camera, right? It took me a while to figure that out.”
He took a step forward, but stopped when she flinched. “Yes. I forgot it was there, too, until the next day when the security team met.”
The color in her face bled away. “The security team saw us?”
“No.” All of his weight went to the balls of Spencer’s feet. This was dangerous. If he moved the wrong way, everything they’d built together so far could explode into little bits. “They don’t watch the internal feeds that closely unless there’s a problem, but I knew we must have been recorded.”
“There’s a video?”
Oh, crap. “Yes, but I told Luke about the situation and convinced him to let me have it.”
“Luke knows?” She rocked off the sofa, but kept her arm clamped over her stomach as if it hurt. “Did he see it?”
Spencer ran a hand through his hair. There were no right answers to her line of questioning. “Only the beginning. He had to look to make sure I was telling the truth about what was on there, and I wasn’t trying to hide something else.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I started to, but it was right after Nolan posted those pictures on Photo Giraffe. I didn’t want to make things worse. You had enough to deal with.”
“You didn’t think I needed to know there was a sex video of me out there? One that had been taken at my place of work?”
He winced. He felt like he was under a DoSing attack and couldn’t keep up. “It’s not out there, though. I have it. It’s safe.”
“Safe?” She held up the picture again like a protest sign. “You made a screen shot of it.”
A tickle of anger made its way through his panic. She wasn’t the only one on that video. He had a stake in this, too. “I needed to make sure I had the right video card, so I watched it—and I got caught up in it. I’m a computer engineer, not a eunuch.”
She blanched. “Don’t tell me the details. Don’t you dare.”
He jabbed a finger at the picture. “And don’t you talk down about what happened between us. That screen shot means something to me, Josie, that moment in time. Look at us. It’s beautiful.”
Her gaze scraped over the photo. “Convenient that we’re both naked.”
She wasn’t naked. She wasn’t exposed at all. The moment that he’d captured was one where she was on his lap. Her skirt covered them both. Her breasts were plumped against his chest as her hands caught his shoulders. His hands weren’t anywhere inappropriate. One was in her hair, and the other was wrapped around her hip. It was only from the glazed, passionate look in her eyes that anyone would know what was going on under all that floaty material... that he was as deep inside her as he could get...
“How could you do this to me, Spencer? Especially now?”
“It’s one photograph, Josie, kept in the privacy of my bedroom. I didn’t post it anywhere. That was for me. For us.”
“You think this is romantic?”
“Yes,” he snapped. Their hearts were in that photo. The circumstances of its existence might be regrettable, but she couldn’t tell him she didn’t see that.
She shook her head so hard, her hair flew around her shoulders. “No.”
Moving quickly, she grabbed her jacket and purse from the sofa. She clutched the picture to her chest and grabbed his keys.
She made a move toward the door, but skidded to a stop. “The video memory card. Where is it?”
“I have it here, in a media lockbox.”
She held out her hand. “Give it to me.”
Spencer looked at her, his heart aching, but he refused to feel guilty about this. He’d done everything he could to protect her. “No.”
Her big green eyes blinked, and the pain in them turned to sadness.
He folded his arms over his chest. “I promised Luke that I would store it securely. It’s checked out in my name. I can’t let you destroy it.”
“Then I’ll store it.”
“I put my job on the line to get it. If it goes anywhere, it goes back to Luke to be kept with all the other video cards until the retention period is over.”
“How long is that?”
“Three years.”
The sharp breath she took felt like a knife.
Spencer moved toward her. “You know you can trust me, Josie. That’s one picture, a private one, in my home. I didn’t snap it, and I didn’t use it against you.”
His argument didn’t score him any points. In fact, it only made her clutch the picture frame more tightly against her chest.
“Hey,” he said, “I show more skin in that video than you do.”
Her expression slid from anger to mortification. When she finally responded, her voice was quiet, but it had an edge of steel. “What Nolan did scared and embarrassed me, but this? This hurts, Spencer.”
A tear slid down her cheek, and he felt like he’d been gut-punched. He hurried across the room, but she was faster. She ran out the door to his SUV. He could do nothing but watch as she fired it up. Then even the familiar sound of the engine was gone.
She’d left him.
And it felt like for good.
* * *
Spencer roamed around his house with his fingers looped around the back of his neck. His mind was racing, but it kept going in circles around the same track. He was good at mending things. He knew how to spot weaknesses and strengthen them until they were no longer vulnerabilities, but he didn’t know how to fix this.
He’d run into a trap of his own making.
He flopped down onto his back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling. He’d messed up, big time. He’d forgotten about the picture on his nightstand. That had been for him only; he’d never meant for her to see it. He’d just been so tired and relieved that she was out from under Nolan’s thumb and under his roof. Safe, sound, and happy.
What was one little picture? Couldn’t she see what he’d done and her ex’s actions were nothing alike? Their time together had meant something to him. He’d never use the images to hurt her.
Not intentionally.
But ugh, the hurt that had been in her pretty eyes...
He flung an arm over his face and sank deeper into the cushions. He felt like hell. The flood of alertness that had hit him when he’d awoken was trickling away. His body felt weighed down and achy, nearly as bad as his heart.
What was he supposed to do? He didn’t even know where to begin. Relationships were new territory for him, but he knew he’d screwed up badly. So, so bad.
This was a nightmare.
And it followed him into his dreams.
It was later when Spencer heard a vehicle pull into his driveway. His eyes popped open, and he realized he’d crashed on the couch. A quick look at the window showed that time had passed, but the drizzle hadn’t stopped. If anything, the wind had picked up.
He pushed himself off the sofa and stumbled to the front window. “Josie?”
Had she come back? He needed to apologize. He had to find a way to make her give him another chance.
Only it wasn’t Josie. The SUV in front of his garage was bright red, and the woman getting out of it had dark hair. It was Kylie. Dread settled in his chest, but he pulled open the front door to let her in. Josie might have sent in the troops, but at least it was contact.
“Have you talked to her? Did she send you?” He waited impatiently as his visitor wiped her feet on the entry way rug. “Is she okay?”
Kylie shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on the coatrack he kept by the door. “Yes, she talked to me. No, she didn’t send me.” She wiped raindrops from her cheeks. “She’s upset, but you knew that.”
Spencer dragged both hands through his hair. He’d fallen asleep with it damp, and it was sticking up everywhere. “I screwed up.”
“Little bit,” she agreed.
“Did she tell you? I mean, all of it?”
“I heard enough.”
“What am I going to do?”
“That’s why I’m here, to help you figure that out.” She caught his arm and led him to the kitchen. “Nice house, by the way.”
She put him in a chair and wandered around, looking in the cupboards and refrigerator. She ended up making lemonade from a tube of concentrate she found in the freezer.
Spencer pushed it away at first, but when she looked at him sternly, he tried a sip. The icy liquid felt good going down. His stomach rumbled when it hit bottom.
“Have you eaten?” she asked.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t remember.”
She went back to the refrigerator.
Spencer leaned forward and braced his elbows against his knees. “I tried to fix the problem as soon as I found out there was one. I did the best I could, but I can’t give that video memory card to her.”
Kylie pivoted with a butter knife in hand. “Oh, no. You’re not going to betray Luke.”
“Why doesn’t she trust me with it?” he asked. “Doesn’t she know I’m not Nolan?”
“Uh... you do remember taking a screen capture, blowing it up to eight-by-ten size, and framing it for your bedside pleasure, do you not?”
Oh, hell. They had talked. Spencer felt the blood pounding in his temples. “Did she show it to you?”
“God, no. My eyes couldn’t take that.” She came to the table and made him take another drink of lemonade. She plopped a paper plate with a roast beef sandwich and chips in front of him, too. “But she gave me enough details to know you shouldn’t have done it.”
Kylie sat down across the table with a chocolate chip cookie for herself. She glanced at him through her dark lashes. “I take it that’s your first sex video?”
His face flushed. “Yeah, but I didn’t print out a still because of that. It was... significant.”
She stopped in the process of breaking off another bite of cookie. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“You’re in love with her.”
He pushed a chip on his plate, but he could feel Kylie’s gaze drilling a hole in the top of his head. He couldn’t very well deny it. She’d seen the lengths to which he’d gone.
He flicked the chip aside. “I’m so crazy about her, I can’t see straight.”
“Or talk right.”
“Is anybody ever going to forget that?”
“No.” Kylie finished her cookie and took another swig of her drink. “All right, that does it. It’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“To patch things up with her. Isn’t that what you do best? Mend the holes in the code?”
Spencer felt a surge of affection for his comrade in arms. It seemed like she really was here to help him. At least she got how his brain worked, but she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen how devastated Josie was.
“I don’t think you understand. She dumped me. She stole my car.”
Kylie waved her hand. “You two just had your first fight as a couple. It feels like hell, I know, but things aren’t over between you two.”
“They’re not?”
“Oh, Guard Dog. You’re really not good at this relationship stuff.”
She was just catching on to that? “I know. I suck.”
“No, you don’t. You’re sweet, and you care about her. Just look at what you did for her last night.”
He took a bite of his sandwich. It tasted better than he expected. “You were a part of that, too.”
They’d IM’d each other on back channels all night, working as a team. At first, he’d responded only out of obligation. He’d thought she’d slow him down, but he’d quickly been schooled. She was better at hacking than he was. Way better. He knew the signs.
“Nobody needs to know that,” she said.
She meant Luke, but Spencer had no intention of saying anything to anyone about her skills. He relied on Luke’s character and his own gut enough to trust that she was one of the good guys. “I couldn’t have gotten as much intel on Nolan as I did without you. That fish-tank hack was inspired.”
“Yes, well, Josie’s my friend.” She smacked both hands against the countertop. “And so are you.”
When she came back to the table, Spencer was surprised to find that he’d cleaned his plate.
“Come on,” she said. “You need to comb your hair and slap on some cologne. You might be pretty now, but you still have to show some effort.”
“Why? What are we going to do?”
“You’re going to go get her back.”
“But how?”
“Flowers and chocolate are a good start.”
“Sounds like a beginner’s hack.”
“You can’t hack an apology to a woman, but it always starts with chocolate.” She pushed him into his bedroom and toward the master bath. “I’ll be waiting.”
She wandered off, and Spencer looked at himself in the mirror. More sleep hadn’t helped; he still looked rumpled and worn out. How was she looking like a supermodel? She’d put in as many hours as he had last night.
Then again, she hadn’t had her heart run over by a bulldozer.
He went to work on making himself look human again. He showered, shaved, and combed his hair into order. He brushed his teeth and found some cologne in the back of the medicine cabinet. It didn’t smell half bad.
He found his unexpected ally in his computer room. “Should I dress up?” he asked.
She spun around in his ergonomic computer chair with a smile on her face so bright that he nearly squinted. A glance over her shoulder showed she wasn’t surfing or hacking anything. She was playing Ghost Recon on his PS4.
“Can I move in?” she asked. “Just this room. I won’t take up much space.”
“No,” he said. “I’ve pushed the boundaries with Luke enough already.”
“He could come, too.”
Spencer’s eyes narrowed. He lifted the dress shirt on the hanger. “Will this help, or will I look desperate?”
She smirked. “You’d better stay with the T-shirt. IT Happens seems appropriate.”
He looked down at his chest. He’d just grabbed the first thing he’d found in the drawer when he’d woken up. He rolled his shoulders, not confident about where she was leading him. “Are you sure this is going to be enough to make her forgive me?”
“Oh, no.” Spinning around, Kylie shut down the game and got to her feet. “We’ve got another stop to make before we hit the flower shop. You made a big mistake. You’re going to have to pay.”
He winced. “How much?”
She made a tsking sound as they grabbed their jackets and headed out the door. “Sorry to tell you, buddy, but this is going to hurt.”