Chapter Nine

How much space was there between them? The width of the table for sure, but a few inches between their faces at most, because they were both leaning forward, both acting on the desire to get closer, to minimize the little space that was left, to let the heat and the intensity between them ratchet up another notch.

Chance’s heart was thumping in his chest. His stomach was clenched tight. Hell, his entire body was wired tighter than it had been in a long time. And his cock…he was rock hard. He wanted Meg in that moment more than he could ever remember wanting any woman.

She was so pretty.

So sassy.

And she was nervous.

God, he wanted to soothe those nerves. To take her in his arms and let her know that there was no reason to be nervous around him. And yet…there was a reason…a damn good reason. What the fuck was he doing?

“Meg…” he began, but she cut him off by leaning even more toward him, against the table.

The new angle meant that her breasts were practically spilling out of the tight red top that she wore. Chance ached to reach forward and rub his thumbs over their curves. He’d surely have to push the material down only an inch or so before her nipples would be visible, before he could touch them…

He swallowed against the lump in his throat. That was not why he was here. This wasn’t a date. They were here for business only. For the X-Tech fuck-up. He had to remember that. Even if every part of him was aching to do otherwise.

“Chance…”

His name, the name only those closest to him had ever used, fell from her ruby-red lips. Chance liked the way it sounded. Hell, he liked everything about this entire situation.

Her.

Him.

What was so obviously happening between them…

He mentally cursed the fact that he hadn’t met her at a bar like this. Hadn’t simply struck up a conversation. And yet, even as those thoughts formed, Chance knew that there was no way he would have had the balls to approach her if they had. He might have learned how to be charming, but more than a decade of living as the absolute stereotype of a male nerd—a guy who women only responded to because he was ridiculously rich—meant that Chance’s skills of seduction weren’t up to the level that a girl like Meg would expect. The game he was playing, the importance of it, that was the only reason that Chance had been able to approach her, to talk with her, to flirt with her. Because they were flirting. And it had to stop.

He cleared his throat, intending to say something, anything, though he had no idea what he planned to say. Meg didn’t give him the chance.

“I don’t have a type,” she said, her voice all kinds of soft. “I’m an equal opportunities sort of girl. I mean, sure, it’s nice to be with someone who looks good, but the person they are is what matters in the end.” She paused. “That Carrie Fisher quote? And I’ll say right now, I am not a fan of Star Wars at all, but how can anyone not be a fan of the late, great Carrie Fisher?”

An image of his light-sabre collection, not to mention the perfectly-to-scale model of the Millennium Falcon that he had spent weeks building, flashed through Chance’s mind. He almost winced. “How can anyone not be a fan of Star Wars?”

“Seriously?”

“Tell me the quote.”

“That youth and beauty are not accomplishments,” Meg said. “They’re the temporary, happy by-products of DNA and time.”

“She had a point.”

Meg let out a soft sigh. “She did, and I always try to remember it when I date. I look for smarts. I look for kindness. And I look for honesty. The packaging? That’s just a bonus.”

Honesty… Chance’s stomach tightened. What the hell would Meg say when she realized who he was? Jack Richards, X-Tech CEO, and the man who, given the chance, would put a stop to her work.

“So, basically a nerd,” he said.

She smiled at that. “You’re assuming that all nerds are smart, kind, and honest?”

“Aren’t they?” Chance asked, even though he knew the answer. There was a nerd in X-Tech who was neither kind nor honest, and he wasn’t just talking about himself.

“They’re just like anyone else,” Meg said. “They have their good parts and their bad parts. I will admit that social skills are often an issue. There’s no getting around that. Our industry tends to attract people who have more difficulty interacting with each other than the other industries would.” She tilted her head, a thoughtful look playing across her face. “It’s the math. Anyone who is really skilled with numbers has to be a bit…strange.”

Chance had spent almost the entirety of his teenage years, and his early twenties, for that matter, being skilled with numbers and also “a bit strange.” It had taken him a little while to realize why that was. To appreciate that some people just couldn’t understand numbers in the way that he could. It had taken him even longer to deal with what that meant. To not get frustrated and irritated with what he had seen as other people’s lack. Because it had been so blindingly obvious to him. Why wasn’t it blindingly obvious to them? Pick up one number and drop it there, pick another and move it here, and suddenly truth emerged. Hidden truths. Meg understood hidden truths. She understood how it felt to be surrounded by those truths that no one else could comprehend. Was that why he was so fundamentally attracted to her? Because on some level he knew that she understood?

Chance drew in a shaky breath. His mind raced even as he asked, “Why do they have to be strange?”

“Because mathematics is the language of the universe,” she said, and Chance’s heart thumped. “If you spend your days trying to read the universe, to understand its mysteries, how can it not make you a little kooky?”

He nodded slowly. She smiled at him. Silence fell between them. It was heavy with meaning. Chance did not doubt that they both felt it.

“You don’t have trouble interacting with others,” he eventually said.

Her smile widened. “No. I’ve always been pretty extroverted. I think it was because I took a bunch of theater classes at college. I tried to get Kate to come, but she refused. This is why it took her forever and a day to find a boyfriend.”

The words fell before Chance could think to stop them. “You don’t have one?”

She tilted her head again. “I wouldn’t be here with you if I did, Chance.” A pause and then, “And you?”

“I wouldn’t be here, either.”

Chance knew then, with those words, that they were practically admitting that this was a date. But it couldn’t be a date. Not with what was happening. Not with X-Tech. Not with the lies.

He leaned back in his chair, trying in some futile way to break the connection between them. It, of course, would not be broken. The tension remained. Chance felt it even as he knew that he had to find some way to stop it.

“How did you get on with hacking into my site?” he asked.

Meg leaned back slightly, too. She ran her finger around the rim of her water glass. Chance noticed that her nails matched her lips. Hadn’t they been blue earlier in the day? “You already know the answer to that.”

“I guess I do,” he said.

“Kate is…not happy.” Meg shook her head. “She’ll carry on until she cracks it. She’s probably working on it right now.”

And if anyone could crack it, Chance suspected Meg or her friend would. What would they find? Chance had locked that damn site down with just a few keystrokes. He’d hidden the fact that the domain had only been registered in the early hours of the morning. He’d bounced the IP address around so many servers it was impossible to trace. Even if Kate got in, she’d find only the text that he’d written last night…the date of the posting of that text was scrubbed as well.

“She won’t find a back door,” he said.

“A back door?”

There was a curious note to Meg’s voice. Chance picked up on it immediately. Dammit, he had to be careful. “Isn’t that what you call it?” he asked.

“Yes,” Meg said. “It is, but how do you know what a back door is?”

Chance gave as nonchalant shrug as possible. “I’ve been doing my research.”

“Via the nerd who hired you?”

“Yes.”

“And you still won’t tell me who it is?”

“No,” Chance said. “But I’ve had a few thoughts about how we can move this investigation along.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m all ears.”

“If you truly believe that the competition is where your work was stolen, then that is where we have to start.”

“That makes sense.”

“How did you hear about the competition?” he asked.

“I was invited,” she said. “An email from the company through one of the forums I’m a member of. It was completely out of the blue, just dropped into my inbox one day.” She sighed. “I was so excited.”

Chance had found no record of any emails. “You still have the email?”

“Of course, but it’s totally generic, there’s no contact details on there or anything. It came through the forum, just gave a time and a place.”

“And the other people who were there? They were invited, too?”

She nodded. “We all were. We spoke about it because none of us had ever heard of a direct invitation to one of the X-Tech competitions before. We figured they were in some of the forums, watching developers, keeping an eye on who was doing what.”

X-Tech did no such thing. Chance did, though. Often.

“And who won?” he asked. “If it was a competition, someone had to have won it, right?”

Meg frowned. “No one did that I know of.”

“We need to be sure of that,” Chance said. “And the best way to be sure is to speak to whoever was at that competition. Send me a list of whoever you remember being there, real names, usernames, whatever you have. I’ll do some digging tonight on those names and put together a final list for us to work from.”

“You’re going to track down and interview all of the nerds?” Meg asked.

“I am going to track them down,” Chance said. “But we’re going to interview them all.”

She nodded even as her frown deepened ever so slightly. “Are we sure that’s a good idea, Chance?” she asked.

Chance knew what she was asking. Of course he did. It might have taken him a decade or more to understand the basic subtleties of human interaction, but with Meg it seemed to come that much easier.

She understood what was happening here.

So did he.

And, issue or not, there was absolutely no avoiding it. They needed each other to get to the bottom of what was happening with X-Tech. Chance just had to make sure that they didn’t end up getting to the bottom of other things, too.