Chapter Two

It had been almost a month since Meg had realized that X-Tech, one of the biggest software companies in the world, had stolen her work. As she made her way up the fifth flight of stairs, she allowed herself to recall that moment in all its depressing detail. Not just because it helped to keep the anger on center stage but also because the staircase was painfully quiet.

Meg looked around at the endless beige, her sneakers making little thump-thumps on the floor as she recalled the invitation she had received. An invitation to take part in an X-Tech competition. She clenched her fists as she replayed the email in her mind, the excitement that had thrummed through her as she read through the words, the nerves that had blossomed as competition day got closer, because X-Tech competitions were a hell of a big deal. The company had been running them for years, and tech start-ups from across the world attended them in the hope of getting funding or—the holy grail—a job with X-Tech.

For Meg, it was like a match made in heaven. Not only was X-Tech’s work something she deeply admired but they also happened to have their headquarters in Meg’s home city. They were a natural choice to pitch her work to.

Meg scowled as she made it to the seventh floor, the memory of the invitation, of the competition itself, so clear in her mind. Clearer even than that, though, was a post leaked to one of the more obscure nerd forums several weeks later.

A post about her work.

Only, Meg hadn’t won the competition. She hadn’t been offered funding. She hadn’t been offered a job. Meg hadn’t been offered a single damn thing. And yet, someone was posting about her work…and they were calling it X-Tech’s.

At first, Meg thought they’d made a mistake, or maybe she had. After all, people had the same ideas all the time, and fact was sometimes someone faster, or better, beat you to it. But she’d read the post several times, checked the other tech forums to see what other nerds were saying, and before long there was no doubt in her mind. There it was, large as life, her idea, her work. The very thing that had basically been her life for the last five years.

It was thievery, plain and simple.

And it was going to change the world.

She stopped at the thirteenth floor, her side giving a little twinge of discomfort. Meg wasn’t used to this kind of exercise, not unless it was the virtual kind.

Her scowl deepened, and she rubbed her ribs, because that work, that algorithm, incomplete though it was, was hers! She gripped the side rail of the stairs, took a deep breath, and pushed herself toward the fourteenth floor. Her sneakers continued to thump-thump, and her shirt continued to stick to her back.

To change the world…

Meg was going to get her work back, and after the events of the past few weeks, there was only one way to do that. Meg had already tried calling X-Tech, tried emailing them, tried the legal department, even the PR people. Hell, she’d tried every single department, including the CEO’s, but X-Tech had stalled her at every turn. Apparently, they were overwhelmed with claims from up-and-coming developers lodging legal action. It was par for the course with big tech firms. They had probably assumed Meg was one of the same.

Only, she wasn’t, and Meg wasn’t going to be put off. She couldn’t afford a lawyer of her own. Not yet, probably not ever, and so had decided—in what Kate called typical-Meg-fashion—to take matters into her own hands. She was going to the CEO direct.

Jack Richards.

Meg’s grip on the handrail tightened as she thought about him. It was common knowledge that he didn’t work a nine-to-five day. It was said that he arrived at work late in the evening and stayed until the early hours of the morning, using his own private elevator to get from his private parking lot to his office. The tech forums all said that he did this for two reasons. One, he wasn’t a morning person, and, two he didn’t mix with his staff.

Jack Richards, one of the richest men in the world, and a genius of his generation, was a recluse. That was fine with Meg. In fact, it played into her mission perfectly. He was easier to get to and hopefully would be easier to talk to than some flamboyant, fame-hungry character. She nodded to herself as she hit the eighteenth floor. Meg was going to bring Jack Richards out of his shell—with a resounding dollop of what-the-fuckery. And by the time she was through, she would have her justice.

Floor twenty.

Meg paused at the top of the stairs, let out a deep exhale, and tried to fan her face. This whole building seemed to be notched up a few degrees higher than it should be, and she found herself wondering how anyone got any work done. High temperatures always made her tired. Well, that and stress.

She stepped forward along the corridor, taking a quick peek out of the huge window as she did so. From this perspective, she couldn’t see the building that Kate was hiding behind, but she could see that it was pretty much dark out now. She hoped Kate was okay.

The door to the twentieth floor, home of the management suite, was one of those heavy metal affairs. Meg grabbed the handle and pulled slowly. It didn’t budge. She frowned and gave another tug. Nothing. For a moment Meg was confused, but then she remembered the swipe card Jimmy had given her. She pulled it out of her pants pocket and spotted the scanner just off to the left. It beeped green as soon as her card came near it.

She pulled again, and even with her being super stealthy, the door still creaked. She bit down on her lip, let out a deep exhale, squared her shoulders, and then pulled it open in one quick swing. Once it was at a wide enough arc, she slipped through and got her first look at the top floor of X-Tech Towers.

So, this was where all the money was spent. Meg shook her head slowly as she stepped forward, the lights on the ceiling increasing in illumination with her movements. Gone were the beige walls and beige flooring. Instead, the entire floor was a riot of color. One wall was painted a bright electric blue, the opposite emerald green. The floor was covered in black-and-white tiles, and every so often a vending machine awaited. They held computer parts as well as snacks. Meg passed an alcove and spotted three electric scooters and a bunch of Segways. Farther on, a rack of roller skates beckoned.

Eyes wide, Meg took it all in, and though she was impressed—because it all looked awesome, and this was only one corridor—the anger burned all the brighter in her chest. How much of this stuff was bought with money stolen from small-time developers like her? How many people were struggling because X-Tech was simply too big to stop?

She stalked forward, glancing from door to door. They each had a little plaque on them, and Meg recognized a few of the names from her investigations. None of them were the CEO’s office.

At the end of the corridor, Meg had two choices. One route snaked around to another, equally as long, corridor painted bright red, whilst the other led to only one plain door. She narrowed her eyes and tried to remember what she had worked out regarding the layout of X-Tech. She hadn’t managed to get the actual blueprints—neither had Jimmy—but between them they’d sketched together how they thought it should look. Jack Richards was the CEO and therefore was bound to have the biggest office. He also had a private elevator. Where would that elevator likely be?

Mind made up, Meg ignored the lone door and set off down the red corridor. She passed office after office that seemed to be the domains of the finance officers and legal bods. Only when she reached the final one did Meg decide to look inside. It didn’t have a plaque, and it looked to stretch the width of the building. It was bound to be his.

She swiped her card, took another deep breath to try and calm the adrenaline, and then pushed the door open. Her pre-prepared speech danced on the tip of her tongue, sweat trickled down her back, and because of that, what lay beyond the door was almost an anticlimax. It was little more than a lobby, a waiting place to the offices beyond…and there were several of them…and not a single plaque in sight.

Which one was the CEO’s? Meg scowled. She had no way to tell, which meant she was going to have to try every damn door! She moved forward, hoping to hell that, apart from the CEO, whoever worked in these offices had already left for the night. Excuses and explanations raced through her mind, just in case.

I’m the new cleaner. Just here to empty your bin. Do you need more stationery? She nodded. You got this.

The first door revealed an empty office, as did the second. The third? The lights were on, but no one was home. The fourth, fifth, and sixth offices were also empty…which left just one more to try, and it was the office at the very end.

Heart thumping, Meg slipped her swipe card back into her pants and gripped the handle of the final door. The space around her was deathly quiet, and she could hear herself breathing far heavily than she would have liked. Her palm was moist, her shirt still sticking to her back. It all came down to this.

The door swung open with painful slowness to reveal the space inside, and as she stepped into the office, Meg’s first impression was that the lights were already on. Someone was home.

Her second impression? That would be a resounding, Oh fuck! Because the light wasn’t coming from an overhead bulb or a lamp; it was coming from a laptop screen. Someone stood in front of that laptop, standing, not sitting, and even with the dim illumination Meg knew immediately that this was not who she had come here for.

The man, whoever the hell he was, had to be well over six-foot-tall and wide enough that he would have to log some serious hours at the gym. He had his dark hair cropped close to his head, a scruffy beard covering most of his lower face, and he was dressed head-to-toe in black. There were only a handful of images of Jack Richards online, but they were images that Meg had endlessly Googled. He was young in them, in his late teens maybe, but in all those grainy images Jack Richards was thin as a rake, clean shaven, sporting a shock of curly brown hair, and wearing his trademark gray sweater.

This guy was not thin.

He was not clean shaven or curly haired.

And he was definitely not wearing the sweater that all the tech forums insisted that Jack still wore.

This guy was not the CEO.

So, who the heck was he?

Meg froze at the exact same moment that he turned to look at her. Their gazes locked. Meg’s heart thumped even harder in her chest.

“What the hell are you doing in here?”

His voice was low, angry, and laced with something she couldn’t quite identify—surprise maybe? Meg opened her mouth, all the excuses and explanations she had prepared racing through her mind. In there with them was a strong urge to simply turn around and dash back through the lobby and down the red corridor. Because something was screaming at Meg now, screaming hard.

This man was up to no good.

Was it the way he stood in front of the computer? Was it the lines of code she could see, even at this distance, flashing across the screen? Or was it simply that he looked so out of place. So far from any kind of nerd that Meg had ever met. She wasn’t sure, but she knew, she simply knew, that something wasn’t right here.

She rocked back on her heels, the lobby in her peripheral vision. Would she make it in time? More importantly, would he come after her? Meg clenched her fists, a million thoughts whizzing through her mind, chief among them the fact that she couldn’t even scream for help! She was trespassing just as much as he was, and the security her scream might bring up here would probably think they were up to no good together! If not at first, then certainly when they interviewed her and realized she was not one of the cleaning staff.

Dammit!

“I asked you a question,” the man snapped.

Meg stepped back, pushing the door open slightly as she did so. What the hell was she going to do?

“Erm…”

He was in front of her before Meg even knew what was happening. She moved quickly, bumping her hip against the door frame. A jolt of pain shot through her, and Meg let out a yelp.

“I’m a cleaner.”

“A cleaner?”

She nodded, her heart thudding in time with the pain from her hip, but also from what she could now see. The laptop was directly in her line of vision. The lines of code continued to flash across the screen. Meg followed them, eyes darting over the text, understanding dawning.

She let out a gasp before shifting her position, and he, perhaps thinking that she planned to make a run for it, reached out and grabbed her wrist. Meg gasped again from the unexpected contact and tugged. He held firm.

“Let go of my wrist,” she demanded.

“Tell me who you are.”

“I already did,” Meg said. “The cleaner.”

“Then where’s your mop bucket?”

Meg started. “Excuse me?”

“Your mop bucket?” The man gestured to her empty hands. “You know, to clean the floors.”

Meg bit down on her lip and tried to get a hold of her frantic thoughts. She was alone on the top floor of X-Tech with this man. He was clearly up to something he shouldn’t be, the code was proof of that, and she could be in real danger if he realized she knew that. The only option she could possibly come up with was to try to brazen it out. And yet even as she thought this, Meg couldn’t quite believe that she had walked into this situation. The one day that she decides to come looking for the CEO and she walks in on a burglary-in-progress? Just her luck!

“That’s actually really cleanist.”

The man frowned. “What?”

The words tumbled out of her mouth before she even had the chance to think them through. “You shouldn’t assume just because someone is a cleaner they should have a mop bucket. Things have moved on, you know. Cleanist.”

The man’s frown deepened. He shifted slightly so that the light from the lobby fell fully upon his face. The moment it did Meg’s eyes widened, and she actually felt her mouth drop open. Because the man, the burglar, was, well, there was no real way to get around it, he was hot. Not just normal hot, but ridiculous, heart-shockingly hot.

“You made that word up.”

Meg shook her head even as she stumbled to find other words. Confusion filled her, and for a moment she didn’t know what to do. She was alone with a possible burglar. He was painfully attractive. He was standing way too close, her wrist was tingling from where his fingers wrapped around it, and the whole thing was just so surreal!

Brazen, be brazen.

She licked her lips, finally, somehow, finding her voice. “I did no such thing. I’m used to guys like you, working in your fancy offices, treating me and my colleagues in a certain way.”

“Guys like me?” he asked, and Meg held her breath even as the confusion continued to thrum through her. “So, you’re going to dust with your bare hands?” he added.

“My supplies are in the corridor, actually,” Meg said, and this time when she tugged he let her wrist go. Meg flexed her tingling fingers and moved as far back as she could. It wasn’t much, just a couple of inches or so, but it gave her some much-needed distance from the ridiculous attractiveness of his face. “I always check the offices before dragging my supplies up here.”

He narrowed his eyes, and then—to Meg’s horror—shifted again so that he was now in front of the open door. No wonder he’d let go of her wrist. He was going to keep her trapped in the office with him by blocking the only exit! She swallowed against the adrenaline trying to claw its way up her throat and automatically shook her head.

“Move out of my way and I’ll get my supplies.”

“I can’t do that,” he said. “Believe me I’d like to, but I can’t.”

“My colleagues are waiting for me—”

“You’re full of shit, sweetheart.”

“No, I—”

“Yes,” he said. “Which means that we have a problem. A big one.”