I call Ash first thing in the morning.
“It is Sunday, you know.” He sounds amused – and sleepy. I remember the hot model I saw him with, and flush. Is he in bed with her right now?
“Sorry, this can’t wait.” I barrel ahead. “I need to see you right now.”
There’s a pause.
“About the case?” he asks.
“Yes, of course,” I answer, confused. “What did you think I meant?”
“Nothing.” Ash clears his throat. “I’m home right now. I’ll text you the address.”
I hang up. A moment later, the details arrive, an address in the Village not far from the bar where I ran into him that night.
I grab my briefcase and jump in a cab. My nerves are growing. Not about the case, though – after what Adam told me, I know we have it locked up.
No, now I’m nervous about Ash. He promised me that if I showed him proof, he’d drop everything and give my client what he deserves.
Now I wonder, is he still a man of his word?
The cab delivers me to his front door, a brownstone townhouse on a secluded leafy cobblestone street. I ring the bell, and wait on the front steps before the huge front door swings open.
“Welcome,” Ash grins at me.
My heart stops. Damn, he looks good. He’s wearing faded jeans that hug his hips just right, and a casual sky-blue shirt that makes his eyes look devastatingly bright. Messy wet hair, bare feet.
Oh boy.
“Forgive the mess,” he adds, standing aside to let me in. “I had just jumped out of the shower when you called. My housekeeper is off today.”
I catch a breath of his cologne, light and familiar, and immediately flash to the thought of him naked.
Wet, soapy.
Hard.
“That’s OK!” I yelp, skittering inside. “This is last minute, I know, but I needed to show you something alone. Away from all the lawyers,” I add.
“You’re a lawyer,” he chuckles.
“I don’t count.”
Ash catches my eye. His gaze is direct. “You always count. Most of all,” he says softly.
I freeze, suspended in the force field of his stare. My body tightens, my skin prickles hot. Desire hits me in a tidal wave, and I have to scramble to keep it together.
“So this is your place?” I say, looking around. Wow. The entrance foyer hits me for the first time: stark and bright, with gleaming black marble floors and extra-tall ceilings. “Have you lived here long?”
“No, not long. I use is as a base for business trips mainly. I’ve been all over these past few years.” Ash gestures to the grand staircase. “I was just eating breakfast on the terrace, if you’d care to join me.”
“I—” I’m off my guard again but my stomach betrays me, rumbling at the mention of food. Ash laughs. He’s got me and he knows it.
“After you, then.”
I climb the staircase, still absorbing the décor. It looks like the photos I’ve seen of luxurious Italian villas, all faded elegance and gorgeous art. There are paintings framed up on the walls, and I pause in front of a stunning oil showing a bustling city square.
“Rome,” Ash says from behind me. “I commissioned a local artist when I was over there last year.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say wistfully, staring at the beautiful scene.
“You still haven’t been?” Ash asks. I jolt at his sudden proximity, standing so close behind me so I can feel the heat radiating from his body. “I thought it was number one on your world travels list.”
I step away. “Not yet,” I say, continuing the climb upstairs. We circle past the first floor landing, but Ash keeps going.
Just how many floors does this place have?
“Travel hasn’t been my priority,” I explain. “I’ve been more focused on helping out at home.”
“That’s right, your mom.” Ash looks over. “How is she?”
“Good,” I say, unnerved by the personal questions.
“And Zoey?” he asks, mentioning my little sister.
“She’s fine too. Just finished college,” I add. “She’s got an internship at a newspaper in the middle of nowhere right now, but she’s doing great.”
“I’m glad.” Ash gives me a smile, and it’s so sincere, I almost forget why I came here.
Then I remember. The lawsuit. My client.
The future of my career.
“Can breakfast wait?” I ask abruptly. “We should talk about the case now. It’s why I came.”
His face smoothes into a blank stare. “As you wish.” He leads me to the second floor and down a hallway, opening a set of double-doors. “This is my office, we can talk business here.”
I look around. It’s the size of the boardroom back at his building: large and bright, with a huge antique desk dominating the far wall. There’s a bank of computer screens showing different stock prices and news reports, and up on the wall, a row of digital clocks display the time all around the world: London, Tokyo, LA. There are comfortable touches too that tell me Ash spends a lot of time up here: a vintage-looking leather sofa in the corner, a pair of running shoes kicked under a chair and a half-drunk cup of coffee on the low table.
I wish we could curl up on the couch and talk like old friends, but Ash takes a seat behind the imposing desk. He gestures to the chair on the other side.
I sit, my nerves returning. “Do you have a copy of Kellan’s original code?” I ask.
Ash frowns. “We turned that over, like you asked.”
“I know, but did you ever look at it?”
He shrugs. “I’m not a programmer. That stuff doesn’t mean anything to me. I saw the final result, that was enough for me. I had my experts talk me through it.”
I swallow. “Load it up. There’s something you need to see.”
Ash gives me a careful look, then gets up and moves to the far wall. He lifts a painting down, revealing a safe embedded in the wall. “If my grandmother’s diamonds go missing, I’ll know who to call,” he warns, but his tone is light.
“Not my style.”
“Really?” Ash looks over. “I think diamonds look good on you.”
I freeze. What diamonds? Did he see me wearing the key?
“At graduation, remember,” Ash adds smoothly, turning back to the safe. He enters a combination on the keypad, then presses his thumbprint to a scanner. “You had on tiny diamond studs.”
“Those were fakes,” I say, exhaling in a whoosh.
“Oh.” Ash reaches into the safe and pulls out a hard drive. He closes up behind him, then brings the drive over and slots it into his desktop computer. He hits a few buttons, then swivels the screen around for me to see. “What am I looking for?”
“An easter egg,” I tell him.
He quirks an eyebrow.
“A virtual easter egg,” I correct. “Adam told me that sometimes, developers bury secret messages or games in the code. You don’t know they’re there unless you hit the right combination. Like an insider joke.”
Ash’s expression darkens. “And there’s one hidden in VideoMine? Why didn’t Kellan tell me? This thing hits stores in a month.”
“Kellan didn’t tell you, because Kellan doesn’t know.” I take a slip of paper from my briefcase, and read off the instructions Adam gave me. “Is the program running? Hit shift, alt, f-5 and then asterisk.”
Ash does as I tell him. The screen seems to freeze for a moment, then turns black.
“What did you do?” Ash demands. “Is this some kind of virus?”
“Wait a second,” I tell him, praying to God that Adam didn’t just use me as part of an elaborate plot to get revenge. If I made Ash screw up his whole system…
Suddenly, a graphic appears on the screen. A stumpy green tree waddles into view. The Stanford mascot.
“What the hell?” Ash exclaims.
The tree waves. A speech bubble appears. “Cardinals rule!”
The screen glitches again, and then the regular VideoMine window appears.
I sit back, exhaling with relief.
“That’s the easter egg Adam wrote into the code,” I explain. “In an early draft, which he totally forgot about. He never imagined Kellan would be dumb enough to keep it. But I guess your genius programmer didn’t even bother to check the program he’s claiming he single-handedly developed,” I add in a scathing voice.
Ash doesn’t reply.
I stop. This is it, I realize. The moment when I find out just what kind of man Ash is now. He’s got millions riding on this, and I already know, he hates to lose.
The easter egg proves Adam wrote at least some of the code, but that doesn’t mean Ash has to roll over. He could offer us a massive settlement to keep this under the radar: buy out Adam’s share ahead of the launch, and keep the whole thing quiet.
Keep Kellan rich, and himself even richer – by doing the wrong thing.
So what’s it going to be?