“What’d he say?”

She stiffened in my arms, and I loosened my grip so I could see her face. The expression on it gutted me, but morphed into rage before I could say anything else.

“He told me that they were none of my concern.”

What a fucking asshole. I kept the comment to myself.

“So I very politely explained that he was right, it wasn’t any of my concern because I was done with him, and I would appreciate it if he never contacted me again.”

A wave of approval surged through me, and I swiped a thumb along her cheek to catch the couple of tears she’d let fall. “Way to stand up for yourself.”

Ari lifted her chin, and I could practically see her armor closing over her emotions. “Thank you. Now I hope you’ll understand why I’m asking you to go before I say something I won’t be able to take back because I’m frustrated. I refuse to be anyone’s mistake. If anything, I’m a goddamned privilege.”

Only Ari could make me smile while throwing me out of her house.

She’s always been special, and this is more proof.

“I’ll go, but I’ll be seeing you tomorrow. And just so we’re all clear, I’m going to see your brother first.”

The promise in my words made her eyebrow shoot upward. “Is that so?”

“Damn right.” I turned for the door.

“Good night, Rhett.”

I paused with my hand on the knob. “Tomorrow, Red.”

16

Ariel

It took me hours to fall asleep with Rhett’s words ringing in my head, so when my phone went off at three o’clock in the morning, I wanted to crush the SIM card and go back to bed. But instinct, and a healthy dose of fear, had me grabbing it.

“Hello?”

“We just had an attempted hacking incident.” The voice on the other end was one of my assistants, Erik.

I shot up in bed, fumbling for the light switch to turn on the nightstand lamp. “What? Did they breach? Wait, you said attempted.”

Esme’s voice joined the call. “They made it past the second firewall before the threat was contained and our adaptive security measures crushed them like the little roaches they are.” She had always been more bloodthirsty than Erik, so her comment didn’t surprise me.

“They got through the second?” I sounded like a demented parrot with my repetition, but shock had me fumbling for coherent thoughts.

“Yes, through the second,” Erik confirmed.

“What the hell?”

“That’s what I said. No one has been able to get that far since you designed this system.” This came from Esme.

“Who was it?”

I didn’t bother to ask if they were able to trace it because it would be an insult. My team was good. I wouldn’t have hired them if they hadn’t been kicked out of Stanford for some creative grade switching, also known as hacking into student files and failing three guys on the swim team who wouldn’t stop harassing a friend of theirs. They were expelled, black marks solidly placed on their record, with no chance of getting a decent job with most companies.

Except mine. I appreciated their sense of justice and creativity.

“Some idiot savant in Miami who didn’t know how to cover his tracks well enough to hide from me.”

“Get a name, get the information. Find out everything you can to determine why we were targeted.”

“It might be another punk just trying to prove himself, you know? We’ve got a reputation as being impenetrable because of your genius brain, which makes us a big, beautiful target.”

Esme had a point. By being virtually hack-proof, there was always an idiot out to test his skills against my security. So far, we’d napalmed anyone who had gotten past the first barriers, and this jerk-face would be no different. But it did worry me that he’d gotten further than most.

I took a deep, calming breath, inhaling the lavender diffusing at my bedside. Look for the opportunity when presented with a problem. That was how I’d built an incredibly successful business, and I wouldn’t let emotion get in the way here.

“This just means I need to get more creative and do some tweaking. It’s time to adapt and change, something I’ve clearly been neglecting this week.”

Normally, I updated my security protocols at least twice a week, but since being back in New Orleans, my schedule was off. It proved, once again, that complacency represented weakness.

While I had one big glaring weakness in my personal life who’d left me needing to take care of business myself tonight, I didn’t have them in my professional life.

Immediately, my mind went to Carlos. Had he hired the hacker out of spite? Just to prove to me I wasn’t as good as I thought I was?

Even though the possibility burned, I voiced it. “Check for any connection between the idiot savant and Carlos.”

“Really? Why would he want to . . .” Erik’s question trailed off.

“I dumped his cheating ass today. Cut all ties. Maybe this is his way of telling me that he didn’t like my methods.”

“You go, girl! I never liked that douchebag.” Esme’s response was quick and to the point.

“And you never mentioned this because?” It came as a little bit of a surprise that she hadn’t shared her opinion sooner. Esme was nothing if not assertive.

“Didn’t you notice that I brought you celebratory sushi every time you flipped the switch to off-again mode? And I’m pretty sure I made enough snide comments about that ridiculous Lamborghini he drove to compensate for something he’s obviously lacking.”

Thinking back, I remembered both, but I hadn’t made the connection. “Why didn’t you just come out and say it? You know I don’t pick up on hints. I would’ve listened.”

Erik choked out a laugh. “Ari, no offense, but you’re about as good at taking suggestions on your personal life as you are at tennis.”

Oh, he did not just mention “the incident.”

“That’s not fair.”

The phone went completely silent, telling me they hit Mute so I couldn’t hear them laughing. Assholes.

Nine months ago, the CEO of a very prominent Silicon Valley tech company invited me to play tennis with him as we discussed a potential project we could pursue together. My tennis lessons had stopped when they started costing money the summer after fourth grade, so my skills as an adult were basically shit.