Chapter 16

Jet lag is real. I flew to Australia and back within five days. That's forty-four hours of plane time on our private jet. Now, I'm currently in the Chicago office with Benson, Wells, and Warner for meetings with Fortune 500 companies interested in using our satellites for various purposes.

Between meetings, I shoot Cameron a text.

Me: One more day.

Cameron: Till what?

Me: Until I'm balls deep inside you, licking that sweet center, sucking you everywhere.

Cameron: Stop.

Me: I can't. I keep looking at the picture you sent a few weeks ago. Send me another.

Cameron: Nope. Not doing that again. You have a knack for leaving your phone where other people can pick it up. You can send me one.

Me: Let me excuse myself.

I watch the bouncing dots as I make my way into my personal bathroom inside my Chicago office.

Cameron: Don't, it will make me miss you more.

So, I unbutton my shirt, unbuckle my belt, and open the fly to take a picture of my lower abs and the hair leading to my dick and hit send.

Cameron: Commando?

Me: Ran out of clean underwear because I've been thinking about you.

Cameron: You better be keeping that in your pants.

Me: Why? Do you want me all for yourself? Winky face

More dancing dots.

We haven't defined our relationship. It's only been a couple of weeks. I've told her I want her all to myself, but we haven't declared each other exclusive, although she has been for me. She fills me in every sense of the word and until just now, I haven't thought of Phoebe.

Cameron: I don't know if you're enough for me, but that pic is hot.

Me: Do you remember when you couldn't walk you were so sore? When I'm done with you tomorrow, you'll need one of those electronic vehicles with the basket to go to the grocery store.

Cameron: Laughing emoji. Challenge accepted.

She knows I'm not kidding, and we're sexually compatible. Experimenting is part of the fun, not true dom/sub stuff, but it heightens our senses being blindfolded or not allowing the other to use their hands.

The guys and I go to dinner at a private club where the who's who of Chicago shamelessly cheat on their wives. We meet with a potential client, and he has women for all of us. When it's obvious that Benson and I aren't interested, Wells takes the redhead off my hands, and I shake my head, knowing he'll take both women home. If he had someone like Cameron, one woman would satisfy him. Wells and I are complete opposites, but damn, he's fun, and beneath it all, one caring fucker.

The client tells the women we need a moment alone so we can discuss business, but all I can think about is filming my segment tomorrow with the last woman and then the what-not-to-do commercial with Cameron the day after.

My brothers and I toast our new client with a bottle of Dom. The redhead comes back, sits on my lap, extends her arm, and snaps a photo. Then she turns, kissing me on the cheek. "You don't know what you're missing."

Oh, I do. She has long, brown hair, golden eyes, and decency.

Benson's smile widens. Like me, he's always been a one-woman man. Even when we were both single, it was about dating the same girls until we broke up for whatever reason. Once I began dating Phoebe, Benson didn't date for a long time. Little did I know he was in love with my sister.

He simply states, "The boat captain turned down the million. I recall you saying you would propose if any woman was willing to take the chance on the big money."

"Come on, you know I wasn't serious." I wasn't.

Benson pushes his feet against the carpet, leaning his chair back. "Waverly thinks you're in love. And I bet if you give me a look at your messages, you've been talking to her."

"It's different from Phoebe."

"Is that bad?"

"No, she's the complete opposite of Phoebe. Maybe I'm rebounding." A soft sigh escapes my mouth. "I don't want to hurt her, but I…."

He sets his chair back on the ground. "Rebounding would have been the first year or two. You're allowed to love someone else. And there's no denying the change in you since Cameron came into your life."

"How can I love two people so completely different?"

A deep belly laughs rolls from Benson. "You love me and Wells. And if we're not opposites, no one is."

"Truer words have never been spoken."

I think about what Benson said. All. Night. Long.

The next morning, I fly back to Miami. My driver takes me directly from the airport to the marina where I deliver a stiff coffee to my favorite boat captain and am awarded with a soul-stealing kiss. Her lips envelop me, and the tenderness in her eyes shows me how she feels, even if she hasn't said it.

"Barclay will pick you up after I tape my segment and bring you to my penthouse."

"Okay. Thanks for the coffee and the kiss."

"There'll be more than a kiss waiting for you tonight."

"Promises, promises."

This woman's playfulness is infectious, constantly injecting happiness into my life. Benson's words echo in my mind, and I know Cameron Darling has me, hook, line, and sinker.

We smile as our lips overlap repeatedly. She rubs her finger over my lips. "See you later."

A few more kisses, and I'm off to meet the final woman for the show—the hacker. This should be more interesting than the professional sleeper.

The hacker sits in a black vinyl booth of a chain restaurant. I know it's her because she told the producer she has pink hair. "Mr. Worthington," she says. It's between breakfast and lunch, so we have the restaurant to ourselves other than a few elderly couples.

"Jonna, I presume."

She smiles as she shakes my hand vigorously. "Welcome to my office."

"You know I saved you for last."

"You did?"

"I did. The techy in me wanted to meet a real-life hacker."

Her face blooms with color, similar to her hair. She's young, pretty, with a blinding smile.

"Where to start?"

"Let's start with how you made hacking your living."

She curls her lips to the side and scrunches her nose, reminding me of my sister. Jonna has a thin shirt that exposes one shoulder and a tiny gold nose ring. She wiggles around a bit and strums her fingers on the top of her unopened laptop.

"Have you heard the term white-hat hacker?"

I nod.

"I'm an only child of two doctors, and I spent a good amount of my childhood with nannies and babysitters. If you have children, don't do that to them. Don't have children if you don't have time for them." She pauses, looking at her fingers. "Anyway, I was winning video game championships by twelve. One of the other players got me into designing games on one platform. But once I got interested in coding, I realized I was really fucking good at it. Starting out, I was hacking into video games and manipulating the endings so people couldn't win. The company that owned it was small and hired me right after graduation on a contractual basis. I was just one of many white-hat hackers looking for code that left them vulnerable."

"Your letter said you did something illegal, and you were scared. What happened?"

"It was harmless. A girl I wanted to be friends with wanted to go to a concert, and tickets were thousands of dollars for lower level. I thought if I got her tickets, she would want to hang out with me, so I hacked into the ticket system, changed the prices, and bought our tickets. What I didn't take into consideration was that thousands of other people were buying tickets at the same time. The company lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The FBI contacted me, and I have thirty days to submit to an interview."

Jonna opens her laptop and angles it where I can see her screen, showing me the follow-up letter from the FBI. Shit, I can't air any of this, or she'll be in more trouble. Triple W Communications will have to pick one more person for me to meet, and all I want to do is spend any free time I have with Cameron.

"They might charge me. I don't want your money, Mr. Worthington. I sent in my letter to your company because I thought you may know someone who can keep me from going to jail."

"Where are your parents now?"

"Indianapolis. I moved here when I turned eighteen. I figured if I was going to be lonely, might as well be lonely on a beach." A soft breath escapes her throat.

"Hack into my company's computer system."

"Now?"

"Yes. I want to see how good you are."

Jonna's eyes widen like it's the last sentence she would hear come from my mouth. Her fingers work furiously for ten minutes, focused on breaking through our firewalls. We have state-of-the-art technology and have never seen a breach. Ten minutes later, her fingers come to a stop, and my phone rings.

"Mr. Worthington, someone is in our system."

"How did they get in?"

"Why are you calm, and I'm not?" he asks.

"Probably because your job is on the line. Figure out how the hacker got in, and I'll see you in my office at nine tomorrow morning."

Despite the initial shock, I can't help but feel a sense of admiration for her skills and determination. As I mull it over, I realize that Jonna could be a valuable asset who can help strengthen our cybersecurity measures.

"Jonna, I need to make a call." Three phone calls later, I come back to the table. "Check your email."

When she opens the email, she grins from ear to ear. "How? So quick?" she asks, while perusing the letter from the FBI agreeing to let her work for me, and I'll pay the ticket company's losses.

"Will you come work for me?"

Before I've begun to give her the details of what the job would entail, she quickly jumps out of the booth, so I slide out, and she hugs me. "Yes."

"My office tomorrow at nine. Our tech team wears company shirts so you're easily recognizable. You'll be getting an email from Human Resources who will get your sizes and have everything ready for your first day." I grab her hand. "You're going to do big things, Jonna, and you'll have state-of-the-art technology to work with."

"Thanks, Mr. Worthington."

We order lunch and discuss everything from her favorite beach and movies to the steps she took to get past Triple W's firewalls. I'm eager for her to join our team and bring a fresh, young approach to the safety of our company information.

I didn't anticipate having any free time because these "dates" usually are all day and into the evening. My first thought is to go to the marina and surprise Cameron, but the boat isn't in the slip.

My sister Waverly doesn't live far, so I stop by her house. She surrounds me with her arms at the surprise. "What are you doing here in the middle of the day?"

"I missed my sister."

She lifts her brow. "I'm going ring shopping for Benson. Do you want to come?"

Waverly studies my face. Even though she's younger, she's a mother hen, destined to be a wife and mom. She's a professional singer and painfully shy with anyone she hasn't known for a long time or family, so she cuts demos for songwriters. It was my plan that she would sing at my wedding. My wedding. I let out a sigh. "I'd love to. Do you have a tiara for your wedding day?"

"No, I was thinking of just wearing flowers in my hair."

After placing a peck on her cheek, I say, "I'm buying my favorite sister a tiara, because you're the princess in this family."

"What's going on with the boat captain? You're in love, and I'm so happy that you're finally happy. You deserve a woman to come home to. To share your life with. To go on vacations with Benson and me. I loved Phoebe like my sister, but that doesn't mean I can't love someone else you love just as much."

We walk to the car, and Barclay takes us to the chic shopping district, dropping us off in front of Promises, an upscale fine jewelry store, akin to Tiffany's. Waverly asks my opinion on several rings for my best friend and ends up deciding on a thick platinum band without diamonds.

I ask the jeweler to show Waverly a selection of tiaras. While she's in the other room, trying them on, I peruse the counter, and a sudden pang hits me. This time, it's not guilt. I can't take my eyes off the breathtaking diamond. It's calling to me—asking me to run my fingers over it. To imagine it on Cameron's finger. The jeweler sees me eyeing it and removes it from the case. The ring shines.

My sister prances out from the other room in a small tiara with diamonds in two solid rows. It's simple and understated, perfect for Waverly. "You are gorgeous. Benson won't be able to take his eyes off you." I look to the salesman. "We'll take it." I wink at him, and he darts his eyes to the ring I placed on the counter. His smile widens. "Yes, sir. I'll take care of everything."

My sister is a part owner of Triple W. However, she never wanted to be involved. She has plenty of her own money, but I want to buy this for the first girl who stole my heart. When Mom came home from the hospital with Waverly dressed in pink that matched her skin, I was in love. I remember the first time her fingers curled around my ten-year-old hand. She leans her head against my shoulder. "You're the best brother."

"Yeah, when the other two aren't around."

Barclay drops her off and takes me home as well. My mind tells me I'm acting irrationally. We've only known each other a few weeks, but my heart says otherwise. Tonight, I'm telling Cameron about the part I played in Phoebe's death. Then the ball's in her court.