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Eric stared at the two words below Vicky’s name and number. The green one was answer and the red one was decline. Thinking it better to take the call than to put her off, he placed the box on Megan’s futon and clicked the green word.
“Hey, Vicky.”
“It’s Vicky and Felix,” she said. “Got you on speaker.”
“Hey, Felix.”
Felix voiced, “I thought you guys were going to be in New York talking to Senator Brickman and General Furnish about the delay. What are you doing in Dallas?”
Fuck. “Scott’s the lead in New York. I’m here on another matter.” He kept his tone level. “How did you know I was in Dallas, anyway? I didn’t decide to come here until late last night.”
“Trying to pull an unannounced inspection on us, Eric?” Vicky laughed. “Some things never change.”
Felix chimed in. “I called the Destiny offices first thing this morning to try to catch you guys before you took off. So I called the airport in Walden. The man there said the flight plan filed had changed from New York to Dallas.”
“Eric.” Vicky’s serious tone made him clench his jaw. “We had another attack into the system.”
“When?”
“Last night, five minutes after midnight. That’s why you’re here, right?” she asked. “You’re getting closer to finding the hacker. Is the culprit in Texas?”
Now he and Scott had proof positive that Megan was innocent, like they expected her to be. “Still working on that, Vicky. Not any closer than we were before.” Eric didn’t want to tip his hand. He would’ve liked to trust Vicky, but he still wasn’t ready to trust anyone besides Scott. He would wait to fill her in only after everything came to light and Megan was safe.
“When can we expect you in the Dallas office, buddy?” Felix asked.
“You can’t. I’ll be heading back to Destiny today.”
“Why so cloak-and-dagger?” TBK’s number two in Dallas asked.
Vicky added, “Are you working on a new deal we should know about?”
After seeing Megan’s home, the only deal he wanted to work on was keeping her safe, getting to know her better, and ultimately winning her heart.
“Shoot me the details you’ve got on this last attack. When I get to the office tomorrow, I’ll call you so you can fill me in.”
“You’re the boss,” she said with a hint of irritation.
Vicky was ambitious, but was she too ambitious, like Kip had been?
* * * *
Megan walked into the mansion with her arms loaded with packages. It was after midnight, and even though she’d slept nearly the entire flight from New York back to Colorado, she was exhausted.
Scott was beside her with even more packages, and there were still more in his truck.
She shook her head. “I can’t keep all of this. It’s too much.”
“Not this again, sweetheart.”
“Scott, you told me that twenty thousand dollars was my TBK wardrobe allowance. We brought back at least double that amount. I’m going to return most of it.”
“Megan, please stop,” he said, dropping the bags to the floor.
She really didn’t know the total since Dylan had taken over paying the bills during the shopping spree. He’d also, per Scott’s instructions, kept the salesclerks from telling her how much things cost. But after spying a couple of forgotten tags when they boarded the plane, she knew the budget must’ve been busted. The Manolo suede boots were nearly fourteen hundred dollars alone.
“This bag”—she patted the camel-colored Hermès—“might be as much as five thousand all by itself.”
“More like thirty-five to forty,” Eric said, coming down the stairs with Gretchen.
