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“Good. Thank you.”
“Cooper, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to see that Marx pays for your bike to be repaired.”
I let out a hollow laugh at the idea. There was no way in hell Marx would ever cop to even being the one who had vandalized my bike in the first place, let alone cough up the five hundred bucks to have it fixed. But, if Cooper wanted to spin his wheels, fine. It would keep him busy and out of my way for a little while.
“Is that all you needed?” I asked.
“Yes, thank you. Let me know as soon as you find anything,” he said.
I stood up and started towards the door. I heard Cooper get up and follow after me, but resisted the urge to turn back and look at him. I knew that I would never get anything done if I turned around. One thing always led to another with him and right now, I had one thing on my mind, and it wasn’t him.
For once.
I reached for the handle, but Cooper beat me to it. He was standing so close that I could feel his body heat all the way down my back. If I took even a fraction of a step backwards, I was certain that I would be fully pressed against his body. His scent enveloped me and I teetered in my heels, slightly leaning, but then stopped short. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
I looked up and found him staring down at me. His eyes were dark and I could tell he was mulling something over. I wanted to ask what was on his mind, to get inside his head just for a minute, but I knew that if I asked, he would likely give me some bullshit answer. In the course of our relationship, Cooper had given me few glimpses into himself. And, while those moments were breathtaking and real, they were hard to come by. Most of the time, he was behind a wall that I couldn’t climb.
But, I realized that was likely because I was too busy crouching behind my own walls.
“Thank you, Allie,” Cooper said, his voice in a soothing whisper.
“For what?”
“For understanding.”
My stomach twisted at his words and the soft tone of his voice. His face was inches from mine. It would be so easy to fall back into his embrace, and let him take my mind off the ugliness of the world for just a few hours.
Before I could decide what to do, he opened the door and we were exposed again, the moment gone. I stepped into the hall and gave him a last look before hurrying past Kimberly’s desk and heading downstairs to my office.
After all, I had work to do.
Coffee in hand, I sat down behind my computer and started getting ready to dive in to the hacking. I was determined to get the answers to Cooper by the end of the day. I put all my cloaking in place and then tapped into the competition’s database. I resisted the urge to destroy the entire thing and instead worked my way through the different sections until I hit pay dirt.
All the formulas.
I copied everything to my computer as quickly as possible, knowing that I could be kicked off at any second. I’d been careful to cover my tracks, but I still felt unsure as I watched the data being copied over.
Once the last of it had been cataloged, I closed out of everything and sat back in my chair, breathless.
It was done.
I had everything Cooper would need to build a case against the company that had potentially ruined his sister’s health, and the health of countless other women who had used the products. The knowledge that I’d helped vindicate so many innocent victims was absolutely heartwarming and I couldn’t hold back a broad smile as I compressed the files and copied them to a USB drive to deliver to Cooper personally.
Before leaving my office, I heard my email dinging for attention. I pulled open the program and quickly worked my way through the inbox. Mostly the messages were inner office memos that I deleted but then I saw an automatic email notifying me that someone had responded to my post about the identity of the hacker in the hacking forum.
My heart raced as my fingers flew over the keyboard to log in. I pulled it up, silently urging the internet to work faster as I waited for the page to load. I clicked the link to my thread and gasped at the reply.
The hacking signature belonged to Clay Gregson.
AKA…Bryce’s boyfriend. Clay had been the one to hack into the Plush database.
But why?
My mind spun and then lurched as I recalled another detail. Cooper had mentioned a Clay last night, and I hadn’t stopped to ask but it seemed too coincidental to not be the same guy. What had he said? I struggled to remember. The information had been jumbled in with everything else that had occurred.
And now…this.
