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He jerked slightly. That wasn’t what he’d expected to be asked. “I’m not sure. We were at your house. We came here instead, though I didn’t tell him why we were coming here.” He answered the question honestly, speaking as the answer occurred to him. He hadn’t even considered what Jared knew or didn’t. “I imagine he assumes we’re dating. Though he would never ask, nor would he tell anyone,” he clarified.
He reached under his collar, suddenly tight at the idea of dating this unpredictable woman. It would never work. “Don’t worry about it.”
“He’s probably the closest to you and your biggest security risk. How much do you know about him?”
Cole shook his head. “It’s not Jared. He’s like a brother to me.”
Joey raised an eyebrow. “Brothers betray brothers all the time. How do you know him?”
He tensed. It was none of her business how he knew Jared. Like he was going to tell her about how he’d met Jared after his grandparents died. “I just do,” he snapped. “I trust him. He respects my secrets. If I need to loop him in, I will.”
Joey paused. “You trust him that much?” Her question was quiet, her voice slightly husky, and it disarmed his anger.
He unclenched his fists and nodded. “With my life.”
Joey tilted her head, seeming to weigh that response. “Okay. Well, you have to know his background check had some major red flags.” She clicked through a few screens on her computer.
Cole felt the resurgence of the anger at her intrusion into his life. His voice hardened, edged with steel. “You had no right to run his information.” How much had she found about Jared’s past? Did she know about the man Jared attacked? Or why he’d done it?
Joey whipped her chair around. “Do you want me to protect your precious company? Your precious research? Then I will do everything I can. I will trust no one.” She spoke with raw bitterness, and he felt a pang of regret at his treatment of her. She was just trying to help. Then she leaned closer, and he stopped breathing, afraid to break the connection. “And I will verify every potential threat. Even the ones you might be blind to. Got it?”
He’d seen a glimpse of this confident passion this morning, but nothing like this. He broke their eye contact and nodded with a sigh. He rubbed a hand down his face and leaned back in the chair, creating much-needed distance from her. “Thanks. I know I’ve got a blind spot somewhere, otherwise I would have figured this out by now. But the idea that it could be Jared… It’s just not an option for me. I know his background. I still trust him.”
Joey’s voice was quieter when she spoke again. “I get it. Sometimes, family isn’t born, it’s forged by choice in the fire of trial. Those bonds are stronger than blood. Especially when our own family isn’t around.” Her tone was full of melancholy, calling to him.
He pulled his gaze back to hers, wondering who she was talking about. She was an enigma–a mysterious tangle of layers he wanted to peel back one at a time. “That’s exactly it,” he agreed, thinking of Jared. Several moments of silence passed until his thoughts circled back to her. She mentioned family of choice. Who had she chosen as her family?
“What’s your story, Joey?” The question came out before he could stop it.
She bristled, and he kicked himself for going too far. “Let’s just get to work. For now, keep Jared in the dark, okay? I want to talk more about the project you’re concerned about.”
Cole pushed aside his foolish thoughts about untangling Joey Rodriguez. She was a distraction he couldn’t afford. “Right. While Zia Pharmaceuticals is performing groundbreaking research on multiple fronts, our biggest goal is to make Alzheimer’s and dementia preventable and curable diseases.” He had explained this mission so many times, it was a well-practiced speech. But this wasn’t a talk with investors or a polite chat with a stranger at a fundraiser.
Joey needed more.
“Across the industry, we’ve had limited success with treatment options. We can slow the progress of the disease. But we can’t stop it.” He leaned forward, knowing that what he was about to tell her was the biggest secret. “Zia has something promising on the prevention side, though. An experimental gene protein therapy that targets three of the common gene mutations that we know result in Alzheimer’s-indicative structures in the brain.”
Joey was watching him carefully, her eyes wide and luminescent in the blue glow of the computers.
“Long term, it’s basically the equivalent of an Alzheimer’s vaccine for at-risk people.”
“Whoa.”
He grinned. “I know! It wouldn’t catch every case of the disease, but it has the potential to be incredible. And I’m throwing everything behind it based on the initial trials.”
“But?”
He released a heavy sigh. That had been the good news. Now it was time for the bad news. “But we’ve had some security breaches. There are records of our data showing up offsite, and my team can’t trace it. There are a few other labs suddenly testing similar therapies. I think there is someone leaking the information.”
Joey’s pink lips formed a thoughtful pout, and Cole tore his eyes away from them. “But why would they do that? And also, why would it matter? Shouldn’t all your medical research people be sharing information anyway?” She pushed her hair out of her face. “Look, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m sure all the money is in being the first one to solve the problem.”
Cole was familiar with the argument. He shook his head to dispel the thought that it was about the profits. “I’m all for sharing information. But if someone takes information out of context, it could be really dangerous. I honestly don’t care if another company cures Alzheimer’s before us. It’s not about the money. It’s about the mission. And these other labs? Their results are completely different from ours, which makes ours look fake. Stealing information for any reason isn’t exactly the mark of an altruistic entity, is it?”
Joey nodded. “Yeah, probably not. Okay, how do I get access to the servers for this project?”
Cole reared back. “What do you mean? I’m not giving you access.”
Joey raised her eyebrow at him. “Cole, if the information you need protected is vulnerable, you’re going to need my help to secure it.”
