Hate to Love You (Strong Brothers 4)

Since our confrontation the first time I caught her in a towel, she'd been going to the office wearing professional clothes like she would have if we were home in San Diego. Based on how she was dressed now, it didn't appear that she was going to the office.

I stepped in her path to block her way. I worked to keep my tone even. "Where are you heading?"

She stopped short, looking at me with those dark eyes. "I'm not sure."

I cocked my head not understanding her meaning. Over my shoulder, something caught her gaze. I turned to look. Marcus Chen was walking towards us.

Anger flared. "You're supposed to be working," I said.

She pursed her lips and got that fiery gleam in her eye that in the past had charged me up. Now it just pissed me off.

"I am working. He's a part of this business."

"What are you some sort of Mata Hari? You can get information from him through pillow talk." Even as the words left my lips, I knew they were heinous, but I couldn't stop myself.

Andi didn't slap me, but I knew she wanted to.

Instead of giving me that well-deserved slap, she put on a sweet smile for Marcus as he stepped up to use.

"Ms. Walker, you look like you're ready for an adventure." He took her hand, bringing it to her lips. I had to shove my hands in my pockets to keep from punching him in that smarmy polished face.

"Yes, I'm eager to see the sights. And please call me Andi." She said with extra sweetness in her tone. Did she really prefer this guy over me? Was all this a show to get under my skin, or was she really into this man?

"Noah, how are you today?" Marcus asked, extending his hand out to shake with mine. It didn’t escape my notice that he called me by my first name and Andi by her last. It was disrespectful and designed to make me feel small. Was he doing that because of Andi, or because I was the youngest, least involved Strong in the family business?

The reason didn’t matter. I could hold my own.

He winced slightly as I gripped his hand tightly. "I’m doing good Marcus. Thank you."

I thought about pulling rank and preventing her from going out with him, except I had to consider that maybe she really was going to pick his brain about who would want to sabotage us. I hated her seeing him, but she’d always been committed and loyal to Gran. I had to trust her if my grandmother did.

"How's your hacker investigation going?" Marcus asked.

I narrowed my eyes at him, but held back the comment that he was on my list of suspects. Instead, I decided to give him a little teaser and see how he'd react. "I'm getting close."

His expression didn't reveal anything. "I have no doubt that you'll find out who's behind all this. Sooner or later."

I tried to avoid frowning because that last part of his comment made me stop. Sooner or later? Did that mean something? At some point was the hacker going to reveal himself? When he did, would it be too late for us to do anything about it?

Andi strung her arm through Marcus's and plastered on that fake smile of hers. "Marcus is going to show me Hong Kong. Since you've already seen it, and you have other work to do, I figured you wouldn’t want to join us."

Once again, I considered mixing that idea, but instead I plastered on my own fake smile. "Of course. Have a good time. I'll handle the call with my grandmother today on my own."

That last bit was a petty reminder to Andi about where her duty should lie on the off chance she wasn't really going out on an investigative excursion. The fact that her fake smile dropped slightly suggested I was on point.

I made an over-the-top gesture as I moved out of their way, my arm extending to the door like Jeeves the butler. "Have a lovely afternoon." I made my way to the elevator, hiding my seething anger until the doors shut and the car was moving upstairs.

I took an hour or so in the suite to get myself back together, and then went to the office. I reminded myself that the faster I found the hacker, the sooner I could go home and be away from Andi and my meddling family.

Once at the office, I pushed Andi out of my mind and lost myself in the computers. First, I went through each machine, scanning for breaches but not finding anything that stood out. Then I went back through the painstaking work of figuring out where the source of the hack had come from.

I was so deep in my work I was only vaguely aware when Phil brought me something to eat. I took breaks only to relieve myself and get something to drink, and then once again dove back into the data. The work was tedious, and I had moments of wondering why the hell this was the profession I chose.

And then there it was. Like a fucking becon, it revealed itself. I took note of the IP address that was the source of the breach, and ran a trace to see its location.

"Phil!"

A second later he came rushing in. "You found something?"