HANNAH (Silicon Valley Billionaires 3)

I got up and pulled him toward the car. “Let’s get to Paragon. We need to find out what’s going on with Li Na.”

I wanted to ask him about what he’d said—about living with me for safety purposes only. Did he mean that? Was he going to buy a new house, move out, and then we’d just…go back to dating? I couldn’t imagine going to bed every night without his big, warm body next to me.

He’d been spoiling me, and I worried I’d be ruined without him.

Insecurity was a foreign feeling for me, and I hated it. But rejection’s probably worse, I reasoned. So I kept my mouth shut, biting back the questions that were eating at me.

There was a ton of traffic on the freeway, and I bounced my knee, anxious to get to the office. My phone buzzed with a call from Fiona. “Are you okay?” I asked, not bothering to say hello.

Fiona laughed, but it sounded brittle. “Not really. Li Na Zhao sent me an email today—she wants to know where I stand on the sale of my company.”

“Did she threaten you?”

Wes turned to look at me sharply.

“Not specifically,” Fiona said. “But she only gave me a week to give her an answer—she said she was out of patience.”

I sucked in a breath. Li Na and her ever-loving lack of patience. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I scheduled a meeting with my board for tomorrow morning. I don’t know what to tell them, because I don’t know what to think. What will she do if I say no? After what she’s already done…” Fiona started to cry, and I clenched the phone.

“I’

m going to see Lauren right now. We’re having a meeting about Li Na—she’s been trying to hack into our system again. I’ll call you afterward. We need to do something—we’re in this together.”

“O-okay.” Fiona took a deep breath. “Can we meet up later? I really feel like I need a friend.”

“Of course. You want to go to a class?”

“Only if we can get a drink afterward—and I don’t mean a coconut water.”

“Sounds good to me,” I agreed.

“Text me later—I’ll sign us up at Praise for the class tonight. And Hannah?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

I clutched the phone, wishing I could make things better for my friend. “Don’t thank me yet.”

Chapter 15

Hannah

Lauren didn’t bother to sit at our meeting; she paced the length of her office as I, Wes, Gabe, Dave, Leo, and Ash watched.

Levi was at Protocol with Ellis, making sure that Betts Security remained on high alert.

Lauren raked a hand through her hair and looked at Leo. “Explain to me again exactly what Li Na was doing in our system.”

Leo took his glasses off and cleaned them while he talked. “It’s like she’s pinging us—going into our system and banging into our firewall. She keeps getting bounced back. It’s a pretty common form of phishing. Hackers try it on a daily basis to see if there’s some sort of change in their target’s interface—some sort of new instability they can capitalize on.”

“But why the hell is she trying to hack you again when she’s already seen everything?” Gabe asked Lauren.

My sister stopped pacing and stared out the windows. “I don’t know. Maybe she wants to get in again to see if we’ve made any improvements…”

Gabe tapped his fingers against the table, lost in thought. “Or see if you’re developing anything new.”