The CEO's Little Surprise

“Not in the slightest.” The frost in her voice needed to go. “I’ve already done a couple of hours’ worth of research. Now that you’re here, I want to go over my notes with you.”

Would she balk if he yanked her into his lap and kissed that frown upside down? Since the door was open, he resisted. But only just. And only for now.

It was better to deal with business during daylight hours. Probably.

“All right. Lay it on me. I am a fount of advice.”

Her brow raised as if she didn’t quite believe him. “I haven’t even told you what I’ve got yet. How do you know you’ll have anything valuable to contribute?”

“I’m motivated. Plus, you of all people should be aware of my résumé when it comes to that.”

“Well, then. I’m dying to hear it, O Sage One.”

Maybe her mood wasn’t as volatile as he’d assumed if she was making jokes.

Memories of her, hot and pliant in his arms, damp heat against his fingers, all that hair like silk in his fingers...yeah.

It was totally worth taking a shot.

“My first piece of advice is to relax,” he said smoothly. Cass hadn’t moved an iota from her no-nonsense pose against the desk. Gage couldn’t work his charm with her so uptight. “Second, I advise you to have dinner with me again tonight. But let’s actually eat this time.”

Other than a slight eye roll, she held herself impressively frozen with not even a leg tremor to give away her thoughts. “I can’t display that on a presentation at a board meeting. I need results and I need them today.”

“Then sit down and let’s hash it out,” he suggested with a nod at the other chair. “I’m starting to feel as though I was called to the principal’s office the way you’re towering over me.”

With a piercing side eye aimed pointedly in his direction, she perched on the other chair but he had the distinct impression she didn’t like the idea. He held his hands up in silent promise to keep them to himself, which she acknowledged with a muttered, “Yeah, we’ll see.”

The truth was he had as much of an interest in finding the leak and plugging it as Cass did—if nothing else, he wasn’t prepared to hand over one single dollar until it was handled, or his investment would be worthless.

Nor could he afford to let the leak take the formula public. Then someone else might get the upper hand. The issues inside Cass’s company needed to be resolved.

“Talk to me about your notes.” When she hesitated, he stuck his palms under his butt, and widened his eyes in an exaggerated okay? “Come on.”

It was so subtle, he almost missed it. But he was watching her closely enough to pinpoint the exact moment she relaxed. The victory shot through him with a sharp thrill.

“My theory is that the leak came from someone in the lab. Has to be. No one else outside of the four founders knows how the formula works.”

He’d considered that, too, and it was probably true, but she couldn’t make broad assumptions. “Anyone could have hacked into your database or paid off a janitor to steal Harper’s notes.”

“True. But I don’t think that’s how it happened. So I’m thinking about planting some false information and watermarking the files. If it gets leaked, I can trace it back.”

“Digital forensics? Like what banks use when they’re hacked? That’s expensive.”

“Formula-47 is worth millions of dollars. Maybe billions.”

Yes, absolutely. But you had to spend money where it made sense. “Regardless, you’d have to wait until the leak found the information and hope he or she didn’t realize that the transferred files could be traced, then you have to assume the leak will decide to spill it, wait for the news to hit the industry and then try to track down who accessed the file on your server. You don’t have that long.”

Her lips pursed but she didn’t give away anything else of her thoughts. “That’s exactly why I wanted to run this by you. I knew you’d find the holes if there were any.”

That small compliment from a tough customer like Cass held more weight than he would have imagined. It spread through his chest warmly. He could get used to that. Get used to combining business and pleasure in exactly this way, with a woman who could match him mentally and physically.

That’s a new experience you can get behind.

Except it wasn’t exactly new. This was like old times, but better because they were equals.