Trust by Design (Colorado Trust 2)

Her eyebrows arched. “I hadn’t thought of that, but it would make sense.”

After filling the glass with two fingers of brandy, he set it and the mug on the island bar where she’d taken a seat. He turned his back for one moment to get a tea bag, sugar, and honey, then faced her again to find her downing his drink in two long swallows.

She returned the glass to the marble counter with a bang and saw him watching her. “I changed my mind.”

“I see that.” He set the tea and sweeteners down and grabbed the brandy bottle again. When the glass was refilled, he swiped it out of her reach. “Nu-uh. Not unless you eat something.”

After giving a negative shake of her head, she unwrapped the tea and plopped the bag into the empty mug before draping the little tab on the string over the side. Then she dumped in one level teaspoon of sugar and curled her hands around the ceramic to stare inside. As he raised his glass, she looked up.

“I bet it was him in my office. He probably saw us leave together. And remember when I said my password sheet was still stuck behind the drawer?”

“Yeah?” He eyed her over the rim of his glass while taking a healthy swallow.

“Well…it was crooked.” She gave a self-conscious little smile. “I know it’s going to sound like I’m OCD or something, but I always lined it up perfectly with the edge of the wood. The other night, it was off by just the tiniest bit.”

He recalled the way she’d frowned at the drawer before assuring him the sheet was still there. The uneven line-up could’ve easily have been her, but maybe not.

The kettle began whistling so he shut off the burner and filled her mug. “Did Jackson know about it?”

She nodded while dunking the tea bag up and down in the steaming water.

“You changed your passwords, right?”

“Yes. Got new credit cards, too.”

“Want me to take a look at your laptop?”

“I checked it over pretty good, but didn’t find anything.”

He leaned his forearms on the counter and tilted his glass back and forth while watching the play of light in the amber liquid. “You said he threatened you to keep your mou

th shut. What exactly do you have on him?”

“Again, nothing I can prove,” she replied with a resigned sigh. After a sip of her tea, she added, “But about a year ago, he used one of my ideas for a new app, and in the past six months I did some extensive work on a couple of projects his company was developing. The most recent one, he’d asked me a few questions, then asked me to take a look at the code, and before I knew it, I’d fixed the whole damn thing. I didn’t really think much of it until it was released and he didn’t even acknowledge my work. Problem is, everything was done on his computer, at home, so like I said, I’ve got no proof.”

“Jack is an expert at covering his bases. What was the program?”

She sipped her tea, then lowered the mug while smothering another yawn. “That new marketing demographic software.”

His heart skipped a beat. “Consumer Beats?”

“That’s the one.”

He’d been shocked at the tweaks Jack had added to his initial idea, taking the end result to a whole other level. Now he knew exactly who was responsible for that impressive piece of work. How ironic was it that she’d unwittingly helped screw him with that one?

Dean laughed, then downed the remainder of his drink.

“What?”

“Mike and I were talking about developing that idea when Jack got a jump on it. Thing was, just like you, we had no way to prove the idea was ours.”

“And it wasn’t a coincidence?”

“Based on some of the specific details that went into that software, no.”

“Then how do you not have proof?”

“I’d pitched it at a brainstorming session, so nothing was written down other than our notes, and those wouldn’t hold up in court. We’ve since begun to record the sessions, but still, it’s hard to copyright an idea that isn’t coded and time-stamped yet, specifically for the reason of coincidence.”