A chill went through her. “It might not have been Nolan. He might not know.”
“Don’t be naïve. Naïve will get us both killed.” His hand went to her hair. “Tell me what you found out.”
There was a distinctly sexual air around the man. She could feel it, and the heat in his gaze went straight to her pussy. It was stupid, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. Her whole body was going soft. She’d only had a few days’ worth of training with Deke, and she already responded to him like she had in high school. All he had to do was walk into a room and her brain went on the fritz until she’d had him.
He had so much power over her. It scared her. It thrilled her.
“When I was talking to Naman, he told me there’s been some kind of virus going around,” she explained, her voice sounding shaky. “He said it was a lot of dizziness and nausea. Headaches. There were bad headaches and some disorientation.”
“Like the Havana Syndrome victims reported,” Deke prompted.
She nodded. “Yes. Just like that. But some of them didn’t work with the audio team. I wanted to find the connections. It could just be a virus, but I don’t think so after what I learned today.”
“Talk to me, baby.” His hand twisted in her hair in a way that sent lightning through her system and made her go up on her toes. “I want to know how much you exposed yourself today.”
“I didn’t at all.” Despite being annoyed with the question and his lack of faith in her intelligence, her nipples went hard. “I just talked to some people. I asked a couple of questions. Some of the people who don’t work in audio were either involved with someone who was and they were in the lab at some point or security who works on the floor, and there were two people from janitorial who remember cleaning in the lab before they got sick.”
“You went to human resources. Did you carefully hack into their systems so no one could possibly know you were there? I’m going to assume you were looking for records of employees using sick days.”
“No, I’m the head of the department. I can just ask to see the records,” she explained.
“Do you routinely ask to see records like that?” Deke asked the question like he already knew the answer.
“No. I don’t have a reason to.” It was the kind of thing she would delegate. Now that she thought about it, they had seemed surprised she’d come down herself and not had her assistant send an email requesting the records.
“So it’s an odd thing for you to request?”
Put like that it did seem like she could have used more discretion. “Maybe, but human resources isn’t supposed to talk about things like that. They won’t mention my request. Don’t they have an oath or something?”
“Naïve.” He stepped back, his hands going to lean hips. “Shall we use your desk or the sofa?”
“For what?” She wasn’t sure if she felt relieved or disappointed that he wasn’t close anymore.
“I explained when we started this project that there were two places you had to obey me,” Deke began. “In the bedroom and in the field. You were in the field today and you disobeyed me.”
“How did I disobey you?” He was making her feel like a naughty teenager. Of course all the trouble she’d gotten into as a teenager had been about him. Her dad certainly hadn’t punished her the way Deke might.
“By placing yourself in danger,” he explained. “You weren’t supposed to investigate on your own. You opened yourself up today. What you did could place the entire investigation at risk. What if Byrne hears you’re asking about the audio team in a way that raises his suspicions? You’re already on his radar.”
“You can’t know that.”
His eyes narrowed. “Baby, explain your stock options to me.”
Where was he going with this? “How the hell do you know about my options?”
“Because Byrne made a point to tell me. Outside of Byrne and his board of directors, who has the most to gain by this launch going well?”
“Everyone.” The whole company would benefit from it. Not everyone had options, but the company making more money would be good for the employees. Wouldn’t it?
“Who has the most stock options?” Deke asked.
She thought about it. Her hire was a little legendary around the building because she’d negotiated hard for what she’d gotten. “It’s me. It’s me after the C-levels.”
Deke nodded in agreement. “He thinks I’m far less savvy than I am. He tried to manipulate me earlier today. I’m not sure if he did it because he needs to be the big man in even casual relationships, but he absolutely zeroed in on the fact that our financial disparity worries the fuck out of me.”