He leaned over to kiss her bare shoulder in response. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Just make sure that you delete the recording when all of this is done.”
SIMON DIDN’T BOTHER going to work the next morning. With that damn photo shoot scheduled for mid-morning, he decided to just stay in to eat a quick breakfast and work on some ideas on his laptop. He wanted to make headway with the ideas he had been developing for the underwater tech he was working on with the engineers at Blue Naught.
When Heather arrived at his door an hour before the interview he let her in, narrowing his eyes at the garment bags she was holding.
“I knew you were going to bring clothes for me to wear,” he muttered in annoyance. “Where did you even get the clothes?”
“I have my ways,” she said. “Let’s just say that the board was nice enough to give me a company credit card when I updated Agnes on your interview progress yesterday. She’s thrilled that you’ll be doing this photo shoot.”
He frowned. “I’ll bet she is.”
“Why don’t you try on some of the clothes, so we can see how you look?” she said.
“What’s wrong with what I’ve got on?” he demanded.
“The jeans look great on you, but that Stanford sweatshirt has got to go.” She waved the garment bags in his face, a no-nonsense expression on her face. “We need you to look polished.”
“I thought you wanted me to seem down-to-earth,” he said.
“Down-to-earth and polished,” she said.
With a heavy sigh, he took the garment bags from her and went to go change in his bedroom. He tried on a couple of polo shirts, ties, and jackets until Heather settled on a crisp white shirt paired with a comfortable pair of jeans.
“I’m amazed you chose this,” he said with relief as he stepped towards her in the living room. “I thought for sure you’d want something that would be way more uncomfortable.”
She leaned closer to him and ran her hand through his hair. “You shouldn’t fight me on everything, Simon.”
“I’m just not used to all this,” he admitted. “I’ve kept the media at arm’s length because none of this shallow stuff matters.”
“Well, I think you look sexy.” She reached down to unbutton the top button of his shirt. “You’ve still got a tan from our trip to Florida, and your hair looks amazing.”
He had almost never given a damn about what he looked like, but Heather’s approval made him feel ten feet tall. Nobody else on earth could have gotten him to sign up to do this.
“Thanks,” he finally said.
She whipped out her phone and said, “I’m going to call the reporter to make sure he’s on his way.”
“Okay, what do I do now?”
“All you have to do is sit tight until the reporter and the photographer get here.”
Less than an hour later, Heather led the magazine reporter and the photographer into the living room. They all made their introductions, but none of the formalities eased the mounting tension in his shoulders. As grateful as he was to have Heather’s efficiency on his side, he couldn’t wait for this ordeal to be over.
“How about we take them on a tour of your building?” Heather suggested.
Neil, the reporter, smiled and nodded. “Sounds great. We’ll be able to really get a feel for who Simon is.”
Barely suppressing a sigh, Simon led them all out of his apartment and started to show them around his apartment building.
When they entered the apartment across from the photographer went crazy, taking photos of the servers that were lined up along one of the apartment’s walls.
“So these are the servers that were photographed during the break-in?” the reporter asked.
Simon frowned. “I wouldn’t quite call it a break-in, but photos of my servers were leaked without my permission.”
Neil scribbled some notes into the notepad he was holding. “So, how exactly did Everett Eastman pull off his spying on your computer system?”
“That’s confidential,” Simon said flatly. “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”
“I get it,” the reporter said. “You’ve got reputations to protect.”