His Secret Desire Read Free

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing the government
doesn’t know much about your 'business' activities."
    Katy sat down again. If this was it, the
knock on the door she had feared since she got into the business
then she would have no option but to face it head on.
    "And what's your connection to the government
Mr. Hargrave? Why keep me in suspense? Go ahead and tell me what's
on your mind."
    "I have no connection to the government but
I'm sure they would love to know about that technology you're
using. Maybe they'd be interested in your client list as well."
    He was hitting her right where it hurt. It
couldn't be co-incidence, this bastard knew exactly what he was
doing.
    "Is this what they call a 'shakedown'? You
soften me up with some threats first and then get me to play
ball?"
    Hargrave watched her and smiled inwardly. The
walls surrounding this mystery were coming down even faster than he
had anticipated. A beautiful woman obsessed with privacy to the
extent of making it her profession. Stripping her down to the bare
naked truth would be about the most satisfying thing in the world,
his ultimate conquest yet, but it would be, like always, on his
terms; he would have her, but it would be within an
environment that was entirely under his control.
    "Go." He said. "You're obviously smart enough
to figure out what the flaw in your security is all by yourself.
You don’t need me and I certainly don’t need you."
    It was an insult to her professionalism, a
challenge to her competence, and it stung her deeply.
    "You're bluffing Hargrave. I'll admit you're
good with that sexy poker face of yours--" She stopped in mid
sentence and watched his lips curl up into the hint of a smile.
    "Don’t worry Ms. Maldon," he said, "I can
assure you that the attraction is mutual."
    "I didn't say I was attracted to you, I just
said, just said that--"
    "You said I was sexy."
    Katy threw her head back and sighed. What did
it really matter anyway?
    "Okay, so I find you attractive, big deal,
the important thing is that you're bluffing. Your glasses didn’t
tell you jack squat because if they had you wouldn't have had to
approach me and ask my name, you wouldn't have to ask about my
reputation and you certainly wouldn't have to make idle threats
about the government being interested in my perfectly ordinary
privacy software controls."
    "I don’t bluff Ms. Maldon. Ever. Now I'm
telling you that I know something about you that you can't even
imagine, but I need to know more, and one way or the other I intend
to find out, but I'm going to give you a choice here."
    "Is that so?"
    He reached into his jacket and drew out a
sleek, embossed business card and pushed it across the table to
her.
    "I'm taking a chance here by revealing to you
exactly who I am." He said.
    Katy looked suspiciously at the card, as
though the mere accepting of it would change her life
irrevocably.
    "Take it." He said. "It's just a business
card, not a subpoena."
    Everything in her told her to walk away from
this. Everything except one tiny voice inside. Privacy had been
Katy's holy grail for three long years and she had come to depend
upon the bubble of invisibility that she had cloaked herself in,
reveled in it even sometimes. The tiny voice inside her could
barely be heard above all of the alarm bells going off in her head
but it was there, insisting, crying out to heard, wanting to be
known, needing to be seen, desperately wanting to be
recognized.
    She reached out her hand and picked up the
card. It read:
     
    Clayton Hargrave
    Hargrave Robotics Inc
     
    Below the name was a mobile number and email
address. Katy breathed a sigh of relief; at least he wasn't
government. She had heard of the company but didn't know much about
it, from what she remembered it had an excellent reputation and was
a pioneer in the field of nano parts for wearable technology. So
she had been dead right about the glasses all along and he hadn't
been lying about them either.
    "So what's the