Lover Uncloaked (Stealth Guardians #1) Read Free

to him.”
    “Now? I thought he would have gone home long ago.” It was rare that anybody but she and the security guy worked this late.
    “I wish. But he had a late meeting, and it only just ended. Of course, he made me stay.” Jane blew out an annoyed breath. “So can you? I mean see him in his office?”
    Leila nodded absentmindedly even though she hated the interruption.
    “Oh, and would you have any sweetener left? I ran out.”
    Well, that explained why Jane hadn’t used the phone to summon her to the office.
    Leila turned quickly to snatch a handful of packets from the bowl on top of the fridge and pressed them into Jane’s outstretched hands. Making sure the door locked behind her, she walked down the long hallway, flanked by Patten’s assistant.
    The key around her neck jingled against her pendant, making an eerie sound in the empty corridor.
    “I’ve always admired your necklace,” Jane chatted. “Do you remember where you bought it?”
    “It’s custom made,” Leila said, ignoring the sudden prickling on her nape. She quickly cast an eye over her shoulder, yet saw nothing but the gleaming linoleum floor and the sterile white walls.
    “Custom made?”
    She nodded back at Jane. “Yes, I had a jeweler make it for me.” To conceal her sixty-four gig memory stick and keep her research close to her heart, literally. But nobody knew that. Maybe it was paranoia or perhaps it was simply common sense, but she wanted to ensure that none of her data would ever be lost.
    “It’s beautiful. Where’s his shop? I would love to have something similar.”
    “He went out of business, I’m afraid,” Leila lied and tried for a regretful smile.
    She wouldn’t reveal the jeweler’s name just in case he’d let it slip that the pendant was hollow inside and the perfect size for a memory stick. Nobody was supposed to know she carried her data with her. Already, not saving her data on the networked computer in her lab had raised a red flag and earned her a meeting with the CEO. However, once she’d made her case that she was worried about research being stolen, Patten had conceded to a compromise: each night when she was done with her research, she would back up the data on an external disk drive that she then placed in a safe. Only her own thumb print or that of Patten could open the specially designed piece, thus assuring that nobody unauthorized could access it.
    It appeared that her boss was nearly as paranoid as she was. And why shouldn’t he be? Pharmaceutical research was a cutthroat business. The first company to develop a new drug had an enormous head start no other company could compete with. To be first was everything in this business.
    Her laptop was armed with a special software that would initiate a sequence to destroy all data on the hard drive should anybody tamper with it. It was failsafe.
    “ . . . so I went with the red one instead. What do you think?” Jane pointed to her fingernails, which were painted in a ghastly orange color. Clearly, the young woman was colorblind, even though colorblindness was a male phenomenon.
    “Cute,” Leila managed to say, wondering what else Jane had been prattling on about while she’d had her head in the clouds again. It happened so often lately: she would space out thinking about one thing or another and not even notice that other people were around her or even talking to her.
    At the next bend of the corridor, they turned left. Leila pressed the button at the elevator bank. Doors instantly parted, and she stepped inside, followed by Jane. Her colleague pressed the button to the executive floor, and the doors started closing. Just as they were halfway shut, something beeped and the doors opened again.
    “What the hell?” Jane cursed and pressed the button again. “I can’t believe these stupid elevators. Half the week they’re out of order, supposedly getting fixed, and the other half of the week they’re on the blink again.”
    Leila shook her