Ruthless Temptation Read Free Page B

locations of the hackers, but are keeping them secret from HCS.”
    That
fucking article would haunt them until the planet exploded, or they all
suffocated down here.
    “ Then when I heard Ralph saying those things, I thought
all of you and certain people who work at HCS were conspiring together. I
thought there was a secret plot, and that I’d landed in the middle of it. I
don’t want to work for an agency whose public mission is to do one thing, but
in reality, they scheme and lie and make secret deals behind each other’s
backs.”
    Viggo couldn’t help but smile. “Welcome
to government work.” He leaned back again. “Let me see if I have this right. By
coming here and confronting me, you thought you could get the truth and do what
with it? Save the day?”
    She
looked really embarrassed now, but that couldn’t be helped. “Yes and no. I
wanted the truth for my own peace of mind, but at the same time, if I uncovered
something really big … I don’t know. I’m in over my head. It was a reckless
thing to do.”
    Her
entire body slumped a bit, and his heart gave another lurch at the gesture. She
was now totally defeated. “I’m glad to hear you finally say that. It was reckless, not to mention potentially
dangerous. So what about now? Do you still believe the Weathermen are in bed
with rogue members of HCS?”
    “ I don’t know. You haven’t really told me anything.”
    Touché . “You know I can’t.” And she had
no right to ask, but he didn’t think it was necessary to add that now.
    “ I know.”
    “ Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that what you
overheard is true and I actually told you something that confirmed your
suspicions. What would you have done with the information? Whom would you have
gone to?”
    She
gave him a cautious look. “That would have depended on what you told me.”
    “ What if it was something that got Ralph fired?”
    She
frowned. “It was never my intention to get him fired.”
    “ Why not? Doesn’t he deserve to be? I’ve already
confirmed that HCS knows what we’re doing, and they know about the warehouse.
With me so far?”
    “ There’s no need to take that tone. I’m not a child.”
    He
ignored her comment. “You’ve told me Ralph was talking to someone who didn’t
work for HCS, correct?”
    “ I don’t honestly know.”
    “ Okay. Let’s assume he was.”
    “ All right.”
    “ Now tell me what would happen if his boss found out?”
    She
sighed. “Ralph would lose his job.”
    “ Yes. He would. Had you thought that far ahead?”
    “ No.”
    “ Do you want your boss to lose his job?”
    “ I don’t want anyone to lose their job.”
    “ But you had hoped that by coming here and confronting
me, you’d uncover a scandal about the people you work for.”
    “ Not hoping I
would. Only wanting to know what the hell was going on.”
    “ You said you thought you could blow the lid off a
scandal.”
    She
blew out a puff of air again. “I know I said that. I was naïve. It was a stupid
thing to do. I’m sorry. I really am.”
    Was
she saying that so he wouldn’t call Ralph, or was she truly contrite? “So you
didn’t come here with the express intention of getting Ralph fired.”
    “ No. Not at all. I needed to know who I was really
working for. I needed to know I hadn’t made a huge mistake in taking this job.”
    “ It’s not a marketing job. Hadn’t you already thought
you’d made a mistake?”
    “ No. I thought I could work my way up.”
    “ But now that you think they’re all a bunch of liars,
you’re not sure you want to be there.”
    She
lifted her hands and then dropped them back onto the bag. “I’m confused.”
    “ About what?”
    “ About everything. About what I overheard, and about
what is really going with the hackers.”
    He
nodded. He was confused, too, by what she’d overheard. But unlike her, he had a
general idea of what was going on, and Ralph was smack dab in the middle of it.
He had little respect for