The Passionate Mistake Page 5

  It couldn’t be good for her back. He would get one of the ergonomics specialists to come in and give her some guidance. Though whether she’d take it or not was anyone’s guess. She was so stubborn and . . . well . . . suspicious would probably be the right word. As if everything was some test she must pass, and if she showed a sign of weakness it was instant failure. He guessed life had given her some harsh teachers.

  Not that he expected her to open up and tell him about it, of course. She wasn’t the type.

  He did like her passion, though. She gave one hundred percent, no slacking. And she was brilliant of course; a real asset to the company.

  He wondered how she’d polish up, given a generous work environment and enough time to relax into it. While she was like this – wary, defensive and full-bore ego – she wouldn’t mix well with clients. Or with other team members, really.

  Some close supervision, a little mentoring, and she could change completely. He’d seen it before. She was so young. Her every interaction was a shot fired from behind the parapets. There might be a real softy lurking within.

  No pushover, though.

  Yeah, he liked her guts.

  The thing that horrified him more than a little was how he found himself watching her; Watching not only her work, but her. It made him uncomfortable to admit it, but she fascinated him. There was a grace in how she moved, a dynamic energy he found very attractive. She was restless and quicksilver. Only programming kept her rooted to one spot.

  Which was all very well if he was dispassionately admiring the physical beauty of another person. But he wasn’t. He was watching her as a man watches a woman. She made him hungry. And that was not appropriate in the workplace, and certainly, most certainly not with someone as young as she.

  When he watched her stride through the atrium – and he had an excellent view from the upper storey above, sitting at the desk in his office – he squirmed to think about the fantasies he’d had of this young woman. From that distance, contours hidden under the baggy clothes she always wore and pigtails swinging, she looked like an overgrown child.

  But close up the curves were there, never emphasized. One had to watch her shift to see the fabric momentarily pull tight, outlining a pert breast or the slender curve of a thigh or buttock.

  He was ashamed to admit he had watched.

  And he wasn’t going to look up her personnel file to find out exactly how old she was; As if having an exact number made a difference; As if a couple of years one way or the other made it okay.

  He just had to stop.

  He also had to get out more. He’d been logging some crazy work hours in the past few months, and his social life was virtually nil. What he needed was sex, and lots of it. All he had to do was socialize a little and the problem would be solved. The lack was turning him into a creepy pervert.

  Admittedly he found parties boring and chatting up strangers was a drag. However if he never got out he’d wind up a lonely old man, wedded to his work. Soaring ambitions and world-changing ideas were all well and good, but they wouldn’t pat him lovingly on the knee and bring him a nice cup of hot cocoa.

  And if he couldn’t stop himself watching Cathy Thorpe then his punishment would be to hand her off to someone else to mentor. They wouldn’t do such a good job, and he would miss the bonus of having her magic coding fingers on his personal work team, the elite group within the company that he tapped into to turn his thoughts into software. So he’d better be a properly virtuous boy, keep his mind out of her pants and go and get some hot, steamy sex somewhere else.

  Chapter Seven

  It was like an itch she couldn’t scratch. This constant awareness of him. She was like a compass. Even if she wasn’t facing him, she always knew where he was.

  Damned attention-getting, charismatic man. Playing havoc with her intention to be unobtrusive. To pass through the office with barely a ripple, so she could disappear once she had the software, and her absence would hardly be noticed.

  So much for that plan. Everyone had noticed her sudden promotion, and to one of the coveted spots on the Platform Division. The upper level, with her monumental desk facing his across the wide space of the atrium. She had six beautiful big monitors to spread out on, a lavish expanse that made her almost salivate every time she looked at them. All for her.

  But that was nothing – nothing! – set against access to the library of source code. She could spend all day buried in it, fixated on her screens, mouth agape, virtually drooling like a Neanderthal encountering fire for the first time. The amazing code.

  A hundred meta-functions for use in every conceivable piece of software the company might produce. The common core that completed the shells she had discovered in the machines on the developers’ floor. Script she had seen in the market and things that must surely be bespoke designs, pushing the boundaries of what computers could do.

  And algorithms solving huge problems beyond what she had dreamed possible. Dad had said he was certain they were working on data-mining – complex algorithms to sort unspeakably huge data sets of information about customer purchases. The sort of tools that could track a person’s activities on social media sites and marry it up to more information about their actual purchasing decisions. Then link it to their physical location and more to create a complete image of a buyer to sell to marketing companies so they could specifically track and target the individual. She had expected to find that in the library along with everything else.

  It wasn’t here, though, wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  She hated the stuff, hated turning people into commodities to be bought and sold, consumer slaves. Dad longed for those programs because the potential profits were immense. She had thought once it was in her grasp she would be fighting a war with him and herself: her moral stance against his need for the family company to finally succeed after a decade of struggle.

  Instead there was a total lack of data-mining software. What she found in its place were algorithms for the infinite number of calculations required for predicting the weather. Another program dealt in tidal measurements throughout the country for the Department of Conservation, and a third was tracking foreign and domestic super-trawlers in New Zealand’s waters to extrapolate data on catch sizes based on recorded information given by officials on those fishing journeys that had been accompanied. These massive algorithms expanded the so-called ‘Big Data’ movement in a totally new direction.

  The data-mining code must be stored elsewhere, perhaps off site in some super-secret location. Honestly she was relieved she wasn’t required to defend it from dad. This way she could tell him it simply hadn’t been found and leave it at that.

  Not that she’d spoken to him lately. She had been dodging his calls, only ringing him back at times she knew he’d be unavailable.

  Why?

  It was . . . it was hard to steal this code. She’d subverted every computer, so she could override any command she chose, knowing once she stopped working here it would be irrelevant since none of them had any connections to the world outside the Platform Division offices. When she left she’d be leaving the library behind as well.

  The computers were protected from USB takeover, and she’d had to design a whole new rootkit to tackle the levels of encryption, but although she’d given her invasive software the ability to burrow in and hide, to monitor all activity and report to her, she hadn’t made it more complex. There was no point.

  It was only there as a token. She didn’t actually want to take anything. It wasn’t from a lack of targets. There was plenty here that could be adapted just enough to hide the source, then used to churn out well-functioning programs in a short space of time. In fact it was ideal for her purposes.

  It was just . . . she didn’t want to do it. It felt . . . disloyal.

  Which was totally the wrong way to feel, of course. Nothing mattered more than family, than what her family needed to thrive. Nothing.

  And yet . . . The other five programmers in the
Platform Division had been delighted by the hint of subterfuge about her sudden rise. She had blushed and made up a story about an infatuation with one of the developers – name withheld to maintain her dignity she told them – that had led her to find work in the company so she could be near him.

  “But then I found out he’s not a very nice guy and I decided he wasn’t worth my time.”

  “But why didn’t you apply for a programming job in the first place?”

  “Ah . . . well, you know guys can be funny about dating women who are better at their own job than they are. I didn’t want to . . . um . . . dent his ego.” Which was a stupid tale, since she’d never pretend to mediocrity for the sake of a man’s fragile self-worth. Still it was the best she could think of in the moment, and the guys – and Sarah – nodded and didn’t challenge her.

  They obviously thought the whole thing imbued her with a hint of romance and mystery, and given Mike’s acceptance and validation of her juvenile plot they embraced her as one of her own, letting her slot in to their work plans and lunchtime gatherings without hesitation. They were nice people, kind and gentle and brilliant, with an easy camaraderie that made room for constructive critique and brainstorming on each other’s projects without the need for self-protection or defensiveness.

  Welcomed eagerly into the team, acknowledged for her skill and given some properly challenging and demanding work to do, she had to say she was enjoying herself. Not that she’d really relaxed into it, precisely. She still felt on edge, conscious she was the enemy and it wouldn’t do to get to comfortable here, to make friends or put down roots.

  But she wanted to. If this was what her worklife could be, she wanted to take hold and embrace it. She’d never had such a peaceful, pleasant place to work. No shouting, no unreasonable demands, no battening down the hatches and waiting for storms to blow over.

  Everything was straightforward and easy, without the heavy interpersonal dynamics that dominated the family company.

  It made it clear why Techdos had such high staff turnover. Dad always said it was impossible to find good people. Everyone turned out to be a flake, sloping off after a few months. Maybe it wasn’t the employees, though. Maybe it was the company at fault.

  Not that she could imagine changing it. The culture was too entrenched. You’d have to swap out Dad; and probably Damian too, made in his image.

  It kind of knocked the shine off things, to see them for what they were and find them lacking. Here she was making this big sacrifice, putting herself at risk and, well, not to put too fine a point on it, dirtying herself to save the family company. Only to find the company didn’t seem quite so worth saving once she was out of it, with a different perspective on it and its flaws and failings.

  She didn’t want to feel like this. She had a vested interest in remaining true to her cause. Because as long as the company was worth saving at any cost, she wasn’t such a bad person. You couldn’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. She would feel bad and a bit guilty for a while, but the cash injection from a popular program would stabilize Techdos, take the stress off Dad and put them all on a solid, even comfortable footing.

  From there they could do things the right way, the proper way. She’d finish her qualification and she’d really make the company fly. With her software designs and Dad and Damian running things – well, Dad running it and Damian learning the ropes – who knows how big it might get? That’s what they were hoping for.

  Yet that life had never felt so good – even in her most positive imaginings – as working with a clear spec and unlimited freedom, struggling and puzzling and banging out strings of code, all so she could add to that library, impress her team and most of all watch the smile break out across Mike’s face like dawn across the sky, as she showed him what she had done. Every bit of progress, every piece of lateral thinking that made the designs better was more satisfying because he would be so happy about it.

  He loved this work. He glowed when he talked about it, bounced into the office in the morning excited to get going, ran all over the building sharing his enthusiasm with everyone, infecting them with the joy of it, was still plugging away when she left for the day.

  No wonder DigiCom was doing so well. No wonder the shares kept climbing in value. She hoped the shareholders knew what a prize they had found when they hired Mike Summers. He better have a giant pay packet. He deserved it, the way he worked.

  That was the other nice thing about working here. She had received her first real pay check as a programmer. She’d always been paid when working for the family company, of course; but not at a top rate or anywhere near it; and not always in full, or on time. Plus Dad always made her feel selfish for taking it as if she was undercutting the company. It wasn’t anything he said. But the sighs, the measuring looks when she asked to be caught up on last month’s pay; and having to ask at all. It spoke volumes about how he really felt.

  She hadn’t realized how much it grated on her until she saw that whopper of a deposit sitting in her bank account, with no nudges required. She’d done good work, she got good pay. End of story.

  The next morning she gave Mike a big, beaming smile when she saw him. He blinked at her in astonishment.

  “You look happy this morning,” he said.

  “I am.” He didn’t ask why, but he smiled back and went into his office looking pleased. He liked a positive vibe in the air, the whole building buzzing with good cheer and productivity. He would set his hands on his hips and survey his domain, looking delighted by life and just a bit smug. She thought it endearing. Actually she thought too bloody much about him, though she tried her level best not to. It was such a stupid thing to do, fixating on her boss, even if all she had been was a straightforward employee. As a . . . whatever she was . . . it was even more idiotic.

  So she liked her colleagues, liked her work and – begrudgingly – was coming to both like and admire Mike Summers.

  So yeah, she was finding the . . . well, call a spade a spade, the industrial espionage more than a little taxing. Dad had framed it up to be a victimless crime. David the little family company up against Goliath, the bloated corporate with its unlimited assets, faceless and soulless.

  DigiCom had a soul. It was Mike. And she didn’t want to steal from him. She just didn’t.

  How could she tell Dad that? He was depending on her. They all were. Not just him but her brothers and sisters. She couldn’t bear to let them down.

  But the fabulous challenge Dad had dangled before her, of beating the corporate giant at its own game, fooling an office of drones by going undercover, a brave and intrepid adventurer outsmarting them all . . . none of it was true. She was a renegade employee, telling lies in order to achieve her aim: to take what didn’t belong to her and turn a profit from it. It was small and sordid. It was unworthy of her.

  She was ashamed it had taken her so long to see it clearly. Okay, so she was used to following Dad’s instructions without argument. Without much argument. But she felt pretty stupid to have let this one go by; to go so far with it.

  On the one hand she felt she ought to just pack up her things and slink out. Never show up for work again. On the other she was tempted to stay, to simply become the Cathy Thorpe she had presented herself as. That silly girl who – as she reluctantly repeated to Mike when he quizzed her about hiding her skills – had made a not-well-thought-through decision based on a crush for one of the programmers.

  “I knew he worked here, and I knew I was better than him. But I didn’t want him to know it. Guys can be so strange about that. Totally ego. You know?” His lips twitched, but he managed to keep a straight face. She applauded his control. “So maybe I was a bit crazy over him. I thought I’d apply for the job I saw advertised, to get closer and hopefully . . . well, you know.”

  “I do know. So did it work out?”

  “It did not. Turns out he is a putz,” she said with a good leavening of apparent self-disgust at her own poor judgment. “So then I’m totally w
ondering how to get out of the situation, but thinking this is a great place to work and how am I going to get noticed and get promoted. And bingo, you know the rest.”

  “For the record, if a guy can’t handle your skills being greater than his, he isn’t worth your time. I’m impressed by a woman who is stunning in her field; regardless of whether she’s better than I am. That’s what you want.” He said it without the slightest suggestiveness. In fact his tone was almost avuncular. She wondered if he realized she was only five years younger than him. Twenty-five years to the thirty with which office rumor credited him. Perhaps the clothes, childish hairstyle and lack of makeup were a better disguise than she’d realized.

  So she could just go on being that woman – or girl – and gradually transform into a closer approximation of herself. Even switch the Cathy to her usual Kate, given the root name of Katherine had remained unchanged.

  Yeah, she could do that. But Dad probably wouldn’t take it well. Scratch that. He definitely wouldn’t take it well.

  She couldn’t bring herself to make a decision and act. So she marked time and waited to see if anything would come up that could tip the scales and make her decision for her. And as a week passed, then two, and then three, she got to know Mike even better, and admire him more. He was quite a man.

  She wanted him to look at her like a woman, but although she thought at times maybe he did, there was no overt thing she could point at to be certain. She cursed her stupid disguise. If she could break out the heels and make-up she knew he’d take notice. Men always did.

  The only things he seemed to register from her were her brilliant programming solutions. Which reminded her: she had an idea based on the software she’d been working on all week. She rather thought he’d like it.

  Of course officially she was supposed to talk to his secretary Amanda first, as the small woman had carefully explained to her as soon as she caught Cathy banging on Mike’s door. But Mike himself never drove her off, so until he stated Cathy must go through Amanda she was just going to ignore the officious woman.