My Fake Billionaire Damaged Boyfriend -
Chapter 4
Izzy
Ilog onto Dimitri’s monitor, curiously tapping around the system with a hint of awe. He has a nice set up, one that is remarkably well put together, but also there’s an extra added step that has my mind in a fog. I don’t mention it, still feeling woozy from my sips of gin, but I notice the untraceable IPN almost instantly.
“Hey, here you go. You said cream and sugar, right?” he asks, coming into the back bedroom that looks more like a hotel room than a penthouse bedroom. “It’s a bit strong for me but still tastes good.”
“Thank you,” I mutter, skipping the coffee for now while I work diligently in this confined space.
It’s a long bedroom facing the wall with several upside-down triangles for windows. The city is brilliantly lit below, but the longer I stare at the sight, the smaller this place feels around me. I am comfortable at his simple desk, typing through rounds of firewall while I try to break into the company system for the first time outside of the office.
“It’s only my first day and I’m already doing something very illegal.” I shake my head, my fingers pausing on the keyboard. “I don’t know if this is worth the investigation.”
“It is,” Dimitri insists. “You need to look it up. If he’s doing something bad and you found it and didn’t do anything with it, then you could be liable, Kitten.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Why? It fits you so well.”
I roll my eyes, exasperated with his charming banter already. “I’m nothing like a cat.”
His lips near my ear while he comes to a stand behind me. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Kitten. You know what they say about the cat and curiosity.”
I freeze, even more unsure about my course of action tonight. Dimitri walks off towards the ensuite and large closet inside. I managed to take a brief look around while he was pouring the coffee before I raced back to get to work on his monitor.
He staggers into the ensuite doorway, keeps the doors open, and undoes his shirt right where I can see him. I don’t move a muscle, seeing his body carved with every edge imaginable. My throat aches at the sight of so many harsh tattoos on one body. He’s stunning and terrifying in the same breath.
I bite my l*p to make sure there’s not an ounce of drool that will come out of my mouth, Dimitri very carelessly kicking off his shoes and throwing his pants off in a single swoop. I hiss to myself, his legs covered in similar tattoos while he wears nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs.
My chair is now fully turned towards his staggering appearance, every drop of liquor suddenly drained from my system. It’s a sobering sight, and I want to watch it all night long.
The monitor pulls my focus, though, the constant beeping bringing me to reality, so I snap back towards the screen. It’s the perfect timing, too, because Dimitri is fully turned towards the screen as well. He steps into something, I assume it’s pants or pajamas, but I don’t know for sure.
He stands behind me while I fight the alert that flashes in bright lights over the front of the codes. “What is going on? What is happening?”
“It’s just some firewall I didn’t see,” I gust, my face hotter than the f*****g sun in summer. “I should have seen it coming, too. Dammit, it’s going to boot us if I don’t—”
The system stops, the cursor returning to the walls of code that I needed to replace.
Releasing a relaxed breath, I finally feel calm enough to be normal again. “Wow, that was close.”
“No kidding. Good job, Kitten.”
I blush harder trying to get his deep, growling voice out of my mind while the image of his tattooed body taints my memory as well. He’s stunning in figure and just a masterpiece of a man, but he’s my boss’ rival! I can’t imagine him being patrial to me for any other reason than being useful in taking down his enemy. Even with that knowledge, I scroll through heaps of code and text until a single line comes into view.
“Right there,” I whisper, pointing to the single line, tabbed out of order, and separate from the two large blocks of text that sit above and below the code. “It shouldn’t be there. It’s… it’s like a hiccup of software.”
“Wait, so was it added in, or do you think this is part of the software he sells to his consumers?”
“No, it can’t be part of the software. It’s like the software was torn, and this was put in the gap.”
“Huh, interesting,” he mutters, taking the mouse in his hand. He highlights the code, and a link comes in the default menu. My stomach hurts at the sight of the link, knowing it can’t lead to anything good. “Should I do it?”
“No, it could just be a hacker booby trap,” I warn. “If he traces it back to us, we could be in trouble.”
“He would need someone as skilled as you to do that, Izzy, don’t you agree? Besides, if this was a trap then it wouldn’t have been so easy for you to replace. Hackers never scroll past the first frame of text. Everything they need to get into the system is in the bones up front. I think this is something else.”
I nod, knowing he’s correct. Staring at the line of code, I shake my head in awe. “It’s a backdoor.”
“So, what are you going to do, Kitten?”
I swallow hard and hope the lump in my neck passes. It doesn’t. “I don’t know yet. I need a minute to think about the repercussions.”
“Take all the time you need. I’ll be in the kitchen. You like eggs?”
“We could be committing an online felony and you’re hungry?”
“I could be running from the cops on a high-speed chase through the state, Kitten. I’ll always pull over for good breakfast food. Just sip your coffee, sober up, and tell me what you think you should do.”
He leaves and moments later, I follow. Taking my coffee with me, and trying to be as nonchalant as possible, I rack through the possibilities running through my mind. Burying it for now, I watch a stunning shirtless man make an omelet in a cast iron skillet over an open flame on the gas stovetop.
“Hungry?” he asks again.
I nod this time, sitting down on the chair that presses to the bar top’s edge. I rest my elbows on the table and sip my coffee, surprised how alert I am given how tired I was after taking those drinks at the bar. It wasn’t enough for me to be belligerent, but it was apparently too much for me to engage in some naked fun with my boss’ rival.
Maybe that’s for the best that we didn’t have s*x, but staring at him now, I am kind of upset by the outcome. He turns to slide me a plate of an omelet with some veggies. I thank him with a meek nod and dig in, my stomach turning the second the food hits my gut.
“Ugh,” I sigh, pushing the plate away. “I might throw up.”
“Don’t do that here,” he says.
“I know that,” I grumble.
Offering a softer look, he moves the skillet away from the hot stove and comes beside me. His hand brushes my cheek, feeling my warmth, and I hold my breath while I picture him leaning in another inch and kissing me again.
“Are you okay, Kitten? That gin hits hard, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does. That second drink you got me was nice, though.”
“A little sweetness never hurts the edge of alcohol. If you need to go lay down, I have a spare bed I can put out for the night.”
“No, you don’t need to set out a bed for me, I’m—”
“I didn’t say that,” he cuts in. “You can go lay down in my bed, and I’ll take the spare. Hell, I have so much work to do, I could easily sleep on the couch for a few hours and stay up working.”
“I can’t impose.”
“Do you have a car?”
“No,” I admit, my mother’s old truck is not up and running from the mechanic shop in Oregon. “I can get a cab, though. I’m not drunk, I promise.”
He shakes his head, uncaring of my please. “Eat what you can and go lay down in my bed. You’re safer staying here for the night.”
I give him a snarky look. “How do you know I don’t have someone waiting home for me, like a boyfriend who wouldn’t appreciate you kidnapping me for the night?”
He laughs under his breath. “No man would let you leave the house in that outfit, Kitten. He would be by your side to show you off, but he wouldn’t be happy knowing how f*****g delicious you look and not getting to be there to see it.”
I blush even harder than before, hanging my head in slight defeat. He’s right, which is aggravating to say the least. Even though it is aggravating, I try to ignore it, picking at my plate until the cramps only get worse. I push it back, sprinting for the ensuite and replaceing the toilet instantly. I puke everything I have, my stomach in horrible knots while I sit back on the grey tile floors.
“Ouch,” I whimper, holding my stomach carefully.
Dimitri walks in like it’s nothing, handing me a long, button-down shirt made of silky, ivory material. He also hands me a water bottle and a toothbrush still in its package.
“Get cleaned up, take a shower if you want, and relax. You’re not going anywhere tonight.”
“I can handle myself,” I bite. “Been doing it for twenty-five years.”
“Yeah, well I’m thirty-six, so I have more experience being drunk and dumb, okay? You’re safer here, I swear. Plus, you’ll just end up riding that tiny little elevator all the way back to the ground floor alone, and you will feel claustrophobic again.”
I roll my eyes, the chills on my body agreeing with him.
I brush my teeth, get changed into the shirt, and fold my clothes together on the nightstand. The button-down top reaches my thighs, and I’m happy about that, but it does very little to hide the underside of my a*s. In some ways, it’s worse than my skirt, the material at least sticking to my backside, unlike the silk that raises and falls as I move.
Dimitri is on the couch under a fluffy blanket when I return to the living room. His laptop is on his lap, but he shuts it and pushes it aside, the TV playing overhead as it’s hung from the wooden rafters of the penthouse. He pats the space beside him, and I abide, the blanket pushed over my bare legs where I can bring it up to my chest and hold it tight.
“Feel better?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “Thanks for the water.”
“Of course, Kitten. If you want more just make yourself comfortable in the kitchen. Everything in there is yours for the taking tonight.”
“You’re really not going to let me leave, are you? I’m fine, Dimitri. I’m perfectly okay. Nothing is wrong with me, I swear.”
“Yeah, I know you say that, Kitten, but you don’t know this city very well. You could get lost, you could—”
“Why do you talk like that?”
“Talk like what?”
“Like you know me, Dimitri. You don’t. You have no idea who I am, or where I come from.”
He looks uneasy for a moment before bringing back his laptop and setting it on my lap. Lifting the screen up, he shows me the odd page of information that comes spiraling over the monitor. I can’t help but be slightly offended by the sight.
“You looked me up? Why?”
“Because I wanted to know more about you, Kitten. It was important for me to understand a few things.”
“What do you mean, a few things?”
Uneasy, he runs a hand through his stiff hair, and it seems to loosen the gel slightly. “I wanted to know how good you were at code and this article pulled up about your parents, so I opened it and—”
“No,” I gust, pushing the laptop aside. “I don’t want to talk about them. Not right now, and not with you.”
“Understood, Kitten. I get that.”
Looking around this pretty penthouse, I inhale a shaky breath and surrender. I kick the blanket off and retreat to the bedroom, pulling the covers back so I can climb into bed. I face the desk that still has the monitor on, the line of suspicious code still highlighted.
I know it’s nothing good, but I don’t have the guts to look at it.
Fear fills my chest where humiliation once ran free in my soul. Settling in the softest bed in the world, I retrace every line of code in my head over and over again, picturing the numbers and lines of text that make up this software. It’s for people to buy and protect themselves with; but I don’t even feel secure in my own abilities to hack through the rather simple format.
If I’m wrong, I lose my job in the first week and return home a failure. I can’t let that happen, and I can’t let some prissy rich rival of my boss tell me who I am. My parents are the reason I was able to take online classes in tech and coding.
If not for their abandonment, and the community rallying around me in pity, then I wouldn’t be here.
The last thing I want is for Dimitri to know any of that but it’s too late now.
He sees me for who I am. The woman too afraid of opening the hazardous link of code in Alek’s software.
The woman new to Seattle and not good with gin.
The woman whose parents couldn’t give a damn about her, only to be left with their assets and their debt.
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