Page 39 of The Geek and the Sheikh

“While I was busy celebrating and getting drunk, she was copying and deleting my entire project. By the time I figured out what happened, she had claimed she had written the app and sold it for a pretty penny to Winfred Freeman,” he shared.

Disbelief and a simmering anger burned in her eyes. He understood the feelings only too well. There was still a sense of surrealism about the moment he had discovered his entire hard drive wiped along with his backup.

“Did you confront her? Surely you told Freeman. I’ve followed him ever since he released T.O. He seems like an okay guy. I need to dive deeper into his profile,” she muttered, turning toward her computer.

He reached out and gently pulled her hand away from the keyboard. Cupping her hand between his, he raised it to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. She blinked owlishly at him, as if already lost in her pursuit of Winfred.

“It’s okay. It happened years ago. Winfredisan okay guy. I’ve done the research on him. He gives a lot back to the world and he has made some really great changes to my original programming. He had no idea what Allison had done. Hell, I didn’t know what she had done at first,” he admitted with a rueful shake of his head.

“When… how did you find out she was involved?”

He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “Winfred was having issues with some of the changes he wanted to implement. Allison had disappeared and someone he knew recommended me. I knew T.O. was my project. When he reached out to see if I would be interested in working with him on some of the new adaptations, I jumped at the chance. It was the perfect opportunity to delve into the coding.”

“You were looking for a signature fingerprint,” she said, nodding.

“Yes. It took a while, but I found a backdoor that Allison had added. It allowed her to move through the system. She could collect all user data, including credit card and other payment information—”

She looked startled at that revelation. “Wait! Isn’t all of that encrypted?”

“Fraud security software wasn’t as good back then. Anyway, I discovered what she did and set a trap,” he said.

“Ooh, what did you do?” she asked excitedly.

He grinned. “Everything looked fine until it hit her bank account. Instead of depositing the amount, I wiped it out and donated all the funds to Doctors without Borders. It also encrypted all of the data, turning everything she had into mush.”

“You're a guy after my heart,” she exclaimed, leaning in and kissing him.

It was a brief, soft kiss, and when she pulled back, he wrapped his hand in her hair to stop her from leaving him. She returned his stare, a hint of a smile curved her lips, and she leaned forward again, meeting him halfway.

She tasted of sweet chocolate and creamy marshmallows. He had never realized how addictive those two flavors could be until now. This was way better than eating them out of a bag.

I wonder if the rest of her tastes as good.

That thought no sooner flashed through his mind than he heard someone clearing their throat. He reluctantly ended the kiss. His gaze remained locked on her face for a fraction of a second longer before he sat back in his seat and turned his attention to Yahya who was returning his scowl with an apologetic expression.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we’ll be in Paris soon and it would be nice to come up with a plan,” Yahya muttered.

Jameel didn’t miss the amused expressions on the other two men’s faces as they watched his exchange with Yahya. James held up three torn paper straws with a gleeful look. Jameel’s lips twitched at the implication that Yahya had drawn the short straw. Junebug giggled.

“Right. Allison will have told Bronislav about our numbers and capabilities. They will prepare for our arrival at the station accordingly. Getting off without them seeing will be a challenge, but thanks to Allison’s desire to save her own neck, she has given us the perfect cover,” Jameel said.

“What’s that?” Yahya asked.

Jameel shot Yahya a grim smile. “Allison said she put a bomb on the train.”

Yahya’s low, harsh curse drew the other two men’s attention. They rose and joined him. Yahya quickly explained the situation.

“I suggest we notify the authorities and use the crowd to our advantage,” James proposed.

“Yep. It will be difficult for them to do anything in a crowded station without drawing attention,” Yahya added.

"They might not care. These guys have been involved in a lot of brazen scenes," Hyder mused.

“I wish I were Midnight. If she were here, she would just open the door, jump out before we reached the station, and then kick all the bad guys’ butts, or disappear into the shadows where no one would ever see her,” Bugs commented with a sigh, then suddenly straightened beside him. She was tapping her fingers on the table as if she were doing some major calculation. All eyes turned to her.

“What if we did draw attention to ourselves?” she mused.

“What do you mean?” Jameel asked with a frown.

---