Wire (Pierce Securities Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

success. And she saw Evan’s careful reactions. He leaned forward, chin on his fist, nodding at various intervals while making noises of encouragement. His dark eyes penetrated Dan, thankfully not focused on her. Every time he looked at Paige, her heart slammed in her chest and took her breath away. Even now, just looking at him, her palms were sweaty and she had to make the conscious effort to breathe deeply.
    She was star struck, plain and simple. For any other woman, having him here would be like having Adam Levine or Gerard Butler sitting in front of them. She had idolized Evan for years, lusted after his pictures, daydreamed about a romance with him. Now that she had him here, she was helpless to think of anything besides those childish daydreams—fantasies about the man three feet away invading her senses.
    Paige glanced over at Alex, to see if she was having the same reaction, and found her silently staring at Dan, her neck mottled with a red blush. Well, that answers that question. If they didn’t already have a thing going, Alex sure did want one.
    She realized the meeting was winding down when everyone looked at her expectantly.
    “Right, um… same time next week then?” Maybe by then she’d have her head on straight, or Evan would have worked his magic and all this madness would be over.
    Dan and Alex gathered their things, but Evan dallied by his chair, straightening his tablet, and pushing in the chairs around the round table.
    When the others had left, he looked straight at her. “Are we going to talk?”
    Thankfully, Mandy interrupted them before she found words. “I’m sorry, Paige. I need to get the final details on the birthday party.”
    “Great! Let’s get this done!” Ridiculously relieved at not having to talk to Evan one-on-one right now, she turned a beaming smile to her assistant. She could have kissed the woman.
    Turning back to Evan, she apologized, “I’m sorry. Today’s not a good day. You get settled and we’ll meet tomorrow.” She winced at the choked sound her voice made.
    It was shitty, and she knew it. She’d hired him to do a job, people were being hurt, and she could barely talk to the man.

Evan had worked himself into a frenzy and had a never-ending list of possible suspects that had no hope of getting smaller until he talked to Paige. On his way home, his muscle car rumbled as his mind raced through the possibilities. He’d discerned the security sucked at PSL, especially in the server room. Since the whole thing couldn’t have been possible without somebody uploading The Crimson Lady on the servers directly and pushing the upload to clients, he started there.
    He’d uploaded some of his own creations: a cloning program and a keystroke spy software, as well as a cloaking hack so his own moves on the server couldn’t be determined. None of it was foolproof, but it was a start and something he could do to prevent more uploads for the duration of time Paige wasn’t speaking to him.
    That was something else altogether, and Evan didn’t want to think it had anything to do with The Crimson Lady. He’d like to think she was avoiding him because of that night. Maybe she felt awkward? If she would just let him talk about it, though, he felt confident he could alleviate any fears she had. But he had to talk to her first. Unfortunately, he wanted to do anything but talk.
    At home, he closed his door behind him, dropped his laptop bag on the couch, and went into his gaming room. Yeah, he had one of those. Where most people had a home office, Evan chose to devote his spare room to gaming. His buddies made fun of it, but he made extra cash with the videos he posted on YouTube, and his gaming alter-ego, EmberFalls, was a hit in some circles.
    Realm of Worlds was PSL’s breakout game, the one that made Paige and her company known in the tech circles as a viable force to be reckoned with. With superb graphics, creative storyboards, constant updates, and a popularity among a